Western philosophy from c 1800 Books
Hampton Press Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
Book SynopsisA re-issue of Gregory Bateson's classic work. It summarizes Bateson's thinking on the subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other and to their environment.
£25.46
Penguin Books Ltd On the Aesthetic Education of Man
Book Synopsis
£10.44
Prometheus Books Latin American Philosophy for the 21st Century:
Book SynopsisThis excellent collection is the most complete anthology of Latin American philosophers in English available today. Leading philosophers from several different Latin American countries and from various periods in the history of Latin American thought are included. Though the main focus is upon the rich contemporary period, several key texts from the colonial and independent period are included to provide the reader with some historical background. Dividing the work into four major sections — Colonial Beginnings and Independence, Philosophical Anthropology, Values, and The Search for Identity — the editors complement their selections with introductions to the themes covered in each section and brief biographies of each author. An up-to-date bibliography provides the reader with information on the latest work done in the field, both in English and Spanish. This outstanding compilation is accessible enough to serve as an introduction to the field, while at the same time it is sufficiently sophisticated to be of use even to advanced scholars specializing in Latin American philosophy. It will serve as an important resource for students and teachers dedicated to a more pluralistic canon of philosophical texts.
£21.25
Prometheus Books Evidence and Inquiry: A Pragmatist Reconstruction
Book SynopsisDescribed by Hilary Putnam as "both a fine introduction and a significant contribution" to epistemology, and by Anthony Quinton as "at once comprehensive ... and judicious," Evidence and Inquiry is unique both in its scope and in its originality. C. I. Lewis's foundationalism, BonJour's and Davidson's coherentism, Popper's critical rationalism, Quine's naturalism, and Rorty's, Stich's, and Churchland's anti-epistemological neopragmatism all come under Haack's uniquely thorough critical scrutiny. Core epistemological questions about the nature of belief, the character and structure of evidence, the determinants of evidential quality, the relation of justification, probability, and truth, among others, are given refreshingly novel, and reasonable, answers. Most books in epistemology are written only for other epistemologists. But Evidence and Inquiry has proven of interest not only to specialists but also to many other readers, from thoughtful scientists to thoughtful scholars of law and literature. This new, expanded edition-with a substantial new foreword and several additional papers on topics ranging from feminist epistemology to Peirce's critique of the adversarial legal system and Bentham's critique of exclusionary rules of evidence-should attract longtime readers and newcomers alike.
£15.29
Imprint Academic Oakeshott on Rome and America
Book SynopsisThe political systems of the Roman Republic were based almost entirely on tradition, "the way of the ancestors", rather than on a written constitution. While the founders of the American Republic looked to ancient Rome as a primary model for their enterprise, nevertheless, in line with the rationalist spirit of their age, the American founders attempted to create a rational set of rules that would guide the conduct of American politics, namely, the US Constitution. These two examples offer a striking case of the ideal types, famously delineated by Michael Oakeshott in Rationalism in Politics and elsewhere, between politics as a practice grounded in tradition and politics as a system based on principles flowing from abstract reasoning. This book explores how the histories of the two republics can help us to understand Oakeshott''s claims about rational versus traditional politics. Through examining such issues we may come to understand better not only Oakeshott's critique of rationalism, but also modern constitutional theory, issues in the design of the European Union, and aspects of the revival of republicanism.
£19.95
The University of Chicago Press About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the
Book SynopsisIn 1980, Michel Foucault began a vast project of research on the relationship between subjectivity and truth, an examination of conscience, confession, and truth-telling that would become a crucial feature of his life-long work on the relationship between knowledge, power, and the self. The lectures published here offer one of the clearest pathways into this project, contrasting Greco-Roman techniques of the self with those of early Christian monastic culture in order to uncover, in the latter, the historical origin of many of the features that still characterize the modern subject. They are accompanied by a public discussion and debate as well as by an interview with Michael Bess, all of which took place at the University of California, Berkeley, where Foucault delivered an earlier and slightly different version of these lectures. Foucault analyzes the practices of self-examination and confession in Greco-Roman antiquity and in the first centuries of Christianity in order to highlight a radical transformation from the ancient Delphic principle of know thyself to the monastic precept of confess all of your thoughts to your spiritual guide.His aim in doing so is to retrace the genealogy of the modern subject, which is inextricably tied to the emergence of the hermeneutics of the self-the necessity to explore one's own thoughts and feelings and to confess them to a spiritual director-in early Christianity. According to Foucault, since some features of this Christian hermeneutics of the subject still determine our contemporary gnoseologic self, then the genealogy of the modern subject is both an ethical and a political enterprise, aiming to show that the self is nothing but the historical correlate of a series of technologies built into our history. Thus, from Foucault's perspective, our main problem today is not to discover what the self is, but to try to analyze and change these technologies in order to change its form.
£22.80
MIT Press Paradox
Book SynopsisAn introduction to paradoxes showing that they are more than mere puzzles but can prompt new ways of thinking.Thinkers have been fascinated by paradox since long before Aristotle grappled with Zeno''s. In this volume in The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Margaret Cuonzo explores paradoxes and the strategies used to solve them. She finds that paradoxes are more than mere puzzles but can prompt new ways of thinking.A paradox can be defined as a set of mutually inconsistent claims, each of which seems true. Paradoxes emerge not just in salons and ivory towers but in everyday life. (An Internet search for ?paradox? brings forth a picture of an ashtray with a ?no smoking? symbol inscribed on it.) Proposing solutions, Cuonzo writes, is a natural response to paradoxes. She invites us to rethink paradoxes by focusing on strategies for solving them, arguing that there is much to be learned from this, regardless of whether any of the more powerful paradoxes is even capable of solution.Cuonzo offers a catalog of paradox-solving strategies?including the Preemptive-Strike (questioning the paradox itself), the Odd-Guy-Out (calling one of the assumptions into question), and the You-Can''t-Get-There-from-Here (denying the validity of the reasoning). She argues that certain types of solutions work better in some contexts than others, and that as paradoxicality increases, the success of certain strategies grows more unlikely. Cuonzo shows that the processes of paradox generation and solution proposal are interesting and important ones. Discovering a paradox leads to advances in knowledge: new science often stems from attempts to solve paradoxes, and the concepts used in the new sciences lead to new paradoxes. As Niels Bohr wrote, ?How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.?
£16.14
The University of Chicago Press Jacques Derrida
Book SynopsisGeoffrey Bennington sets out here to write an account of the thought of Jacques Derrida. Responding to Bennington's text at every turn is Derrida's own, excerpts from his life and thought that resist circumscription. These texts, as a dialogue and a contest, are a critical introduction to Derrida.
£31.35
Rowman & Littlefield International Recursivity and Contingency
Book SynopsisThis book employs recursivity and contingency as two principle concepts to investigate into the relation between nature and technology, machine and organism, system and freedom. It reconstructs a trajectory of thought from an Organic condition of thinking elaborated by Kant, passing by the philosophy of nature (Schelling and Hegel), to the 20th century Organicism (Bertalanffy, Needham, Whitehead, Wiener among others) and Organology (Bergson, Canguilhem, Simodnon, Stiegler), and questions the new condition of philosophizing in the time of algorithmic contingency, ecological and algorithmic catastrophes, which Heidegger calls the end of philosophy. The book centres on the following speculative question: if in the philosophical tradition, the concept of contingency is always related to the laws of nature, then in what way can we understand contingency in related to technical systems? The book situates the concept of recursivity as a break from the Cartesian mechanism and the drive of system construction; it elaborates on the necessity of contingency in such epistemological rupture where nature ends and system emerges. In this development, we see how German idealism is precursor to cybernetics, and the Anthropocene and Noosphere (Teilhard de Chardin) point toward the realization of a gigantic cybernetic system, which lead us back to the question of freedom. It questions the concept of absolute contingency (Meillassoux) and proposes a cosmotechnical pluralism. Engaging with modern and contemporary European philosophy as well as Chinese thought through the mediation of Needham, this book refers to cybernetics, mathematics, artificial intelligence and inhumanism.Trade ReviewRecursivity and Contingency is simply an outstanding philosophical treatise on cybernetics that re-opens the all-too human image of technology today. Alongside a zealous re-situating of system theory within philosophies of nature, Hui boldly defies current technocratic aspirations towards totalizing and deterministic systems with a metaphysical commitment to re-envision the relation with the inhuman. Cosmotechnical perspectives, alter-cosmologies, and techno-diversity are here part of human-machine genesis that promises to finally re-situate technology in various cosmic realities. -- Luciana Parisi, Reader in Cultural Theory, Goldsmiths, University of LondonI hardly know how best to recommend this third major achievement in as many years by one of the most insightful younger philosophers. It reanimates an abandoned arc of reflection that includes cybernetics, organicism, and organology from both European and Chinese traditions to address aspirations for a pluralism of homes within the becoming of an artificial Earth. -- Carl Mitcham, Professor of Liberal Arts and International Studies, Colorado School of MinesYuk Hui’s rich, new writing shows that in order to understand our modern technological world, we need to understand modern thinking about organisms and organology – and not only to understand but, recursively, to think differently. Hui’s cosmotechnical approach – from cybernetics to history of philosophy – is complex, and exactly because of that, deeply rewarding. -- Jussi Parikka, Professor in Technological Culture and Aesthetics, University of SouthamptonYuk Hui's Recursivity and Contingency is not simply a major contribution to the Philosophy of Technology – it is an immense resource in that respect – but it is also a lively work of pluralistic experiment in thought. Here Hui's invitation to think in terms of cosmotechnics comes into its full bloom, engineering an unsurpassably agile guide to questions of technology and culture, nature and mechanism, logic and existence as they have arisen before and as they manifest with full force in the present. -- Matthew Fuller, Professor of Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of LondonTable of ContentsAcknowledgements / Introduction. A Psychedelic Becoming / Chapter 1. Nature and Recursivity / Chapter 2. Logic and Contingency / Chapter 3. Organized Inorganic / Chapter 4. Organizing Inorganic / Chapter 5. The Inhuman that Remains / Bibliography / Index
£35.15
HarperCollins Publishers Inc What is called thinking Religious perspectives
Book Synopsis
£14.39
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Being and Time
Book Synopsis“Being and Time changed the course of philosophy.” —Richard Rorty, New York Times Book Review“Heidegger’s masterwork.” —The EconomistWhat is the meaning of being? This is the central question of Martin Heidegger''s profoundly important work, in which the great philosopher seeks to explain the basic problems of existence. This first paperback edition of John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson''s definitive translation also features a foreword by Heidegger scholar Taylor Carman.A central influence on later philosophy, literature, art, and criticism—as well as existentialism and much of postmodern thought—Being and Time forever changed the intellectual map of the modern world. As Richard Rorty wrote in the New York Times Book Review, You cannot read most of the important thinkers
£18.69
Penguin Publishing Group The Romantic Manifesto Signet Shakespeare A
Book SynopsisIn this beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned book, Ayn Rand throws a new light on the nature of art and its purpose in human life. Once again Miss Rand eloquently demonstrates her refusal to let popular catchwords and conventional ideas stand between her and the truth as she has discovered it. The Romantic Manifesto takes its place beside The Fountainhead as one of the most important achievements of our time.
