Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin argue for a revolution in our cosmological ideas. Ideal for non-scientists, physicists and cosmologists.

Unger shows how a changed practice of legal analysis can reshape the dominant institutions of representative democracy, market economy and free civil society.

Rejected options -- The perennial philosophy and its enemy -- Pragmatism reclaimed -- The core conception: constraint, incompleteness, resistance, reinvention -- Time and experience: antinomies of the impersonal -- The reality of time: the transformation of transformation -- Self-consciousness: humanity imagines -- What then should we do? -- Society: the perpetual invention of the future -- Politics: democracy as anti-fate -- A moment of reform: the reinvention of social democracy -- Religion: the self awakened -- Philosophy: beyond superscience and self-help.

Free Trade Reimagined begins with a sustained criticism of the heart of the emerging world economy, the theory and practice of free trade. Roberto Mangabeira Unger does not, however, defend protectionism against free trade. Instead, he attacks and revises the terms on which the traditional debate between free traders and protectionists has been joined. Unger's intervention in this major contemporary debate serves as a point of departure for a proposal to rethink the basic ideas with which we explain economic (...) activity. He suggests, by example as well as by theory, a way of understanding contemporary economies that is both more realistic and more revealing of hidden possibilities for transformation than are the established forms of economics. One message of the book is that we need not choose between accepting and rejecting globalization; we can have a different globalization. Traditional free trade doctrine rests on shaky empirical and theoretical ground. Unger takes a new approach to show when international trade is likely to be useful or harmful to the socially inclusive economic growth that every nation wants. Another message is that the movement of people and ideas is more important than the movement of things and money, and that freedom to change the institutions defining a market economy is just as important as freedom to exchange goods on the basis of those institutions. Free Trade Reimagined ranges broadly within and outside economics. Presenting technical issues in plain language, it appeals to the general reader. It puts a disciplined imagination in the service of rebellion against the dictatorship of no alternatives that characterizes life and thought today. (shrink)

"a book about religion and a religious work in its own right, it proposes the content of a religion that can survive faith in a transcendent God and in life after death. According to this religion—the religion of the future—human beings can be more human by becoming more godlike, not just later, in another life or another time, but right now, on Earth and in their own lives."--Publishers website.

Roberto Mangabeira Unger sets out to reinvent philosophy. His central theme is our transcendence-everything in our existence points beyond itself-and its relation to our finitude: everything that surrounds us, and we ourselves, are flawed and ephemeral. He asks how we can live so that we die only once, instead of dying many small deaths; how we can breathe new life and new meaning into the revolutionary movement that has aroused humanity for the last three centuries, but that is now (...) weakened and disoriented; and how we can make sense of ourselves without claiming for human beings a miraculous exception to the general regime of nature. For Unger, philosophy must be the mind on fire, insisting on our prerogative to speak to what matters most. (shrink)

Volume 1 of Politics, a work in constructive social theory. Newly available, the complete work of Politicsa program for a comprehensive progressive alternative to the dominant ideologies of social democracy and neo-liberalismfrom one of the worlds leading social and political thinkers. False necessity is the central theme in the three-volume series Politics. It presents both a way of explaining society and a program for changing it. The explanation develops a radical alternative to Marxism, showing how we can account for established (...) social arrangements without denying their contingency or our freedom. The program offers a progressive alternative to the now-dominant ideological conceptions of neoliberalism and social democracy: a set of institutional innovations that would democratize markets, deepen democracy and empower individuals. For this new edition, Unger has written a comprehensive introduction that explores the limits of our understanding of society and our practice of politics, and reconsiders proposals contained in the book as special cases of a larger family of untried political possibilities. (shrink)

