- 文档格式
书名: Anarchy, State and Utopia
作者: Robert Nozick (Author)
出版社: Blackwell Publishing Limited; New Ed edition (March 1, 2001)
语言：English
ISBN-10: 063119780X
ISBN-13: 978-0631197805
Book Description
In this brilliant and widely acclaimed book, winner of the 1975 National Book Award, Robert Nozick challenges the most commonly held political and social positions oaf our age--liberal, socialist, and conservative.
Review from Amazon Reader: L. Rodney Ford
If you have any interest in political philosophy at all, if you are worried about the erosion of individual liberty (and its companion, individual responsibility) in modern society, or (even) if you are a collectivist and actually promote government involvement in our individual lives for the "greater good" at the expense of some or all, you MUST read this book. It is a somewhat difficult book to digest, so others (political moderates or those apathetic with regard to political philosophy) need not even crack the cover.
If you find that you agree with the arguments and conclusions of Robert Nozick, you will be enriched with ammunition for debating political philosophy. If you DON'T agree and you believe that your disagreement is based upon sound philosophy, you will still be greatly rewarded - if for no other reason than you were required to expend some great effort to refute the presented material as you read it.
The major principles presented and defended by Mr. Nozick are as follows:
1) Anarchy is not tenable. 2) A "minimal state" or "nightwatchman state" that only protects the rights of its constituents is justified/legitimate. 3) any state beyond that "minimal state" is unjustified/illegitimate because it will inherently violate the rights of (at least) some of its constituents.
Beyond these major principles, Mr. Nozick also revisits the concept of Utopia in the last section of the text. I found this last section very enjoyable. Mr. Nozick's presentation of the concept of "Meta-Utopia" opened up whole new avenues of political thought for me.
I agree with the major principles of this work as I have stated them above; however, I found that I did not agree with everything presented. I enjoyed the mental exercise required to think through many of the presented topics. I was very pleased to realize the existence of this book and to read it.
Not that it has any bearing on the significance of the presented material, I did find the book to be quite difficult to read. Similar to what many critics and reviewers of this book have stated before, I found the organization of the presented material lacking and the absence of concise summaries of major topics disappointing. I found myself wishing that this were not the case - so that I might glean more benefit from the reading of the book. Also, Mr. Nozick seems too quick to prolifically digress into tangent discussions. Although the topics of these tangent discussions are quite interesting, it is my opinion that, coupled with the organization problem already mentioned, the frequency and magnitude of these discussions detracts from the persuasiveness of the book.
Even with the shortcomings, I feel some great deal of enlightenment and joy after reading this book. Mr. Nozick obviously respects and attempts to understand opposing views to the degree that he is willing to examine them with great scrutiny and then, aptly, present his arguments against them. Since I read books like this one to help me seek answers to philosophical political and otherwise) questions, I found it refreshing that an author would approach (or at least, attempt to approach) such arguments so objectively.
As I said at the beginning of this review, anyone with an interest in political philosophy will find the reading of this book to be time and thought well spent.
About the Author
Educated at Columbia and Princeton universities, Robert Nozick is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He rose to eminence in the last quarter of the twentieth century as a creative philosopher who has expressed philosophical truths beyond the reach of analytic argumentation. Honed in the technical intricacies of analytic philosophy, he has nonetheless restored meditation to its proper place in the philosophical canon. Nozick's first book, Anarchy, State and Utopia (initially published in 1974), won the National Book Award in 1975 and became the fundamental text of the Libertarian movement. Nozick's second book, Philosophical Explanations, was given the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award of Phi Beta Kappa in 1982. It covers a wide range of basic philosophical topics: the question why there is something rather than nothing, the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the foundation of ethnics, and the meaning of life. Nozick abandons philosophical proof or argumentation as too coercive and opts instead for methods of explanation that promote understanding. This approach has culminated in his third book, The Examined Life.
