Western philosophy from c 1800 Books

Book SynopsisA dazzling investigation into psychology, art and religion; the demise of capitalism; and the beginning of a new era from the author of IDEAS.Trade ReviewI would not wish to have missed The Age of Nothing by Peter Watson, a brisk 565 pages on the displacement of God from Western Culture. -- TOM STOPPARD * TLS - BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014 *his erudition is formidable -- THEODORE DALRYMPLE * THE TIMES *In a vividly engaging conspectus of the formative ideas of the past century, The Age of Nothing shows how Nietzsche's diagnosis evoked responses in may areas of cultural life, including some surprising parts of the political spectrum. -- John Gray * NEW STATESMAN *I recommend this book to anyone who needs to know what the loss of religious faith has meant to the high culture of our civilsation and what, if anything, we might do about it.... (it) covers a whole century of intellectual endeavour as lightly as it can. -- ROGER SCRUTON * THE INDEPENDENT *The beauty of this book is Watson's ability to impose order on a riot of ideas. * PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY *This book will appeal to anyone with intellectual curiosity about the human condition and the development of ideas. It will especially appeal to the non-religious reader. This isn't a book about, or even particularly in defence of atheism as a worldview, but it sets out objectively a history of non-religious thought that covers everything from science to poetry, incorporating philosophy, the rise of new age 'spiritualism' and therapy. -- GREG JAMESON * ENTERTAINMENT FOCUS *There is much in this book that I did not know, and I am grateful to have learnt it. -- Theodore Dalrymple * THE TIMES *his erudition is formidable -- Theodore Dalymple * THE TIMES *The beauty of this book is Watson's ability to impose order on a riot of ideas. * Publisher's Weekly *This book will appeal to anyone with intellectual curiosity about the human condition and the development of ideas. It will especially appeal to the non-religious reader. This isn't a book about, or even particularly in defence of atheism as a worldview, but it sets out objectively a history of non-religious thought that covers everything from science to poetry, incorporating philosophy, the rise of new age 'spiritualism' and therapy. -- Greg Jameson * Entertainment Focus *I recommend this book to anyone who needs to know what the loss of religious faith has meant to the high culture of our civilsation and what, if anything, we might do about it.... (it) covers a whole century of intellectual endeavour as lightly as it can. -- Roger Scruton * THE INDEPENDENT *In a vividly engaging conspectus of the formative ideas of the past century, The Age of Nothing shows how Nietzsche's diagnosis evoked responses in may areas of cultural life, including some surprising parts of the political spectrum. -- John Gray * NEW STATESMAN *

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Book SynopsisThe story of Heidegger’s life and philosophy, a quintessentially German story in which good and evil, brilliance and blindness are inextricably entwined and the passions and disasters of a whole century come into play, is told in this brilliant biography.Trade ReviewRüdiger Safranski’s evenhanded study, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, is equally successful at illustrating its subject’s pettiness and at displaying the vast power of his imagination. It is the first comprehensive biography of the man, and supersedes both Victor Farías’s Heidegger and Nazism and Hugo Ott’s Martin Heidegger: A Political Life. It reports many facts that these books did not, and it offers a detailed account of Heidegger’s intellectual development—relating his twists and turns, with great skill and remarkable concision, to German intellectual and political life in the first half of this century. -- Richard Rorty * New York Times Book Review *Rüdiger Safranski has written a remarkably detailed, full-scale biography. Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil is a labor of philosophic devotion, entering…deeply and appreciatively into the thought and sensibility of Heidegger. -- Thelma Z. Lavine * Washington Post Book World *Neither apologist nor accuser, Safranski treads a delicate winding path through the Black Forest of the modern Germanic mind. The result is impressively judicious, offering us a privileged glance into that nation’s intellectual unconscious… Safranski’s biography is brisk, lucid and illuminating. The manner in which he weaves Heidegger’s thinking into the intrigues of his life makes for fascinating reading… His book also gives an excellent account of Heidegger’s ‘existential’ ideas, highlighting the inimitable charisma surrounding both his writing and person. This is a towering biography of a giant intellectual. -- Richard Kearney * The Independent [UK] *A superb work of synthesis, the book places Heidegger’s thought and life in the volatile context of 20th-century German and European politics and philosophy… Although Safranski sees Heidegger as a towering figure in 20th-century philosophy, this is a ‘warts and all’ biography. The author leaves no doubt about Heidegger’s self-centeredness, his intellectual arrogance, and his convenient lapses of memory about his role in the Nazi years. But the book’s primary merit is a superb explication of Heidegger’s thought, its antecedents, and its place in the context of his political and philosophical times. For an English-speaking audience, Safranski’s treatment is easily the best introduction to Heidegger’s complex philosophy… This [is] an important book, highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of 20th-century Continental philosophy and Martin Heidegger’s place in it. -- Dietrich Orlow * Boston Sunday Globe *[A] thoughtful, sensitive and sympathetic biography. -- Ray Monk * Times Literary Supplement *This biography of Martin Heidegger is an impressive achievement, and English-speaking readers are fortunate that it is now available to them… Martin Heidegger is the first comprehensive biography of one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. It offers a detailed view of Heidegger’s intellectual development provided by no previous book, and it gives new information on his involvement with the Nazis. Given the importance of Heidegger’s thought for many celebrated left-wing thinkers, including Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, Safranski’s careful consideration of the relation between Heidegger’s right-wing politics and his thought can help readers struggle with the much-debated question of whether the contemporary leftists of the postmodern movement are really cultural reactionaries in disguise… Safranski’s biography is both the most authoritative and the most approachable of the recent Heidegger books. -- Carl L. Bankston III * Magill’s Literary Annual *Table of ContentsPreface: A Master from Germany Chronology Abbreviations Translator's Note Childhood and School Idealism and Materialism: German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century Career Planning and Career Problems The Outbreak of World War I: Habilitation, War Service, Marriage The Triumph of Phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger, Father and Son Revolution in Germany and the Question of Being Parting with Catholicism and Studying the Laws of Free Fall while Falling Marburg University and Hannah Arendt, the Great Passion Being and Time: What Being? What Meaning? The Mood of the Time: Waiting for the Great Day A Secret Principal Work: The Metaphysics Lectures of 1929-30 Balance Sheets at the End of the Republic The National Socialist Revolution and Collective Breakout from the Cave Is Heidegger Anti-Semitic? Heidegger's Struggle for the Purity of the Movement Departure from the Political Scene The Age of Ideology and Total Mobilization: Heidegger Beats a Retreat The Philosophical Diary and Philosophical Rosary Heidegger under Surveillance Heidegger Faces the Denazification Committee: Barred from University Teaching What Do We Do When We Think? Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and Karl Jaspers after the War Heidegger's Other Public Adorno and Heidegger: From the Jargon of Authenticity to the Authentic Jargon of the 1960s Sunset of Life Notes Works Cited Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisBertrand Russell remains one of the greatest philosophers and most complex and controversial figures of the twentieth century. Here, in this frank, humorous and decidedly charming autobiography, Russell offers readers the story of his life introducing the people, events and influences that shaped the man he was to become. Originally published in three volumes in the late 1960s, Autobiography by Bertrand Russell is a revealing recollection of a truly extraordinary life written with the vivid freshness and clarity that has made Bertrand Russell's writings so distinctively his own.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1872-1914 Prologue: What I have Lived for 1. Childhood 2. Adolescence 3. Cambridge 4. Engagement 5. First Marriage 6. ‘Principia Mathematica’ 7. Cambridge again 1914-1944 8. The First World War 9. Russia 10. China 11. Second Marriage 12. Later Years of Telegraph House 13. In America 1944-1967 Preface 14. Return to England 15. At Home and Abroad 16. Trafalgar Square 17. The Foundation Postscript Index