Fazer filosofia, para Roberto Mangabeira Unger, é pensar radicalmente. É insistir em tratar dos assuntos mais importantes, ainda que tenhamos de fazê-lo na fronteira do que seja possível pensar e dizer. Resignado ao colonialismo mental, o pensamento brasileiro não está acostumado a tal ousadia. Neste primeiro livro, Mangabeira leva o leitor pela mão e se oferece como guia de seu despertar para a ambição de compreender o mundo das ideias mais básicas e influentes. Seu alvo é rever tudo (...) em nossos pontos de partida – na filosofia e na política – que negue ou desmereça nossa capacidade, como indivíduos e como povo, de criar o novo. O livro ressoará num Brasil que está pronto para se repensar e se refazer, e a passar pela desilusão da desilusão. Não à toa, o nosso autor trará ao título e ao cerne da sua análise e proposição dois conceitos (e práticas) hoje atacados pelo ideário totalitário: o conhecimento e a política. Conhecimento e política, publicado em 1975, foi o primeiro livro de Roberto Mangabeira Unger. A editora LeYa Brasil o publica novamente agora, na tradução primorosa da mãe do autor, a poetisa Edyla Mangabeira Unger, para dar início à reedição de toda a obra de Mangabeira no Brasil, uma obra que se mantém atual e, ao mesmo tempo, visionária. O tema do livro é a superação do mais influente sistema de ideias no pensamento Ocidental desde a Renascença: conjunto de conceitos que abrange o individualismo e o liberalismo na política, o ceticismo e o subjetivismo na ética, e o empiricismo e positivismo na filosofia do conhecimento e da natureza. Desde que saiu da sombra de Aristóteles e do cristianismo, o pensamento ocidental se entregou, argumenta Mangabeira, à construção de uma maneira de pensar que o levou a contradições insolúveis e nos fez perder o rumo do esclarecimento e da emancipação. No centro dessas contradições está um equívoco a respeito de quem somos e de como nos relacionamos com o mundo. Pensamos a partir de regimes de pensamento, mas não temos de ser prisioneiros deles. Podemos subvertê-los e transformá-los para chegar mais perto da realidade. Precisamos participar de determinada sociedade e cultura. Nenhum regime social e cultural, contudo, nos serve como moradia definitiva. Daí a importância de construir um regime que facilite sua própria transformação. Nesta obra, Mangabeira iniciou a longa busca do roteiro das rebeldias libertadoras no pensamento e na política. E se levantou contra a tradição intelectual que continua a nos acorrentar. (shrink)

Italian translation by Sergio Cremaschi of ROBERTO MANGABEIRA UNGER, Knowledge and Politics, , Free Press, New York 1975.

A história do Ocidente pode ser lida de acordo com o sentido da palavra grega hybris : transgressão, presunção, desmesura. Hoje, vivemos o ápice de um percurso marcado pela desejo de tudo dominar. Por sua extrema gravidade, a crise contemporânea nos coloca diante da responsabilidade de questionar a própria dimensão na qual pensamos, e a maneira em que compreendemos nossa identidade enquanto humanos e nosso lugar na totalidade do real. Palavras-chave : civilização ocidental; crise; hybris ; questionamento.The history of the (...) West can be read according to the meaning of the greek word hybris : transgression, arrogance, loss of measure. We presently live the pinnacle of a course marked by the desire to dominate all beings. The extreme gravity of contemporary crisis confronts us with the responsibility of questioning the very dimension in which we think, as well as the manner in which we understand our identity as human beings and our place in the totality of being. Key words : western civilization; crisis; hybris ; questioning. (shrink)

The civil rights and feminist movements of the sixties did not leave legal theory untouched. Over the following two decades, the critical legal studies movement--led by the Brazilian philosopher, social theorist and politician Roberto Unger--sought to transform traditional views of law and legal doctrine, revealing the hidden interests and class dominations in prevailing legal frameworks. It remains highly influential, having spawned more recent movements, including feminist legal studies and critical race theory. The Critical Legal Studies Movement develops its major ideas, (...) showing how laws and legal discourse hide the social inequalities and political biases that so interest philosophy and revolutionary politics. (shrink)

He then shows how we can rebuild our political, economic, and social institutions, making them more faithful to the experimental nature of democracy. The consequence is to redefine the focus for ideological debate and institutional innovation throughout the world, in developed and developing countries alike.

The ArgumentThis paper introduces a distinction between two understandings of the pragmatic tradition: domesticated and radicalized pragmatism. The main difference between these two views concerns the feasibility and moral legitimacy of a radical critique of an existing practice such as science, politics, and so on. It is argued that domesticated pragmatism, with its emphasis on local rather than global perspective, has led to trivialization and degeneration of self-reflective critique. Without rejecting pragmatism as such, this paper urges a reinterpretation of this (...) tradition so as to make room for more thorough forms of critique of both science and social practice. (shrink)

Partimos de la propuesta pragmática y de filosofía natural de Roberto Mangabeira, de un tiempo real, que concluye en un escepticismo respecto al conocimiento del mundo. Profundizamos el asunto por vía fenomenológica, enfocándonos en algunos desarrollos de Husserl en los Manuscritos de Bernau de 1917-1918 y concluimos que su concepción de tiempo absoluto es correlato de la conciencia absoluta. Seguimos con la propuesta fenomenológica de Scheler, centrándonos en su artículo de 1927, Idealismo-Realismo, encontramos entonces que el tiempo tiene un (...) carácter ficticio pero basado en un tiempo absoluto, aunque no carente de perspectivismo. (shrink)

Medeiros se baseia nas ideias de dois pensadores, Richard Rorty e Roberto Mangabeira Unger, para desenvolver a tese de que há uma espécie de pragmatismo a que se pode chamar de "pragmatismo romântico" - levando em consideração o contexto de levantamento das premissas dos autores base, principalmente de seu espaço e tempo (entre os séculos XX e XXI) -, a fim de lançar um olhar atual sobre a relação entre a filosofia e a política. Nessa busca, tais autores revelariam (...) que o pragmatismo romântico "abrilhanta a democracia com uma compreensão mais otimista, pela qual se pode entrevê-la a soprar ares regeneradores nas sociedades existentes". (shrink)

OS DIREITOS HUMANOS EM ROBERTO MANGABEIRA UNGER.

