Social and political philosophy Books

Book SynopsisSortition is widely used in our political systems to constitute citizen panels. It is now possible to study the limits of this method of selecting our political representatives. This book presents the institutionalization of sortition while questioning its political consequences in terms of representation and deliberation. Several examples are used, such as the Citizens'' Climate Convention in France and the Conference on the Future of Europe. In the end, the book helps to identify the consequences of using sortition with regard to the principles of equality and inclusion. Above all, it offers readers the possibility of continuing to reflect on this method of random selection, while promoting the implementation of greater equality between citizens.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn The Notion of Authority, written in the 1940s in Nazi-occupied France, Alexandre Kojève uncovers the conceptual premises of four primary models of authority, examining the practical application of their derivative variations from the Enlightenment to Vichy France. This foundational text, translated here into English for the first time, is the missing piece in any discussion of sovereignty and political authority, worthy of a place alongside the work of Weber, Arendt, Schmitt, Agamben or Dumézil. The Notion of Authority is a short and sophisticated introduction to Kojève's philosophy of right. It captures its author's intellectual interests at a time when he was retiring from the career of a professional philosopher and was about to become one of the pioneers of the Common Market and the idea of the European Union.Trade Review"Kojève was a magician of thought ... undoubtedly, he was the inventor of the last grand narrative of philosophy and history, of which the neo-conservative ideologue Fukuyama was but a mediocre imitator." -- Pierre Macherey"Kojève's lectures made a deep impression on his listeners - to more various and influential effect than probably any others in France this century" -- Perry Anderson"Kojève spoke of Hegel's religious philosophy, the phenomenology of Spirit, master and slave, the struggle for prestige, the in-itself, the for-itself, nothingness, projects, the human essence as revealed in the struggle onto death and in the transformation of error into truth. Strange theses for a world beleaguered by fascism!" -- Louis Althusser"Alexandre Kojève's originality and courage, it must be said, is to have perceived the impossibility of going any further, the necessity, consequently, of renouncing the creation of an original philosophy and, thereby, the interminable starting-over which is the avowal of the vanity of thought." -- Georges Bataille"A brilliant Russian émigré who taught a highly influential series of seminars in Paris. Kojève had a major impact on the intellectual life of the continent. Among his students ranged such future luminaries as Jean-Paul Sartre and Raymond Aron." -- Francis Fukuyama"Alexandre Kojève ... is one of the most notable Russian thinkers of the twentieth century ... the lectures represent an exceedingly important (and tendentious) interpretation of Hegel, if not an independent philosophical view in the guise of a seemingly objective scholarly commentary." -- Jeff Love * Slavic and East European Journal *Bourgeois domination represented the arrival of the bourgeois end of history, in the form of a permanent present. Authority is disconnected from all its temporal support, having nothing left to offer. Kojève thus foresees the inauguration of simulacrum as the justification of authority. Kojève left an open letter that allows for ample discussion. And for as long as a determination of the coming times still has a role to play, a reprise of Kojève's text will remain timely. -- Jorge Varela * Radical Philosophy *In recent decades, Kojève's voluminous manuscripts and papers, held at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, have become available to researchers. Hager Weslati is among a new generation of scholars busily exploiting this material. A gramophone cannot possess authority, nor can a subject under hypnosis be said to respond to it-both examples are Kojève's. Despite its apparent conservatism, there is an underlying revolutionary message. Discussions of Jacques Rousseau's notion of the general will, the division of powers, the problem of tradition, and the impossibility of the political trial will all be stimulating for any political theorist. -- Eric Brandom * German Studies Review *This English translation of Alexander Kojève's The Notion of Authority is an important addition to philosophical studies of authority and an essential text for understanding Kojève's political thought. While Arendt and Marcuse favored a negative definition of authority, Kojève sought a positive definition - one that would be ultimately usable in his political present during WWII. The era of bourgeois domination commences in a fascination with only the present (this is why concerns of food and sex are paramount to the bourgeoisie). However, ultimately this present fails because it does not have a past or a future. -- Daniel Tutt * Philosophy Now *Capably translated from French by Hager Weslati, this relatively short manuscript was written in 1942 in Marseille where Kojève had fled to escape the Nazi occupation. It attempts to answer a singular question that, in Kojève's view, has been strangely neglected: What is authority? Kojève insists time and again that force does not constitute authority. To the contrary, having recourse to force shows a failure of authority. -- Jeff Love * Slavic and East European Journal *Through its pursuit of increasing depoliticization, neoliberalism undermines its own sources of political legitimacy and ultimately reduces human relations to the application of force in the service of individual ends. Kojève's understanding of the nature of authority helps explain the distinctively political aspects of these developments. -- Adam Adatto Sandel and Julius Krein * "Uncivil Society: Hegel, Kojève, and the Crisis of Political Legitimacy" *Bourgeois domination represented the arrival of the bourgeois end of history, in the form of a permanent present. Authority is disconnected from all its temporal support, having nothing left to offer. Kojève thus foresees the inauguration of simulacrum as the justification of authority. Kojève left an open letter that allows for ample discussion. And for as long as a determination of the coming times still has a role to play, a reprise of Kojève's text will remain timely. -- Jorge Varela * Radical Philosophy *In recent decades, Kojève's voluminous manuscripts and papers, held at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, have become available to researchers. Hager Weslati is among a new generation of scholars busily exploiting this material. A gramophone cannot possess authority, nor can a subject under hypnosis be said to respond to it-both examples are Kojève's. Despite its apparent conservatism, there is an underlying revolutionary message. Discussions of Jacques Rousseau's notion of the general will, the division of powers, the problem of tradition, and the impossibility of the political trial will all be stimulating for any political theorist. -- Eric Brandom * German Studies Review *This English translation of Alexander Kojève's The Notion of Authority is an important addition to philosophical studies of authority and an essential text for understanding Kojève's political thought. While Arendt and Marcuse favored a negative definition of authority, Kojève sought a positive definition - one that would be ultimately usable in his political present during WWII. The era of bourgeois domination commences in a fascination with only the present (this is why concerns of food and sex are paramount to the bourgeoisie). However, ultimately this present fails because it does not have a past or a future. -- Daniel Tutt * Philosophy Now *Through its pursuit of increasing depoliticization, neoliberalism undermines its own sources of political legitimacy and ultimately reduces human relations to the application of force in the service of individual ends. Kojève's understanding of the nature of authority helps explain the distinctively political aspects of these developments. -- Adam Adatto Sandel and Julius Krein * Trump and Political Philosophy: Patriotism, Cosmopolitanism, and Civic Virtue, eds Marc Nejamin Sable and Angel Jaramillio Torres *Capably translated from French by Hager Weslati, this relatively short manuscript was written in 1942 in Marseille where Kojève had fled to escape the Nazi occupation. It attempts to answer a singular question that, in Kojève's view, has been strangely neglected: What is authority? Kojève insists time and again that force does not constitute authority. To the contrary, having recourse to force shows a failure of authority. -- Jeff Love * Slavic and East European Journal *

Read more less

Book SynopsisDreamwork is a book about the ideas, dreams, dreads and ideals we have regarding work. Its central argument is that, although we depend on the idea of work for our identity as humans, we feel we must disguise from ourselves the fact that we do not know what work is. There is no example of work that nobody might under some circumstances do for fun. All work is imaginary – which is not to say that it is simply illusory, but rather that, in order to count as work, it must be imagined to be work; so that a large part of what we mean by working is this work of imagining. Work is therefore essentially mystical – just the opposite of what it is taken to be. Dreamwork looks in turn at worries about whether or not work is hard; the importance of places of work; the meanings of hobbies, holidays and sabbaths; and the history of dreams of redeeming work.Trade ReviewIn this book, with his inimitable flair for rooting out the phenomenological intricacies of apparently ordinary things, Steven Connor leads us on a tour of the dream factory of work, labour, toil and occupation. The result is a book of typically considerable – dare I say it – detective work that opens up the quotidian reality and enabling dreamscape of work to new understanding.' – Nathan Waddell, Associate Professor in Twentieth-Century Literature, University of BirminghamTable of Contents1 Dreamworks 2 Hard Work 3 At Work 4 Off Work 5 Working Out References Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisPresenting a new historical narrative on European integration and identity this title examines how the concept of Europe has been entangled in a dynamic and dramatic tension between calls for unity and arguments for borders and division. Through an in-depth intellectual history of the idea of Europe, Mats Andren interrogates the concept of integration and more recent debates surrounding European identity across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the post-war period. Applying a broad range of original sources this unique work will be key reading for students and researchers studying European History, European Studies, Political History and related fields.