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Book SynopsisAlbert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre first met in 1943, during the German occupation of France. Intellectual as well as political allies, they grew famous overnight after Paris was liberated.Trade Review"With meticulous even-handedness, this internationally renowned Sartre expert has produced a remarkably non-partisan account which also reminds us that it is possible to combine the highest level of scholarship with a lively and readable style of writing.... An important contribution to twentieth-century intellectual and cultural history." - David Drake, Times Literary Supplement; "Aronson's literary acuity combined with an entertaining use of anecdotes on social and personal jealousies Sartre and Camus harbored make the book a useful biographical background to the major works of these authors and a most enjoyable tale of the turmoil of intellectual life in postwar France." - Publishers Weekly; "A masterful synthesis of intellectual history, political context, and biographical narrative.... A book that will reward both those unfamiliar with either thinker and the expert It will doubtless be the standard account of the Sartre-Camus debate for a long time to come." - Scott McLemee, Bookforum"

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Book SynopsisIn this book, Susan Wolf charts a course between incompatibilism, or the notion that freedom and responsibility require casual and metaphysical independence from the impersonal forces of nature, and compatibilism, or the notion that people are free and responsible as long as their actions are governed by their desires. Wolf argues that some of the forces which are beyond our control are friends to freedom rather than enemies of it, enabling us to see the world for what it is. The freedom we want is not independence from the world, but independence from the forces that prevent us from choosing how to live in the light of a sufficient appreciation of the world.Trade ReviewFor over a decade, Susan Wolf has been developing an unusual and challenging view about human freedom and responsibility in a series of widely read articles. We are now fortunate to have a more complete presentation of it, in Freedom within Reason. * Times Literary Supplement *clearly written ... structured in a way which should make it readily accessible to undergraduates * Philosophical Quarterly *

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Book Synopsis''Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?''Philosophy is the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we might deal with them in ordinary life, but critically, after analysing how and why the questions arise and clarifying the assumptions and concepts on which they are based.This classic work, first published in 1912, has never been supplanted as an approachable introduction to the theory of philosophical enquiry. It gives Russell''s views on such subjects as the distinction between appearance and reality, the existence and nature of matter, idealism, knowledge by acquaintance and by description, induction, and the limits and value of philosophical knowledge.This edition includes an introduction by John Skorupski contextualizing Russell''s work, and a guide to further reading.Table of ContentsIntroduction ; Preface ; 1. Appearance and Reality ; 2. The Existence of Matter ; 3. The Nature of Matter ; 4. Idealism ; 5. Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description ; 6. On Induction ; 7. On Our Knowledge of General Principles ; 8. How A Priori Knowledge is Possible ; 9. The World of Universals ; 10. On Our Knowledge of Universals ; 11. On Intuitive Knowledge ; 12. Truth and Falsehood ; 13. Knowledge, Error, and Probable Opinion ; 14. The Limits of Philosophical Knowledge ; 15. The Value of Philosophy ; Bibliographical Note ; Appendix: Foreword to the German Edition ; Guide to Further Reading

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Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER''Honest, funny and dripping with witty aphorisms. Extremely entertaining and enlightening [...] all the way to journey''s end'' Herald One of our greatest voices in modern philosophy, author of The Course of Love, The Consolations of Philosophy, Religion for Atheists and The School of Life, presents a travel guide with a difference - an exploration of why we travel, and what we learn along the way...Few activities seem to promise as much happiness as going travelling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel to, we seldom ask why we go and how we might become more fulfilled by doing so.With the help of a selection of writers, artists and thinkers - including Flaubert, Edward Hopper, Wordsworth and Van Gogh - Alain de Botton provides invaluable insights into everything from holiday romance to hotel minibars, airports to sightseeing. The perfect antidote to those guides that tell us what to do when we get there, The Art of Travel tries to explain why we really went in the first place - and helpfully suggest how we might be happier on our journeys.''Delightful, profound, entertaining. I doubt if de Botton has written a dull sentence in his life'' Jan Morris''An elegant and subtle work, unlike any other. Beguiling'' Colin Thubron, The TimesTrade ReviewRichly evocative, sharp and funny. De Botton proves himself to be a very fine travel writer indeed * Sunday Telegraph *Delightful, profound, entertaining. I doubt if de Botton has written a dull sentence in his life * Jan Morris *An elegant and subtle work, unlike any other. Beguiling -- Colin Thubron * The Times *Honest, funny and dripping with witty aphorisms. Extremely entertaining and enlightening . . . all the way to journey's end * Herald *

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Book SynopsisThe first four essays in this guide are devoted to the study of Wittgenstein's own ideas about philosophy. The remaining six apply his ideas to the work of other thinkers.

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Book SynopsisThis text reconstructs Lakatos's original counter-arguments from lectures and correspondence previously unpublished in English, allowing us to enjoy the "fun" two of the 20th century's most eminent philosophers had, matching their wits and ideas on the subject of the scientific method.

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This revised second edition of our bestselling Key Guide includes brand new entries on some of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth and twenty first century.