£8.68
Taylor & Francis Ltd The Conquest of Happiness
Book SynopsisBertrand Russell’s recipe for good living - this is popular philosophy, or even self-help, as it should be written.Trade Review'He writes what he calls common sense, but is in fact uncommon wisdom.' - The Observer'Commended strongly in these days of false values and confused thinking.' - The Listener'As a guide to cheerfulness, Russell could not be bettered.' - News Chronicle'He writes what he calls common sense, but is in fact uncommon wisdom.' - The ObserverTable of ContentsPART I CAUSES OF UNHAPPINESS 1 What Makes People Unhappy 2 Byronic Unhappiness 3 Competition 4 Boredom and Excitement 5 Fatigue 6 Envy 7 The Sense of Sin 8 Persecution Mania 9 Fear of Public Opinion PART II CAUSES OF HAPPINESS 10 Is Happiness Still Possible? 11 Zest 12 Affection 13 The Family 14 Work 15 Impersonal Interests 16 Effort and Resignation 17 The Happy Man
£18.04
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Alien and Philosophy
Book SynopsisAlien and Philosophy: I Infest, Therefore I Am presents a philosophical exploration of the world of Alien, the simultaneously horrifying and thought-provoking sci-fi horror masterpiece, and the film franchise it spawned. The first book dedicated to exploring the philosophy raised by one of the most successful and influential sci-fi franchises of modern times Features contributions from an acclaimed team of scholars of philosophy and pop culture, led by highly experienced volume editors Explores a huge range of topics that include the philosophy of fear, Just Wars, bio-weaponry, feminism and matriarchs, perfect killers, contagion, violation, employee rights and Artificial Intelligence Includes coverage of H.R. Giger's aesthetics, the literary influences of H.P. Lovecraft, sci-fi and the legacy of Vietnam, and much more! Table of ContentsAcknowledgements xi About the Editors xiii List of Contributors xv 1 Introduction 1 Esa Metsälä and Juha Salmelin 1.1 Introducing 5G in Transport 1 1.2 Targets of the Book 3 1.3 Backhaul and Fronthaul Scope within the 5G System 3 1.4 Arranging Connectivity within the 5G System 4 1.5 Standardization Environment 5 1.5.1 3GPP and other organizations 5 References 8 2 5G System Design Targets and Main Technologies 11 Harri Holma and Antti Toskala 11 2.1 5G System Target 11 2.2 5G Technology Components 12 2.3 Network Architecture 14 2.4 Spectrum and Coverage 21 2.5 Beamforming 22 2.6 Capacity 24 2.6.1 Capacity per Cell 24 2.6.2 Capacity per Square Kilometre 24 2.7 Latency and Architecture 26 2.8 Protocol Optimization 28 2.8.1 Connectionless RRC 28 2.8.2 Contention-Based Access 28 2.8.3 Pipelining 29 2.9 Network Slicing and QoS 30 2.10 Integrated Access and Backhaul 32 2.11 Ultra Reliable and Low Latency 33 2.12 Open RAN 34 2.13 3GPP Evolution in Release 16/17 36 2.14 5G-Advanced 38 References 39 3 5G RAN Architecture and Connectivity – A Techno-economic Review 41 Andy Sutton 3.1 Introduction 41 3.2 Multi-RAT Backhaul 41 3.3 C-RAN and LTE Fronthaul 43 3.4 5G RAN Architecture 44 3.5 5G D-RAN Backhaul Architecture and Dimensioning 46 3.6 Integrating 5G within a Multi-RAT Backhaul Network 48 3.7 Use Case – BT/EE 5G Network in the UK 51 3.8 5G C-RAN – F1 Interface and Midhaul 55 3.9 5G C-RAN – CPRI, eCPRI and Fronthaul 56 3.10 Connectivity Solutions for Fronthaul 59 3.11 Small Cells in FR1 and FR 2 62 3.12 Summary 62 References 63 4 Key 5G Transport Requirements 65 Kenneth Y. Ho and Esa Metsälä 4.1 Transport Capacity 65 4.1.1 5G Radio Impacts to Transport 65 4.1.2 Backhaul and Midhaul Dimensioning Strategies 67 4.1.3 Protocol Overheads 68 4.1.4 Backhaul and Midhaul Capacity 69 4.1.5 Fronthaul Capacity 70 4.1.6 Ethernet Link Speeds 71 4.2 Transport Delay 73 4.2.1 Contributors to Delay in 5G System 73 4.2.2 Allowable Transport Delay 73 4.2.3 User Plane and Control Plane Latency for the Logical Interfaces 75 4.2.4 Fronthaul (Low-Layer Split Point) 76 4.2.5 Low-Latency Use Cases 77 4.3 Transport Bit Errors and Packet Loss 78 4.3.1 Radio-Layer Performance and Retransmissions 78 4.3.2 Transport Bit Errors and Packet Loss 79 4.4 Availability and Reliability 80 4.4.1 Definitions 80 4.4.2 Availability Targets 81 4.4.3 Availability in Backhaul Networks 82 4.4.4 Recovery Times in Backhaul and Fronthaul 84 4.4.5 Transport Reliability 84 4.4.6 Air Interface Retransmissions and Transport Reliability 87 4.4.7 Packet Duplication in 5G and Transport 88 4.4.8 Transport Analysis Summary for Availability and Reliability 90 4.5 Security 91 4.5.1 Summary of 5G Cryptographic Protection 91 4.5.2 Network Domain Protection 92 4.5.3 Security in Fronthaul 92 4.6 Analysis for 5G Synchronization Requirement 92 4.6.1 Frequency Error 93 4.6.2 Time Alignment Error (Due to TDD Timing) 93 4.6.3 Time Alignment Error (Due to MIMO) 100 4.6.4 Time Alignment Error (Due to Carrier Aggregation) 101 4.6.5 Time Alignment Accuracy (Due to Other Advanced Features) 102 References 102 5 Further 5G Network Topics 105 Esa Malkamäki, Mika Aalto, Juha Salmelin and Esa Metsälä 5.1 Transport Network Slicing 105 5.1.1 5G System-Level Operation 105 5.1.2 Transport Layers 105 5.2 Integrated Access and Backhaul 108 5.2.1 Introduction 108 5.2.2 IAB Architecture 109 5.2.3 Deployment Scenarios and Use Cases 110 5.2.4 IAB Protocol Stacks 111 5.2.5 IAB User Plane 113 5.2.6 IAB Signalling Procedures 114 5.2.7 Backhaul Adaptation Protocol 116 5.2.8 BH Link Failure Handling 117 5.2.9 IAB in 3GPP Release 17 and Beyond 118 5.3 Ntn 118 5.3.1 NTN in 3GPP 118 5.3.2 Different Access Types 119 5.3.3 Protocol Stacks 121 5.3.4 Transparent Architecture 123 5.3.5 Feeder Link Switchover 124 5.4 URLLC Services and Transport 125 5.4.1 Background 125 5.4.2 Reliability 127 5.4.3 Latency 128 5.5 Industry Solutions and Private 5G 129 5.5.1 Introduction to Private 5G Networking 129 5.5.2 3GPP Features Supporting Private 5G Use Cases 130 5.5.3 URLLC and TSC in Private 5G 133 5.6 Smart Cities 133 5.6.1 Needs of Cities 134 5.6.2 Possible Solutions 135 5.6.3 New Business Models 137 5.6.4 Implications for BH/FH 138 References 139 6 Fibre Backhaul and Fronthaul 141 Pascal Dom, Lieven Levrau, Derrick Remedios and Juha Salmelin 6.1 5G Backhaul/Fronthaul Transport Network Requirements 141 6.1.1 Capacity Challenge 141 6.1.2 Latency Challenge 143 6.1.3 Synchronization Challenge 144 6.1.4 Availability Challenge 144 6.1.5 Software-Controlled Networking for Slicing Challenge 145 6.1.6 Programmability and OAM Challenges 145 6.2 Transport Network Fibre Infrastructure 146 6.2.1 Availability of Fibre Connectivity 146 6.2.2 Dedicated vs Shared Fibre Infrastructure 147 6.2.3 Dedicated Infrastructure 149 6.2.4 Shared Infrastructure 149 6.3 New Builds vs Legacy Infrastructure 150 6.4 Optical Transport Characteristics 151 6.4.1 Optical Fibre Attenuation 151 6.4.2 Optical Fibre Dispersion 152 6.5 TSN Transport Network for the Low-Layer Fronthaul 153 6.6 TDM-PONs 154 6.6.1 TDM-PONs as Switched Transport