Read more less

Book SynopsisPublished in English for the first time, Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason is a slightly abridged and updated edition of Professor Höffe’s groundbreaking work originally published in German. In the book, the author systematically introduces one of the most important areas of Kant's philosophy, and relates its basic ideas to the debates of today. The first part introduces the four driving forces that motivated Kant’s practical philosophy and which are still relevant today: Enlightenment, critique, morality and cosmopolitanism. The second part demonstrates the extent to which Kant revolutionised moral philosophy. In the third part, the author explains the provocations that lie at the heart of Kant’s practical philosophy. The remaining parts deal with political philosophy, the philosophy of history, and Kant’s thinking about religion and education.Table of ContentsPreface 1. Introduction: Four Motivating Forces 1.1 Enlightenment – 1.2 Critique in the Style of a Judicial Trial– 1.3 Morality – 1.4 Cosmopolitanism Part 1: Kant’s Revolution of Moral Philosophy 2. Ethics as Practical Philosophy 2.1 Primacy of the second Critique – 2.2 Moral Interest – 2.3 Pure Practical Reason – 2.4 A Proof in Seven Steps – 2.5 The Decisive Passage 3. Critique of the Principle of Happiness 3.1 Moralizing in an Ivory Tower? – 3.2 Mere Form – 3.3 Two Ethical Theories of Happiness: Aristotle and Utilitarianism 4. The New Formula: The Categorical Imperative 4.1 Three Tasks – 4.2 The Law of Nature as a Character of Law – 4.3 The Example of the Deposit – 4.4 An Ethics of Maxims 5. The Freedom of the Will and the Fact of Reason 5.1 Looking Back at the Third Antinomy – 5.2 Free Will – 5.3 The Moral Law Prior to Freedom – 5.4 The Fact of Reason – 5.5 Why be Moral: the Feeling of Respect – 5.6 What can Modern Moral Philosophy Learn from Kant? Part 2: Kant’s Provocations 6. Provocation 1: A Highest Good? 6.1 A Parallel to the First Critique? – 6.2 From Duty to Hope: the Highest Good – 6.3 Re-Theologizing and a Rest of Eudaimonism? – 6.4 General (Quasi-)Dialectic of Pure Reason – 6.5 The Postulates: God and Immortality 7. Provocation 2: Duty contra Desire? (Schiller) 7.1 Does Morality Require the Contrast with Desire? – 7.2 What is it That Finds Unity in the Beautiful Soul? – 7.3 Kant or Schiller? 8. Provocation 3: A ‘Metaphysics’ of Morals? 8.1 Kant as an Aristotelian – 8.2 Aristotle’s Ethics: Free of Metaphysics, yet Metaphysical – 8.3 Kant’s Ethics: Metaphysical, yet Free of Metaphysics Part 3: World Politics and World History 9. Kant’s Justice Theory of Peace 9.1 A Plethora of Innovations – 9.2 ‘Royal Peoples’ and a Royal Humanity – 9.3 A Realistic Vision 10. A Cosmopolitan Philosophy of History 10.1 The Framework of Discussion – 10.2 The Texts – 10.3 Against Cyclopic Learnedness – 10.4 The Engine: Antagonism – 10.5 Thinking of Progress: Modest-Immodest – 10.6 On the Epistemic Status 11. On the Guarantee of Perpetual Peace 11.1 A Quasi-Transcendental Deduction – 11.2 The Solution: „Nature the Great Artist’ – 11.3 Outer and Inner Nature – 11.4 Constitutional, International and Cosmopolitan Right – 11.5 Epistemic Status Part 4: Religion, Education und the Final End 12. The Rational Limits of Religion 12.1 No Fourth Critique – 12.2 The New Project – 12.3 ‘Bare’ Reason – 12.4 Thematic and Methodical Innovations – 12.5 The Main Topics – 12.6 A Wealth of Interpretations – 12.7 Interim Result 13. Philosophy of Education 13.1. Pedagogical Anthropology – 13.2 Four Goals of Education – 13.3. ‘The Child is supposed to ... Learn to Work’ – 13.4 Result 14. Human Beings as the Final End 14.1 The Provocative Claim – 14.2 Kant’s Argument – 14.3 On the Final End 15. A Look at the More Recent German Debate 15.1 The Textual Basis – 15.2. A Kant Lexicon – 15.3 Commentaries – 15.4 Monographs Afterword Abbreviations and Method of Citation Bibliography Index of Names Index of Subjects

Read more less

Book SynopsisWalter Benjamin was fascinated by the impact of new technology on culture, an interest that extended beyond his renowned critical essays. From 1927 to '33, he wrote and presented something in the region of eighty broadcasts using the new medium of radio. Radio Benjamin gathers the surviving transcripts, which appear here for the first time in English. This eclectic collection demonstrates the range of Benjamin's thinking and his enthusiasm for popular sensibilities. His celebrated "Enlightenment for Children" youth programs, his plays, readings, book reviews, and fiction reveal Benjamin in a creative, rather than critical, mode. They flesh out ideas elucidated in his essays, some of which are also represented here, where they cover topics as varied as getting a raise and the history of natural disasters, subjects chosen for broad appeal and examined with passion and acuity.Delightful and incisive, this is Walter Benjamin channeling his sophisticated thinking to a wide audience, allowing us to benefit from a new voice for one of the twentieth century's most respected thinkers.Trade ReviewA complex and brilliant writer. -- JM CoetzeeWalter Benjamin was one of the unclassifiable ones... whose work neither fits the existing order nor introduces a new genre. -- Hannah ArendtBenjamin buckled himself to the task of revolutionary transformation. his life and work speak challengingly to us all. -- Terry EagletonThere has been no more original, no more serious critic and reader in our time. -- George SteinerHe drew, from the obscure disdained German baroque, elements of the modern sensibility: the taste for allegory, surrealist shock effects, discontinuous utterance, a sense of historical catastrophe. -- Susan SontagWalter Benjamin is the most important German aesthetician and literary critic of the twentieth century. * Sunday Times *Radio Benjamin could hardly be bettered... There really is no parallel for what Benjamin did in these talks. Imagine a particularly engaging episode of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time narrated by Alan Bennett - if Bennett were more profoundly steeped in Marx and politically engaged by the revolutionary potential of the medium of radio - and you have something of their allure. -- Stuart JeffriesThis collection shows a lighter - though entirely characteristic - side to this most influential of 20th-century thinkers. -- Jonathan Gibbs * Independent *Walter Benjamin, one of the first theorists to ponder the social impact of mass media [...] was equally entranced by the way thin air mysteriously transmits radio waves. In 1927, five years before he exiled himself from Germany in advance of the Nazi putsch, Benjamin began a series of experimental broadcasts on this new medium. -- Peter Conrad * Observer *