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Book SynopsisPart of a trilogy on civilization and its discontents, on humanity's long struggle to master its instincts and the perils that attend that denial of human nature, this book contains eleven essays that covers 1990 and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.Table of ContentsPreface I. Apocalypse: The Place of Mystery in the Life of the Mind 2. Daphne, or Metamorphosis 3· My Georgics: A Palinode in Praise of Work 4· Metamorphoses II: Actaeon 5· The Prophetic Tradition 6. The Apocalypse of Islam 7· Philosophy and Prophecy: Spinoza's Hermeneutics 8. The Turn to Spinoza 9· Metamorphoses III: The Divine Narcissus IO. Revisioning Historical Identities II. Dionysus in I990

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Book SynopsisVideogames are a unique artistic form, and to analyse and understand them an equally unique language is required. Cremin turns to Deleuze and Guattari's non-representational philosophy to develop a conceptual toolkit for thinking anew about videogames and our relationship to them. Rather than approach videogames through a language suited to other media forms, Cremin invites us to think in terms of a videogame plane and the compositions of developers and players who bring them to life. According to Cremin, we are not simply playing videogames, we are creating them. We exceed our own bodily limitations by assembling forces with the elements they are made up of. The book develops a critical methodology that can explain what every videogame, irrespective of genre or technology, has in common and proceeds on this basis to analyse their differences. Drawing from a wide range of examples spanning the history of the medium, Cremin discerns the qualities inherent to those regarded as classicTrade ReviewThis book makes the bold prophecy that the 21st century will be the century of videogames. It then offers a dynamic toolkit of concepts drawn from the work of Deleuze and Guattari to think in new ways about videogames. Importantly, Cremin debunks the idea that videogames are virtual, meaning confined to the depths of their digital origins. Instead he shows us that they consist of actual processes of becoming that reach out from the console into every corner of life. This is an exciting and necessary book. - Ian Buchanan, University of Wollongong, AustraliaTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Videogame Plane 2. The Smooth and Striated 3. Rhizome-Play 4. Ludo-Diagram 5. Artist and Apprentice 6. Molecular Mario 7. Major / Minor

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Book SynopsisIn this work, the Catholic philosopher Etienne Gilson deals with one of the most important and perplexing metaphysical problems: the relation between our notion of God and demonstrations of his existence.Trade Review"[I] commend to another generation of seekers and students this deeply earnest and yet wistfully gentle little essay on the most important (and often, at least nowadays, the most neglected) of all metaphysical—and existential—questions. . . . The historical sweep is breathtaking, the one-liners arresting, and the style, both intellectual and literary, altogether engaging."—Jaroslav Pelikan, from the foreword

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Book SynopsisDaniel C. Dennett''s Freedom Evolves tackles the most important question of human existence - is there really such a thing as free will? How can humans make genuinely independent choices if we are just a cluster of cells and genes in a world determined by scientific laws? Here, Daniel Dennett provides an impassioned defense of free will. But rather than freedom being an eternal, unchanging condition of our existence, in reality, he reveals, it has evolved: just like life on the planet and the air we breathe. Evolution is the key to resolving this greatest of philosophical questions - and to understanding our place in the world as uniquely free agents. Dennett shows that far from there being an incompatibility between contemporary science and the traditional vision of freedom and morality, it is only recently that science has advanced to the point where we can see how we came to have our unique kind of freedom. ''A serious book with a

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Book SynopsisStarts with the premise that our lives are saturated with stories, ranging from magazines, books, films, television, and blogs to the words spoken by politicians, pastors, and teachers. This title explores the ethical implication of this nearly universal human obsession with narratives.Trade Review"Shaped by Stories is a well-written, interesting, and humane book on the value of narratives in ethics and in our lives. The volume enters into conversation with a growing, and popular, body of literature, which considers the role of stories, narrative, and literature for ethics and for moral education more generally. Marshall Gregory combines well-grounded observations about literature and about human life, including his own life, in this illuminating interdisciplinary contribution to the ethics of literature." —Pamela Hall, Emory University"From a lifetime of reflecting on the ethics of fiction, Marshall Gregory has given us an elegant analysis of the power of stories to instruct and delight. No one interested in storytelling will want to be without this incisive guide to both the myriad ways that stories shape our lives and the strategies writers use to affect our responses to their fictions. Both the theoretical and practical halves of Shaped by Stories have a clarity and eloquence that yield their own instruction and delight." —Robert D. Denham, Fishwick Professor of English, Roanoke College"Shaped by Stories weaves its own compelling story about the pervasive ethical effects of reading narrative, with Marshall Gregory serving as a highly engaging and ethically admirable narrator—a very model of good company." —James Phelan, Distinguished University Professor of English, Ohio State University"Marshall Gregory's Shaped by Stories brings ethical criticism to the level of felt experience. Witty and passionate, full of personal reflections and sharp examples, this book will help anyone who has been drawn to the mysterious power of stories to think more carefully about the connections between narrative art and human ethos. Gregory reminds us that the urgency of our need for stories is tied permanently to the requirements of being human, the need to exercise judgment, belief, and empathy in the process of becoming who we are." —Annette Federico, James Madison University“Gregory's overarching thesis is ‘that stories are an important component of the ethical development that all human beings undergo because stories are an important component of every human being's education about the world.’ . . . [an] elegantly written, amiable, argot-free study. Gregory fills the book with relevant personal examples and draws on a lifetime of engagement with narratives and thoughtful, down-to-earth considerations of their impact. A generous works cited makes it an exceptionally useful resource. . . . This is a book every serious reader should investigate and all libraries should own. Essential.” —Choice“Marshall Gregory’s Shaped by Stories: The Ethical power of Narratives, informal and anecdotal rather than scholarly, makes the familiar claim that narrative is a tool for psychologically modeling conflict management.” —Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900“Marshall Gregory’s new book has its roots in influential studies of ethics and literature published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. . . . In addressing the book to a broad, general audience rather than critics or academic professionals, he is appealing to a culture obsessed with narrative to think reflectively about how the stories we encounter daily in such a variety of forms shape our ethos. Gregory’s passionate conviction about the topic’s relevance is apparent on every page. In its directness, lucidity, personal humor, and warmth, Shaped by Stories will indeed engage a wide variety of readers. The ultimate value of this book is the way it welcomes and extends discussion of ethics.” —Victorian Studies“Marshall Gregory utilizes the power of story, often his own, to reach into the minds and consciousness of academics and laypersons alike. His goal is to open a dialogue between people, about people, and the possible reasons story affects human behaviors and characters . . . . He challenges his readers to enter the real controversial dialogue. Gregory does not propose one specific ethic, but he dares to present the fact that there are ethics that cannot be escaped behind the blind of relativism.” —Sixteenth Century Journal

