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The Political Thought of Henry David Thoreau: Privatism and the Practice of Philosophy

Online ISBN:
9780813166384
Print ISBN:
9780813166308
Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky
Book

The Political Thought of Henry David Thoreau: Privatism and the Practice of Philosophy

Jonathan McKenzie
Jonathan McKenzie
Northern Kentucky University
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Published:
15 December 2015
Online ISBN:
9780813166384
Print ISBN:
9780813166308
Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky

Abstract

This book provides a fresh interpretation of Henry Thoreau’s political theory through a comprehensive interpretation of public and private writings. While recent critics have opened new vistas in Thoreau interpretation, little attention has been paid to Thoreau’s journals and correspondence. This book argues that these private sources enhance our understanding of Thoreau’s political theory by highlighting its place within his overall philosophical mission. In particular, this book attends to the resonances between Thoreau’s overall political-theoretical mission of privatism and the Socratic practice of philosophy as a way of life. Through analyses of Thoreau’s reflective simplification, his philosophy of time, his place in the reform movements of the nineteenth century, his understanding of wildness as freedom, and his virtue-making of political indifference, this book rethinks the basic structure of Thoreau’s overall project.

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