Read more less

Book SynopsisWinch is best known as the founder of post-war analytic philosophy of the social sciences, and as one of the rare post-war British philosophers who engaged with continental thought, in particular Simone Weil (on whom he wrote a book), Jürgen Habermas, and Karl-Otto Apel. Throughout his career, he also wrote on issues in political philosophy, with particular focus on questions to do with the legitimacy of the state and on the philosophies of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Simone Weil. Materials toward a book on the topic have lain in the Peter Winch archives since then, accessible only to philosophers able to visit in person. In this volume these notes are published in full, supplemented by selections from Winch''s late lectures on law and authority and cross-referenced with his published discussions of political philosophy and related topics (e.g., punishment, agency). In these unpublished writings, Winch diagnoses problematic assumptions about agency and about the relationship between language and society as these shape the social contract tradition. Winch's critique of misconceptions of individual agency in political philosophy focuses the attention away from reasons for action discourse and toward the complex and socially constituted relations between agency, justice, and force. Following Wittgenstein's injunction that a philosopher should always avoid hasty generalisation, Winch's approach to questions of the legitimacy of the state is marked out by sensitivity to contextual features, including the needs and interests which influence the form that such questions take, whether those be securing peace in civil war (Hobbes), defending a nation from fascism (Weil), or rationalizing the seizure of indigenous lands by conquest (Locke).In addition to its interest as a Wittgensteinian treatment of key questions in political philosophy, this volume supplements Winch's published work on Wittgenstein, ethics, the social sciences, and Spinoza. This volume, the second to come from research of the Peter Winch archives, fills in our understanding of Winch''s philosophical oeuvre, drawing out the implications of his work for questions in political philosophy. In addition, the volume contributes to the emerging picture of some post-war British philosophers resisting the impoverishment of narrow logical analysis and the disengagement of philosophy from life and society.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn this work, Mouffe argues that liberal democracy misunderstands the problems of ethnic, religious and nationalist conflicts because of its inadequate conception of politics. He suggests that the democratic revolution may be jeopardized by a lack of understanding of citizenship, community and pluralism. Mouffe examines the work of Schmidt and Rawls and explores feminist theory, in an attempt to place the project of radical and plural democracy on a more adequate foundation than is provided by liberal theory.Trade ReviewEvocative and challenging. * Radical Philosophy *An indispensable read. * Harvard Educational Review *Her work evinces an impressive political prescience...In a rare feat for a political theorist, Mouffe's texts have inspired left parties and politicians, like Podemos and Jean-Luc Melénchon, to frame their projects as a democratic struggle against unrepresentative elites. -- Thea Riofrancos * n+1 *With eerie accuracy, Mouffe anticipated today's political world. -- Andy Beckett * The Guardian *

Read more less

Book SynopsisAfter being widely rejected in the late 20th century the work of Karl Marx is now being reassessed by many theorists and activists. Karl Marx, Anthropologist explores how this most influential of modern thinkers is still highly relevant for Anthropology today. Marx was profoundly influenced by critical Enlightenment thought. He believed that humans were social individuals that simultaneously satisfied and forged their needs in the contexts of historically particular social relations and created cultures. Marx continually refined the empirical, philosophical, and practical dimensions of his anthropology throughout his lifetime.Assessing key concepts, from the differences between class-based and classless societies to the roles of exploitation, alienation and domination in the making of social individuals, Karl Marx, Anthropologist is an essential guide to Marx's anthropological thought for the 21st century.Trade Review"This is a timely reminder of both the Enlightenment background and holistic nature of Marx'' anthropology, which concerns not merely understanding classical industrial capitalism but also such diverse issues as the modern age of empire, human origins and non-Western political systems. - Dr Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov, University of Cambridge Evenhanded and clearly written, this book presents a direct engagement and extended dialogue with Karl Marx's works of social theory over time. Valuable for students, especially those unfamiliar with his writings. - J. D. Smith, CHOICE magazine"Table of ContentsPreface Chronology Introduction Polemics, Caveats, and Standpoints Organization of the Book Ch. 1 The Enlightenment and Anthropology Early Enlightenment Thought The World Historicized The New Anthropology of the Enlightenment Rousseau's Historical-Dialectical Anthropology The Scottish Historical Philosophers The Institutionalization of Anthropology Kant's Pragmatic Anthropology Herder's Historical-Dialectical Anthropology Göttingen: Beyond "Anthropology for Doctors and Philosophers"Hegel's Critical-Historical Anthropology Ch.2 Marx's Anthropology What are Human Beings? The Corporeal Organization of Human Beings "Ensembles of Social Relations" and Human Beings as Social Individuals History Truth and Praxis Ch. 3 Human Natural Beings Charles Darwin and the Development of Modern Evolutionary Theory Darwin's Metaphors and Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection The Problems of Variation and Inheritance The Modern Synthesis and Beyond Human Natural Beings: Bodies That Walk, Talk, Make Tools,and Have Culture Engels's "The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man" Fossils and Proteins Demography and Population Structure Marx on the Naturalization of Social Inequality Ch. 4 Anthropology, History, and Social Formation Marx's Historical-Dialectical Conceptual Framework Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production Primitive Communism The Asiatic Mode of Production and the Slavonic Transition The Ancient Mode of Production The Germanic Mode of Production The Feudal Mode of Production Societies and Cultures Pre-Capitalist Societies: Limited, Local, and Vital Human History Is Messy Ch. 5 Capitalism and the Anthropology of the Modern World The Transition to Capitalism and its Development The Articulation of Modes of Production Property, Power, and Capitalist States Ch. 6 Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century Social Relations and the Formation of Social Individuals Alienation Domination, Exploitation, and Forms of Social Hierarchy Resistance and Protest Anthropology: "The Study of People in Crisis by People in Crisis"Notes Bibliography

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe reality and validity of the moral sense which ordinary people take for granted took a battering in the last century. Materialist trends in philosophy, decline in religious faith, and a loosening of traditional moral constraints contributed to a shift in public attitudes, with many decent honest folk both aware of a questioning of moral claims and uneasy with a world that has no place for the moral dimension. Haslam shows how important the moral sense is to the human personality and exposes the weakness in much current thinking that suggests otherwise. His goal is to help the reader to a mature and confident understanding of the moral mind, which constitutes an essential part of what it is to be human.

Read more less

Book SynopsisGlobalism endowed us with McDonald''s, ''the world''s local bank', English football teams without English players and an irrepressible desire for more as enough is never good enough the blanket is always too short. Our personal world as much as our social and political realities seem to have blithely surrendered to the madness of a civilization which views anything from corporate greed and global warming to military adventures and religious fundamentalism as normal as a door banging in the wind. The destructive capabilities of our age have run too far ahead of our wisdom. However, the process is not irreversible if our thinking can postpone its retirement. In Bed with Madness is ''a well-argued, powerful and profound indictment of contemporary culture', stylishly written a reviewer said he would have bought it just for its humour!

Read more less

Book SynopsisMore than ever, people across the planet want deep and meaningful change. From those campaigning for social justice and ecological sustainability, to those who want to protect animals, indigenous cultures and those in poverty, millions are realising that another world is not only possible, but absolutely essential. Yet despite the creative and determined efforts of so many, our crises deepen. A politico-economic system, increasingly benefiting a small elite, has brought us to the brink of climate catastrophe, ransacking ecosystems and unravelling communities, forcing us into unhealthy ways of life that conflict with our deepest yearnings. The problem may no longer be a lack of will - but a dogmatic adherence to laws and cultural narratives designed to keep things just the way they are. In this incendiary book, best-selling author Mark Boyle explores, with terrible beauty, the uncharted depths of these challenges, and how we might face them with dignity, great heart and potency.Drawing on inspiration from the natural world, he sets out the case for the rewilding of our political landscapes, calling for solidarity between reformers, revolutionaries and resisters for the creation of a world worth sustaining. His uncompromising and surprising conclusions could revolutionise the way we face the challenges of our time.Trade ReviewThere are two books that have shifted my world entirely: Naomi Klein's 'This Changes Everything' and Mark Boyle's 'Drinking Molotov Cocktails' with Gandhi - and of the two, Boyle's is by far the most affecting. If you care about the planet, about our place on it, about the devastation that is modern western living, you have to read this book. Read it, think on it, act on it. Only by each of us doing this, can we hope to be the change we need to see in the world. It's terrifying. But it's the truth. Manda Scott, Sunday Times best-selling author of Boudica and Rome; Mark Boyle's book throws down the gauntlet at the feet of the world as we know it. His challenge to the complicity of all of us even those of us who work for change and against injustice in a system that is destroying the planet and most of its species will trouble many. So too will his endorsement of violent methods of resistance alongside the more accepted nonviolent ones. But he asks questions that need answering at every turn and his call for the climate-change generation to replace reduce, reuse, recycle with resist, revolt, rewild strikes a nerve. Chris Brazier, New Internationalist