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Book SynopsisThe most significant philosopher of Being, Martin Heidegger has nevertheless largely been ignored within communications studies. This book sets the record straight by demonstrating the profound implications of his unique philosophical project for our understanding of today s mediascape.Trade Review"At last, a long overdue account of Heidegger's profound relevance for understanding contemporary media. Gunkel and Taylor shed powerful light onto the philosophical corners of media and cultural studies that more timid scholars have stubbornly failed to reach. Neither Heidegger studies nor media studies will remain the same after the impact of this immensely engaging theoretical tour de force!"—Slavoj Zizek, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, London "Gunkel and Taylor reveal an unacknowledged dimension of Heidegger’s media theory which contradicts the predominant understanding of his work. They argue that there is something to be found in Heidegger's thought which prevents one from succumbing to a widespread illusion – the illusion of the neutrality of technique, what McLuhan later called 'the current somnambulism'. Thus, a profoundly productive, critical dimension in Heidegger's theory becomes accessible which stands in harsh opposition to the 'somnambulism' that this philosopher himself performed in his utterly problematic personal, ideological existence. Gunkel and Taylor perspicuously show how Heidegger could have done better, had he more carefully listened to his own findings. And we? We definitely can: under the condition that we do."—Robert Pfaller, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities "[T]his book does not read as if it is an exhaustive study in the convergence of Heidegger's philosophy and the study of media. Rather it is an exciting crash course in both fields with an eye on the possibilities at their intersection."—Jared Smith, Logical Analysis and History of PhilosophyTable of ContentsIntroduction1 We Need to Talk About Media2 Mediated Truth3 In Media Res4 The Dasign of Media Apps: The Questions Concerning New TechnologiesConclusion

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Book SynopsisConnects the issue of passive constitution of meaning with the dimension of history, furthering discussions and completing arguments started in The Visible and the Invisible and Signs. This translation makes available to an English-speaking readership a critical transitional text in the history of phenomenology.

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Book SynopsisThis edition of Dawn, the second installment in Nietzsche's free spirit trilogy, is a translation of the celebrated Colli-Montinari edition, which is acclaimed as one of the most important works of scholarship in the humanities in the last half century.Trade Review"This series will become the definitive resource for English readers, a resource much needed given the great wave of philosophical, literary, and political interest in Nietzsche's thought. The excellent translations draw on the latest scholarship and are based on the state-of-the-art Colli-Montinari edition. The editors and translators have taken care to provide consistency in rendering Nietzsche's German and explaining important terms and variants. With their extensive and helpful annotations, the translations are indispensable for the scholar and appealing to the general reader."—Gary Shapiro, University of Richmond"English is the only major language into which the Colli-Montinari edition of Nietzsche's works has not yet been fully translated. Alan D. Schrift and Duncan Large have undertaken to complete the effort begun by Ernst Behler and Bernd Magnus, and the first volume under their general editorship, Dawn, represents a huge leap forward. We can finally look forward to the completion of this nineteen-volume series, which will be invaluable not only to specialists but also to students and anyone interested in this remarkable thinker."—Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University

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Book SynopsisIn the Louvre museum hangs a portrait of a middle-aged man and he is dressed in the starched white collar and black coat of the typical Dutch burgher. The painting is now the iconic image of Ren Descartes, the great seventeenth-century French philosopher. This book offers an exploration of a celebrated philosopher's world and work.Trade Review"Steven Nadler has produced another gem of original research and lively and lucid writing."--Catherine Wilson, Times Literary Supplement "Riveting... In The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter, Nadler has ... written his most inviting book yet... Nadler's detective work makes for fascinating reading... [T]he resulting survey of Golden Age Dutch culture, Cartesian philosophy and art connoisseurship ... makes for ... very welcome intellectual entertainment."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post "[B]y situating him firmly in his time and place, [Nadler] makes clear what made Descartes the intellectual superstar of his day... [A]n original, intriguing set-up... [A]s an introduction to Descartes' philosophy, it is excellent."--David Wolf, Slate "As one would expect from a distinguished philosopher such as Nadler, the description of Descartes's philosophy, and in particular his Discourse (1637) and Meditations (1641), is flawless."--Jerry Brotton, Literary Review "Cartesian iconography centers around a widely known portrait of Descartes attributed to Frans Hals. In this book, Nadler uses the story of that painting's origin to present a study of Descartes and his philosophy that will be accessible to a wide audience... [T]his volume serves as a very good introduction to Descartes's philosophy in historical context."--Choice "[C]harming... Nadler, an American philosopher and author, has written an immensely readable introduction to Descartes."--Australian "[A] landscape (or at least a well-turned charcoal sketch) of religious, artistic, and economic life in the Netherlands during the first half of the 17th century... Nadler's book ... takes us back upstream a ways--beginning, rather than exempting us from, a dialog with the dead."--Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed "[A]bsorbing."--France Magazine "Nadler is appealing to a wider audience that is looking less for hard-nosed scholarship and more for a story to follow, some intrigue to pique the mind while telling the reader something interesting and informative about the life and work of Descartes. Insofar as the work is meant for a general audience, it accomplishes its aims well enough and should be well-received and enjoyed by those readers."--Aaron Massecar, European Legacy "Nadler gives us a remarkably accessible and historically rich picture of Descartes's life and thought. The book provides a reliable and lively introduction to Descartes for the general reader and for scholars a pleasant portrait of Descartes."--Peter M. Distelzweig, Journal of the History of PhilosophyTable of ContentsIllustrations ix Acknowledgments xiii Chapter 1 Prologue: A Tale of Two Paintings 1 Chapter 2 The Philosopher 8 Chapter 3 The Priest 36 Chapter 4 The Painter 55 Chapter 5 "Once in a Lifetime" 87 Chapter 6 A New Philosophy 111 Chapter 7 God in Haarlem 143 Chapter 8 The Portrait 174 Notes 199 Bibliography 219 Index 227

