Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity [Paperback]

Charles Spinosa (Author), Fernando Flores (Author), Hubert L. Dreyfus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 18, 1999

Disclosing New Worlds calls for a recovery of a way of being that has always characterized human life at its best. The book argues that human beings are at their best not when they are engaged in abstract reflection, but when they are intensely involved in changing the taken-for-granted, everyday practices in some domain of their culture--that is, when they are making history. History-making, in this account, refers not to wars and transfers of political power, but to changes in the way we understand and deal with ourselves. The authors identify entrepreneurship, democratic action, and the creation of solidarity as the three major arenas in which people make history, and they focus on three prime methods of history-making--reconfiguration, cross-appropriation, and articulation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A brave attempt to reformulate the relationship between democratic rights and economic progress in an age when the triumphalism of technological advance masks an unconfident vision of the future." Peter Aspden , Financial Times

About the Author

Hubert L. Dreyfus is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; Reprint edition (February 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262692244
• ISBN-13: 978-0262692243
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.6 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #522,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Skills for making history spring from the everyday world! August 11, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Refusing to employ the all-too-common approach of using abstract conceptions of the human being such as "performer," "rational animal," "creature of God," and so forth from which to derive an idea of the good life, the authors show how the skills of entrepreneurs, virtuous citizens, and cultivators of solidarity enable life to be lived at its best. More than this, the authors claim that these skills need not be admired from afar but can be cultivated in each of our lives. Developing these skills does not merely help the economy, political activity, and our communities. They make our lives worth living. Without understanding and cultivating them, our lives drift toward a meaninglessness in which we act without caring. We can see this drift today in the lack of abiding commitments by workers to businesses, by citizens to politics, and by us all generally to the social institutions that bind us together.

When people develop these skills in their everyday lives, they are engaged in "making history." This means that our common understanding of history as a sequence of large-scale events and important people fails to grasp what it is that truly makes history. History is made when we change the way in which we understand and deal with ourselves and things.
This book is the first of its kind in many ways. It brings together some of our greatest cultural concerns and shows the common background to them all in an unprecedented way. That is, it shows that those who create the business opportunities most of us take for granted, who as citizens change our political landscape, and who overcome our divisiveness by creating solidarity between us all share some basic skills. This book is the first to bring together these different worlds in this way. The book is also deeply philosophical but written so that its philosophical moorings do not obstruct understanding. Rather its philosophical roots attract the reader, because the basic philosophical question under consideration is: what does it mean to be human and to live life at its best? No other book has endeavored to find the answer to this question by examining the common practices underlying the innovative activity of entrepreneurs, good citizens, and those who generate and cultivate solidarity.

The authors provide studies ranging from Henry Ford to Mothers Against Drunk Driving to Martin Luther King Jr. to demonstrate their points. The cases they examine draw the reader into a world in which he or she learns that we need not live life at meaningless extremes, but that there is room in our lives for creative and fruitful activity that can change our world for the good. Steering clear of the "Cartesian" extreme of viewing all circumstances governed by rules that we can simply apply as well as the "neo-Nietzschean" extreme of viewing the world as nothing but meaningless change, the authors provide their readers with hope that they can artfully change their world.

My praise for the book comes from the way in which it brings together careful and consistent philosophical analysis of the themes under consideration with examples and concerns familiar to anyone who reads the book.

My advice to any reader trying to decide whether or not to read this book is: stop reading this review and start reading the book

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars On becoming an agent in everyday life November 26, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

This is one of the most extraordinary books I have read. It accomplishes a truly philosophical approach to the types of social action that are available in everyday life: in business, politics and culture. Its view of social action as disclosure may bring fundamental changes to the way we cope with our everyday problems.

Plato--who may be a model for every philosopher--developed his most important philosophical ideas in the Republic--a book about social action, focused on the most important kind of social action of his time. Disclosing New Worlds does a similar job for the 20th century world (of course, it does not have the ambition to be as comprehensive as Plato's work).

This is a book that attempts to develop the reader's level of awareness--to a historical awareness, which is essential to human life, as stressed by Ortega y Gasset. Indispensable reading for whoever has a necessity to think about business and society.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Philosophical Exploration of the Fundamental Principles April 20, 2002

By Arun Kumar Tripathi

Format:Paperback

Disclosing New Worlds is a philosophical exploration of the fundamental principles that underlie entrepreneurial activity, democratic action and the cultivation of solidarity. Through a number of real-life examples, it shows how excellence in these three domains of social activity is brought about-not with a detached, rational deliberative stance, but with intense involvement in the practices of the culture and critical reflection on the anomalies of everyday life. "Disclosing New Worlds gets to the heart of corporate entrepreneurship. It combines rigorous philosophical thinking with rich descriptions of everyday corporate, democratic and social life. The result is a book that accurately portrays a set of important skills not yet taught in our schools."

Thank you!