Read more less

Book SynopsisWriting just after the French and American revolutions, Mary Wollstonecraft firmly established the demand for women’s emancipation in the context of the ever-widening urge for human rights and individual freedom that followed in the wake of these two great upheavals. She thereby opened the richest, most productive vein in feminist thought; and her success can be judged by the fact that her once radical polemic, through the efforts of the innumerable writers and activists she influenced, has become the accepted wisdom of the modern era. The present edition contains a substantial essay by a major scholar to celebrate the bicentenary of publication in 1792.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn this stimulating and still-timely study, Josef Pieper takes up a theme of paramount importance to his thinking – that festivals belong by rights among the great topics of philosophical discussion. As he develops his theory of festivity, the modern age comes under close and painful scrutiny. It is obvious that we no longer know what festivity is, namely, the celebration of existence under various symbolsPieper exposes the pseudo-festivals, in their harmless and their sinister forms: traditional feasts contaminated by commercialism; artificial holidays created in the interest of merchandisers; holidays by coercion, decreed by dictators the world over; festivals as military demonstrations; holidays empty of significance. And lastly we are given the apocalyptic vision of a nihilistic world which would seek its release not in festivities but in destruction.Formulated with Pieper's customary clarity and elegance, enhanced by brilliantly chosen quotations, this is an illuminating contribution to the understanding of traditional and contemporary experience.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIS THE WHITE WORKING CLASS RIGHT-WING? AND IS IT RIGHT-WING TO EVEN SPEAK OF A “WHITE WORKING CLASS”? In recent decades, as class consciousness has been suppressed and eroded, many white working-class men have turned their backs on the left in favour of the right and the far-right. Why is this? A Small Man’s England is a polemic aimed at the structures of hierarchy that ceaselessly maintain power across Britain and elsewhere, and a call for multicultural solidarity amongst the working class. In analysing the roles that class, race, masculinity and nationality play in neoliberal Britain, Sissons offers a solution to the indoctrination of white working-class English men by the right and the far-right, and explores how working-class people can collectively shape a “Common England” — a country based on equality and justice for all.Trade Review"The most thoughtful intervention on white working-class masculinity I've come across in a long time. The author advances a compelling vision of what we can be. I felt addressed throughout."“Tommy Sissons’ is a rare voice exploring white working-class masculinity in these turbulent times. He looks through the cracks opening and shouts ‘listen’, so please do.”"Tommy's writing is clear, his thinking is original, his passion is deeply felt. He's always moved me as a poet, and now as a writer of prose I find him carefully considered, strong in his morals and aware of the complexities within the subjects he discusses.""Part-essay, part-prose, A Small Man's England is a unique and passionate, must-read polemic on the state we're in, how we got here and where and who we could be, that is both captivating and essential reading."

Read more less

Book SynopsisEdited and with an introduction by Eugene Thacker, On the Suffering of the World comprises a core selection of Schopenhauer's later writings, gathered together for the first time in print. These texts, produced during the last decades of Schopenhauer's long life, reveal a unique kind of philosophy, expressed in a singular style. Eschewing the tradition of dry, totalizing, academic philosophy prevalent during the time, Schopenhauer's later writings mark a shift towards a philosophy of aphorisms, fragments, anecdotes and observations, written in a literary style that is by turns antagonistic, resigned, confessional, and filled with all the fragile contours of an intellectual memoir. Here Schopenhauer allows himself to pose challenging questions regarding the fate of the human species, the role of suffering in the world, and the rift between self and world that increasingly has come to define human existence, to this day. It is these writings of Schopenhauer that later generations of artists, poets, musicians, and philosophers would identify as exemplifying the pessimism of their era, and perhaps of our own as well. On the Suffering of the World is presented with an introduction that places Schopenhauer's thought in its intellectual context, while also connecting it to contemporary concerns over climate change, the anthropocene, and the spectre of human extinction. The book also includes a bibliography and chronology of Schopenhauer's life.Trade Review"Thacker’s introductory essay insightfully sketches the biographical and intellectual context of Schopenhauer’s distinctly zestful reflections on the vanity of life, the fear of death and humankind’s place in the universe.""Schopenhauer’s reputation as the bard of pessimism makes him the perfect philosopher for the Covid era, Thacker argues in his foreword to these aphoristic late essays."

Read more less

Book SynopsisAcross the world, there is a growing recognition that a new kind of economy is needed: more democratic, less exploitative, less destructive of society and the planet. Paint Your Town Red looks at how wealth can be generated and shared at a local level through the experience of one of the main advocates of the new Democratic Economy, Matthew Brown, the driving-force behind the world-recognized Preston Model. Using analysis, interviews and case studies to explain what Matthew and Preston City Council have done over the last decade in order to earn Preston the title of Most Improved City, the book shows how the model can be adapted to fit different local circumstances, as well as demonstrating how Preston itself adapted economic and democratic experiments in ‘community wealth-building’ from elsewhere in the US and Europe. Preston’s success shows that the ideas of community wealth-building work in practice and have the capacity to achieve a meaningful transfer of wealth and power back to local communities. A lot of recent coverage and references have tended to oversimplify the Preston Model, which is not just about ‘buying local’ but a comprehensive project, which envisions local and regional discussions and collaboration adding up to a wholesale transformation of our currently failing economic systems.Trade Review“At a time when the challenges our society faces can often seem too remote and complex to tackle, Paint Your Town Red provides activists and campaigners with a critical insight into how they can transform their local economies from the ground up.""A very useful tool to describe how cities and towns can assess their current socio-economic paradigms and formulate new social transformation models based on economic democracy. Preston is leading today what Mondragon was starting decades ago.""This book is everything we need right now — a how-to guide to municipal socialism that works, right now in the present day, compiled by one of the contemporary left's best writers and one of its best councillors. Informative, clear, passionate and thoughtful, it should be mandatory reading for all socialists.""Of all the political experiments tried in the UK over the past decade of painful austerity and polarisation, the city of Preston ranks easily among the most daring and intriguing. This is an honest story of how it began, and the lessons it can teach the rest of us."“Paint Your Town Red is a timely reminder that despite years of austerity and neoliberalism there are now genuine economic alternatives emerging in many towns, cities and regions across the UK."At a time of compounding economic, social and environmental challenges, Paint Your Town Red offers a powerful and detailed roadmap for how local public authorities, institutions and citizens can leave deprivation behind and rebuild their communities."“Preston’s Matthew Brown has co-authored Paint Your Town Red with writer and historian Rhian E Jones, explaining how the Preston model works and providing a toolkit for towns that want to reproduce its successes."“The ‘Preston model’, as it is called, could, if applied all over the country, be revolutionary."“This well-conceived pamphlet offers an alternative solution to localised decline: ‘community wealth-building’, which couples local regeneration with local empowerment by developing ‘small and socially conscious enterprises, including worker-owned businesses, community land trusts and community banks’.”