Network for Backhaul and Midhaul 154 6.6.2 TDM-PONs as Switched Transport Network for Fronthaul 156 6.7 Wavelength Division Multiplexing Connectivity 156 6.7.1 Passive WDM Architecture 156 6.7.2 Active–Active WDM Architecture 158 6.7.3 Semi-Active WDM Architecture 160 6.8 Total Cost of Ownership for Fronthaul Transport Networking 161 References 163 7 Wireless Backhaul and Fronthaul 165 Paolo Di Prisco, Antti Pietiläinen and Juha Salmelin 7.1 Baseline 165 7.2 Outlook 166 7.3 Use Cases Densification and Network Upgrade 169 7.4 Architecture Evolution – Fronthaul/Midhaul/Backhaul 172 7.5 Market Trends and Drivers 172 7.5.1 Data Capacity Increase 173 7.5.2 Full Outdoor 174 7.5.3 New Services and Slicing 174 7.5.4 End-to-End Automation 175 7.6 Tools for Capacity Boost 176 7.6.1 mmW Technology (Below 100 GHz) 176 7.6.2 Carrier Aggregation 177 7.6.3 New Spectrum Above 100 GHz 181 7.7 Radio Links Conclusions 183 7.8 Free-Space Optics 183 7.8.1 Introduction 183 7.8.2 Power Budget Calculations 184 7.8.3 Geometric Loss 184 7.8.4 Atmospheric Attenuation 185 7.8.5 Estimating Practical Link Spans 186 7.8.6 Prospects of FSO 188 References 189 8 Networking Services and Technologies 191 Akash Dutta and Esa Metsälä 8.1 Cloud Technologies 191 8.1.1 Data Centre and Cloud Infrastructure 191 8.1.2 Data Centre Networking 194 8.1.3 Network Function Virtualization 196 8.1.4 Virtual Machines and Containers 198 8.1.5 Accelerators for RAN Functions 202 8.1.6 O-RAN View on Virtualization and Cloud Infrastructure 204 8.2 Arranging Connectivity 206 8.2.1 IP and MPLS for Connectivity Services 206 8.2.2 Traffic Engineering with MPLS-TE 208 8.2.3 E-vpn 208 8.2.4 Segment Routing 210 8.2.5 IP and Optical 211 8.2.6 IPv4 and IPv 6 212 8.2.7 Routing Protocols 212 8.2.8 Loop-Free Alternates 214 8.2.9 Carrier Ethernet Services 215 8.2.10 Ethernet Link Aggregation 216 8.3 Securing the Network 217 8.3.1 IPsec and IKEv 2 217 8.3.2 Link-Layer Security (MACSEC) 219 8.3.3 Dtls 220 8.4 Time-Sensitive Networking and Deterministic Networks 220 8.4.1 Motivation for TSN 220 8.4.2 IEEE 802.1CM – TSN for Fronthaul 221 8.4.3 Frame Pre-emption 223 8.4.4 Frame Replication and Elimination 223 8.4.5 Management 225 8.4.6 Deterministic Networks 226 8.5 Programmable Network and Operability 227 8.5.1 Software-Defined Networking Initially 227 8.5.2 Benefits with Central Controller 228 8.5.3 Netconf/YANG 229 References 230 9 Network Deployment 233 Mika Aalto, Akash Dutta, Kenneth Y. Ho, Raija Lilius and Esa Metsälä 9.1 NSA and SA Deployments 233 9.1.1 Shared Transport 233 9.1.2 NSA 3x Mode 235 9.1.3 SA Mode 237 9.2 Cloud RAN Deployments 237 9.2.1 Motivation for Cloud RAN 237 9.2.2 Pooling and Scalability in CU 240 9.2.3 High Availability in CU 242 9.2.4 Evolving to Real-Time Cloud – vDU 244 9.2.5 Enterprise/Private Wireless 250 9.3 Fronthaul Deployment 251 9.3.1 Site Solutions and Fronthaul 251 9.3.2 Carrying CPRI over Packet Fronthaul 252 9.3.3 Statistical Multiplexing Gain 253 9.3.4 Merged Backhaul and Fronthaul 255 9.4 Indoor Deployment 257 9.5 Deploying URLLC and Enterprise Networks 262 9.5.1 Private 5G Examples 262 9.5.2 Private 5G RAN Architecture Evolution 264 9.5.3 IP Backhaul and Midhaul Options for Private 5G 266 9.5.4 Fronthaul for Private 5G 266 9.5.5 Other Transport Aspects in Private 5G Networks 267 9.6 Delivering Synchronization 268 9.6.1 Network Timing Synchronization Using PTP and SyncE 269 9.6.2 SyncE 269 9.6.3 IEEE 1588 (aka PTP) 270 9.6.4 ITU-T Profiles for Telecom Industry Using SyncE and PTP 270 9.6.5 Example of Putting All Standards Together in Planning 271 9.6.6 Resilience Considerations in Network Timing Synchronization 275 9.6.7 QoS Considerations in Network Timing Synchronization 276 9.6.8 Special Considerations in Cloud RAN Deployment 276 9.6.9 Satellite-Based Synchronization 277 9.6.10 Conclusion for Synchronization 278 References 278 10 Conclusions and Path for the Future 279 Esa Metsälä and Juha Salmelin 10.1 5G Path for the Future 279 10.2 Summary of Content 280 10.3 Evolutionary Views for Backhaul and Fronthaul 280 Index 283
£11.66
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Condition of Postmodernity
Book SynopsisIn this new book, David Harvey seeks to determine what is meant by the term in its different contexts and to identify how accurate and useful it is as a description of contemporary experience.Trade Review"Devastating. The most brilliant study of post-modernity to date. David Harvey cuts beneath the theoretical debates about postmodernist culture to reveal the social and economic basis of this apparently free-floating phenomenon. After reading this book, those who fashionably scorn the idea of a 'total' critique had better think again." Terry Eagleton "Few people have penetrated the heartland of contemporary cultural theory and critique as explosively or insightfully as David Harvey." Edward Soja "David Harvey's book is probably the best yet written on the link between ... economic and cultural transformations." Financial Times "David Harvey's engrossing book is probably the most readable, ambitious, and intelligent work on postmodernism yet published." Voice Literary Supplement "In Harvey's skilful hands various strands of contemporary life, normally held far apart by specialized scholarly interests, come together again and are shown to fit with each other ... a marvellous, enjoyable and mind-opening book." Times Literary SupplementTable of ContentsThe argument. Preface. Acknowledgements. Part I: The Passage from Modernity to Postmodernity in Contemporary Culture: . 1. Introduction. 2. Modernity and Modernism. 3. Postmodernism. 4. Postmodernism in the City: Architecture and Urban Design. 5. Modernization. 6. POSTmodernISM or postMODERNism?. Part II: The Political-Economic Transformation of late Twentieth-Century Capitalism: . 7. Introduction. 8. Fordism. 9. From Fordism to Flexible Accumulation. 10. Theorizing the Transition. 11. Flexible Accumulation - Solid Transformation or Temporary Fix?. Part III: The Experience of Space and Time: . 12. Introduction. 13. Individual Spaces and Times in Social Life. 14. Time and Space as Sources of Social Power. 15. The Time and Space of the Enlightenment Project. 16. Time-space Compression and the Rise of Modernism as a Cultural Force. 17. Time-Space Compression and the Postmodern Condition. 18. Time and Space in the Postmodern Cinema. Part IV: The Condition of Postmodernity:. 19. Postmodernity as a Historical Condition. 20. Economics with Mirrors. 21. Postmodernism as the Mirror of Mirrors. 22. Fordist Modernism versus Flexible Postmodernism, or the Interpenetration of Opposed Tendencies in Capitalism as a Whole. 23. The Transformative and Speculative Logic of Capital. 24. The Work of Art in an Age of Electronic Reproduction and Image Banks. 25. Responses to Time-Space Compression. 26. The Crisis of Historical Materialism. 27. Cracks in the Mirrors, Fusions at the Edges. References. Index.
