Doing What Comes Naturally by Stanley Fish, Paperback, 9780822309956 | Buy online at The Nile
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Doing What Comes Naturally

Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary & Legal Studies

Author: Stanley Fish   Series: Post-Contemporary Interventions

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"Nothing that Stanley Fish writes can be ignored. In this latest work, he explodes all our comforting notions of unbiased, uninflected judgment in the pursuit of interpretation."—Annette Kolodny

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Summary

"Nothing that Stanley Fish writes can be ignored. In this latest work, he explodes all our comforting notions of unbiased, uninflected judgment in the pursuit of interpretation."—Annette Kolodny

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Description

In literary theory, the philosophy of law, and the sociology of knowledge, no issue has been more central to current debate than the status of our interpretations. Do they rest on a ground of rationality or are they subjective impositions of a merely personal point of view? In Doing What Comes Naturally, Stanley Fish refuses the dilemma posed by this question and argues that while we can never separate our judgments from the contexts in which they are made, those judgments are nevertheless authoritative and even, in the only way that matters, objective. He thus rejects both the demand for an ahistorical foundation, and the conclusion that in the absence of such a foundation we reside in an indeterminate world. In a succession of provocative and wide-ranging chapters, Fish explores the implications of his position for our understanding of legal, literary, and psychoanalytic interpretation, the nature of professional and institutional culture, and the place of reason in a world that is rhetorical through and through.

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Critic Reviews

“"Stanley Fish is one of our most interesting, and most philosophically sophisticated, literary theorists. He is at the top of his form in these essays."-Richard Rorty”

"All of Stanley Fish's writing is distinguished by importance of topic, vividness in presentation, and accessibility to the general reader. This welcome collection of his recent essays has all these attributes. There is no better introduction to a host of important contemporary controversies concerning interpretation in both literature and law. Even those most in disagreement with some of his particular arguments will welcome the brio with which they are expressed."—Sanford Levinson
"Nothing that Stanley Fish writes can be ignored. In this latest work, he explodes all our comforting notions of unbiased, uninflected judgment in the pursuit of interpretation."—Annette Kolodny
"Stanley Fish is one of our most interesting, and most philosophically sophisticated, literary theorists. He is at the top of his form in these essays."—Richard Rorty

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About the Author

Stanley Fish is the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University. He has previously taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He has received many honors and awards, including being named the Chicagoan of the Year for Culture. He is the author of twelve books and is now a weekly columnist for the "New York Times". He resides in Andes, New York; New York City; and Delray Beac

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Back Cover

"Nothing that Stanley Fish writes can be ignored. In this latest work, he explodes all our comforting notions of unbiased, uninflected judgment in the pursuit of interpretation."-Annette Kolodny

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Product Details

Publisher
Duke University Press
Published
28th August 1990
Pages
624
ISBN
9780822309956

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