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Book SynopsisThis third volume of the monumental commentary on Wittgenstein''s Philosophical Investigations covers sections 243-427, which constitute the heart of the book. Like the previous volumes, it consists of philosophical essays and exegesis. The thirteen essays cover all the major themes of this part of Wittgenstein''s masterpiece: the private language arguments, privacy, avowals and descriptions, private ostensive definition, criteria, minds and machines, behavior and behaviorism, the self, the inner and the outer, thinking, consciounesss, and the imagination. The exegesis clarifies and evaluates Wittgenstein''s arguments, drawing extensively on all the unpublished papers, examining the evolution of his ideas in manuscript sources and definitively settling many controversies about the interpretation of the published text. This commentary, like its predecessors, is indispensable for the study of Wittgenstein and is essential reading for students of the philosophy of mind. ATrade ReviewOn Volume 1 of An Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations: "Baker and Hacker skilfully conduct the reader through the tangles of controversy that surround the topics of sense and Meaning. They have an admirable grasp of the whole corpus of Wittgenstein's writings, and they constantly display the sharp contrasts between Wittgenstein's thought and currently influential 'scientific' semantics." Norman Malcolm, Times Literacy Supplement "For someone who wants to understand, point for point and in detail, how Wittgenstein's later philosophy upsets the philosophies of Russell, Frege and the Tractatus, this is the book to read." Philosophical Books On Volume 2: "The authors showed in the first volume that they had in fukll measure the combination of scholarship and philosophical excellence neede to expound and illuminate the intracies of the text. That combination is apparent on every page of the present work." B. Rundle, Philosophical InvestigationsTable of ContentsNote to the paperback edition viii Acknowledgements x Preface xiii Abbreviations xviii Chapter 1 The Private Language Arguments (§§243 – 315) 3 Chapter 2 Thought (§§316 -62) 147 Chapter 3 Imagination (§§363 -97) 213 Chapter 4 The Self and Self-Reference (§§398 – 411) 267 Chapter 5 Consciousness (§§412 – 27) 291 Index 311

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Book SynopsisCompletely revised throughout, Culture and Value is a selection from Wittgensteina s notebooks ---- on the nature of art, religion, culture, and the nature of philosophical activity.Table of ContentsForeword to the Edition of 1977. Foreword to the 1994 Edition. Editorial Note. Note by Translator. Culture and Value. A Poem. Notes. Appendix:. List of Sources. List of Sources, Arranged Alphanumerically. Index of Beginnings of Remarks. Subject Index. Index of Names.

