Social and political philosophy Books

Book SynopsisOne of the most far-reaching transformations in our era is the wave of digital technologies rolling over--and upending--nearly every aspect of life. Work and leisure, family and friendship, community and citizenship have all been modified by now-ubiquitous digital tools and platforms. Digital Technology and Democratic Theory looks closely at one significant facet of our rapidly evolving digital lives: how technology is radically changing our lives as citizens and participants in democratic governments. To understand these transformations, this book brings together contributions by scholars from multiple disciplines to wrestle with the question of how digital technologies shape, reshape, and affect fundamental questions about democracy and democratic theory. As expectations have whiplashed--from Twitter optimism in the wake of the Arab Spring to Facebook pessimism in the wake of the 2016 US election--the time is ripe for a more sober and long-term assessment. How should we take stock oTrade Review“At a moment when democracy around the world is being weakened, challenged, and attacked, this volume is a timely and essential addition that will help its audience understand the affordances—but also the very real detrimental effects—of social media in society on our governing principles and institutions. We urgently need this expert realist approach and global perspective if we are to have any chance of effectively engaging with these tech firms and their technologies and any hope of guarding democracy against the outsize impact of both.” -- Sarah T. Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles“This book serves the much-needed purpose of advancing the conversation about the impact of technology on democratic theory and the role of democratic theory in helping us to understand the relationship between technology and power. This diverse collection of essays addresses how to reimagine the informational diet of democracy, free speech and association, the boundaries of the demos and political exclusion. An important and engaging read!” -- Beth Simone Noveck, director, The Governance Lab"Ten papers examine how digital technologies shape, reshape, and affect fundamental questions about democratic practice and theory, focusing on how democratic ideals might provide a framework for understanding and shaping today’s digital transformation." * Journal of Economic Literature *"Each of the chapters is written in a clear and engaging manner and will not exclude students, nonspecialists, and, indeed, a wider interested and informed audience. This is to the editors’ credit. The drawback of tackling questions related to new technologies in book form is, as the authors admit, that the speed of events in the digital world means the arguments made here might be left behind very quickly. However, the timing of this book’s publication leaves it feeling instead rather prescient, in the sense that much of its content is now of a far wider interest than might otherwise have been the case. The call made by the contributors to this collection is now urgent, rather than just timely, and the arguments made here will be of significant influence on the theoretical reimagination of democracy that must surely follow." * Perspectives on Politics *"Drawing a necessarily wide scope, the volume includes theoretical work alongside the kind of novel empirical input necessary to give a full account of the ways in which democracy and digital technology intersect. Indeed, a strength of the book is that it does not focus solely on contributions from 'traditional' democratic theorists but includes researchers working in fields as diverse as communications, economics, and computer science. . . . As is made clear in the opening pages, this breadth is both a strength and a necessity, because the kinds of challenges presented to democratic theory by the structural changes brought by new technologies are unlikely to be resolved through conventional means." * Dacombe Review *"Digital Technology and Democratic Theory is an important contribution to a field previously overlooked by democratic theorists. In an age in which digital environments create new barriers to equal rights and political participation, the volume carefully assembles an array of cross-disciplinary perspectives and asks the question: is there a need for a digital democratic theory?" * LSE Review of Books *"Can we use digital technologies to forward democratic ends? In a collection of essays written by political scientists, computer scientists, and an array of other academics... Digital Technology and Democratic Theory offers answers to this question. The book could not be more timely." * Contemporary Sociology *Table of ContentsIntroduction Lucy Bernholz, Hélène Landemore, and Rob Reich 1 Democracy and the Digital Public Sphere Joshua Cohen and Archon Fung 2 Open Democracy and Digital Technologies Hélène Landemore 3 Purpose-Built Digital Associations Lucy Bernholz 4 Digital Exclusion: A Politics of Refusal Seeta Peña Gangadharan 5 Presence of Absence: Exploring the Democratic Significance of Silence Mike Ananny 6 The Artisan and the Decision Factory: The Organizational Dynamics of Private Speech Governance Robyn Caplan 7 The Democratic Consequences of the New Public Sphere Henry Farrell and Melissa Schwartzberg 8 Democratic Societal Collaboration in a Whitewater World David Lee, Margaret Levi, and John Seely Brown 9 From Philanthropy to Democracy: Rethinking Governance and Funding of High-Quality News in the Digital Age Julia Cagé 10 Technologizing Democracy or Democratizing Technology? A Layered-Architecture Perspective on Potentials and Challenges Bryan Ford Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Pangle’s work on Xenophon’s Memorabilia is, quite simply, magisterial. His interpretation builds on scant existing scholarship, bringing Xenophon’s work into a much wider frame of scholarly reference. The Socratic Way of Life sheds new light on the long-standing dispute concerning the authentic teaching of the historical Socrates as distinct from the Socrates portrayed in Plato’s dialogues. This could have little short of revolutionary implications for the study of classical philosophy.” -- Carnes Lord, US Naval War College“This book is in all respects a scholarly exemplar. Pangle’s The Socratic Way of Life is a distinct contribution to the revival of interest and respect for Xenophon through its focus on the Socratic writings. Pangle’s philosophical commentary demonstrates that Xenophon knew what he was about, that he possessed a wry sense of humor, and that, when he seems deficient, it is because he has his tongue firmly in his cheek. It is in Pangle’s power to open up this work as a field of scholarship, and the time is ripe.” -- Paul A. Rahe, Hillsdale CollegeThomas L. Pangle’s book on this single work of Xenophon draws on long familiarity with it that has to be respected. It enables him in his introduction to relate Xenophon and his Socrates to more recent figures who loom large in political discourse. It helps him to see the importance of things that Xenophon does not say in Socrates’ defense (pp. 37-41) or elsewhere, trying to tease out Xenophon’s own views from some of his silences. He finds relevant not only what Xenophon (unlike Plato) chooses not to mention (p. 80) but also what he mislabels (monologue as ‘dialogue’, p. 92). He notices many twists that are unusual in this work and therefore invite us to notice them that much more, while also drawing attention to some