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04428aam a2200493 i 4500 001 505C899CC38A11E7B100357297128E48 003 SILO 005 20171107010627 008 170627s2017 nyu b 001 0 eng 010 $a 2017017165 020 $a 0190682159 020 $a 9780190682156 035 $a (OCoLC)986237052 040 $a DLC $b eng $e rda $c DLC $d BTCTA $d YDX $d BDX $d OCLCO $d OCLCF $d YDX $d SILO 042 $a pcc 043 $a n-us--- 050 00 $a PS225 $b .C48 2017 082 00 $a 810.9/0054 $2 23 084 $a PHI000000 $2 bisacsh 100 1 $a Chodat, Robert, $d 1970- $e author. 245 14 $a The matter of high words : $b naturalism, normativity, and the postwar sage / $c Robert Chodat. 264 1 $a New York, NY : $b Oxford University Press, $c [2017] 300 $a x, 341 pages ; $c 25 cm 520 $a "In a world of matter, how can we express what matters? When the explanations of the natural sciences become powerfully precise and authoritative, what is the status of our highest words, the languages that articulate our norms and orient our lives? The Matter of High Words examines a constellation of American writers who in the decades since World War II have posed these questions in distinctive ways. Walker Percy, Marilynne Robinson, Ralph Ellison, Stanley Cavell, and David Foster Wallace are all self-consciously post-WWII authors, attuned to the fragmentation and skepticism that have defined so much of the literary and critical culture of the last century and more. Yet they also attempt to reach back to older forms of thought and writing that are often thought to have dried up-the traditions of prophecy, of wisdom literature, of the sage. Working within this dual inheritance, these authors are drawn equally to both art and argument, "showing" and "telling," shifting continually between narrative and discursive genres. In their essays they act as moralists, promoting the broad, abstract concepts that might inspire action in the face of naturalistic reduction: community, family, courage, fraternity, marriage, friendship, temperance, judgment. In their narratives, they offer particular lives in particular settings, thick descriptions that give flesh to such high words. Rarely do these movements between genres generate a tidy equilibrium; where their essays speak of cooperation and redemption, their narratives display alienation, loss, and failure. But in pursuing such risky, unorthodox strategies, these postwar sages are not only able to challenge some of the dominant naturalistic theories of the last several decades: cognitive science, neo-Darwinian theory, social science, the fact-value divide in analytic philosophy. Through five chapters of detailed analysis and close reading, Chodat explores the question of whether vocabularies of ought and ought-not can still emerge today, and how these concepts might be embodied, and whether such ideas might be found in things."-- $c Provided by publisher. 504 $a Includes bibliographical references and index. 505 8 $a Machine generated contents note: -- Introduction -- Part One: Words and Flesh -- Chapter 1: Minds, Machines, and Giving a Damn -- Chapter 2: That Horeb, That Kansas -- Part Two: We Solemnly Publish and Declare -- Chapter 3: Sociology to the Scientists -- Chapter 4: Puzzles, Pawnshops, and Improvisation -- Chapter 5: The Advanced US Citizenship of David Foster Wallace -- Afterward -- Bibliography. 650 0 $a American literature $y 20th century $x History and criticism. 650 0 $a Literature and society $z United States $x History $y 20th century. 650 0 $a Philosophy, Modern, in literature. 650 0 $a Language and languages in literature. 650 7 $a PHILOSOPHY / General. $2 bisacsh 650 7 $a American literature. $2 fast $0 (OCoLC)fst00807113 650 7 $a Language and languages in literature. $2 fast $0 (OCoLC)fst00992277 650 7 $a Literature and society. $2 fast $0 (OCoLC)fst01000096 650 7 $a Philosophy, Modern, in literature. $2 fast $0 (OCoLC)fst01061079 651 7 $a United States. $2 fast $0 (OCoLC)fst01204155 648 7 $a 1900-1999 $2 fast 655 7 $a Criticism, interpretation, etc. $2 fast $0 (OCoLC)fst01411635 655 7 $a History. $2 fast $0 (OCoLC)fst01411628 941 $a 2 952 $l OVUX522 $d 20180710092400.0 952 $l USUX851 $d 20171107014420.0 956 $a http://locator.silo.lib.ia.us/search.cgi?index_0=id&term_0=505C899CC38A11E7B100357297128E48 994 $a 92 $b IWAInitiate Another SILO Locator Search