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Book SynopsisWalter Benjamin was perhaps the twentieth century's most elusive intellectual. His writings defy categorization, and his improvised existence has proven irresistible to mythologizers. In a major new biography, Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings present a comprehensive portrait of the man and his times, as well as extensive commentary on his work.Trade Review[An] outstanding and monumental biography of Walter Benjamin… In the thoroughness of their account and the acuity and delicacy of their philosophical analyses, Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings have provided an indispensable sighting of Benjamin’s achievement. -- Anthony Phelan * Times Literary Supplement *[This] is a careful synthesis of all the available sources for Benjamin’s life—letters, diaries, reminiscences of friends—with all of his major writings, to produce the comprehensive account that has been sorely lacking until now… Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life makes clear how intimately Benjamin’s biography was shaped by the history of Europe during his lifetime. -- Adam Kirsch * New York Review of Books *In their superb new biography, Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings have given us a portrait of this elusive but paradigmatic thinker that deserves to be ranked among the few truly indispensable intellectual biographies of the modern era. I am tempted to call it a masterpiece. Nearly seven hundred pages in length, this is not only a study of Benjamin’s life, it is also a guide to the bewildering mix of themes and preoccupations that populated this most prolific and unfamiliar of minds… To write the biography of an intellectual is difficult business, since so much of what passes for an event is taking place only in the mind or on the page—but those are the events that really matter. Eiland and Jennings move with deliberation through Benjamin’s major works, expounding and explaining with uncommon lucidity even when the text in question is one of notorious difficulty. The result is not a mere chronicle of a life but also a reliable map into Benjamin’s intellectual labyrinth. -- Peter E. Gordon * New Republic *The most comprehensive biography we are ever likely to have of Benjamin… Both authors have spent close to a lifetime on the subject. The devotion and care evident in their account are clearly based on sympathy and admiration. Their exposition of Benjamin’s thought is exemplary, their sleuthing about his personal life breathtaking. Definitive is an archaic and much abused term that Benjamin would have abhorred; suffice it to say that it is unlikely that anyone will ever be able to tell us more about this German-Jewish thinker or present that knowledge with greater stylistic aplomb. -- Modris Eksteins * Wall Street Journal *[Eiland and Jennings] argue compellingly that as a critic [Benjamin] not only reshaped our understanding of many important writers, but he recognized the potentials and hazards of technological media that revolutionized culture during his lifetime… An impressive work of exegesis… Indispensable. -- Stuart Jeffries * The Guardian *Serious and imposing, it seeks to gather up and bind the threads of Benjamin’s career, unite the unpublished and the half-finished essays and book projects, weaving together a comprehensive biography both of the man and his thought. A great strength of Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life is how it lays out Benjamin’s major works as part of an evolution of thought, providing not only invaluable context to each piece, but tracing each work’s central claims in a lucid and approachable manner. One need not be a PhD to approach this book, and it will intrigue anyone with a passing interest in the intellectual history of the 20th century. With key essays and books given substantive contextualization and explanation, Eiland and Jennings make Benjamin’s work accessible and networked into a larger set of themes and concerns… As omnipresent as [Benjamin’s] tragic fate is throughout the book, Eiland and Jennings also provide a host of surprising (and even delightful) details of Benjamin’s life, which round out the melancholic caricature of him in favor of a complex, conflicted individual. -- Colin Dickey * Los Angeles Review of Books *Impressive… [Eiland and Jennings] portray their subject as a kind of ragpicker in the neglected alleyways of a culture in transition—a specialist in the marginal and mundane, the fragmentary and forgotten… They succeed in offering not only the most comprehensive biography to date, but a tour de force introduction to an incomparably incandescent mind. -- Benjamin Balint * Books & Ideas *Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings have rightly sought and successfully produced the thread that gives a biography of Benjamin the kind of weight and significance his influence deserves… Their curiosity in searching out an expanded wealth of details now available about Benjamin, both personal and intellectual, historical and anecdotal, has produced an account that enlivens the already well-known turning points in Benjamin’s development… This biography far surpasses not just any preceding biographical history of Benjamin but in its searching out of what remains consistent in Benjamin it has found the thread that allows a narrative of life and work to unfold in a way that does not subordinate one to the other… This achievement will remain not only a standard and resource-full account of Benjamin but in its comprehensiveness as well as its acute accounts of Benjamin’s thought across the whole range of that thinking, it will continue to provide the foundation for the fuller understanding of his place and contribution to the critical, cultural, political and historical present we have inherited from the twentieth century. -- David Ferris * Critical Inquiry *Walter Benjamin deserves to be more celebrated, and Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life, by Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings, is a step in the right direction. It is an efficient introduction to his work and legacy while also offering a detailed account of Benjamin the man, his strengths and weaknesses and the world he lived in. It is also a deeply poignant story of his struggle to survive in a hostile Europe and his tragic suicide at the age of 48. -- Cyril Kavanaugh * The Guardian *Presented here in what looks like a definitive version, Benjamin’s life emerges as a tragedy of incompleteness. -- John Gray * Literary Review *[Benjamin] produced some of the most memorable and generative critical writing of the last century. There is no end in sight of the need to grapple with that writing and its legacies. This magisterial biography by Eiland and Jennings sets that writing in its place and time with profane illuminations on almost every one of its many pages. Benjamin had scorn for people who produced needlessly ‘fat’ books, but I think this fairly huge one hits the sweet spot of detail. Most biographical treatments to date tend to be half the length or less and content themselves with the highlights and the fairly well known, however well articulated. If one wants more, this ‘critical’ biography is the place to look. -- Ian Balfour * Los Angeles Review of Books *Despite its numerous predecessors, this biography is the first of its kind to succeed in uniting most of the previously published biographical material in one book, including translations of documents which were until now only available in German. With the still-growing interest in Benjamin’s thought, one can expect this book to become the standard English-language biography on Benjamin. In A Critical Life, the contours of Benjamin’s day-to-day life become graspable for the first time. It is fascinating to read about his whereabouts and travels, the people and places that formed the stages for his life and thought… This biography is also an intellectual biography, which puts the reader herself in a position to navigate the labyrinth-like edifice of Benjamin’s thought. For this alone, this biography proves to be a landmark achievement in the history of Benjamin scholarship. -- Sami Khatib * New Inquiry *Through this fair-minded and meticulously detailed biography we can, perhaps for the first time in the extensive literature on Benjamin, see clearly the way that the arc of his life and work, culminating in the overdose of morphine taken in the Hotel de Francia in Port Bou, is an expression of, and also an epic meditation on, the political and aesthetic conditions that provided the context of his coming into maturity as both a thinker and a man. -- Gregory Day * Sydney Morning Herald *[Eiland and Jennings] have produced this massive and gripping account of Benjamin’s life and troubles, testimonial both to their own efforts in bringing his elusive writings into view, and to the circumstances in which Benjamin arrived at such scope, depth and brilliance… This is Benjamin warts and all, but in place of an impressionistic biographical sketch of a life, marked by false starts and a final mischance, what emerges is an astonishing panorama of a life and of theorizing, of research and of publishing, on the crest of that wave of disaster that was the destruction of European Jewry and of German intellectual life. -- Joanna Hodge * Times Higher Education *I’ve been waiting for a book like this since first coming across Benjamin’s mesmerizing essays as a student. Like others who have fallen under his spell, I’ve had to make do with bits and pieces of biographical information over the years, not all of them reliable. Jennings and Eiland have spent almost two decades re-editing and retranslating all of Benjamin’s works and have also managed to create a map through the maze of his restless, exilic life. -- Eric Bulson * Times Literary Supplement *[Benjamin was] one of the most versatile men of letters the 20th century had known… [This is] an epic, 700-page-plus saga of his peripatetic life and his whirlwind of productivity. -- Eric Banks * Bookforum *In this ambitious biography, Benjamin scholars (and editors) Eiland and Jennings chart the protean, prolific—albeit short—life of the German-Jewish critic and philosopher with masterly aplomb. As a literary critic, a dodger of both World Wars, flâneur, and eventual victim of Hitler’s reign, Benjamin (1892–1940) lived with a funny gait, ‘an impenetrable façade’ of courtesy, and severe depression; fearing capture and deportation to Germany, he committed suicide in a Spanish hotel. Born to an affluent Berlin family, Benjamin advocated for the radical youth culture movement and education reform in Germany before he pursued a tenured professor of philosophy post in academia, which he never achieved. With intense wanderlust, Benjamin turned to an itinerant existence as he penned thousands of essays, reviews, and books. Shaping avant-garde realism and arguably inventing pop culture, he wrote that he hoped to be ‘the foremost critic of German literature.’ Leaving Germany for good in 1933, Benjamin spent his last dark decade in exile, where most of his writings contributed to his never completed masterpiece The Arcades Project—‘his cultural history of the emergence of urban commodity capitalism in mid-nineteenth-century France.’ The authors, in impressive and accessible fashion, reveal Benjamin as an eyewitness to Europe’s changing modernity. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *Here, for the first time, is a thorough, reliable, non-tendentious, and fully developed account of Benjamin’s life and the sources of his work. Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life is by far the best biography of Benjamin that has yet appeared. A remarkable scholarly achievement, it will prove of enduring value and will doubtless become the standard reference work for those who become intrigued by the complicated contours of Benjamin’s life. -- Peter Fenves, Northwestern UniversityWalter Benjamin himself often grappled with the vexed and constantly shifting relations between self and work, life (bios) and writing (graphein). Whatever faint yet abiding hyphen may connect the two, that same line also forever holds them apart. The new biography by Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings, two Benjamin scholars of the first rank, offers a sober, meticulous, and often moving image of Benjamin’s brief life in the shadow of catastrophe. Brilliantly interweaving the conceptual threads of Benjamin’s enigmatic work with his no less enigmatic existence, this impeccably informed and eminently readable account of Benjamin’s life sets a new standard for his biographers and critics in any language. Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life is destined to stand the test of time. -- Gerhard Richter, Brown University

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Book SynopsisThe course of Western philosophy has been profoundly altered by the philosophy of Hegel. The first of those who set about the transforming and revisioning of the world according to Hegel's dialectical theory were called "The Young Hegelians." Today, the most recognized names among them are Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but in their own age each of the Young Hegelians shared an equal notoriety. Each in turn, from Strauss with his reduction of the historical jesus into a Messianic myth, to Stirner with his uncompromising egoism, shocked every cultural convention of their age. The aftershocks of their unrestrained criticism have forever altered the topography of our own. The Young Hegelians retrieves some of the central writings of that troubling generation.

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Book Synopsis"Development of Peirce's Philosophy".