Em nótulas preambulares, o presente artigo, cujo o problema central é uma análise sobre a concepção de democracia de Mangabeira Unger, será apresentada em três partes. Num primeiro momento, como uma tentativa de mostrar um mapeamento acerca da concepção teórico-prático no que diz respeito à democracia radical e propositiva, que posteriormente se entendera como experimentalismo democrático. No segundo momento, há, de forma pormenorizada, o bojo do pensamento ungeriano que se reflete e se estende em diversas áreas, como na filosofia (...) política e direito. Porém, a direção e tentativa é tentar trazer um enfoque maior no que diz respeito ao experimentalismo democrático com ecos na sua “teoria social construtiva”, em seu estuário na filosofia política. É nesses soslaios que o pensamento de Mangabeira Unger se debruça com a análise do processo através do qual ele tenta desdobrar a dimensão explicativa de suas obras. E, por último, visa de forma imanente, discutir a imaginação institucional e de proposições programáticas e criação de futuros alternativos, reimaginando os arranjos institucionais, nas quais estas por sua vez vestem uma camisa de força entendida como fetichismo institucional e estrutural, vítima do pensamento preconceituoso oitocentista e novecentista. (shrink)

Law - Introduction, History, Philosophy And Sociology of Law. Philosophy. Politics. Democracy. Unger, Roberto Mangabeira, 1947-.

Este artigo apresenta e discute a influência do cristianismo na obra do filósofo brasileiro Roberto Mangabeira Unger, que se apresenta como um herdeiro e continuador do que entende ser a ortodoxia ocidental. Inicia examinando a dupla consciência cristã representada nas interpretações de Nietzsche (tendo a questão do ressentimento como foco) e a de Unamuno (debruçada sobre o problema da agonia), ambas tomadas em seu sentido formador dos valores mais característicos da civilização ocidental. Em seguida, analisamos a maneira pela qual (...) Unger enxerga o desenvolvimento e a tradução do cristianismo na cultura romântica que desabrochou na modernidade europeia. E, na sua última parte, o texto reflete acerca da relação entre moral e política, tal como desdobrada, no pensamento de Unger, numa institucionalidade democrática específica. Concluímos que uma ordem sob o domínio do experimentalismo democrático melhor condiz com o potencial de realização da identidade do homem ocidental. (shrink)

This is a book about pragmatism, intercultural philosophy, and ethics that attempts to bring to the fore the variations on the ethical and intercultural life of pragmatism, based on readings of William James, John Dewey, Richard Rorty, and Roberto Mangabeira Unger. To this foursome is added the leading feminist thinker of our age, Luce Irigaray.

In the first part of this paper we introduce some of the main ideas of two great philosophers of democracy – Richard Rorty and Luce Irigaray. We show that in a similar manner both deal with an ethical ideal of community to be imagined, and achieved in the future. In the second part of this paper we present two ideas about democracy as an ethical and spiritual community – i.e., democracy as it relates to the idea of the »child« and (...) democracy as shared atmosphere of »breath«. Finally, in the third part of this paper, we elaborate on the future of democracy in an eschatological sense, and argue, as Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Luce Irigaray would claim, that if democracy is related to the process of our own divinization, then it is precisely within this process that with our creativity, imagination, and love we indeed can become unlimited and infinite. (shrink)

This centenary volume of essays explores a number of related themes which differentiate and characterize the approach of the LSE. Central to this, is the assumption that law is one of the social sciences and that law should be studied "in context" as a social phenomenon. The contributors have been chosen both for their distinction and for their connection with the LSE, and include such eminent figures as Mrs Justice Arden, Judge Rosalyn Higgins, Sir Stephen Sedley, and Roberto Mangabeira (...) Unger. The essays focus on three main subject areas: Law and Economy; Dimensions of Law; and Courts and Process which are discussed against the broader canvas of the School's approach to Law. Thus, Comaroff, Cohen, Unger and Teubner adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, stressing both legal and social theory, while the contributions of Cranston, Cornish and others stress an internationalist approach. A characteristic LSE focus on the dynamic nature of law runs through the work of Collins, Higgins and Lord Wedderburn, while a reformist tradition is explored alongside the introduction of new legal subjects into the curriculum. Fascinating and thought provoking, this volume is an accesible summary of current thought and debate presented by today's leading scholars and practioners. Law, Society and Economy will be of enduring interest to scholars and practioners worldwide, akin to Ginsberg's celebrated and widely cited volume of essays which marked the School's fiftieth anniversary. (shrink)