£27.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Lectures and Conversations
Book SynopsisNotes from Wittgenstein's small-group, philosophical lectures on aestheticsThis book is based on a series of lectures on aesthetics that Ludwig Wittgenstein, an influential Austrian-British philosopher, gave at the University of Cambridge in 1938. Several students took notes during the lectures, which were directed to a small group and later compiled into Ludwig Wittgenstein: Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. The book also includes notes from Wittgenstein's discussions on Freud and from his lectures on religion. Philosophy students can gain unique insight into the 20th century philosopher's perspectives on these topics through an exploration of his lectures and conversations.Table of ContentsChapter 1 Lectures on Aesthetics Chapter 2 Conversations on Freud Chapter 3 Lectures on Religious Belief
£25.60
Harvard University Press 19351938
Book SynopsisRadical critic of a European civilization plunging into darkness, yet commemorator of the humane traditions of the old bourgeoisie--such was Walter Benjamin in the later 1930s. This volume, the third in a four-volume set, offers twenty-seven brilliant pieces, nineteen of which have never before been translated.Trade ReviewThis latest volume of Harvard's majestic annotated edition of the essays and fragments includes reflections on Brecht, Kafka and the collector Eduard Fuchs, an early version of the famous analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction (here more accurately translated as "technological reproducibility") and the equally exhilarating inquiry into the nature of narrative, "The Storyteller." You feel smarter just holding this book in your hand. -- Michael Dirda * Washington Post *Over the past few years, Harvard's systematic presentation of the work of German cultural critic Benjamin has proved a revelation...This third of four planned volumes...offers two major texts that are new to English...as well as a fascinating re-translation of one of the cornerstones of Benjamin's reputation, here rendered as the essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility"...This is another splendid volume that will leave aficionados on campus and off awaiting the final installment. * Publishers Weekly *While the Harvard Series does include Benjamin's epochal contributions to Marxist theory and literary criticism, it also does English-language readers a great service by emphasizing his more accessible writings: fanciful personal essays, journalistic articles, and book reviews. These pieces are, at times, giddily delightful; at other moments, they offer lightning-quick, piercing insights. * Publishers Weekly *Benjamin attracts such metaphorical fancies, symbols of a life's work at once supernaturally precise and rigorously mysterious. His own favoured symbol for the scattered unity of his writing was that of the constellation: a stellar array of apparently unrelated points rendered into magical coherence by the powers of thought and intuition. This third volume in Harvard's essential selection from his huge corpus offers something like a deep-space photograph of Benjamin's enigmatic universe: a book as fascinating for scholars as it is enrapturing for any reader as yet unseduced by this most sensitive and audacious of writers...Benjamin's autobiographical masterpiece ['A Berlin Childhood Around 1900'] might alone justify this sedulously edited and beautifully translated volume. But here, too, alongside an outline of The Arcades Project and an early version of the 'Work of Art [in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction]' essay, are his thoughts on a wondrous variety of subjects--Kafka, Brecht, painting and photography, carnivals, the problem of translation--as well as a host of supposedly 'minor' writings (fragments, letters, diary entries) which often turn out to be among his most beautiful or thought-provoking...It is no exaggeration to say that Benjamin's writing changes lives, lights up unknown landscapes of art and politics, even at this historical remove. If his thought lives on...it does so in the sense that Baudelaire's 19th century survived for Benjamin in the 20th: less a reminder of the past than a signpost to the future. There is no more incisive or elegant guide to that territory. -- Brian Dillon * Irish Times *The quintessential Benjamin gesture of Volume 3 is the 1936 selection of letters by a wide assortment of figures from the German Romantic era, together with his brief, meticulously sympathetic commentaries, contained in German Men and Women...It is the story primarily of friendships amidst the passages and misfortunes of time, and of ideas as the substance of friendship: Their exchange becomes the fabric that connects one individual to another, and binds each to their precarious, uncertain lives. -- Howard Hampton * Village Voice *Howard Eiland's translation [of "Berlin Childhood around 1900"] in Harvard University Press's Selected Writings, Volume 3 is incomparable. -- Charles Mudede * The Stranger *Table of ContentsParis Old and New, 1935 Brecht's Threepenny Novel Johann Jakob Bachofen Conversation above the Corso: Recollections of Carnival-Time in Nice Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century Exchange with Theodor W. Adorno on the Essay "Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century" Problems in the Sociology of Language: An Overview The Formula in Which the Dialectical Structure of Film Finds Expression Rastelli's Story Art In a Technological Age, 1936 The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version A Different Utopian Will The Significance of Beautiful Semblance The Signatures of the Age Theory of Distraction The Storyteller: Observations on the Works of Nikolai Leskov German Men and Women: A Sequence of Letters Letter from Paris (2): Painting and Photography Translation-For and Against The Knowledge That the First Material on Which the Mimetic Faculty Tested Itself Dialectics and History, 1937 Addendum to the Brecht Commentary: The Threepenny Opera Eduard Fuchs, Collector and Historian Fruits of Exile, 1938 (Part 1) Theological-Political Fragment A German Institute for Independent Research Review of Brod's Franz Kafka Letter to Gershom Scholem on Franz Kafka The Land Where the Proletariat May Not Be Mentioned: The Premiere of Eight One-Act Plays by Brecht Diary Entries, 1938 Berlin Childhood around 1900 A Note on the Texts Chronology, 1935-1938 Index Illustrations The Galerie Vivienne, Paris, 1907 Walter Benjamin at the Bibliotheque Nationale, 1937 Honore Daumier, La Crinoline en temps de neige The Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge, Berlin, early twentieth century The Victory Column on Konigsplatz, Berlin, early twentieth century The goldfish pond in the Tiergarten, Berlin, early twentieth century Berlin's Tiergarten in winter, early twentieth century Market hall on Magdeburger Platz, 1899 Interior of a typical middle-class German home, late nineteenth century Courtyard on Fischerstrasse in Old Berlin, early twentieth century Walter Benjamin and his brother Georg, ca. 1902
£24.61
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A Biography of Ordinary Man: On Authorities and
Book SynopsisThis book is a foundational text for our understanding of François Laruelle, one of France's leading thinkers, whose ideas have emerged as an important touchstone for contemporary theoretical discussions across multiple disciplines. One of Laruelle’s first systematic elaborations of his ethical and "non-philosophical" thought, this critical dialogue with some of the dominant voices of continental philosophy offers a rigorous science of individuals as minorities or as separated from the World, History, and Philosophy. Through novel theorizations of finitude and determination in the last instance, Laruelle develops a thought "of the One" as a "minoritarian" paradigm that resists those paradigms that foreground difference as the conceptual matrix for understanding the status of the minority. The critique of the "unitary illusion" of philosophy developed here stands at the foundation of Laruelle’s approach to "uni-lateralizing" the power of philosophy and the universals with which it has always thought, and thereby acts as a basis for his subsequent investigations of victims, mysticism, and Gnosticism. This book will appeal to students and scholars of continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, ethics, aesthetics, and cultural theory.Trade Review"What would it mean to craft a rigorous science of humanity based on minority rather than authority? In one of his earliest complete expressions of non-philosophy, Laruelle offers a compelling formula for generic humanity – dubbed here ordinary man – rooted not in philosophical or social difference but in real, ordinary identity, the identity of minority. The result is a form of life without authority, without state, without world, in other words, truly glorious." Alexander R. Galloway, New York University "A Biography of Ordinary Man shows how non-philosophy can be understood as the ongoing discovery of the human, of the ordinary, and of the lived, without recourse to the ‘totalitarian spirit’ of authoritarian thought. This is a science of the ordinary life that undoes what we think we know about the human." John Ó Maoilearca, Kingston University, LondonTable of ContentsTranslators' Introduction Foreword Introduction: A Rigorous Science of Man 1) From the Sciences of Man to the Science of Men Five human theorems. The Sciences of Man are not sciences and man is not their object. Heterogeneous sciences, not specific, not theoretically justified, and devoid of humanity. Critique of difference and of anthropo-logical parallelism. The essence of man is "theoretical," not anthropo-logical. 2) Man as Finite or Ordinary Individual Man is not visible within the horizon of Greek ontological presuppositions. Man is really distinct from the World and from the All. Man as finite transcendental experience of the One. The finite subject, without universal or authoritarian predicates. Human Solitudes. Man is out (of) the question. 3) From Philosophy to Theory: the Science of Ordinary Man The characteristics of the science of men and what distinguishes it from philosophy: 1) naïve and not reflexive; 2) real or absolute and not hypothetical; 3) essentially theoretical and not practical or technical; 4) descriptive and not constructive; 5) human rather than anthropological. 4) The Scientific and Positive Meaning of Transcendental Naiveté Thinking outside of all representation or ob-jectivation. Finite individuals are absolutely invisible to unitary philosophy, though thinkable. The unitary field and its two parameters. Man outside-the-field and his radically immanent essence that is non-positional (of) itself. The minoritarian is not the micro-. No "example" of minorities. Rigorous science of the invisible. Against the fantasy of philo-centrism. 