Does Good Gather Together? Reflections on Primary Affirmation, Justification, and Phronesis

Roger Savage

doi:10.5195/errs.2025.718

Does Good Gather Together?

Reflections on Primary Affirmation, Justification, and Phronesis

Authors

Roger W. H. Savage University of California at Los Angeles, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/errs.2025.718

Keywords:

affirmation, exemplarity, phronesis, justification, testimony

Abstract

The notion that exemplary deeds and acts provide models that we can follow invites some further consideration of the connection between the good to which they singularly attest and practical reason. By attributing such deeds and acts’ prospective and even prophetic dimension to their fittingness in response to moral and political dilemmas and crises, I relate the way that in reflective judgment the individual case summons its rule to phronesis. That only events, acts, and lives attesting that evil is overcome hic et nunc reopen a path to an affirmation of the being that we are provides a critical touchstone in this regard. Resisting the idea that evil gives rise to a summons thus safeguards the idea of humanity through conferring the sanction of reality on the good manifest by exemplary deeds, acts, and lives.

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Published

2026-02-19

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 2 (2025): Contemporary Challenges confronted by Critical Hermeneutics: Ricœurian perspectives

Section

Articles

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