In this unique and comprehensive book, George McCarthy examines the influence of Greek philosophy, literature, arts, and politics on the development of twentieth-century German social thought. McCarthy demonstrates that the classical spirit vitalized thinkers such as Weber, Heidegger, Freud, Marcuse, Arendt, Gadamer, and Habermas. With the romancing of antiquity, they transformed their understanding of the modern self, political community, and Enlightenment rationality. By viewing contemporary social theory from the framework of the classical world, McCarthy argues, we are capable of thinking (...) beyond the limits of modernity to new possibilities of human reason, science, beauty, and social justice. (shrink)

Introduction: conversing with traditions : ancients and moderns in nineteenth-century practical science -- Aristotle on the constitution of social justice and classical democracy -- Aristotle and classical social theory : social justice and moral economy in Marx, Weber, and Durkheim -- Kant on the critique of reason and science -- Kant and classical social theory : epistemology, logic, and methods in Marx, Weber, and Durkheim -- Conclusion: dreams of classical reason : historical science between existentialism and antiquity.