Read more less

Book SynopsisModernity has been defined by humanity’s capacity for self-destruction. In this timely and explosive book, philosopher and YouTuber Jonas Ceika (aka Cuck Philosophy) re-invigorates socialism for the 21st century. Leaving behind its past associations with bureaucracy and state tyranny, and it's lifeless and drab theoretical accounts, Ceika instead uses the works of Marx and Nietzsche to reconnect socialism with its human element, presenting it as something not only affecting, but created by living, breathing, suffering human individuals. At a time when ecological collapse is hurtling towards us, and capitalism offers no solution except more growth and exploitation, How to Philosophise with a Hammer and Sickle shows us the way forward to a socialism grounded in human experience and accessible to all.Trade Review"Čeika achieves the admirable task of showing that there is still more to Nietzsche than the political reactionary or the apolitical philosopher, and that Nietzsche’s work stands alongside that of Marx as a call to ‘the great liberation’ of humanity.”

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book provides a critical assessment of Benjamin’s writings on Franz Kafka and of Benjamin’s related writings. Eliciting from Benjamin’s writings a conception of philosophy that is political in its dissociation from – its becoming renegade in relation to, its philosophic shame about – established laws, norms, and forms, the book compares Benjamin’s writings with relevant works by Agamben, Heidegger, Levinas, and others. In relating Benjamin’s writings on Kafka to Benjamin’s writings on politics, the study delineates a philosophic impetus in literature and argues that this impetus has potential political consequences. Finally, the book is critical of Benjamin’s messianism insofar as it is oriented by the anticipated elimination of exceptions and distractions. Exceptions and distractions are, the book argues, precisely what literature, like other arts, brings to the fore. Hence the philosophic, and the political, importance of literature. Table of ContentsIntroduction.PART I. INHUMANLY WISE SHAME.1. Gesture of Philosophy.2. Historico-Philosophic Shame.3. Unmythic Wisdom.4. Foolishness of Philosophy.5. Prophecy of Shame.Part II. ANXIETY AND ATTENTIVENESS.6. Anxiety.7. Study.8. Distractedly Attentive.9. Anxious Friendliness as Physical Attentiveness.PART III POLITICS.10. Exception and Decision.11. In the Epic ‘Vorwelt’.12. Philosophy, Literature, Politics.- Bibliography.-Acknowledgements.Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis volume aims to commemorate, criticize, scrutinize and assess the undoubted significance of the Russian Revolution both retrospectively and prospectively in three parts. Part I consists of a palimpsest of the different representations that the Russian Revolution underwent through its turbulent history, going back to its actors, agents, theorists and propagandists to consider whether it is at all possible to revisit the Russian Revolution as an event. With this problematic as a backbone, the chapters of this section scrutinize the ambivalences of revolution in four distinctive phenomena (sexual morality, religion, law and forms of life) that pertain to the revolution’s historicity. Part II concentrates on how the revolution was retold in the aftermath of its accomplishment not only by its sympathizers but also its opponents. These chapters not only bring to light the ways in which the revolution triggered critical theorists to pave new paths of radical thinking that were conceived as methods to overcome the revolution’s failures and impasses, but also how the Revolution was subverted in order to inspire reactionary politics and legitimize conservative theoretical undertakings. Even commemorating the Russian Revolution, then, still poses a threat to every well-established political order. In Part III, this volume interprets how the Russian Revolution can spur a rethinking of the idea of revolution. Acknowledging the suffocating burden that the notion of revolution as such entails, the final chapters of this book ultimately address the content and form of future revolution(s). It is therein, in such critical political thought and such radical form of action, where the Russian Revolution’s legacy ought to be sought and can still be found. Table of Contents1. Chapter 1 Preface Reconsidering the Russian Revolution 2. Chapter 2 Karl Schlögel “Beyond the Horizon: The Russian Revolution Seen from Afar” 3. Chapter 3 Sylvia Sasse “Reenacting the Revolution? Theater and Politics of Repetition” 4. Chapter 4 Enikő Darabos “Revolution in Sexual Ethics: Communism and the ‘Sex Problem’” 5. Chapter 5 Christian Schmidt “Revolution and Salvation” 6. Chapter 6 Naveen Kanalu “Law, Absolute Will, and the ‘Withering of the State’: Sovereignty at the Limits of Lenin’s ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’” 7. Chapter 7 Dieter Thomä “What Is Life Like After Revolution? Administration, Habit, and Democracy in Lenin’s The State and Revolution – and Beyond” Retelling the Russian Revolution 8. Chapter 8 Ulrich Schmid “German and Jewish Conspiracies: The October Revolution from the perspective of the Italian Fascists and the German National Socialists” 9. Chapter 9 Tatjana Jukić “A Narrative Theory for the October Revolution (From Maugham to Benjamin and Back)” 10. Chapter 10 Marie-Josée Lavallée “October and the Prospects for Revolution. The Views of Arendt, Adorno, and Marcuse” 11. Chapter 11 Tora Lane “Memory politics and the ‘politics of memory’” 12. Chapter 12 Stephan Rindlisbacher “Into Historical Limbo: The Legacy of the October Revolution in Russia” Reenabling Revolution 13. Chapter 13 Geoffroy de Lagasnerie “The Concepts of Revolution” 14. Chapter 14 Christoph Menke “The Possibility of the Revolution” 15. Chapter 15 Donatella della Porta “Time Intensification in Revolutionary Dynamics” 16. Chapter 16 Thomas Telios “Postscript: Communist Subjectivity and the Politics of Collectiversalism”

Read more less

Book SynopsisWe face a crisis of public reason. Our quest for a politics that is free, moral and rational has, somehow, made it hard for us to move, to change our positions, to visit places and perspectives that are not our own, and to embrace reality. This book addresses this crisis with a model of public reason based in a new aesthetic reading of Hannah Arendt’s political theory. It begins by telling the story of Arendt’s engagement with the Augenblicke of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Heidegger, Kafka and Benjamin, in order to identify her own aesthetic Moment. Josefson then explicates this Moment, what he calls the freedom of the beautiful, as a third face of freedom on par with Arendt’s familiar freedoms of action and the life of the mind. He shows how this freedom, rooted in Jaspers’s phenomenology and a non-metaphysical reading of Kant, serves to redress the world-alienation that was a uniting theme across Arendt’s works. Ultimately, this volume aims to challenge orthodox accounts of Arendtian politics, presenting Arendt’s aesthetic politics as a radically new model of republicanism and as an alternative to political liberal, deliberative and agonistic models of public reason. Table of Contents1. Introduction.- 2. The Moment.- 3. The Beautiful.- 4. Judgment.- 5. Spirit.- 6. Res publica.- 7. Conversations.

Read more less

Book SynopsisMulticulturalism is often thought to be defined by its commitment to diversity, inclusivity, sensitivity, and tolerance, but these established values sometimes require contrary practices of homogenization, exclusion, insensitivity, and intolerance. Multiculturalism in Canada clarifies what multiculturalism is by relating it to more basic principles of equality, freedom, recognition, authenticity, and openness. Forbes places both official Canadian multiculturalism and Quebec's semi-official interculturalism in their historical and constitutional setting, examines their relations to liberal democratic core values, and outlines a variety of practical measures that would make Canada a more open country and a better illustration of what a commitment to egalitarian cultural pluralism now means. Consisting of a series of connected essays-including careful considerations of the works of Will Kymlicka and Charles Taylor-this book provides the first comprehensive account of multiculturalism in Canada. Table of ContentsIntroduction (Celebrating Diversity)Chapter 1 (Official Multiculturalism) Chapter 2 (Visionary Policies)Chapter 3 (Cultural Equality) Chapter 4 (Cultural Freedom) Chapter 5 (Cultural Recognition) Chapter 6 (Ethical Authenticity)Chapter 7 (Varieties of Openness)Chapter 8 (Culturally Open Governance)Chapter 9 (Going Forward: Future Imaginaries)