5) Towards a Critique of (Political, etc.) Reason Ordinary man and his precedence over the "new logics." A possible political version of minorities. Critique of the stato-minoritarian concept of the individual. Transcendental and real criteria of minorities. From the statist hypothesis on minorities to the minoritarian thesis on the State. Political forgetting and non-forgetting of the essence of the State CHAPTER I: Who Are Minorities? 6) The Two Sources of Minoritarian Thought The stato-minoritarian or effective minorities as "difference." The properly minoritarian or the real individual before the World and the State. How minorities determine Authorities in the last instance. Determination in the last instance: irreversible or uni-lateral causality of the individual. The One rather than Being: real foundation of the minoritarian individual. 7) How to Think Individuals? Individuals are not modes of transcendence or of the beyond (of power), margins or remainders, or the Other of history. The individual is not beyond the World; it is the World that is beyond the individual. Minorities do not fall under the human and social sciences. Conditions of a radical thought of individuals (term, object of immediate experience before any relation; real or unreflective rather than remainder of exteriority). Apriori of the individual and of the multiple. Two criteria of the individual (its essence or the One; its causality as unilateralization of the World). 8) Theory of Uni-laterality Real uni-laterality is not a "difference" or a logical asymmetry, a relation in general, but precedes any relation (of predication, of power, etc.). Uni-lateral: a single side, a primitive asymmetry induced by the One. The One is not unilateral but affects the World with a unilateriality or determines it in the last instance. Uni-lateral: the specific form of order of the real and the non-philosophical. Uni-lateral and unitary forms of order: the relational, the transversal, the differential, the logo-centric. Specific causality of ordinary or finite man. 9) The Essence of the One or of the Finite Subject The forgetting of the essence of the One is not the forgetting of Being. The experience (of) indivision precedes that of division or transcendence. It is given (to) itself in a mode that is non-positional (of) itself, in an unreflective experience. The difference between the One and Unity: The One does not divide into two or synthesize a manifold. The real is not dialectical, but determines the dialectic in the last instance. The One is the element of the mystical and grounds an "ordinary mysticism." 10) Minorities and Authorities Minority: unreflective transcendental experience, real phenomenal content of techno-political universals. Individual and individuel. Individual and relation. Against the equation: minoritarian = relative, minoritarian = different. Individuals are invisible in the unitary horizon. Uncountable and politically and ontologically unspeakable. They refuse to be compatibilized in the revolutionary calculation. CHAPTER II: Who Are Authorities? 11) Individuals and the World The finite subject, without ob-jets, is the real critique of the Copernican Revolution. Contingent experience of the World and Authorities. The One does not negate the World but lets it affect man from its unilaterality. Authoritarian denial of the One. Experience of being remote-in-Theworld and what distinguishes it from being-in-the-world. 12) The Absolute Science of the World and of Authorities The mystical and its effect, the As It Is, precede unitary "existence" or Being. Individuals are the absolute science of the World and Authorities because they do not objectivate them. Absolute science of Wholes or Mixtures as they are. 13) On Authority as Individuel Causality Authority: political concept and ontological concept. Authorities, aprioristic structures of all experience in the World. From ontological concept to individual experience. Individuel or universal causality, individual or finite causality. Authority: transcendent form of human causality. Its two complementary forms. The authoritarian mixture precedes its terms and is not created by the One, which it follows as a "second principle." Authorities, irreducible and non-deficient mode of reality. The One does not alienate itself in the World: autonomy of the World. CHAPTER III: Ordinary Mysticism SECTION I: The Unitary Illusion 14) The Possibility of a Unitary Illusion The dual, the order of successive givenness of the One, the World, and the (non-)One, is not a new unity. Unitary falsification and denial of the One by the World. The two aspects of the Unitary Illusion or of the authoritarian resistance to individuals. 15) The Transcendental Nature of the Unitary Illusion Unitary mechanism and transcendental meaning of the illusion. Confusion of the real and the logico-real. Positivity of the mixture: uncreatable from the One and anterior to its components. The dual against the unitary experience of the fall. The law of the real: neither alienation, nor procession, nor topology, but determination in the last instance. 16) On Illusion as Hallucination The type of reality of the illusion in relation to the World and the One. How the forgetting of the One is different from the forgetting of Being. Content of the illusion: belief that the One is object of forgetting or real repression, like an unconscious. Unitary resistance: hallucination and magic rather than symptom. SECTION II: Finite Topics 17) The Finite Subject and the Critique of the Copernican Revolution Finite man without vis-à-vis or neighborhood. The World is neither an ob-ject nor an objectivation. Dualyzation as destruction of the Copernican Revolution. Irreversible or real thought, circular or philosophical thought. 18) The "Chora" In the Transcendental Sense The (non-)One: de-distancing or indifference without proximity; primitive and unique place that em-places the World. Exteriority or the "chora" in their real phenomenal content and as correlate of the One. Chora: without opening, distance or jection; without horizon; as non-positional site. 19) Critique of Topology (Logic of Places and Logic of Forces) Dialectical and topological forgetting of the primitive place and of its essence. Unitary place as topological and positional continuum. Western topo-logical amphibology. Logic of places and its complement: the logic of forces. Finite place and infinite force. Confusion of force and real. Critique of topological distance: the World is not the great Neighbor of man. Irreversible de-distancing or uni-laterality of the World. 20) The Phenomenal Content of Uni-laterality Laterality and positionality. Phenomenal content of uni-laterality. Brushing aside with the back of the hand; opposing an end of non-receiving to affection by the World. Passivity without reception. The true outside-without-inside: what the One determines in the last instance. Finitude as Occam's razor. Human philosophy and the ordinary as irreversible order. Irreversibility and remoteness. The ordinary and the principles of reason. SECTION III: Determination in the Last Instance and the (Non-)One 21) Thinking the (non-)One Transcendental truth of the (non-)One, content of determination in the last instance. The (non-)One as immediate given excluding transcendence. Dual, element of the (non-)One. 22) The Causality of the "Last Instance" or of Finitude Neither absent cause nor present cause. Exclusion of the four metaphysical causes and the causality of the Other. Specific causality of finitude. Sufficiency and non-alienation (in action) as that which determines in the last instance. 23) Transcendental Deduction of the (Non-)One or of the "Chora" The (non-)One is required by the finitude of the One to determine the World. The non- of the (non-)One: indifference or defense a priori. Positivity of the non-. Indifference that is not passive but through passivity. SECTION IV: Real Critique and Philosophical Critique 24) The Affect of Real Critique Real critique: passage from the real to the illusion. What distinguishes philosophical critique: as unilateralization rather than as limitation. The affect of critique is the affect of the "chora." Real and transcendental meaning of the dual. Dual as non-unitary element of critique. The dual and the World "in itself." 25) The Positivity of Real Critique Real critique is not a philosophical operation (reduction, nihilation, limitation, destruction). Nor an operation of the Other. A priori indifference of the One and contingency of the World. Its em-placement as it is. The symptom, unitary concept. From the symptom to the hallucination. Real critique eliminates unitary philosophy's resentment against the World. Real critique has no stakes: the real is not at stake. SECTION V: The Science of the World and of Authorities 26) The Reality of an Absolutely Subjective Science of the World The idea of "absolute science." Philosophy is only a relative-absolute science, the finite subject is an absolute science of the World. The World is not an ob-jet. Philosophy has ob-jects, but science does not, or is not a part of its objects. It excludes the unitary circle. Absolute science is contemplation of the in itself. It excludes temporality. 27) The Absolute Science of Mixtures or of "Postdicates" The content of science: the As It Is rather than the As Such. The World unilateralized or the contingency of the too-much. The ante-predicative to the "postdicative:" The World, Language, etc. as "postdicates." Absolute Science of mixtures, totalities, and universals. Absolute and relative science. Absolute science belongs to ordinary man rather than to the philosopher. 28) Critique of the Unitary Transcendental Deduction The Unitary Operation of the Deduction is a supposition of the real, an auto-requirement of the logico-real mixture. Illusory character of the problem of representation and of its juridico-rational form. Unthought essence of transcendental Unity. Real right of the Deduction. Mysticism and Pragmatics as real content of the Deduction. CHAPTER IV: Ordinary Pragmatics SECTION I: Critique of Pragmatic Reason 29) Pragmatics as Real Critique of Philosophy The pragmatic critique of philosophy presumes a non-philosophical experience of pragmatics as finite or real. "Language games, " vicious and shameful critique of philosophy. Unitary pragmatics: residual and substituve. Dissociating the logico-pragmatic mixture, dissolving the linguistic image of use and of the ordinary, returning them to their individual or finite structures. 30) Use as Apriori of Pragmatics Use, concrete a priori of pragmatics; the ordinary, concrete a priori of philosophy. Use, real rather than possible, excludes language, the transcendence of rules and their "application" (surjectivation), and the models of production of logico-linguistic meaning. Essence of use: unthought of pragmatic philosophy. Transcendental truth of the "ordinary" or the finite-real. 31) Philosophical Pragmatics and Real Pragmatics Real distinction of use and the World. Finite or inalienable use: an individual or immanent causality. Non-Copernican subjectivity of action. Four "extensions" of the concept of performativity. SECTION II: The Essence of Pragmatic Causality 32) From the Mystical to the Pragmatic Pragmatic causality, concept acquired a priori starting from the finite subject. Subjective order: essence precedes existent, existent precedes existence. Pragmatics, the recognition of the reality of the World. 