Back to the Rough Ground

Our society has come to think that truth lies in the area of the measurable, of empirical evidence and objective analysis, that particular mode of rationality called "technical reason", and that the knowledge of this mode is what is needed to guide humankind in all areas of practice. In this work, Joseph Dunne develops a philosophical context for exposing the limits of technical reason and for analysing the practical knowledge that informs successful activity in different domains. Dunne begins by examining the retrieval of Aristotle's distinction between phronesis/praxis and techne/poiesis in the work of John Henry Newman, R.G. Collingwood and Hannah Arendt. He then discusses the universal significance claimed for the Aristotelian distinction in the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, and examines how the distinction is both invoked and eventually challenged in the critical theory of Jurgen Habermas. "Back to the Rough Ground" then examines the two central categories in Aristotle's own texts, emphasising the theoretical inclination of techne and the inescapably personal and experimential nature of phronesis.
The book concludes by reviewing the main themes of the work - the nature of experience, practice, language and finitude, the limits of reason, and the need for a reconstruction of the whole modern philosophy of consciousness. Dunne suggests implications for different areas of study, and situates the volume within the context of current philosophical debates, especially with regard to universalism and post-modernism.