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book interrogates white responses to black-led movements for racial justice. It is a philosophical self-reflection on the ways in which ‘white’ reactions to Black Lives Matter stand in the way of the movement’s important work. It probes reactions which often prevent white people from according to black activists the full range of human emotion and expression, including joy, anger, mourning, and political action. Johanna C. Luttrell encourages different conceptions of empathy and impartiality specific to social movements for racial justice, and addresses objections to identity politics.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Getting my People 1.1 Whiteness and Self-Reflection 1.2 “We” White People: On the Possibility of Collective Identity 1.3 The Hate that we see Might be our Own: Distinguishing Black Anger from White Hate Chapter 2: Empathy and Racial Justice: Redefining Impartiality in Response to Social Movements 2.1 White Empathy and Black Lives Matter 2.2 Perspectives Against ‘Just Empathy’ 2.3 Managing Empathy Through Colorblindness 2.4 Empathy and Racial Justice: A Different Idea of Impartiality Chapter 3: How White People Refuse to Understand Black Mourning 3.1 White Responses to Black-led Political Mourning 3.2 Conservative Responses to Black Mourning: Militarization, Gas-lighting, Tone-policing 3.3 Liberal Responses to Black Mourning: Voyeurism and Appropriation 3.4 Recognizing Agency, Giving up the Idealized Victim 3.5 Mourning’s Potential: Undoing the Political Order in Antigone and the Book of Jeremiah Chapter 4: Respecting Black Lives Matter as Arendtian Political Action 4.1 How Political Action is Different from Scientific Inquiry 4.2 Political Action as Unprecedented 4.3 Political Action as Revelatory 4.4 Political Action as Knowledge-Creating 4.5 Arendt’s Failure to Respect Black-Led Social Movements as Political Action Chapter 5: Conclusion 5.1 Interrogating Allyship 5.2 Answering Objections to Identity Politics 5.3 White Feminism and Allyship 5.4 A Positive Prescription for Empathy?

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book explores the cultures of philosophy and the law as they interact with neuroscience and biology, through the perspective of American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes’ Jr., and the pragmatist tradition of John Dewey. Schulkin proposes that human problem solving and the law are tied to a naturalistic, realistic and an anthropological understanding of the human condition. The situated character of legal reasoning, given its complexity, like reasoning in neuroscience, can be notoriously fallible. Legal and scientific reasoning is to be understood within a broader context in order to emphasize both the continuity and the porous relationship between the two. Some facts of neuroscience fit easily into discussions of human experience and the law. However, it is important not to oversell neuroscience: a meeting of law and neuroscience is unlikely to prove persuasive in the courtroom any time soon. Nevertheless, as knowledge of neuroscience becomes more reliable and more easily accepted by both the larger legislative community and in the wider public, through which neuroscience filters into epistemic and judicial reliability, the two will ultimately find themselves in front of a judge. A pragmatist view of neuroscience will aid and underlie these events.Table of Contents1. Introduction.- 2. Holmes' Critical Experience in War.- 3. Experience, Inference and Surviving.- 4. Holmes, Pragmatism and Nature.- 5. Duty, Surviving, Social Contract.- 6. Emersonian Sensibilities.- 7. Bounded Choice, Human Freedom and Problem Solving.- 8. Naturalizing Decision-Making.- 9. Ethics, Body Politic, and Neuroscience.- 10. Neuroscientific Considerations and the Law.- 11. Conclusion.

Read more less

Book SynopsisCritically evaluating and synthesizing all the previous research on the phenomenology of Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, the book brings a new voice into contemporary philosophical discussions. It elucidates the development of Patočka’s phenomenology and offers a critical appropriation of his work by connecting it with non-phenomenological approaches.The first half of the book offers a succinct, and systematizing, overview of Patočka’s phenomenology throughout its development to help readers appreciate the motives behind and grounds for its transformations. The second half systematically explicates, critically examines and creatively develops Patočka’s concept of the movement of existence as the most promising part of his asubjective phenomenology.The book appeals to new readers of Patočka as well as his scholars, and to students and researchers of contemporary philosophy concerned with topics such as embodiment, personal identity, intersubjectivity, sociality, or historicity. By re-assessing Patočka’s philosophy of history and his civilizational analysis, it also helps to better articulate the question of the place of Europe in the post-European world.Table of ContentsChapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Seeking Evidence: With Husserl Beyond Husserl.- Chapter 3. The Hubris of Transcendental Idealism.- Chapter 4. The Life of Inwardness. Asubjectivity in Patočka’s War Manuscripts.- Chapter 5. The Protester: The Basically Negative Being in the World.- Chapter 6. The Call of Transcendence.- Chapter 7. At the Heart of Space.- Chapter 8. Being Turned (to) Appearing.- Chapter 9. The Movement of Existence.- Chapter 10. (Dis)Appropriating (the) Body.- Chapter 11. Performing the Soul through Movement.- Chapter 12. Passing Through the World (as) Crisis.- Chapter 13. Supercivilization.- Chapter 14. From Asubjectivity to Mediality.- Chapter 15. Omnia Vincit Amor.

Read more less

Book SynopsisCritical theory draws on Marxism, psychoanalysis, postmodern and poststructuralist theorists. Marxism and psychoanalysis are rooted in the Enlightenment project, while postmodernism and poststructuralism are more indebted to Nietzsche, whose philosophy is rooted in anti-Enlightenment ideas and ideals. Marxism and psychoanalysis contributed mightily to our understanding of fascism and authoritarianism, but were distorted and disfigured by authoritarian tendencies and practices in turn. This book, written for clinicians and social scientists, explores these overarching themes, focusing on the reception of Freud in America, the authoritarian personality and American politics, Lacan’s “return to Freud,” Jordan Peterson and the Crisis of the Liberal Arts, and the anti-psychiatry movement. Trade Review“Burston’s book is an outstanding work of scholarship in which he favourably reviews Wilhelm Reich and Erich Fromm’s contention that ‘sadomasochism and authoritarianism are not confined to the extreme Right … . Burston endorses the mode of rational authority needed by democratic entities, which is the one that promotes competence and mutual respect.” (Ann Casement, Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol. 66 (1), 2021)Table of ContentsChapter One: Critical Theory and the Problem of AuthorityChapter Two: Freud and America: The Golden Age, the Freud Wars and BeyondChapter Three: Jacques Lacan and Louis Althusser: Return to Freud? Chapter Four: Of Two Minds: Language and the Unconscious in Freud, Stern and McGilchrist Chapter Five: Trump, Authoritarianism & the End of American DemocracyChapter Six: Nietzsche, Postmodernism and the Hermeneutics of SuspicionChapter Seven: Jordan Peterson and the Postmodern UniversityChapter Eight: Anti-Psychiatry: The End of the Road?