expression that is used for the first time in it (e.g. an exclamation with Zeus’s name at 2.2.13, 84). Pangle is an experienced and observant reader of Xenophon. * Polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought *With this rich monograph on Xenophon’s Memorabilia —equally remarkable for its loyalty to Strauss and its originality—Pangle has definitively established himself as Strauss’s greatest living student. . . . Pangle’s reading of Hercules’ choice between Virtue and Vice (Memorabilia ii 1) leads to a revealing contrast between ‘Heroic and Socratic Virtue’, one that valorizes ‘his joyful study, together with friends, of great old books.' The attention Pangle gives to pictorial representations of this famous passage in the notes (241, 253-254) points to another excellence of his book: it is filled with reliable erudition. Particularly interesting is Pangle’s attention to Shaftesbury (116, 196, 203, 218, 238-241, 253, and 256), but useful references to Telemann (229 and 241), Handel (229 and 241), Proust (245), Benjamin Franklin (219n22), and John Adams (241n97), constitute a welcome step . . ... Unusual too is Pangle’s attention to philology; he has inspected the manuscript tradition and it shows (220, 221, 226, 229-230, 232- 235). But what shows even more is his attention to what he calls ‘conventional’ (233n29 and 237n63), i.e., non-Straussian, scholars. More charitable than he could otherwise have been, Pangle is in dialogue throughout with Xenophon’s non-Straussian expositors, including currently active scholars like Louis-André Dorion and Vivienne Gray (see Index entry on 283). . . . I will be hoping that the new orthodoxy will follow Pangle’s example by illuminating, even if only by contrast, the kind of ‘noble generosity’ (111) that made Xenophon’s Socrates intent on benefiting others, even if that meant dying καλῶς. * Ancient Philosophy *Pangle’s book is especially impressive in its portrayal of the Xenophontic Socrates’ understanding of the divine and the role of the gods in the city. It is difficult to overstate the importance to philosophy’s understanding of itself of the differences here between Plato’s Socrates and Xenophon’s. Pangle is to be applauded for grappling with this subject. May Zeus grant us more edifying commentaries from Pangle in this vein—and more work on Xenophon by any and all newcomers wishing to read him not just as a statesman but as a philosopher. * The Weekly Standard *As Pangle argues, Xenophon’s non-Socratic works establish the authority of his Socratic writings, and these gentlemanly types helped to perpetuate Socrates’s legacy. Further, as Pangle points out, Xenophon’s distorted image of Socrates consciously undertook to counterbalance Plato’s distortion of Socrates. Xenophon’s missing presentation of a conversation between Plato and Socrates in Book III "is one of Xenophon’s more explicit indications that his oeuvre as a whole presupposes, and complements, the Platonic oeuvre" (SWL, 139). Pangle’s footnote indicates the agreement on this point of famed classicist John Burnet, and we find in this context Xenophon’s sole mention of Plato (III.6.1). Again, we can see why Pangle turns to Xenophon; he is guided, at least in part, by the recognition that Xenophon’s account of Socrates presupposes Plato’s, serves to counterbalance it, and thus facilitates arriving at a genuine view of the philosopher. * The Review of Politics *Table of ContentsIntroductionPart One: Socrates’s Innocence of the Injustices for Which He Was Executed 1. Socrates Was Not Guilty of Impiety or Disbelief as Regards the Gods of Athens His Piety Proven by His Worship His Belief Proven by His Daimonion His Belief Proven by His Teaching on Divination His Belief Proven by His Attitude toward Natural Science His Belief Proven by His Fidelity to His Sacred Oath Concluding the Defense against the Charge of Impiety or Disbelief 2. Socrates Was Not Guilty of Corrupting the Young Answering a Nameless Accuser’s Charge That Socrates Promoted Contempt for the Athenian Regime and Laws Starting to Explain His Association with Critias and Alcibiades In What Sense Virtue Is Knowledge The Big Differences between Critias and AlcibiadesCritias AlcibiadesExplaining the Teaching of Socrates That Wisdom Is the Title to Rule Transition to Part 2 of the MemorabiliaPart Two: Socrates’s Active Justice, as Benefiter of Others 3. How Socrates Benefited through His Piety and His Self-Mastery His Teaching on Praying and Sacrificing Socrates’s Self-Mastery vs. Xenophon’s Sexual Indulgence Socrates’s Teaching on Divine Providence Socratic Self-Mastery vs. Conventional Self-Mastery The Virtue That Socratic Self-Mastery Serves Socrates’s Discouragement of Boasting His Teaching of Self-Mastery for the Sake of a Life Dedicated to PoliticsThe Setting of the Dialogue Self-Discipline as Crucial to Education for Ruling Why One Must Seek to Be One of Those Who Rule Why the Active Political Life Is the Good Life Heracles’s Choice 4. How Socrates Benefited in Regard to Family and Friends Attending to His Son and Wife Attempting to Reconcile Feuding Brothers Socrates on the Value of Extrafamilial Friendship Promoting Reflection on One’s Own Worth as a Friend Socrates on the Power and Problem of Friendship among Gentlemen How Socrates Helped Friends in Serious Economic DifficultiesA Socratic Revolution in a Desperate Friend’s Household Socrates’s Advice to a Fellow Economic Misfit A Glimpse of Socrates’s Own Economic Art Extending His Economic Art 5. How Socrates Benefited Those Reaching for the Noble/Beautiful (Kalon) His Playful Teaching of Noble Generalship Interpreting Homer on the Virtue of a Good Leader On the Goal Aimed at by a Noble Commander Assimilating Military-Political Rule to Household Management (“Oeconomics”) His Earnest Teaching of Noble Generalship On What a Statesman Needs to Know Socrates Exhorting to a Career as a Democratic Leader How Is the Beautiful/Noble Related to the Good? The Virtues as Noble/Beautiful Socrates as Arbiter of the Beautiful/Noble in Art The Profitable Beauty of Socrates’s Soul, Reflected in Comic Allegory Exhorting to the Cultivation of Beauty of Physique Promoting Everyday Self-Mastery and “Living Decorously” 6. Socrates as Beneficial Tutor The Seduction of Euthydemus The Centrality of Justice, as a Virtue of Speech and Deed The Refutation of Euthydemus’s Convictions Regarding Justice The Refutation of Euthydemus’s Convictions Regarding the Good The Refutation of Euthydemus’s Conception of Democracy Making Euthydemus Moderate as Regards Divinity Socrates Teaching Justice Teaching His Companions Self-Mastery Making His Companions More Dialectical Teaching His Associates Self-Sufficiency in Deeds Xenophon’s Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisExamining the act of interrogation, the author confronts a host of philosophical and legal issues, from the right to privacy and the privilege against compelled self-incrimination to prisoner rights and the legal consequences of different modes of interrogation for both domestic criminal and foreign terror suspects.Trade Review"This book offers an interdisciplinary study of the role of interrogation and its use by the state. Michael Skerker's approach allows the reader to view the conduct of domestic and foreign affairs through the prism of moral and political philosophy, jurisprudence, and just war theory. The result is an excellent approach to this multifaceted issue that provides insight without polemic." (Jan Goldman, founding editor, International Journal of Intelligence Ethics)"