33) The Finitude of Pragmatics Distinction between (unitary) autonomy and finitude. Effective sterility of finite pragmatics that does not transform raw material. Breaking the pragmateia/pragmata parallelism. Non-positional (of) itself use and its immanent givens: neither continuous nor alienated in the World. Unitary falsification of operativity (obscurity, unconscious). Positive interpretation of practical obscurity as unreflective. 34) The Essence of Pragmatics: 1) The Finite Drive Acting is not a scission, it attains the World without transcending towards it as towards an ob-ject. Finite or indivisible non-thetic drive of action. Agito: I act, I exist. Unitary falsification of the drive into an unconscious. Absolute practice: without ob-ject, but with occasional material. 35) The Essence of Pragmatics: 2) The Immediate Givenness of the Other Real correlate of use: not pragmata, but a non-thetic Other. Unitary forgetting of the essence of the Other, its philosophical requisition against philosophy. Immediate givenness of the Other and its phenomenal givens. The drive reveals a Transcendent towards which it does not transcend. 36) The Essence of Pragmatics: 3) The Other, The Signal, and The Pragmatic Foundation of Communication The Other: a priori or real resistance, not a posteriori or possible resistance. The finite Other does not limit the World, it proceeds neither by Reversal nor by Displacement, but rather uni-lateralizes according to the mode of the Support or the Signal. Pragmatic foundation of communication. Meaning/Signal system: real phenomenal givens of all possible communication. Dual and dualism: genesis of duality. Finitude of terms or their "autonomy" before the Unity-of-Contraries. The Other partially legitimates the Unitary Illusion. 37) Meaning and the Rigorous Science of the Unitary Structures of the World Breaking the parallelism of meaning and logico-linguistic signification. The pragmatic and the symbolic. The scientific criteria of the unitary and the philosophical cannot be unitary or philosophical. From the unitary to the "expanded:" non-thetic meaning as expanded criterion of the unitary. Authorities, legitimated as object of rigorous science of man. Notes Index
£18.76
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Before Tomorrow
Book SynopsisIs contemporary continental philosophy making a break with Kant? The structures of knowledge, taken for granted since Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, are now being called into question: the finitude of the subject, the phenomenal given, a priori synthesis.Table of ContentsTranslator's Preface: Epigenesis of Her Texts Foreword Introduction Chapter 1: Paragraph 27 of the Critique of Pure Reason Chapter 2: Caught Between Skeptical Readings Chapter 3: The Difference Between Genesis and Epigenesis Chapter 4: Kant's "Minimal Preformationism" Chapter 5: Germs, Races, Seeds Chapter 6: The "Neo-Skeptical" Thesis and its Evolution Chapter 7: From Epigenesis to Epigenetics Chapter 8: From Code to Book Chapter 9: Irreducible Foucault Chapter 10: Time in Question Chapter 11: No Agreement Chapter 12: The Dead-End Chapter 13: Towards an Epigenetic Paradigm of Rationality Chapter 14: Can We Relinquish the Transcendental? Conclusion Notes Bibliography
£17.09
Cornell University Press Dostoevsky the Thinker
Book SynopsisFor all his distance from formal philosophy, Fyodor Dostoevsky was one of the most philosophical of writers. In works from fictional masterpieces to little-known nonfiction prose, he grappled with the ultimate questions about the nature of humankind. His novels are peopled by characters who dramatize the fierce debates that preoccupied the Russian intelligentsia during the second half of the nineteenth century. What was the philosophy of Dostoevsky? How does reading this literary giant from a new perspective add to our understanding of him and of Russian culture? In this remarkable book, a leading authority on Russian thought presents the first comprehensive account of Dostoevsky''s philosophical outlook. Drawing on the writer''s novels and, more so than other scholars, on his essays, letters, and notebooks, James P. Scanlan examines Dostoevsky''s beliefs. The nonfiction pieces make possible new interpretations of some of the author''s most controversial works of fictiTrade ReviewScanlan... teases out logical arguments from both the literary and nonliterary works of his subject, the latter of which provide rich and previously little-known source material.... One of the premier scholars of Russian philosophy in the US, Scanlan has a general approach that is sober and urbane; he makes a spirited and convincing defense of Dostoevsky as an innovative thinker. The section of Dostoevsky's arguments for the existence of God is by itself worth the purchase price. Recommended for undergraduates. -- D.C. Shaw * Choice *This is a thoughtful, clearly written and well-researched study, full of excellent points, and finely wrought arguments. It will be essential reading for all those concerned with Dostoevskii's philosophical, religious views and the history of ideas in Russia. -- Diane Oenning Thompson, University of Cambridge * Slavonic and East European Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Dostoevsky as a Philosopher1. Matter and Spirit2. The Case against Rational Egoism3. The Ethics of Altruism4. A Christian Utopoa5. "The Russian Idea"Conclusion: Dostoevsky's Vision of HumanityIndex
£20.79
Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press Simone Weil An Anthology
Book Synopsis
£12.34
Northwestern University Press History and Truth Northwestern University Studies
Book SynopsisInvestigates the antinomy between history and truth, or between historicity and meaning. This book argues that history has meaning insofar as it approaches universality and system, but has no meaning insofar as this universality violates the singularity of individuals' lives.
£23.96
Stanford University Press Friendship Meridian Crossing Aesthetics
Book Synopsis29 critical essays and reviews on art, politics, literature, and philosophy document the wide range of Blanchot's interests, from the enigmatic paintings in the Lascaux caves to the atomic era.Trade Review“This is an extraordinary work of criticism—literary, cultural, political—but also of writing. It manages to weave together an almost journalistic directness and clarity with a philosophical-theoretical meditation of tingling complexity. Its appearance is an event of considerable importance and of great excitement, not simply because many of the essays in this volume are of enormous significance by themselves, but because the style and concerns of the book make it of interest to a broader reading public as well as academics.”—Thomas Keenan, Princeton UniversityTable of Contents1. The birth of art 2. The museum, art and time 3. Museum sickness 4. The time of encyclopedias 5. Translating 6. The great reducers 7. Man at point zero 8. Slow obsequies 9. On one approach to communism 10. Marx's three voices 11. The apocalypse is disappointing 12. War and literature.
£25.19
Stanford University Press Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime Meridian
Book SynopsisOver the past decade, radical questioning of the grounds of Western epistemology has revealed that some antinomies of the aesthetic experience can be viewed as a general, yet necessarily open, model for human understanding. This book is a rigorous explication de texte of a central text for this thesis, Kant's Analytic of the Sublime.
£21.59
Stanford University Press The Fragmentary Demand
Book SynopsisThis introduction to the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy gives an overview of his philosophical thought to date and situates it within the broader context of contemporary French and European thinking.Trade Review"As an introductory overview to a major contemporary thinker, James's book is exemplary: the exposition is economical and clear, and combines useful contextual background with sustained sequences of detailed exegesis. James has a real knack for the concise presentation of complex ideas, and draws to good effect on Nancy's own tendency to work closely with and through other thinkers' work." -- Radical Philosophy"James shows himself to be an insightful and sophisticated expositor, carefully situating Nancy's work within the Continental tradition and detailing the central concepts and developments that constitute Nancy's own unique philosophical project." -- Continental Philosophy Review"This is a disciplined exposition of both the origins of Jean-Luc Nancy's work and its most recent shifts of emphasis...James makes an invaluable contribution to the reception of comtemporary European Philosophy in the English-speaking world. His synthetic skill, in particular his choice of topics and illustrating quotations, is impeccable." -- Philosophy in Review/Comptes Rendus PhilosophiquesTable of Contents@fmct:Contents @toc4:Acknowledgments iii Abbreviations iii @toc2:Introduction: The Fragmentary Demand 0 Chapter One: Subjectivity 00 @toc3:Introduction 000 Kant and the Foundations of Philosophy 000 The Persistence of the Subject 000 @toc2:Chapter Two: Space 000 @toc3:Introduction 000 Space: Classical and Phenomenological 000 Heidegger and Existential Spatiality 000 The Sense of Space: Nancy's Thinking of Spatiality 000 @toc2:Chapter Three: Body 000 @toc3:Introduction 000 Merleau-Ponty and the Phenomenological Body 000 Nancy's Corpus 000 Ecotechnics and Writing 000 @toc2:Chapter Four: Community 000 @toc3:Introduction 000 The Centre for Philosophical Research on the Political 000 The Inoperative Community 000 Literary Communism 000 @toc2:Chapter Five: Art 000 @toc3:Introduction 000 Untying Hegel: Art, Sense, Technicity 000 Image--Touching the Real 000 @toc2:Conclusion 000 @toc3:On the Creation of the World 000 @toc4:Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Index 000
£17.59
Edinburgh University Press The Lyotard Dictionary
Book SynopsisDrawing on a multidisciplinary team of experts, The Lyotard Dictionary provides a clear and accessible introduction to all of his main concepts, contextualising these within his work as a whole and relating him to his contemporaries.Trade ReviewThe Lyotard Dictionary provides an exceptionally clear presentation of his complex and challenging ideas. The entries are written with precision, detail and clarity, offering helpful introductions to unfamiliar concepts as well as fascinating insights for those who already know Lyotard's work. It will be an indispensable guide for students of Lyotard at all levels. -- Simon Malpas, The University of Edinburgh The Lyotard Dictionary provides an exceptionally clear presentation of his complex and challenging ideas. The entries are written with precision, detail and clarity, offering helpful introductions to unfamiliar concepts as well as fascinating insights for those who already know Lyotard's work. It will be an indispensable guide for students of Lyotard at all levels.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Introduction, Stuart Sim; Entries A-Z; Bibliography; Notes on Contributors.