Read more less

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

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe age of princes has passed, but the age of politicians is at its heights. So is Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince any less relevant? No. But it needs an update, to reflect the political realities of our times. That is the purpose of this groundbreaking manuscript—a guide to success in contemporary politics, where the democratically-elected politician has assumed the role of the classical prince. Here is revealed how a politician must act if she wants to be successful, how she must plot her every move, whether dealing with colleagues, constituents, family members, bureaucrats, lobbyists or the media. Indeed, this manuscript is unique, for it exposes at a level of detail never seen before the inner workings of the mind of the contemporary politician. And while it may prove an asset to aspiring politicians, its frank and honest nature will no doubt strike fear in the hearts of incumbent politicians as it sheds light on their motives, intentions, and aspirations.Table of ContentsProlegomenaThe Lay of the LandI. From the prince to the politicianII. The role of the politician in the liberal democratic stateIII. What draws the citizen to the world of politicsIV. Why all politics is localV. The politician: crusader and opportunistGetting ElectedVI. How the aspiring political may gain electionHolding OfficeVII. How the politician should deal with his political superiorsVIII. How the politician should deal with her political peersIX. How the politician should deal with his political inferiorsX. How the politician should behave in curiaXI. How the politician should behave in cameraXII. Concerning particular dangers for the politician as office holderXIII. Concerning the politician and his constituents XIV. Concerning the politician and her personal staffXV. Concerning the politician and the bureaucracyXVI. Concerning the politician and her financial backersXVII. Concerning the politician and those who may command blocs of votersXVIII. Concerning the politician, policy makers, consultants and lobbyistsXIX. Concerning the politician and the mediaXX. Concerning the politician and her familyXXI. Concerning political discourseGetting Re-ElectedXXII. How the politician should behave between electionsXXIII. How the politician should behave during re-election campaignsXXIV. Concerning the risks attendant on political ascensions Ends and MeansXXV. The politician's better angelXXVI. ConclusionPostscriptsConcerning Donald TrumpGlossary of Proper NamesAcknowledgementsIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book contributes to both the internal debate in liberalism and the application of political liberalism to the process of democratization in East Asia. Beyond John Rawls’ original intention to limit the scope of political liberalism to only existing and well-ordered liberal democracies, political liberalism has the potential to inspire and contribute to democratic establishment and maintenance in East Asia. Specifically, the book has two main objectives. First, it will demonstrate that political liberalism offers the most promising vision for liberal democracy, and it can be defended against contemporary perfectionist objections. Second, it will show that perfectionist approaches to political Confucianism suffer from practical and theoretical difficulties. Instead, an alternative model of democracy inspired by political liberalism will be explored in order to achieve a multivariate structure for citizens to come to terms with democracy in their own ways, to support a neutral state that ensures the establishment and stability of democracy, and to maintain an active public role for Confucianism to prevent it from being banished to the private sphere. This model represents a more promising future for democracy in East Asia.Table of ContentsIntroduction.- Chapter 1: Political Liberalism and the Paradigm Shift of Political Philosophy.- Chapter 2: The Public Conception of Morality in Political Liberalism.- Chapter 3: Against the Asymmetry Objection.- Chapter 4: The Idea of Hyperpluralism and Pluralism in East Asia.- Chapter 5: Confucianism and Comprehensive Confucian Perfectionism.- Chapter 6: The Discontents of Moderate Political Confucianism.- Chapter 7: Politica; Confucianism and Multivariate Democracy in East Asia.- Chapter 8: Towards a Pluralistic Approach to Antiperfectonism.- Chapter 9: Respect, Recognition, and Toleration: A Concentric Theory of Global Justice.- Conclusion.- Bibliograpy.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book offers a sustained and vigorous defence of free expression and objective enquiry situated in the context of the current culture wars. In the spirit of J. S. Mill, Benn investigates objections to the ideal of free expression in relation to harm and offence, reaching broadly liberal conclusions with reference to recent examples of attempts to curb free speech on university campuses. Accepting that some expressions can cause non-physical harm, Benn also considers objections to free speech based on certain understandings of power and privilege. In its exploration and rejection of arguments against the possibility of obtaining objective truth, the book navigates hotly contested fields of contemporary debate, including feminism and identity politics. It challenges the dogma of social constructionism and examines current notions of identity, arguing that a case for fairness can be made without appealing to them. Offering a qualified endorsement of friendship between ideological opponents, Benn highlights common obstacles to civil and rational discussions, concluding with a rational, moral, and broadly spiritual solution to the cultural combat that monopolises present-day society. Table of Contents1 Freedom of Enquiry 2 Taking Offence 3 Subjective Authority and Unwelcome Facts 4 Power, Privilege, and Identity 5 ‘Friending’ the Enemy 6 The Sleep of Reason

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book brings together leading academics and activists to address the possibilities for qualitative social change beyond neoliberalism, providing introductory essays on alternative societies, transition, and resistance. Bringing together discussions on universal basic income, actually existing communism, parecon, circular economies, workers co-operatives, ‘fully automated luxury communism,' trade unionism, and party politics, the volume provides one of the first scholarly interventions to systematically evaluate possibilities for transition and resistance across theoretical, political, and disciplinary traditions.Table of ContentsForewordIntroduction: Transition, Transformation, Resistance: Theorising the Future by co-editor Neal HarrisPart 1: The Future Beckons: Alternative VisionsChapter One: ‘Alternative Economies’, Luke MartellChapter Two: ‘Worker Ownership, Self-Management, and the Promise of a Co-operative Economy’, Robin JervisChapter Three: ‘Fully Automated Luxury... What?’ Neal HarrisPart 2: The Journey: Theorising Transition and ResistanceChapter Four: Understanding Intercultural Experience: Super-Diversity, Social Learning and Cultural Trends Toward Transition, Estevao BoscoChapter Five: Regaining the Future: The Temporal Complexity of Transitional Politics, Onur AcarogluChapter Six: Socialist transition through a Sacred Entanglement with the Earth: Transforming States of Exception into Revolutionary Fervour, Arnab ChakrabortyPart 3: Classes, Collectives, Groupings: Transition and SubjectivityChapter Seven: ‘The masses will rise again’: Rosa Luxemburg, the concept of the masses and the question of non-revolutionary working class, Dana MillsChapter Eight: Glimpsing the future in neoliberal subjectivities:‘Self-optimisation’ as a resource for transition, Will LeggettChapter Nine: Acephalic Resistance: Evaluating the Contemporaneity of ‘New’ Social Movements through the case of ‘the Yellow Vests’, Denis Chevalier-BousseauPart 4: Transition through the InstitutionsChapter Ten: Neoliberalism’s Material and Ideological Profit from Incarceration: A Call for Abolition, Anna WimbledonChapter Eleven: Desire beyond Market Forces: Queerness in India after the removal of Article 377, Anup Sharma Chapter Twelve: Films as Cognitive Machines: A Discussion through the Apparatus Theory, Ufuk GürbüzdalChapter Thirteen: Hippocrates Pronounced Dead: Breaking Down Neoliberal Complacency in Healthcare, Ozan Siso Conclusion by co-editor Onur Acaroglu

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book provides insights on regulatory effectiveness in the field of food safety, by focusing on the variety of institutional factors affecting regulatory outcomes. Drawing upon the Institutional Analysis and Development framework, it investigates differences in effectiveness of food safety regulation and explains them by differences in domestic governance designs, by applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The empirical focus of the book is the food safety governance designs of 15 EU Member States, which are investigated through the collection of an original dataset inclusive of measures of independence and accountability of the domestic food safety agencies, of policy capacity and of food safety delivered. The results show the prominent role of the institutional dimension of policy capacity in producing regulatory effectiveness, in conjunction with an integrated model of distribution of the regulatory tasks. As to ineffective governance, the conjunction of low independence or low accountability with low institutional capacity produce ineffective responses. Table of Contents

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis collection engages the work of Michael Oakeshott predominantly on the themes of his skepticism, politics, and aesthetics. An international set of authors engages and expands the analysis of Oakeshott’s writings in often neglected areas and topics and in ways that brings Oakeshott into conversation with a surprisingly diverse set of thinkers.Table of Contents1. Introduction. 2. Under the Law of Ruin: Practice, Aesthetics, and the Civil Association.3. Michael Oakeshott Philosopher of Skepticism: Conservative or Liberal?.4. Out of Rationalist Politics’ Crises: Popper and Oakeshott.5. A Conservative Landscape: From A Guide to the Classics to the “Claims of Politics”.6. The Art of the Scholar: Oakeshott’s Conservative Account of Liberal Learning.7. The Understanding of Rationalism in C.S. Lewis and Michael Oakeshott: Tradition, Experience, and the Reading of Old Books.8. Oakeshott, Strauss and the Romans.9. Authority: Fragments of the Good Regime.10. ‘That spirit of quiet’: Oakeshott, Keats and Sontag Towards a Philosophy of Silence.11. Oakeshott’s Theory of Poetry: A Corrective from Seamus Heaney.12. The Problem of a Pure Theory of Poetry.13. What can Contemporary Realists Learn from Montaigne? On the Significance of the Author of the Essais for Michael Oakeshott and Raymond Geuss

