George Harris is Chancellor Professor of Philosophy at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of Dignity and Vulnerability and Agent-Centered Morality, and has contributed to The Journal of Philosophy, Nous, The Monst, American Philosophy Quarterly, Public Affairs Quarterly and other journals. He is a Distinguished Member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, a member of Who's Who in Humanities in Higher Education, and a recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Humanities.
An aesthetic prelude
1. The problem of tragedy
2. The dubious ubiquity of reason
3. Nihilism
4. Pessimism
5. Monism: an epitaph
6. Moralism and the inconstancy of value
7. Moralism and the impurity of value
8. Best life pluralism and reason's regret
9. Tragic pluralism and reason's grief
10. Postscript on the future: the idea of progress and the avoidance of despair.