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Book SynopsisWhat is a person? This fundamental question is a perennial concern of philosophers and theologians. This book argues that it also lies at the center of the social scientist's quest to interpret and explain social life. It presents a model for social theory that does justice to the best of our humanistic visions of people, life, and society.Trade Review"Smith combines a meticulous command of sociological theory, philosophical analysis, and moral passion to argue against reductionist theories of human personhood and agency.... This book will become required reading." (Choice)"

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Book SynopsisThis concise and accessible introduction to Strauss's thought provides, for wider audience, a bridge to his more complex theoretical work. Editor Pangle has gathered five of Strauss's previously unpublished lectures and five hard-to-find published writings and has arranged them so as to demonstrate the systematic progression of the major themes that underlay Strauss's mature work. [These essays] display the incomparable insight and remarkable range of knowledge that set Strauss's works apart from any other twentieth-century philosopher's.--Charles R. Kesler, National Review

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Book SynopsisFrom Plato through the nineteenth century, the West could draw on comprehensive political visions to guide government and society. This work contends that we have lost our foundational supports. It takes up the work of seven influential thinkers, each of whom attempted to construct a political solution to this problem.Trade Review"An outstanding study of twentieth-century political thought, conceptually challenging but accessibly written. Tracy B. Strong's unmistakable voice is at once lyrical and sober, and Politics without Vision is erudite and illuminating at every turn." -Patchen Markell, University of Chicago "This is an important book that has needed to be written, that Tracy B. Strong is perhaps uniquely positioned to write, and that some of us have been waiting for him to write for a long time. He does so expertly and knowledgeably with an astonishing grasp of a rich variety of texts." -Joshua Foa Dienstag, University of California, Los Angeles"

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." * Choice *Table of ContentsNote on the Leo Strauss Transcript Project Editor’s Introduction: Strauss’s Introduction to Political Philosophy Editorial Headnote Part One: The Obstacles to the Study of Political Philosophy Today A. PositivismChapter 1: Comte as the Founder of Positivism: The Three Stages of the History of Mankind Chapter 2: Comte’s Positive Political Philosophy Chapter 3: Positivism after Comte: Simmel Chapter 4: Value-Free Social Science: Weber Chapter 5: Strauss’s Responses to Contemporary Defenses of the Fact-Value Distinction B. HistoricismChapter 6: Historicism as the More Serious Challenge to Political Philosophy Chapter 7: R. G. Collingwood as an Example Part Two: Why Studying the History of Political Philosophy Is Necessary Today Chapter 8: On the Difference between the Ancients and the Moderns Part Three: The Origins of Political Philosophy Chapter 9: Physis and Nomos NotesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Cooper's reading is Platonic without being Platonist, i.e., he reads Rousseau in dialogue with Plato as understood by Straussian interpreters, such that political philosophy, not metaphysics, forms the core of Platonic thought." * Choice *"Written with a combination of true insight, grace, and humility, this book is the first of which I’m aware that undertakes to read Rousseau’s Reveries—his most beautiful but mysterious work—as a single, consistent but unfolding story: the tale of Rousseau’s journey into and then within the philosophic life." -- Arthur M. Melzer, author of The Natural Goodness of Man“In his new book, Dreaming of Justice, Waking to Wisdom, Cooper, gives us a fascinating account of what it means to live philosophically, through an analysis of Rousseau's Promenades of a Solitary Walker. While Rousseau's life may be peculiar in many ways Cooper brilliantly uses Rousseau’s account of that life to open up for us what the experience of philosophizing can be like. Highly recommended!” -- Michael Allen Gillespie, Duke UniversityTable of ContentsCitations and Abbreviations Preface Introduction: After the Cave Part I Chapter 1 The Life of Philosophy and the Life of Rousseau Chapter 2 The Reveries of the Solitary Walker: An Introduction Part II Chapter 3 “What Am I?”: First Walk Chapter 4 “A Faithful Record”: Second Walk Chapter 5 Becoming a Philosopher: Third Walk Chapter 6 Being a Philosopher: Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Walks Chapter 7 Becoming a More Perfect Philosopher: Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Walks Coda: The Love of Wisdom and the Wisdom of Love: Tenth Walk Acknowledgments Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Trialectic​ is an ambitious, far-ranging book about morality and human agency whose goal is to reconcile radically different ways of understanding people and thereby re-envision the law. Alces has no illusions that this will be easy but he knows the territory well, focusing instead on practical interpretations of morality and their implications for law. In the process we are treated to many fascinating excursions into law, neuroscience, psychology, and evolution.” -- Martha J. Farah | University of Pennsylvania"Peter Alces bravely explores the legal implications of the fact that, as we are mechanistic, biological organisms, moral responsibility and free will are fictions. Believing otherwise, in his succinct words, 'may cost more, in harm, than law can afford.' Alces makes his case with nuanced, provocative ideas and elegant writing. This should be required reading for anyone believing that all the criminal justice system needs is some reforming." -- Robert Sapolsky | author of “Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst" | Stanford UniversityTable of ContentsRead This First (Spoiler Alert) 1 The Plan 2 Tensions 3 “Neurosciences” 4 The Mechanics of “Morality” 5 The Cost of “Morality” 6 An Extreme Position, Indeed Coda: But . . . “What Is the Best Argument against Your Thesis?” Innocent Accessories (Before and After the Fact): Revealed Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Recommended." * Choice *“A compelling philosophical account of the human, which transcends the ancient and problematic dichotomies of biology and society, mind and body, and so on, requires both deep and multidisciplinary expertise and philosophical subtlety. Rouse is one of a very few contemporary philosophers with the requisite skill set for this task. Building on the core notions of practice and niche construction, Rouse provides a philosophy of what he calls natureculture that is fully naturalistic without being reductive. This book will provide a benchmark for approaches to this fundamental philosophical topic for some time to come.” -- John Dupré, University of Exeter“Rouse is once again on the vanguard of social theory. His naturecultural approach profoundly rethinks practice theory, demonstrating the interdependence of human practices with both the material environment and other organisms. It makes available new ways to think about central topics in philosophy and the social sciences, including normativity, discourse, power, and temporality. I will be reflecting on the consequences of this work for some time.” -- Mark Risjord, Emory UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: Sociocultural Animals 1 The Social Theory of Practices 2 Ecological-Developmental Niche Construction 3 Postures 4 Practices 5 Normativity 6 Language 7 Discourse 8 Power 9 Finitude Acknowledgments References

