Nussbaums Politics of Wonder: How the Minds Original Joy is Revolutionary [Paperback]

In an unconventionally written open access book that challenges the literary imagination of its readers, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer explores how wonder is central to Martha C. Nussbaum's normative project.

Nussbaum's work is opposed to the emotional and political conditions of 'narcissism'  the tendency to seek to control the wills of others in order to defend oneself against perceived vulnerabilities. Our capacity for wondering is important for growing beyond narcissism. Bendik-Keymer elaborates a politics of wonder that is consistent with understanding this idea.

Taking issue with understandings of wonder viewing it as an emotion of surprise or delight, he develops an alternate tradition finding wonder in concert with the freedom of imagination found by degrees within much of human understanding. The result is a constructive rereading of Nussbaum's oeuvre, surprising for how it disencumbers her work of some falsehoods surrounding anxiety and anger and for the ways it implies an egalitarian politics of relational autonomy more socialist than liberal.

Misty Morrison's visual inquiry accompanies the book creating space for the reader to wonder. Morrison paints and prints how families involve wonder, starting with moments in her child's life when she wonders what they might see.Nussbaum's Politics of Wonderis an important contribution to the philosophy of wonder and is crucial for understanding the work of a leading philosopher.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC 4.0. licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Jeremy Bendik-Keymeris Professor of Philosophy at Case Western Reserve University, USA. He authoredThe Ecological Life: Discovering Citizenship and a Sense of Humanity(2006), contributed toWe Are All Explorers: Learning and Teaching with Reggio Princl3›