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Book SynopsisIn this strikingly original book, Barbara Carnevali offers a philosophical examination of the roles that appearances play in social life. While Western metaphysics and morals have predominantly disdained appearances and expelled them from their domain, Carnevali invites us to look at society, ancient to contemporary, as an aesthetic phenomenon.Trade ReviewThis is a powerful and paradigm-shifting aesthetics of society, by a great philosophical talent. -- Simon Critchley, author of Tragedy, the Greeks, and UsBarbara Carnevali's concept of 'social aesthetics' is tremendously powerful, and explains a lot of otherwise baffling phenomena. Carnevali makes me think that the rise of Orban and Trump and the Brexit movement is better understood as a matter of social 'taste' than in terms of ideology, or economics, or identity. -- Blake Gopnik, author of WarholOscar Wilde famously quipped that only shallow people do not judge by appearances. This elegant, profound, and erudite book explores the startling proposition that we may indeed be what we seem. The reader of this book will not fail to be convinced that 'appearances' are constitutive of society. -- Eva Illouz, author of The End of Love: A Sociology of Negative RelationsEvery sentence in this brilliant book is a unit of thought; it’s as epigrammatic as Nietzsche and as seamlessly developed as, say, Hume. And it helps that it’s new. Carnevali has restored aesthetics to its central role in philosophy. -- Edmund White, author of The Unpunished Vice: A Life of ReadingTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsProloguePart I. Appearing: On the Aesthetic Foundations of Social Life1. Life as a Spectacle: Self-Display, Reflexivity, and Artifice2. Masks and Clothes: Medial Surfaces and the Dialectic of Appearing3. Aesthetic Mediation: A Theory of Representations4. Figures: Social Images5. Out of Control: The Alienated ImagePart II. Vanity and Lies: On the Hostility Toward Appearances6. “Vanity Fair”: The Frivolity of Worldliness7. Against the Mask: The Rise of Social Romanticism8. Against the Spectacle: The Crusade of Romantic Anticapitalism9. Against Aesthetic Values: Aestheticism, Aestheticization, and Staging10. Two Baptisms and a Divorce: Homo Economicus Versus Homo AestheticusPart III. Toward a Social Aesthetics: On the Sensible Logic of Society11. The Opening: Aesthetic Foundations of the Common World12. Aisthesis: Senses and Social Sensibility13. Social Taste and the Will to Please14. Aesthetic Labor and Social Design: The Value of Appearances15. Prestige and Other Magic SpellsConclusion: Social Immaterialism or the Philosophy of Andy WarholAfterwordAppendix: Illustrations Mentioned in the TextNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisJoint winner of the 1989 Herskovits AwardTrade ReviewThe Invention of Africa, joint winner of the 1989 Herskovits Award, has assumed a place as one of the important books of African studies. * JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORY *Mudimbe's historical anthropology...achieves the decolonisation of academic knowledge of Africa ... This highly sophisticated and provocative study should command the attention of every scholar. - -- Bogumil Jewsiewicki... an impressive demonstration of erudition with a balanced, frequently very perceptive, perspective on how intellectual constructs on Africa have developed and operate. - -- William Freund * JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN STUDIES *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Cool Memories II is a distillation of quintessential Baudrillard. Eros stalks entropy, America outshines Europe, and nihilism playfully evaporates. It’s a memoir situated somewhere between magical realism and science fiction whose subtle strength resides in Baudrillard’s fusion of analysis and self-reflexive meditation.”—Susan Willis, Duke University“Sharp, sombre, brillant, explosive, these fragments rarely fail to find their targets: the basic presupposition of the superiority and triumphant progress of our technological rationality—and our ‘current forms of despair.’”—Mike Gane, Loughborough UniversityTable of ContentsTranslator's Acknowledgments A Note on the Text Cool Memories II 1 Translator's Notes 89

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"If you’ve been following the rising tide of discussion on climate change, perhaps you’ve noticed that Hollywood has also been beating a similar drum—for years. In Climate Trauma author E. Ann Kaplan shows how movies as far back as the 1970s have depicted scenarios of future gloom tied to human neglect and mistreatment of our planet—and how dystopian films can still inspire us with hope for a better world." * Parade *"Climate Trauma treats the subject of climate-specific pre-trauma in a thorough and interesting way." * Foreword Reviews *"Proposing a powerful new analytic in the 'pretrauma' concept, Kaplan's fresh and insightful work goes directly to the heart of the matter: cinema's role in negotiating a dire circumstance we humans neglect at our peril." -- Janet Walker * University of California, Santa Barbara *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue: Climate Trauma and Hurricane Sandy Introduction: Pretrauma Imaginaries: Theoretical Frames 1. Trauma Studies Moving Forward: Genre and Pretrauma Cinema 2. Pretrauma Climate Scenarios: Take Shelter, The Happening, and The Road 3. Pretrauma Political Thrillers: Children of Men (with reference to Soylent Green and The Handmaid’s Tale) 4. Memory and Future Selves in Pretrauma Fantasies: The Road and The Book of Eli 5. Microcosm: Politics and the Body in Distress in Blindness and The Book of Eli 6. “Getting Real”: Traumatic Climate Documentaries: Into Eternity and Manufactured Landscapes Afterword: Humans and Eco- (or is it Sui-?) Cide Filmography Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisSetting the stage with a selection of readings from important nineteenth century philosophers, this reader on truth puts in conversation some of the main philosophical figures from the twentieth century in the analytic, continental, and pragmatist traditions. Focuses on the value or normativity of truth through exposing the dialogues between different schools of thought Features philosophical figures from the twentieth century in the analytic, continental, and pragmatist traditions Topics addressed include the normative relation between truth and subjectivity, consensus, art, testimony, power, and critique Includes essays by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, James, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, Levinas, Arendt, Foucault, Rorty, Davidson, Habermas, Derrida, and many others Trade Review“There are no longer two dialogues – analytic and continental. It is all one now, and more complicated than ever. This collection is an indispensable point of entry to the new conversations.” Barry Allen, McMaster University “It is virtually impossible to imagine a more useful collection of texts on this thorny philosophical topic. There is no pretense that herein lies the truth about truth, but there is the realization of a set of complex issues illuminated from radically diverse, yet often surprisingly overlapping, perspectives.” Vincent Colapietro, Pennsylvania State UniversityTable of ContentsPreface. Acknowledgments. General Introduction. Part I. The Value of Truth: “Revaluing our highest values”. Introduction. 1. Friedrich Nietzsche On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. 2. William James Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth. Suggested Reading. Part II. Representation, Subjectivity, and Intersubjectivity. Introduction. 3. Soren Kierkegaard Truth, Subjectivity and Communication. 4. Ludwig Wittgenstein Remarks on Truth. 5. Donald Davidson Truth and Meaning. 6. Hilary Putnam The Face of Cognition. Suggested Reading. Part III. Truth, Consensus, and Transcendence. Introduction. 7. Richard Rorty Representation, Social Practice, and Truth. 8. Jurgen Habermas Richard Rorty’s Pragmatic Turn. 9. John McDowell Towards Rehabilitating Objectivity. 10. Paul Feyerabend Notes on Relativism. Suggested Reading. Part IV. Non-Propositional Truth: Language, Art and World. Introduction. 11. Gianni Vattimo The Truth of Hermeneutics (with additional remarks). 12. Joseph Margolis Relativism and Cultural Relativity. 13. Maurice Merleau-Ponty Perception and Truth (with additional remarks). 14. Jacques Derrida The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing. Suggested Reading. Part V. Disclosure and Testimony. Introduction. 15. Edmund Husserl Self-Evidence and Truth (with additional remarks). 16. Martin Heidegger On the Essence of Truth (with additional remarks). 17. Emmanuel Levinas Truth of Disclosure and Truth of Testimony. 18. Catherine Z. Elgin Word Giving, Word Taking. Suggested Reading. Part VI. Truth and Power. Introduction. 19. Hannah Arendt Truth in Politics. 20. Michel Foucault The Discourse on Language (with additional remarks). 21. Linda Alcoff Reclaiming Truth. Suggested Reading. Part VII. A Supplement: Radicalizations of Truth. 22. An essay perforated with short excerpts from Žižek, Butler, Irigaray, Baudrillard and Deleuze. Suggested Reading. Primary Sources. Index