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Book SynopsisAnimal studies and biopolitics are two of the most dynamic areas of interdisciplinary scholarship. Bringing these two emergent areas of thought into direct conversation, this book fosters a new discussion about the status of nonhuman animals and the shared plight of humans and animals under biopolitics.Trade Review"Clearly developed and cogently argued, Before the Law puts existing formulations on the defensive while at the same time challenging them to respond to what is in essence a very straightforward but pressing question: Have we really begun to think through what 'animal life' means or to deal with the consequences of such questioning?" (David Wills, University at Albany, SUNY)"

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Book SynopsisAnimal studies and biopolitics are two of the most dynamic areas of interdisciplinary scholarship. Bringing these two emergent areas of thought into direct conversation, this book fosters a new discussion about the status of nonhuman animals and the shared plight of humans and animals under biopolitics.Trade Review"Clearly developed and cogently argued, Before the Law puts existing formulations on the defensive while at the same time challenging them to respond to what is in essence a very straightforward but pressing question: Have we really begun to think through what 'animal life' means or to deal with the consequences of such questioning?" (David Wills, University at Albany, SUNY)"

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Book SynopsisSeeking the truths that are found in the interstices between examiner and examined, world and word, and body and mind, and taking inspiration from James, Dewey, Arendt, Husserl, Sartre, Camus, and, especially, Merleau-Ponty, the author creates in these chapters a distinctive anthropological pursuit of existential inquiry.Trade Review"Lifeworlds is an extraordinary book, remarkable for its depth, scholarship, and lightness of touch. It puts the whole question of anthropology's relation to philosophy in a new light. Michael Jackson is not only a great ethnologist, he is also a major theoretician of anthropological knowledge. Not many people could have taken up such profound issues while wearing their scholarship so lightly." (Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University)"

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Book SynopsisIs Leo Strauss truly an intellectual forebear of neoconservatism and a powerful force in shaping Bush administration foreign policy? This title puts this question to rest, revealing how the popular media came to perpetuate an oversimplified view of a complex and wide-ranging philosopher.Trade Review"The Truth about Leo Strauss is the most balanced and insightful book yet written about Strauss's thought, students, and political influence. It dispels myths promulgated by both friends and foes and persuasively traces the conflicting paths that American thinkers indebted to Strauss have taken." - William Galston, Brookings Institution "The late emigre philosopher Leo Strauss has achieved a great deal of posthumous notoriety, demonized by the Left as the cynical spiritual father of imperialist U.S. policies. Strauss's thought deserves better - and gets it, in The Truth about Leo Strauss." - National Review"

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Book SynopsisRestless History re-examines the post-Stalinist period in Bulgaria, Eastern Europe, and beyond – in all its tensions and contradictions – to offer the socialist past as an unfinished history, one that cannot be easily put to rest.Trade Review"Restless History boldly reconsiders state socialism in Eastern Europe in this admirable and stimulating work of scholarship." Maria N. Todorova, University of Illinois

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“An important contribution to our understanding of mental illness and the significance of social connectedness for reintegrating people with mental illness into social life.” H-Sci-Med-Tech

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisThe Problem of Atheism offers the first translation of Augusto Del Noce’s landmark book from 1964. One of the earliest works to recognize the new secularizing trends in Western culture following World War II, this book remains relevant to contemporary debates about secularization, political theology, and modernity.

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Book SynopsisCivilization explores how Scottish Enlightenment theories played out in Canadian imaginaries and institutions: the state and society; the liberal and the conservative. E.A. Heaman’s case study identifies crucial spaces and moments of conceptual reversal to consider what was unique and what was broadly representative in Canadian civilization.Trade Review"Civilization bridges philosophy and Canadian history by blending insights from a major school of moral philosophy with certain founding practices, biases, and debates in nineteenth-century Canada. The result is extremely original and thought-provoking. The writing is rich: a pleasure to read and written in an individual style with a humanist’s regard for language and breadth of disciplines. I am convinced this book will have a lasting impact on Canadian scholarship about national values past and future." John Weaver, McMaster University"E.A. Heaman's lengthy and important new book engages with imperialism, colonization, residential schools, oppression, conquest, and much else in a Canadian context, but its overarching concept is that of civilization. More balanced in its assessment of imperial ambition and colonial folly ... Heaman's tome resists simple binaries of heroes and villains. …As Civilization demonstrates so well, a lot depends on who does the civilizing, to whom, and how.” Literary Review of Canada

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Book SynopsisThe Failure of Remain offers the first comprehensive study of the UK’s grassroots anti-Brexit movement after the June 2016 referendum. Through first-hand interviews, a survey of anti-Brexit activists, and an analysis of their campaign materials, Adam Fagan and Stijn van Kessel assess the ideology, arguments, and strategies of the movement.

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Book SynopsisIn Singular Creatures Mark Kingwell plumbs the depths of cultural and political meaning in the apparent transition to posthuman life. Can humans and their own creations co-exist in a cyberflesh world, or is a struggle for superiority inevitable? Singular Creatures is an attempt at sketching the field before any deadly battle is joined.Trade Review“Singular Creatures offers a timely meditation on two interrelated problems of philosophy: human consciousness attempting its own self-understanding and human society attempting to quantify what constitutes "conscious life." References to thinkers like Aristotle, Heidegger, and Marx abound as Kingwell deftly argues for the urgency of these conceptual debates. In his most thought-provoking section, Kingwell contends that any sufficiently intelligent robot collective will eventually demand social justice. After all, nobody likes to be exploited, whether they are "cloned, built, or born."” Literary Review of Canada

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Book SynopsisInterrupting the dialectic by which sovereignty manages to be both the cause of our vulnerabilization and the tool of its prevention, in Being Vulnerable Arne De Boever explores how today’s experiences of vulnerabilization can be translated into a collective human power that dismantles the form of sovereignty that is producing this state of affairs.Trade Review“Arne De Boever has written a truly remarkable book. Being Vulnerable does nothing less than reconsider the entire tradition of thinking about sovereignty and propose a new way of approaching the topic. The skill, erudition, and sheer mastery of the material is exhilarating.” Dimitris Vardoulakis, author of Stasis Before the State: Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy

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Book SynopsisInterrupting the dialectic by which sovereignty manages to be both the cause of our vulnerabilization and the tool of its prevention, in Being Vulnerable Arne De Boever explores how today’s experiences of vulnerabilization can be translated into a collective human power that dismantles the form of sovereignty that is producing this state of affairs.Trade Review“Arne De Boever has written a truly remarkable book. Being Vulnerable does nothing less than reconsider the entire tradition of thinking about sovereignty and propose a new way of approaching the topic. The skill, erudition, and sheer mastery of the material is exhilarating.” Dimitris Vardoulakis, author of Stasis Before the State: Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy

