Academic

Legal Theory Bookworm

By Lawrence Solum

The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought by Michael Thompson.  Here is a description:

Any sound practical philosophy must be clear on practical concepts?concepts, in particular, of life, action, and practice. This clarity is Michael Thompson?s aim in his ambitious work. In Thompson?s view, failure to comprehend the structures of thought and judgment expressed in these concepts has disfigured modern moral philosophy, rendering it incapable of addressing the larger questions that should be its focus.

In three investigations, Thompson considers life, action, and practice successively, attempting to exhibit these interrelated concepts as pure categories of thought, and to show how a proper exposition of them must be Aristotelian in character. He contends that the pure character of these categories, and the Aristotelian forms of reflection necessary to grasp them, are systematically obscured by modern theoretical philosophy, which thus blocks the way to the renewal of practical philosophy. His work recovers the possibility, within the tradition of analytic philosophy, of hazarding powerful generalities, and of focusing on the larger issues?like ?life??that have the power to revive philosophy.

As an attempt to relocate crucial concepts from moral philosophy and the theory of action into what might be called the metaphysics of life, this original work promises to reconfigure a whole sector of philosophy. It is a work that any student of contemporary philosophy must grapple with.

And from the reviews:

Thompson's work does not build on the foundation of some given literature. It lays the foundation. Of course, his thought rests on the history of the subject, but not in the way that it takes something for granted, treats something as established elsewhere. This explains the stunning originality of Thompson's work. Each of his essays reveals possibilities for thought unknown to the contemporary literature. It is not audacious to predict that Thompson will be the leading figure in moral philosophy over the next twenty years, and this far beyond the confines of Anglophone philosophy. 
--Sebastian Rödl, Universität Basel

Thompson has developed a remarkably fresh and compelling account of three fundamental concepts in practical philosophy--life, action, and practice. Moreover, this account, in the manner in which it seeks to explicate and display the contents of these concepts, implicitly develops an original understanding of the nature and method of philosophy--a methodological conception which is of great general philosophical interest in its own right, apart from its local application to topics in ethics. His work is that rare thing: a contribution that stands a chance of transforming the subject. One interesting feature of Thompson's approach is that it is very difficult to place with respect to the ongoing mainstream debate in contemporary moral philosophy between naturalists and anti-naturalists. He has managed to find an entirely novel angle at which to enter the contemporary debate--one which places him in equal degrees within and outside both camps at once. Thompson's account is, in fact, a resolutely naturalist one, but of such an unorthodox variety that it helps to bring out the depth and character of the unquestioned assumptions that are usually taken for granted by all parties in the contemporary debate ? assumptions regarding what any form of naturalism in philosophy must look like. In philosophy, quantity cannot be judged apart from quality. Some books are much longer than they appear; most are much shorter than their length, measured in pages, would lead one to suppose. The density of thought per page in this book is of a rarely paralleled order: it both requires and repays many re-readings.
--James Conant, University of Chicago

Thompson develops a modern version of an Aristotelian account of morality through reflection on the category of the specifically human, in contrast to the more prominent, broadly Kantian, focus on that of the person. He makes the focus on the idea of the human much more compelling, and much more difficult to escape, than anyone else has managed to do. He raises and addresses profound and fascinating issues about the sort of generality of which any approach to practical philosophy must take account. It reframes central debates in the areas it touches, and does so with a dazzling degree of depth.
--Arthur Ripstein, University of Toronto

Life and Action is one of the most important books to appear in philosophy in a generation. Thompson's reflections on life-form, on action and intention, and on social practices light up the field. Rarely does one encounter thinking of this depth, rigor and originality. If the philosophical understanding of human life matters to you, this book is absolutely required reading.
--Jonathan Lear,  University of Chicago

Thompson provides an original account of the fundamental character of the concepts central to practical philosophy, which depends on a conception of philosophical method which is itself of great general interest, over and above its significance for practical philosophy. Michael Thompson is a philosopher of the first importance.
--Cora Diamond, University of Virginia

I take special pleasure in recommending this book by Thompson--who was at UCLA in the late 70s/80s when I was there.  I rely heavily on his ideas in my own work.  My very highest recommendation.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on December 27, 2008 (boomark / email).