£27.54
Edinburgh University Press Deleuze and Guattaris A Thousand Plateaus
Book SynopsisThe sheer volume and complexity of Deleuze and Guattari''s A Thousand Plateaus can be daunting. What is an assemblage? What is a rhizome? What is a war machine? What is a body without organs? What is becoming-animal? Brent Adkins demonstrates that all the questions raised by A Thousand Plateaus are in service to Deleuze and Guattari''s radical reconstruction of the methods and aims of philosophy itself.To achieve this he argues that the crucial term for understanding A Thousand Plateaus is ''assemblage.'' An assemblage is Deleuze and Guattari''s answer to the perennial philosophical question, What is a thing? and they assert that assemblages are always found on a continuum between stasis and change. Each plateau is therefore concerned with a particular type of assemblage (e.g. social, political, linguistic) and its tendencies toward both stasis and change.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments; Introduction: A Perceptual Semiotics; 1. Rhizome; 2. 1914: One or Several Wolves?; 3. 10,000BC: The Geology of Morals; 4. November 20, 1923: Postulates of Linguistics; 5. 587BC - AD 70: On Several Regimes of Signs; 6. November 28, 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?; 7. Year Zero: Faciality; 8. 1874: Three Novellas, or 'What Happened?'; 9. 1933: Micropolitics and Segmentarity; 10. 1730: Becoming Intense, Becoming Animal, Becoming Imperceptible...; 11. 1837: Of the Refrain; 12. 1227: Treatise on Nomadology - The War Machine; 13. 7000BC: Apparatus of Capture; 14. 1440: The Smooth and the Striated; Conclusion: The Ethics of Becoming; Suggestions for Further Reading; Bibliography.
£21.84
Hackett Publishing Co, Inc What Is Art
Book Synopsis
£12.34
Phanes Press,U.S. ROBERT FLUDD
Book Synopsis
£16.14
MB - Cornell University Press Meaning and Interpretation Wittgenstein Henry
Book Synopsis'What is the meaning of a word?' In this thought-provoking book, Hagberg demonstrates how this questionwhich initiated Wittgenstein's later work in the philosophy of languageis significant for our understanding not only of linguistic meaning but of the meaning of works of art and literature as...
£15.99
Liberty Fund Inc In Defense of Tradition
Book Synopsis
£13.25
University of Minnesota Press French Theory How Foucault Derrida Deleuze Co.
Book Synopsis
£17.99
Columbia University Press Critique and Praxis
Book SynopsisBernard E. Harcourt calls for moving beyond the complacency of decades of philosophical detours and to harness critical thought to the need for action. Critique and Praxis advocates for a new path forward that constantly challenges each one of us to ask what more we can do to realize a society based on equality and justice.Trade ReviewCritique and Praxis is the work of a visionary revolutionary intellectual. -- Biodun Jeyifo * British Journal of Sociology *With his typical combination of erudition, eloquent argument, and theoretical clarity, Bernard Harcourt now gives us a complete account of his reading of contemporary critical philosophy, articulating it with immediate issues in the field of human rights and democratic politics. A tour de force which will give readers much to learn and much to think about. I will have it permanently on my desk, or not far. -- Étienne Balibar, author of Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political PhilosophyHas critical philosophy completed its mission or has it renounced the task, which it posed in the 1920s, to link theory and praxis in order to change the world? Harcourt’s response is unequivocal: the critical theory that emerged from the Frankfurt School has lost its original orientation and separated theory from the passion for praxis. Many other philosophical tendencies have since occupied this terrain, reimagining the theoretical horizon and trying to construct practices adequate to contemporary society. Harcourt studies and critiques them attentively, be they liberal currents or socialist variants, European philosophies of the common or insurrectionalist approaches. For Harcourt, however, critique must return to its radical roots and be done ‘en situation.’ This book inaugurates a turn from Foucault-style genealogies to a critical thought that is rooted in praxis and critiques it politically. With this passage, Harcourt exclaims, with Haraway, that ‘the only scientific thing to do is to revolt!’ And he confesses that in his previous books he only scratched at the surface of this conversion. Today the paradigm has shifted and praxis must be posed as subjectivation. If before the problem consisted in responding to ‘What is to be done?,’ today the question is ‘What more am I to do?’ Harcourt thus transforms critical philosophy into a manifesto of ethical engagement. -- Antonio Negri, coauthor of EmpireA relentlessly honest and learned exploration of how critical theory can turn again to the task of changing the world. Learning from above but assiduously from below, activist legal scholar Bernard Harcourt utilizes illusion and value, makes theory and practice collide, and asks: 'What more am I to do?' Required reading. -- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, author of Other AsiasBernard Harcourt's pragmatic and comprehensive dissection of philosophy and the quest for social justice is timely, provocative, and critically needed in this moment of global uncertainty, endless conflict, and pervasive inequality. -- Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and RedemptionHarcourt has produced a challenging book, which addresses many of our current predicaments, and he has the moral authority to command our attention. * Marx and Philosophy Review of Books *His mountainous text is a repetitive tool-box of notes and thoughts from his seminar series and own readings. Like lightning, brilliant ideas flash across the pages. * Counterpunch *By any measure, Critique & Praxis is an impressive contribution, passionate, lucid, deeply committed and nearly always generous in its disagreements. As a conversation between Foucauldian philosophy and radical-political engagement, it is a tour de force. * New Left Review *It’s lucidly written and relatively short on jargon. Which makes it an important book to pay attention to, even for those with no interest in abstruse political-social theories, because we urgently need new ways to critique the system we live in and develop new strategies to oppose and replace it. * History News Network *Critique & Praxis is one of the most provoking contributions to critical theory of the twenty-first century. * Foucault Studies *Bernard Harcourt's latest book is bold, brave, and too short. -- Frieder Vogelmann * British Journal of Sociology *A wide-ranging effort to take up the conundrum of critical theory, which has been with us since Marx wrote the eleventh thesis—that is, that we think and act in and on a damaged society. * Political Theory *Table of ContentsPreface: The Primacy of Critique and PraxisIntroduction: Toward a Critical Praxis TheoryPart I. Reconstructing Critical Theory1. The Original Foundations2. Challenging the Frankfurt Foundations3. Michel Foucault and the History of Truth-Making4. The Return to Foundations5. The Crux of the Problem6. Reconstructing Critical Theory7. A Radical Critical Philosophy of IllusionsPart II. Reimagining the Critical Horizon8. The Transformation of Critical Utopias9. The Problem of Liberalism10. A Radical Critical Theory of Values11. A Critical Horizon of Endless Struggle12. The Problem of Violence13. A Way ForwardPart III. Renewing Critical Praxis14. The Transformation of Praxis15. The Landscape of Contemporary Critical Praxis16. The New Space of Critical PraxisPart IV. Reformulating Critique17. Reframing the Praxis Imperative18. What More Am I To Do?19. Crisis, Critique, PraxisConclusionPostscriptNotesBibliographyAcknowledgmentsName IndexConcept Index
£21.25
Academic Studies Press Vladimir Soloviev and the Spiritualization of
Book SynopsisWhile he is widely acknowledged as the most important Russian thinker of the nineteenth century, Vladimir Soloviev’s place in the landscape of world philosophy nevertheless remains uncertain. Approaching him through a single synoptic lens, this book foregrounds his unique envisioning of the interaction between humanity and the material world. By investigating the development of a single theme in his work—his idea of the “spiritualization of matter”, the “task” of humanity—Smith constructs a rounded picture of Soloviev’s overall importance to an understanding. If nineteenth-century thought, as well as to modern theology and philosophy. The picture that emerges is of a writer whose contribution to a Christian philosophy of matter resonates with many of the religious debates of modernity.Trade Review"Oliver Smith’s Vladimir Soloviev and the Spiritualization of Matter is one of the best recent works in English about Soloviev, indeed about Russian philosophy in general. It tackles complex philosophical concepts with unusual clarity, lucidity and cohesion, exploring the evolution of Soloviev’s philosophical system, and offering detailed and nuanced analyses of the relationships of Soloviev's ideas with those of his great predecessors (Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Jewish Kabbala etc.)." -- Lazar Fleishman, Stanford University"Intelligently, poignantly, and with clear sight, Smith gives us a portrait of Soloviev and his refusal, indeed, his "inability to think the divine without the human." I myself could formulate no better description of this important Russian religious writer, who throughout his multi-faceted career as poet, philosopher, teacher, and journalist sought ever to articulate the ways in which matter can, is, and must be spiritualized. We are all the better for Soloviev's various writings on the subject, and now for Smith's cogent analysis of them all. Thank you both!" -- Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Department of Slavic Studies and Literature, Wisconisin University"This book is a welcome contribution to a growing body of literature on Russian sophiology. Weaving his narrative around Soloviev’s spiritual and intellectual biography, Oliver Smith offers a nuanced and erudite account of Soloviev’s metaphysics of all-unity. Smith successfully shows that at the core of Soloviev’s metaphysical project was a consistent integration of spiritual and material aspects of reality, epitomized in the incarnation." -- Paul Gavrilyuk, Associate Professor of Historical Theology, University of St Thomas, Saint Paul, MinnesotaThis brilliant study of Russia’s greatest religious philosopher delivers much more than its title suggests...It encompasses the whole of Solovev’s philosophy; the spiritualization of matter is a part. Smith’s book, despite its modest claim to being about one part, is really about the whole. It conveys that whole effectively and powerfully. -- Randall A. Poole, The College of St. Scholastica
£30.39
Edinburgh University Press Giorgio Agambens Homo Sacer Series
Book SynopsisRequiring no prior knowledge of the series, Colby Dickinson explains why Agamben's Homer Sacer series is one of the most significant philosophical texts of the past century. He unpacks key concepts including sovereignty, potentiality, form-of-life, the state of exception, inoperativity, glory and the messianic as they appear and reappear.