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Book SynopsisOutspoken interrogates the meaning and practice of being outspoken in a world of right-wing populism, global capitalism, and climate emergency. Some of the world’s most radical thinkers – Rosi Braidotti, Henry A. Giroux, Amelia Jones, and Slavoj Žižek, among others – chart progressive courses for political antagonism and social intervention.Trade Review“Original, interesting, and written by a team of leading figures in contemporary philosophy and critical theory, Outspoken defines our present moment in terms of an imbricated social and environment crisis and redirects our efforts beyond tried-and-true methods to new forms of political organization and artistic and commercial engagements.” Jeffrey W. Robbins, Lebanon Valley College and author of Radical Democracy and Political Theology

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Book SynopsisOutspoken interrogates the meaning and practice of being outspoken in a world of right-wing populism, global capitalism, and climate emergency. Some of the world’s most radical thinkers – Rosi Braidotti, Henry A. Giroux, Amelia Jones, and Slavoj Žižek, among others – chart progressive courses for political antagonism and social intervention.Trade Review“Original, interesting, and written by a team of leading figures in contemporary philosophy and critical theory, Outspoken defines our present moment in terms of an imbricated social and environment crisis and redirects our efforts beyond tried-and-true methods to new forms of political organization and artistic and commercial engagements.” Jeffrey W. Robbins, Lebanon Valley College and author of Radical Democracy and Political Theology

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Book SynopsisThe political theory of Richard Vernon has made major contributions to the many complex dimensions of political morality, democratic dialogue, justice, and toleration. Justice, Rights, and Toleration offers critical engagement with the central ideas of his work on the perennial political challenges in liberal democratic societies.Trade Review“Richard Vernon’s work masterfully demonstrates how to raise important questions in the study of political theory, and for this we owe him a great debt. Justice, Rights, and Toleration offers answers to some of those questions and poses some fascinating ones of its own.” Charles Blattberg, Université de Montréal and author of Patriotic Elaborations: Essays in Practical Philosophy

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisHailed by Terry Eagleton in The Guardian as "definitive," this is the only complete and authoritative edition of Antonio Gramsci's deeply personal and vivid prison letters.Trade ReviewThe most complete and authoritative edition of Antonio Gramsci's prison letters available in any language. Raymond Rosenthal's translation... is reliable and gives a good sense of the colloquial style of the original. Frank Rosengarten's extensive notes, together with his introduction, represent a significant piece of Gramsci scholarship. Journal of the History of Philosophy These volumes are laced with political insight. They are also shrewd, humorous, brave, and resourceful. -- Terry Eagleton The Guardian Painstakingly edited by Frank Rosengarten and movingly translated by Raymond Rosenthal... the letters are illuminated by critical commentary that highlights the contrast between the material conditions of Gramsci's confinement and the extraordinary spaciousness of his intellectual concerns. Socialism and Democracy A credit to publisher, translator, and editor. Radical Philosophy Invaluable... The Letters serve to confirm Gramsci's remarkable intellectual stature... Equally apparent is the depth of his commitment to his beliefs. The Journal of the Historical Association One of the most poignant human stories of our century. -- Joseph A. Buttigieg, editor and translator of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, Volumes 1, 2, and 3

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Book SynopsisHailed by Terry Eagleton in the Guardian as "definitive," this is the only complete and authoritative edition of Antonio Gramsci's deeply personal and vivid prison letters.Trade ReviewThe most complete and authoritative edition of Antonio Gramsci's prison letters available in any language. Raymond Rosenthal's translation... is reliable and gives a good sense of the colloquial style of the original. Frank Rosengarten's extensive notes, together with his introduction, represent a significant piece of Gramsci scholarship. Journal of the History of Philosophy These volumes are laced with political insight. They are also shrewd, humorous, brave, and resourceful. -- Terry Eagleton The Guardian Painstakingly edited by Frank Rosengarten and movingly translated by Raymond Rosenthal... the letters are illuminated by critical commentary that highlights the contrast between the material conditions of Gramsci's confinement and the extraordinary spaciousness of his intellectual concerns. Socialism and Democracy A credit to publisher, translator, and editor. Radical Philosophy Invaluable... The Letters serve to confirm Gramsci's remarkable intellectual stature... Equally apparent is the depth of his commitment to his beliefs. The Journal of the Historical Association One of the most poignant human stories of our century. -- Joseph A. Buttigieg, editor and translator of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, Volumes 1, 2, and 3

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Book SynopsisUtopianism suffers from an image problem: a recent exhibition on utopias in Paris and New York included photographs of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and a Nazi concentration camp. This work examines the anti-utopian mindset and identifies how utopian thought came to be regarded with suspicion.Trade ReviewIn four beautifully crafted, highly allusive essays, Jacoby excavates a plethora of utopian movements...with the aim of getting readers to dream of a better world. Publishers Weekly Like all of Russell Jacoby's books, Picture Imperfect is a timely, passionate, bravely unfashionable intervention... this is a book to be treasured. -- Terry Eagleton Nation A timely collection of essays...Essential. Tikkun In Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age Jacoby... asks the big, subversive questions. -- Michael Hirsch Dissident Voice Jacoby offers a provocative, concise, and well-researched book-length essay about traditional utopian thinking... Recommended. Choice By attuning our ears to the distant murmur, Russell Jacoby has performed an invaluable service in Picture Imperfect. -- Douglas W. Texter H-Net ReviewsTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments 1. An Anarchic Breeze 2. On Anti-Utopianism: More or Less 3. To Shake the World off Its Hinges 4. A Longing That Cannot Be Uttered Epilogue Notes Index

