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In recent years, an increasing number of thinkers have grown suspicious of the Enlightenment ideals of progress, reason, and freedom. These critics, many inspired by Martin Heidegger, have attacked modern philosophy's attempt to ground a vision of the world upon the liberty of the human subject. Pointing to the rise of totalitarian regimes in this century, they argue that the Enlightenment has promoted the enslavement of human beings rather than their freedom.

In this first of four volumes that aim to revitalize the fundamental values of modern political thought, one of the leading figures in the contemporary revival of liberalism in France responds to these critics and offers a philosophically cogent defense of a humanistic modernity. Luc Ferry reexamines the philosopical basis of the contemporary retreat from the Enlightenment and then suggests his own alternative, which defends the ideals of modernity while giving due consideration to the objections of the critics.

Because contemporary political philosophy owes a significant debt to the great nineteenth-century German philosophies of history, a sound knowledge of German Idealist philosophy is crucial to an understanding of our own time. In Political Philosophy 2, Luc Ferry provides not only a thorough introduction to German Idealism and its critics, but also an insightful look at contemporary political philosophy.

Ferry begins this second volume of his ambitious three-volume Political Philosophy by considering both the structure and the potential political effects of the various philosophies of history born of German Idealism. He focuses on the key question of whether, and to what extent, the principle of reason may be said to govern the totality of the historically real. This leads to an examination of Hegel's criticism of the moral view of the world and to an assessment of the phenomenological criticism of Hegel put forth by Heidegger and Arendt.

What is the common element linking the right to health care and the right of free speech, the right to leisure and the right of free association, the right to work and the right to be protected? Debates on the rights of man abound in the media today, but all too often they remain confused and fail to recognize the fundamental political conceptions on which they hinge.

Several French theorists have recently attempted a new account of rights, one that would replace the discredited Marxist view of rights as mere formalities concealing the realities of class domination. In this final volume of Political Philosophy, Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut summarize these efforts and put forward their own set of arguments.

The seminal study of the antecedents of Deaf culture is now back in print. Edited by renowned scholar Harlan Lane, The Deaf Experience: Classics in Language and Education presents a selection of the earliest essays written by members of the nascent French Deaf community at the time of the Enlightenment, a rich period of education for deaf people.

The fifth volume in the Gallaudet Classics in Deaf Studies series features works written from 1764 up to1840. Pierre Desloges offers a stirring paean to sign language in an excerpt from his book, the first ever published by a deaf person. Saboureux de Fontenay and Jean Massieu, two prominent leaders, relate their respective experiences in autobiographical accounts. In separate essays, Charles-Michel de l’Epée and Roch-Ambroise Sicard describe systems for teaching manual French, followed by a critique of these methods by Roch-Ambroise Bébian, a well-known hearing friend of Deaf people during that era. Ferdinand Berthier, a renowned Deaf teacher and writer in the 19th century, concludes with a history of Deaf people up to that time.

The Deaf Experience shows clearly how this extraordinary era of French deaf education influenced the adoption of the manual method by the first schools for deaf students in America, in sharp contrast to the oral movement that repressed sign-language-centered education for nearly a century afterward. Deaf studies scholars and students alike will welcome the return of this invaluable resource.