Read more less

Book SynopsisPhilosophy of Race: An Introduction provides plainly written access to a new subfield that has been in the background of philosophy since Plato and Aristotle. The second edition is updated to include contemporary developments such as digital racisms, metaphysical othering and metaphysical racism, and the rise of populist movements. Its focus has also been expanded to address non-white racial groups in the Americas, Europe, and beyond, such as the Roma and Uighur people. Part I provides an overview of ideas of race and ethnicity in the philosophical canon, egalitarian traditions, race in biology, and race in American and Continental Philosophy. Part II addresses race as it operates in life through colonialism and development, social constructions and institutions, racism, political philosophy, gender, and populist movements. This book constructs an outline that will serve as a resource for students, nonspecialists, and general readers in thinking, talking, and writing about philosophy of race. Table of ContentsPart I Ideas and Realities of Human Race.1 Ideas of Race in the Canonical History of Philosophy.2 Egalitarian Spiritual and Legal Traditions.3 Race According to Biological Science.4 Ideas of Race in Twentieth-Century American and Continental Philosophy.5 Ethnicity and Related Forms of Race.6 Social Construction and Racial Identities.Part II Relations, Practices, and Theories of Race in Society.7 Racism and Neo-racisms.8 Metaphysical Racism, Crimes against Humanity, and Reparations.9 Race in Contemporary Life.10 Political Philosophy, Law, and Public Policy.11 Feminism, Gender, and Race.12 Political Racism and Populist Movements.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book provides a unique introduction for business leaders to the philosophical lexicon of classical and contemporary ideas—for and against—that are relevant to business and those destined to lead it. Rather than presenting the reader with a ‘philosophy of leadership’ the author uses his experiences in academia and as a leader in business to illustrate the practical application of philosophical ideas and methodologies covering the art and science of being a business leader: motivating stakeholders to deliver the initial phase of a business plan for a new product or service; processing information (and risky ‘hidden-information’) that brings the company vision into reality; and ethically managing relationships to enhance the quality of decision-making and its outcomes. Creative aspiration, knowledge and ethical character are the three pillars of leadership. Within that construct, this book challenges leaders to seek their own path to self-development inspired by ideas that shape the ecology of capitalism and the opportunities it provides stakeholders to endow meaning and dignity to their lives through their participation in business. Table of Contentsintroduction.- Part 1: Some philosophical foundations.- Part 2: Managing creativity…birthing the dream.- Part 3: Interpreting information to deliver the dream.- Part 4: Ethics and business…uniting the dream makers. Conclusion.- References.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book reconstructs the lines of nihilism that Walter Benjamin took from Friedrich Nietzsche that define both his theory of art and the avant-garde, and his approach to political action. It retraces the eccentric route of Benjamin's philosophical discourse in the representation of the modern as a place of “permanent catastrophe”, where he attempts to overcome the Nietzschean nihilism through messianic hope. Using conventions from literary criticism this book explores the many sources of Benjamin's thought, demonstrating that behind the materialism which Benjamin incorporates into his Theses on the Concept of History is hidden Nietzsche's nihilism. Mauro Ponzi analyses how Benjamin’s Arcades Project uses figures such as Baudelaire, Marx, Aragon, Proust and Blanqui as allegories to explain many aspects of modernity. The author argues that Benjamin uses Baudelaire as a paradigm to emphasize the dark side of the modern era, offering us a key to the interpretation of communicative and cultural trends of today. Table of ContentsIntroduction.- Chapter 1: Capitalism as Religion.- Chapter 2: Organizing Pessimism.- Chapter 3: Nietzsche: Work’s editions and interpretations.- Chapter 4: The Cry of Marsyas. History as place of permanent catastrophe.- Chapter 5: Hidden Refusal.- Chapter 6: The Dream Space.- Chapter 7: Baudelaire.- Chapter 8: The Order of the Profane.- Select Bibliography.- Index.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe book is an accurate and accessible introduction to the complex and dynamic field of transitional and post-conflict justice, providing an overview of its recurring concepts and debated issues. Particular attention is reserved to how these concepts and issues have been addressed, both theoretically and literally, by lawyers, policy-makers, international bodies, and other actors informing the practice. By presenting significant, if undeniably disputable, alternatives to mainstream theories and past methods of addressing past injustice and (re)building a democratic state, the work aims to illustrate some foundational themes of transitional justice that have emerged from a diverse set of discussions. The author’s position thus arrives from a careful analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of answers to the question: how, after a traumatic social experience, is justice restored?Table of Contents1. Introduction: Building Justice in the Wake of Atrocities2. A Fight for Inclusion: The Transforming Role of Victims in Transitional Justice Processes 3. Truth: Chasing an Illusion? 4. Reconciliation: A Journey "From Madness to Hope" 5. Amnesties: Juggling Tensions within the Transitional Justice Discourse6. The Origins of International Criminal Accountability: The Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals 7. International Criminal Justice Revisited: The Ad-Hoc Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda 8. The Hybrid Experiment: Assessing the Special Court for Sierra Leone 9. Healing a Wounded Nation: The Reconciliatory Paradigm of Truth Commissions10. Adapting the Perspective: The Role of Bottom-Up Initiatives 11. "No Hay Paz Sin Trabajo": Incorporating Indigenous Perspectives in the Struggle for a More Meaningful Justicechapter 12. Conclusions: Justice beyond Rhetoric

Read more less

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

Read more less

Book SynopsisExplores the relationship between Hannah Arendt's thought and theology. This volume is a manifold approach to a less evident and much-neglected undercurrent in the work of Hannah Arendt, namely her ambiguous relation to the Judeo-Christian religious heritage. It contains discussions about strictly theological motives-like salvation or original sin-but it also explores topics such as forgiveness, love, natality, and the world within the religious aura.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Editorial Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Faith in the World or: The Philosophical Contraband of a Hidden Spiritual Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 An Introduction by Rafael Zawisza and Ludger Hagedorn Part I: Two Faces of Earthly Love Traces and Transitions to Hannah Arendt's Unwritten Book on Love . . 37 Sigrid Weigel Amor Mundi: The Marrano Background of Hannah Arendt's Love for the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Agata Bielik-Robson Part II: Encounters With Theology Between Adamite Dreams and Original Sin: Hannah Arendt's Cryptic Heterodoxy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Rafael Zawisza Hannah Arendt's Debt to Rudolf Bultmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Jim Josefson Part III: Final Destination Secularity Hannah Arendt and Michael Walzer on the Exodus: Politics in the Hebrew Bible? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Martine Leibovici The Promise Inherent in Natality: Performance and Invocation . . . . . . . 151 Christina Schues Part IV: Politics Without the Absolute Actions That Deserve to Be Remembered: Transcendence and Immortality in a Secular World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Roger Berkowitz Absolute Goodness, the Banality of Evil, and the Wickedness Beyond Vice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Milan Hanys A Jurisprudence of Neglect: Arendt, Ambedkar, and the Logic of Political Cruelty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Aishwary Kumar Epilogue: Abraham's Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Vivian Liska Biographical Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisSpanning his entire career, this selection of texts by influential philosopher Jan Patočka illustrates his thoughts on the appropriate manner of being and engagement in the world. The writings assembled in Living in Problematicity examine the role of the philosopher in the world, how the world constrains us through ideology, and how freedom is possible through the recognition of our human condition in the problems of the world. These views outline Patočka’s political philosophy and how his later engagement in the political sphere with the human rights initiative Charter 77 corresponds with the ideas he maintained throughout his life. This short and engaging book—published in conjunction with the prestigious philosophy press OIKOYMENH—is an ideal English-language introduction to the most significant Czech philosopher in recent history. Trade Review"Living in Problematicity shows how [Patočka] analyzed historical events philosophically, from the interwar crisis of democracy to the normalization that followed the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968." * Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsEditor’s Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Platonismand Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Some Comments Concerning the Extramundane and Mundane Position of Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Reflection onDefeat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Life in Balance, Life in Amplitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Ideology and Life in the Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 The Spiritual Person and the Intellectual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 The Political Philosophy of a Non-Political Philosopher by Eric Manton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Recommended Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Bibliographical Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Read more less