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Book SynopsisReconsiders the political, cultural, and legal nature of modernity in relation to religion. This title argues that the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau was instrumental in the evolution of modernity. In Rousseau, it pinpoints the origins of contemporary notions of the public and private and their relationship to religion.Trade Review"Recommended." - Choice ChoiceTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Religion, Democracy, and Modernity: The Case for Progressive Spiritual Democracy Preparing for the Journey: An Introduction 1 From the Garden to the City: The Tragic Passage 1. Nature's Garden 2. Revisiting the Garden's Solitaires 3. From the Garden to the Blessed Country: The Precarious Passage 4. The Rush to Slavery 5. The City: Life in the Ousted Condition 6. Overcoming Moral Evil: Rousseau at the Crossroads 2 Paths to Redemption 7. Reforming the City: The Extreme Public Path 8. Evading the City: The Private Path 9. The Mountain Village: The Path to Family, Work, Community, and Love 10. Reconciling Citizen and Solitaire: Religious Dimensions of the Middle Way 11. Residual Conflict: Democracy and Ineluctable Friction Conclusion A Way Forward: Rousseau and Twenty-First-Century Democracy Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction, by Rosalind C. Morris Part 1 Text "Can the Subaltern Speak?" revised edition, from the "History" chapter of Critique of Postcolonial Reason, by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Part 2 Contexts and Trajectories Reflections on "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Subaltern Studies after Spivak, by Partha Chatterjee Postcolonial Studies: Now That's History, by Ritu Birla The Ethnical Affirmation of Human Rights: Gayatri Spivak's Intervention, by Drucilla Cornell Part 3 Speaking of (Not) Hearing: Death and the Subaltern Death and the Subaltern, by Rajeswawri Sunder Rajan Between Speaking and Dying: Some Imperatives in the Emergence of the Subaltern in the Context of U.S. Slavery, by Abdul JanMohamed Subalterns at War, by Michele Barrett Part 4 Contemporaneities and Possible Futures: (Not) Speaking and Hearing Biopower and the New International Division of Reproductive Labor, by Pheng Cheah Moving from Subalternity: Indigenous Women in Guatemala and Mexico, by Jean Franco Part 5 In Response In Response: Looking Back, Looking Forward, by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Appendix Can the Subaltern Speak? Bibliography Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisWarren Breckman critically revisits thrilling experiments in the aftermath of Marxism.Trade ReviewA book that will appeal to many different constituencies-intellectual historians, political theorists, devotees of French theory, Marxists and post-Marxists, and humanists interested in the role of symbolism in culture-and is certain to become a canonical text in our field. -- Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley Historians of modern thought will benefit from Breckman's novel integration of numerous recent philosophers into a convincing framework stretching from German Idealism to the present, while political theorists will reckon with this rich survey of the left in recent decades as they deliberate about its future. -- Samuel Moyn, author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History Breckman provides a magisterial critical survey of the uses, abuses, and disuses of the concept of the symbolic. His analysis is careful and far-ranging, with special emphasis on post-Marxism, the 'linguistic turn,' and such important figures as Merleau-Ponty, Althusser, Baudrillard, Castoriadis, Lefort, Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Gauchet, Laclau, Mouffe, and Zizek. Breckman's account of the thought of these and other figures is enlivened by the fact that he does not limit himself to safe objectifications of the 'other' but undertakes dialogic (or open dialectical) engagements worked over by genuine concern with the problems and political implications at issue. -- Dominick LaCapra, Cornell University Adventures of the Symbolic is a trailblazing journey into forbidding terrain. It addresses one of the most controversial and fascinating trends in postwar European social thought-the dismantling of the Marxian paradigm and the emergence of a new species of theory that casts light on the radically open and postfoundational character of democracy. Castoriadis, Lefort, Laclau, Mouffe, Gauchet, Zizek-these are names to conjure with, but to understand their contributions is another thing entirely. Warren Breckman has the rare combination of theoretical lucidity and political acumen to guide us on this adventure. His achievement is simply stunning, a genuine milestone in the history of twentieth-century political thought. -- Peter E. Gordon, Harvard University, author of Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos In addition to offering a valuable and significant account of the politics associated with what Breckman calls "the symbolic turn"... the book marks an exceptional effort to render intellectual history useful for the purposes of democratic theory. American Historical ReviewTable of ContentsForeword, by Dick Howard Acknowledgments Introduction: Post-Marxism and the Symbolic Turn 1. The Symbolic Dimension and the Politics of Young Hegelianism 2. The Fate of the Symbolic from Romantic Socialism to a Marxism in extremis 3. From the Symbolic Turn to the Social Imaginary: Castoriadis's Project of Autonomy 4. Democracy Between Disenchantment and Political Theology: French Post-Marxism and the Return of Religion 5. The Post-Marx of the Letter: Laclau and Mouffe Between Postmodern Melancholy and Post-Marxist Mourning 6. Of Empty Places: Zizek and Laclau Epilogue Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewJill Stauffer and Bettina Bergo have done the scholarly community a great service with Nietzsche and Levinas. -- Robert Erlewine SophiaTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations of Texts by Nietzsche and Levinas Introduction Bettina Bergo and Jill Stauffer Part I. Revaluing Ethics: Time, Teaching, and the Ambiguity of Forces 1. The Malice in Good Deeds, by Alphonso Lingis 2. The Imperfect: Levinas, Nietzsche, and the Autonomous Subjec, by Jill Stauffer 3. Nietzsche and Levinas: The Impossible Relation , by John-Michel Longneaux 4. Ethical Ambivalence, by Judith Butler 5. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Thus Listened the Rabbis: Philosophy, Education, and the Cycle of Enlightenment, by Claire Elise Katz Part II. The Subject: Sensing, Suffering, and Responding 6. The Flesh Made Word; Or The Two Origins, by Bettina Bergo 7. Nietzsche, Levinas, and the Meaning of Responsibility, by Rosalyn Diprose 8. Beginning's Abyss: On Solitude in Nietzsche and Levinas, by John Drabinski 9. Beyond Suffering I Have No Alibi, by David Boothroyd 10. Levinas, Spinozism, Nietzsche, and the Body, by Richard A. Cohen Part III. Heteronomy and Ubiquity: God in Philosophy 11. Suffering Redeemable and Irredeemable, by John Llewelyn 12. Levinas's Gaia Scienza, by Aicha Liviana Messina 13. Levinas: Another Ascetic Priest?, by Silvia Benso 14. Apocalypse, Eschatology, and the Death of God, by Brian Schroeder Bibliography List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewEssential. Choice Her book is indispensable for anyone keen to understand violence in our society today. -- Joanna Bourke Environment and Planning DTable of ContentsTranslator's Note Acknowledgments Introduction 1 - Etymologies: "Terror"; or, On Surviving 2 - Etymologies: "Horror"; or On Dismembering 3 - On War 4 - The Howl of Medusa 5 - The Vulnerability of the Helpless 6 - The Crime of Medea 7 - Horrorism; or, On Violence Against the Helpless 8 - Those Who Have Seen the Gorgon 9 - Auschwitz; or, On Extreme Horror 10 - Erotic Carnages 11 - So Mutilated that It Might Be the Body of the Pig 12 - The Warrior's Pleasure 13 - Worldwide Aggressiveness 14 - For a History of Terror 15 - Suicidal Horrorism 16 - When the Bomb is a Woman's Body 17 - Female Torturers Grinning at the Camera Appendix: The Horror! The Horror! Rereading Conrad Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewEssential. Choice Her book is indispensable for anyone keen to understand violence in our society today. -- Joanna Bourke Environment and Planning DTable of ContentsTranslator's Note Acknowledgments Introduction 1 - Etymologies: "Terror"; or, On Surviving 2 - Etymologies: "Horror"; or On Dismembering 3 - On War 4 - The Howl of Medusa 5 - The Vulnerability of the Helpless 6 - The Crime of Medea 7 - Horrorism; or, On Violence Against the Helpless 8 - Those Who Have Seen the Gorgon 9 - Auschwitz; or, On Extreme Horror 10 - Erotic Carnages 11 - So Mutilated that It Might Be the Body of the Pig 12 - The Warrior's Pleasure 13 - Worldwide Aggressiveness 14 - For a History of Terror 15 - Suicidal Horrorism 16 - When the Bomb is a Woman's Body 17 - Female Torturers Grinning at the Camera Appendix: The Horror! The Horror! Rereading Conrad Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA brilliant book. -- Vineeth Mathoor MetapsychologyTable of ContentsPart I. Chomsky 1. The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?, by Noam Chomsky 2. The Great Soul of Power: Said Memorial Lecture, by Noam Chomsky Part II. Introductions 3. Chomsky, France, Reason, Power, by Jean Bricmont and Julie Franck 4. An Interview with Noam Chomsky, by Jean Bricmont Part III. Linguistic Theory and Language Processes 5. The Varying Aims of Linguistic Theory, by Cedric Boeckx and Norbert Hornstein 6. Language, Thought, and Reality After Chomsky, by Gennaro Chierchia 7. Generative Syntax in the Brain, by Yosef Grodzinsky Part IV. Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind 8. Learning Organs, by Charles R. Gallistel 9. Innateness, Choice, and Language, by Elizabeth Spelke 10. The Scope and Limits of Chomsky's Naturalism, by Pierre Jacob Part V. Chomsky and the Intelligentsia 11. Conspiracy: When Journalists (and Their Favorites) Misrepresent the Critical Analysis of the Media, by Serge Halimi and Arnaud Rindel 12. Noam Chomsky and the University, by Pierre Guerlain 13. The Practice of Intellectual Self-Defense in the University, by Normand Baillargeon 14. Chomsky, Faurisson, and Vidal-Naquet, by Jean Bricmont 15. Chomsky and Bourdieu: A Missed Encounter, by Frederic Delorca Part VI. Politics: Theory and Practice 16. Chomsky in France: The Resistance to Pragmatic Anti-Authoritarianism, by Larry Portis 17. Testimony, by Susan George 18. Truth, Balance, and Freedom, by Akeel Bilgrami List of Contributors