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Book SynopsisPierre Klossowski (1905-2001) was a French philosopher, translator, and artist. Vernon W. Cisney is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gettysburg College. He is the author of Derrida's Voice and Phenomenon: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide (2014), as well as Deleuze and Derrida: Difference and the Power of the Negative (2017).Nicolae Morar is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies and an Associate Member of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon. He is currently writing a book entitled Biology, BioEthics, and BioPolitics: How to Think Differently About Human Nature.Daniel W. Smith is Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University. He is the author of Essays on Deleuze (Edinburgh 2012) and also the translator, from the French, of books by Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Klossowski, Isabelle Stengers, and Michel Serres.Trade Review[A] good book that advances a key to understanding Klossowski’s literary and visual relationship to the exploited and monetized body … [It] is thoroughly enjoyable for those who possess a keen interest in Klossowski’s written and visual works. * The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics *Michel Foucault called Living Currency “the greatest book of our time” ” insofar as it provided conceptual resources that would allow French thinking to move from Bataille’s Accursed Share to the libidinal economics of Deleuze and Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, and others. Using Sade to reframe Marx and Fourier to rethink Freud, Klossowski’s two essays in this volume revealed heretofore unappreciated dimensions of the roles played by desire and pleasure in the economics of industrial production that have continued to inspire theorists interested in the economic relations between affects and needs. -- Alan D. Schrift, F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy, Grinnell College, USA.Essayist, novelist, painter, translator, former Dominican novice, sometime theology student, occasional film actor and playwright, Pierre Klossowski is one of the twentieth century’s most original and inventive artists. The Living Currency is his most intriguing and premonitory book, bringing together insights from Sade, Fourier, Marx, Nietzsche, Keynes, and Freud to explore how industrial or postindustrial economies are based not on the distribution of goods, but on the circulation of desires and fantasies, and how bodies are primarily objects of voluptuous consumption and libidinal exchange too. Here is a text that radically changed the agenda for Foucault, Deleuze, and many other French thinkers in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and there is every chance it will do the same for international audiences in the first quarter of the twenty-first. -- Leslie Hill, Emeritus Professor of French Studies, University of Warwick, UKThe two essays presented here are Klossowski’s last theoretical works; they are essential to our understanding of this original and important thinker. -- Alphonso Lingis, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, USATable of ContentsPreface List of Translators 1.Introduction: Pierre Klossowaki: From Theatrical 2. Theology to Counter-Utopia, Daniel W. Smith (Purdue University, USA) 3. Letter from Foucault to Pierre Klossowski 5. Living Currency, translated by Vernon Cisney (Gettysburg College, USA), Nicolae Morar (University of Oregon, USA) and Daniel W. Smith 6. Sade and Fourier, translated by Paul Foss-Heimlich 7. Sade and Fourier and Klossowksi and Benjamin, Paul Foss-Heimlich 8. Letter from Pierre Klossowski to Paul Foss Index

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Book Synopsis"Margaret Cavendish's philosophical work is at last taking its rightful place in the history of seventeenth-century thought, but her writings are so voluminous and wide-ranging that introducing her work to students has been difficult—at least until this volume came along. This carefully edited abridgment of Observations upon Experimental Philosophy will be indispensable for making Cavendish's fascinating ideas accessible to students. Marshall's Introduction provides a helpful overview of themes in Cavendish's natural philosophy, and the footnotes contain useful background information about some of the texts and philosophers that Cavendish mentions. The additional selections from Descartes, Hobbes, Boyle, and Hooke also help contextualize Cavendish's views." —Deborah Boyle, College of CharlestonTrade Review"An excellent introduction to an interesting but neglected voice in early-modern philosophy. Though her views don't fit neatly into the standard story of the development of natural philosophy in the period, Margaret Cavendish very much deserves to be read and appreciated for the alternatives she presents to what became the dominant picture. Marshall's Introduction and selection of texts allow the student to appreciate the diversity of views available at that crucial moment when the philosophical canon was being formed." —Daniel Garber, Princeton UniversityTable of ContentsEditor's Introduction Life and Works Natural Philosophy Other Works, Other Themes Reading Cavendish Today A Note on This Edition Observations upon Experimental PhilosophyChapters 1-3, 5, 15-17, 19-21, 25-26, 31, 35-17Further Observations upon Experimental PhilosophyChapters 2-3, 5-8, 10-11, 13-15Selections from the Writings of Cavendish's Contemporaries From The Principles of Philosophy, by Rene Descartes From Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes From The Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy, By Robert Boyle From Micrographic, by Robert Hooke From The Excellence and Grounds of the Mechanical Natural Philosophy, by Robert Boyle Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWe live in a moment of unprecedented complexity, an era in which change occurs faster than our ability to comprehend it. This books offers a map for the unfamiliar terrain opening in our midst, unfolding an alternative philosophy of our time through a synthesis of science and culture.

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