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA brilliant book. -- Vineeth Mathoor MetapsychologyTable of ContentsPart I. Chomsky 1. The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?, by Noam Chomsky 2. The Great Soul of Power: Said Memorial Lecture, by Noam Chomsky Part II. Introductions 3. Chomsky, France, Reason, Power, by Jean Bricmont and Julie Franck 4. An Interview with Noam Chomsky, by Jean Bricmont Part III. Linguistic Theory and Language Processes 5. The Varying Aims of Linguistic Theory, by Cedric Boeckx and Norbert Hornstein 6. Language, Thought, and Reality After Chomsky, by Gennaro Chierchia 7. Generative Syntax in the Brain, by Yosef Grodzinsky Part IV. Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind 8. Learning Organs, by Charles R. Gallistel 9. Innateness, Choice, and Language, by Elizabeth Spelke 10. The Scope and Limits of Chomsky's Naturalism, by Pierre Jacob Part V. Chomsky and the Intelligentsia 11. Conspiracy: When Journalists (and Their Favorites) Misrepresent the Critical Analysis of the Media, by Serge Halimi and Arnaud Rindel 12. Noam Chomsky and the University, by Pierre Guerlain 13. The Practice of Intellectual Self-Defense in the University, by Normand Baillargeon 14. Chomsky, Faurisson, and Vidal-Naquet, by Jean Bricmont 15. Chomsky and Bourdieu: A Missed Encounter, by Frederic Delorca Part VI. Politics: Theory and Practice 16. Chomsky in France: The Resistance to Pragmatic Anti-Authoritarianism, by Larry Portis 17. Testimony, by Susan George 18. Truth, Balance, and Freedom, by Akeel Bilgrami List of Contributors

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe Undiscovered Dewey wrestles intelligently with a central question regarding John Dewey's political thought-his optimism and holism-and defends a view that's both controversial and interesting. -- Eric MacGilvray, Ohio State University If you don't know much about John Dewey's writings on religion, ethics, and politics, this book is the ideal place to start. If, on the other hand, you think you have Dewey pegged, you should still read the volume, for every chapter will surprise and instruct. Melvin L. Rogers has provided a bold, fresh, exhaustively researched reinterpretation of America's greatest democratic theorist. -- Jeffrey Stout, Princeton University, and author of Democracy and Tradition If John Dewey too seldom dwelt on the darker dimensions of human experience and the necessary limits within which we struggle to enrich our lives, he well knew they were there. Melvin L. Rogers rescues Dewey from the brightly lit, ever-smiling caricature drawn by his critics, ably portraying him in chiaroscuro and giving us a democratic philosopher not of naive optimism but of chastened hope. Precisely what we need. -- Robert Westbrook, University of Rochester, and author of Democratic Hope: Pragmatism and the Politics of Truth The book is a welcome and thoughtful contribution... Recommended. Choice A significant contribution to the growing literature on Dewey's religious and political thought. -- Shane Ralston Journal of Politics Melvin Roger's articulate, timely work helps make audible once again Dewey's voice in this fateful conversation. -- Robert W. King Journal of American Studies Rogers offers a revisionist reading of Dewey to recover what he considers lost intellectual and moral resources for a revitalized politics in a pluralist society... A great virtue of this work is the breadth of his engagement with Dewey across his entire, vast corpus, and the careful pitting of Dewey in conversation with contemporary thinkers such as Walter Lippmann, Hannah Arendt, William James, and George Herbert Mead. This book matters precisely because of its ambitions. -- Matthew S. Hedstrom Journal of the American Academy of Religion [Rogers] pushes engagement with democratic theory further, defending Dewey not only against such trenchant critics as Reinhold Neibuhr, Christopher Lasch, and John Patrick Diggins, but also against [Robert] Westbrook, Hillary Putnam, and Cornel West... Rogers presents his 'undiscovered Dewey' through a reinterpretation of Darwinian evolution's influence on Dewey's conception of 'inquiry,' which Rogers places at the very center of Dewey's epistemology as well as his moral and political philosophy. Rogers situates Dewey in the context of Darwin's broader 'impact on the American religious imagination,' arguing that Dewey was more deeply engaged in theological controversy than is sometimes recognized, and that this engagement left an indelible mark on later developments in his thinking. -- Jason Frank Political Theory An impressive achievement... essential for anyone interested in pragmatism and of value for anyone working on democratic theory. -- Colin Koopman Perspectives on Politics Roger's book is a welcome addition to the literature on Dewey... suitable for suggested reading on syllabi for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Education and CultureTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction Part I: From Certainty to Contingency 1. Protestant Self-Assertion and Spiritual Sickness 2. Agency and Inquiry After Darwin Part II: Religion, the Moral Life, and Democracy 3. Faith and Democratic Piety 4. Within the Space of Moral Reflection 5. Constraining Elites and Managing Power Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe Multivoiced Body is the kind of book that establishes new, more interdisciplinary fields of study in social-political philosophy. -- Robert Drury King Journal of Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry Evans' text is a thrilling account that is as performative in its exchanges with other theoretical frameworks, as it is novel in its uses and divergences from those frameworks. Human StudiesTable of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Part 1 The Dilemma of Diversity 1. The Age of Diversity 2. History of the Dilemma: Cosmos, Chaos. and Chaosmos 3. Society as a Multivoiced Body Part 2 The Primacy of Voices 4. Modernism and Subjectivity 5. Postmodernism and Language 6. The Primacy of Voices 7. Communication and an Ethics for the Age of Diversity Part 3 The Political Dimension of the Multivoiced Body 8. The Social Unconscious 9. Globalization, Resistance. and the New Solidarity 10. Democracy and Justice in the Multivoiced Body Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe Multivoiced Body is the kind of book that establishes new, more interdisciplinary fields of study in social-political philosophy. -- Robert Drury King Journal of Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry Evans' text is a thrilling account that is as performative in its exchanges with other theoretical frameworks, as it is novel in its uses and divergences from those frameworks. Human StudiesTable of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Part 1 The Dilemma of Diversity 1. The Age of Diversity 2. History of the Dilemma: Cosmos, Chaos. and Chaosmos 3. Society as a Multivoiced Body Part 2 The Primacy of Voices 4. Modernism and Subjectivity 5. Postmodernism and Language 6. The Primacy of Voices 7. Communication and an Ethics for the Age of Diversity Part 3 The Political Dimension of the Multivoiced Body 8. The Social Unconscious 9. Globalization, Resistance. and the New Solidarity 10. Democracy and Justice in the Multivoiced Body Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMalabou has provided a tantalizing glimpse of the ways in which philosophy at the dusk of writing must increasingly become our own way to recognize our potentials in an era of plasticity. -- Brenna Bhandar and Jonathan Goldeberg-Hiller Theory and Event transformative -- Peter Gratton SymposiumTable of ContentsForeword, by Clayton Crockett Translator's Introduction, by Carolyn Shread Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing Afterword: Of the Impossibility of Fleeing-Plasticity Notes

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Book SynopsisAxel Honneth has been instrumental in advancing the work of the Frankfurt School of critical theorists. His essays, collected here, address the possibilities of continuing this tradition through radically changed theoretical and social conditions.Trade Review"John Holt's book is an impressive work of scholarship." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society "This is a scholarly but eminently readable and accessible study of the multilayered resonance of Sri Lankan culture... Highly Recommended." Choice I highly recommend it to all those interested in social justice. It offers a sophisticated, exceptionally well-crafted answer to a highly pertinent question: what social scientific criteria are there for making normative judgements about why and how Western civilization should change? -- Ronjon Paul Datta Studies in Social JusticeTable of ContentsPreface 1. The Irreducibility of Progress: Kant's Account of the Relationship Between Morality and History 2. A Social Pathology of Reason: On the Intellectual Legacy of Critical Theory 3. Reconstructive Social Criticism with a Genealogical Proviso: On the Idea of "Critique" in the Frankfurt School 4. A Physiognomy of the Capitalist Form of Life: A Sketch of Adorno's Social Theory 5. Performing Justice: Adorno's Introduction to Negative Dialectics 6. Saving the Sacred with a Philosophy of History: On Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" 7. Appropriating Freedom: Freud's Conception of Individual Self-Relation 8. "Anxiety and Politics": The Strengths and Weaknesses of Franz Neumann's Diagnosis of a Social Pathology 9. Democracy and Inner Freedom: Alexander Mitscherlich's Contribution to Critical Social Theory 10. Dissonances of Communicative Reason: Albrecht Wellmer and Critical Theory Appendix: Idiosyncrasy as a Tool of Knowledge: Social Criticism in the Age of the Normalized Intellectual Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAxel Honneth has been instrumental in advancing the work of the Frankfurt School of critical theorists. His essays, collected here, address the possibilities of continuing this tradition through radically changed theoretical and social conditions.Trade ReviewThis book is welcome and needed; I highly recommend it to all those interested in social justice. It offers a sophisticated, exceptionally well-crafted answer to a highly pertinent question: what social scientific criteria are there for making normative judgments about why and how Western civilization should change? -- Ronjon Paul Datta * Studies in Social Justice *This volume is a significant contribution to the debates over the history of the Frankfurt School and the contemporary relevance of critical social theory. Axel Honneth’s work provides a subtle reading of history that is less concerned with putting its products in their place—though he does do that in an exemplary fashion—than in highlighting what is living and vibrant in those products for contemporary thought. -- Christopher F. Zurn, University of Massachusetts BostonThese essays reflect a deep familiarity with each individual author while also serving to advance the particular approach characterizing Axel Honneth’s work: a focus on the theme of suffering and moral struggle as the point of departure for a more ambitious, ‘reconstructive’ form of social criticism. As such, this volume makes a very significant contribution to the continuing relevance of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School for contemporary forms of social criticism. -- Kenneth Baynes, Syracuse UniversityTable of ContentsPreface1. The Irreducibility of Progress: Kant's Account of the Relationship Between Morality and History2. A Social Pathology of Reason: On the Intellectual Legacy of Critical Theory3. Reconstructive Social Criticism with a Genealogical Proviso: On the Idea of "Critique" in the Frankfurt School4. A Physiognomy of the Capitalist Form of Life: A Sketch of Adorno's Social Theory5. Performing Justice: Adorno's Introduction to Negative Dialectics6. Saving the Sacred with a Philosophy of History: On Benjamin's "Critique of Violence"7. Appropriating Freedom: Freud's Conception of Individual Self-Relation8. "Anxiety and Politics": The Strengths and Weaknesses of Franz Neumann's Diagnosis of a Social Pathology9. Democracy and Inner Freedom: Alexander Mitscherlich's Contribution to Critical Social Theory10. Dissonances of Communicative Reason: Albrecht Wellmer and Critical TheoryAppendix: Idiosyncrasy as a Tool of Knowledge: Social Criticism in the Age of the Normalized IntellectualNotesBibliography

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