£19.94
University of Washington Press Revolutionary Jews from Spinoza to Marx
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Professor Jonathan Israel is one of the most distinguished and prolific historians of early modern Europe." * Reviews in History *
£29.45
Wits University Press Race otherwise: Forging a new humanism for South
Book Synopsis‘People from different parts of the world ask ‘what mix’ I am. Which would you prefer? Salt and vinegar or cinnamon and sugar? Neither one of my parents was black Black. Neither one of them was white White. I am not half-and-half.’ (from Chapter 1, ‘This Blackness’)How is ‘race’ determined? Is it your DNA? The community that you were raised in? The way others see you or the way you see yourself?In Race Otherwise: Forging a New Humanism for South Africa Zimitri Erasmus questions the notion that one can know race with one’s eyes, with racial categories and with genetic ancestry tests. She moves between the intimate probing of racial identities as we experience them individually, and analysis of the global historical forces that have created these identities and woven them into our thinking about what it means to be ‘human’.Starting from her own family’s journeys through regions of the world and ascribed racial identities, she develops her argument about how it is possible to recognise the pervasiveness of race thinking without submitting to its power.Drawing on the theoretical work of Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter and others, Erasmus argues for a new way of ‘coming to know otherwise’, of seeing the boundaries between racial identities as thresholds to be crossed, through politically charged acts of imagination and love.Trade Review‘Race Otherwise brings together the full amplitude of Zimitri Erasmus’s thinking about how race works. It tunes into registers both personal and social. It is not without indignation, and not … insensitive to emotion and … the anger inside South Africa. It is a book that is not afraid of questions of affect. Eros and love, Erasmus urges, are not separable from the hard work of thinking.’ — Crain Soudien, CEO of the Human Sciences Research Council, South AfricaTable of Contents Appreciations Foreword by Crain Soudien Prelude 1 This Blackness 2 A Conversation 3 The Look 4 The Category 5 The Gene 6 Beginnings 7 Open closure References Index
£24.30
Hachette Livre - BNF Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae Pars I Et II, More Geometrico Demonstratae (Éd.1663)
£12.00
University of Pennsylvania Press Genesis and Validity
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1. Impudent Claims and Loathsome Questions: Intellectual History as Judgment of the Past Chapter 2. Historical Explanation and the Event: Reflections on the Limits of Contextualization Chapter 3. Intention and Irony: The Missed Encounter Between Hayden White and Quentin Skinner Chapter 4. Walter Benjamin and Isaiah Berlin: Modes of Jewish Intellectual Life in the Twentieth Century Chapter 5. Against Rigor: Hans Blumenberg on Freud and Arendt Chapter 6. "Hey! What's the Big Idea?": Ruminations on the Question of Scale in Intellectual History Chapter 7. Fidelity to the Event? Lukács's History and Class Consciousness and the Russian Revolution Chapter 8. Can Photographs Lie? Reflections on a Perennial Anxiety Chapter 9. Sublime Historical Experience, Real Presence, and Photography Chapter 10. The Heroism of Modern Life and the Sociology of Modernization: Durkheim, Weber, and Simmel Chapter 11. Historical Truth and the Truthfulness of Historians Chapter 12. Theory and Philosophy: Antonyms in Our Semantic Field? Chapter 13. The Weaponization of Free Speech Notes Index Acknowledgments
£27.90
Stanford University Press Theory of the Earth
Book SynopsisWe need a new philosophy of the earth. Geological time used to refer to slow and gradual processes, but today we are watching land sink into the sea and forests transform into deserts. We can even see the creation of new geological strata made of plastic, chicken bones, and other waste that could remain in the fossil record for millennia or longer. Crafting a philosophy of geology that rewrites natural and human history from the broader perspective of movement, Thomas Nail provides a new materialist, kinetic ethics of the earth that speaks to this moment. Climate change and other ecological disruptions challenge us to reconsider the deep history of minerals, atmosphere, plants, and animals and to take a more process-oriented perspective that sees humanity as part of the larger cosmic and terrestrial drama of mobility and flow. Building on his earlier work on the philosophy of movement, Nail argues that we should shift our biocentric emphasis from conservation to expenditure, flux, and planetary diversity. Theory of the Earth urges us to rethink our ethical relationship to one another, the planet, and the cosmos at large.Trade Review"One of the most remarkable books I've read in some time. Thomas Nail forges a mode of materialist philosophy in conversation with recent, cross-disciplinary movements in the environmental humanities, generating a mode of thinking and theorizing that moves beyond the scale of human life." -- Claire Colebrook * Pennsylvania State University *"Thomas Nail has developed a much-needed, and previously underrepresented philosophy of geology. In elaborating a process theory of a kinetic earth, this book helps us imagine our planet as neither a static place of habitation nor a protective Mother Earth." -- Matthias Fritsch * Concordia University *"Is ecocide, unconsciously practiced by industrio-techno-capitalist humans to their own detriment and potential extinction, a direct result of the reduction and destruction of Earth's complex energy dissipation? In an ambitious and fabulous synthesis, with a Lucretian sensibility and deep scientific rapprochement, Thomas Nail gives us back a real Earth, where life is part of a planetary more-than-human dissipative system and humans better get with the flow. A fascinating, difficult, needed scientifico-philosophical document, Theory of the Earth should interest and irritate scientists as it provides a needed provocation to much modern environmental philosophy." -- Dorion Sagan * author of Cosmic Apprentice: Dispatches from the Edges of Science *"While Anthropocene ideology focuses on the destructive action of humans on a passive Earth, Nail posits that conceptual refocusing—away from conservation toward an ethics of energy transformation—can help address the serious environmental problems we face. Though chiefly a work of philosophy, this text is accessible for any advanced reader interested in environmental meta issues. Recommended." -- E. Kincanon * CHOICE *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractWe are witnessing a second Copernican revolution, in which the earth is not just moving around the sun but is itself internally on the move. Terrestrial events that we could in the past only have imagined taking place over huge time scales are now happening before our eyes. Flora and fauna are headed north in mass migrations, throwing tens of thousands of species into motion around the world. Today, half of all species on earth are on the move, including insects, viruses, and microbes. However, since not all species are moving at the same rate or in the same way, species are coming into contact with one another in new ways and producing new hybrids. A new history of the earth is necessary in order to understand the immanent conditions of the present and the kind of earth that we are. 1The Flow of Matter chapter abstractThe earth flows because the matter of the cosmos flows through it. It is not an unchanging or even uniformly changing substance following its own autonomous processes. Geology is also cosmology, and the cosmos flows. Flows of matter continually compose, cycle through, and flow out of the earth. The earth is only a regional circulation of a much larger kinetic and entropic process. Historically, however, philosophy, politics, and much of geology have not taken the ongoing flow of cosmic matter seriously. This has led to a complete inversion of what the earth is and the human relationship to it. The earth is not a planet, but rather a process of terrestrialization. 2The Fold of Elements chapter abstractThe pedetic flow and fluctuation of matter is constitutive of the earth and its elemental body. The word "earth" designates not only a planet and its soil but also one of the four classical elements. The earth is elemental and elementary only because the universe is—and the latter is the key to understanding the former. If the element "earth" is mineral, then the earth must share its elemental namesake with the mineral bodies of the cosmos. In this sense, earth is not just on the earth, but in the universe and from the universe. In other words, the universe was already earthly before the earth was terrestrialized. 3The Planetary Field chapter abstractMatter flows and folds into elements, but these elements are in turn distributed into celestial and planetary fields. Elements are conjoined into atomic and molecular composites that in turn are arranged and ordered together in a field of celestial and planetary circulation. This is the third core concept of geokinetics. If matter flows and elements fold into periodic cycles, planetary fields organize them all in a continuous feedback loop. This chapter provides a geokinetic theory of how conjoined flows become organized according to distinct regimes or planetary fields. 4Centripetal Minerality chapter abstractThe earth is material, kinetic, and thus historical; it is possible for different, coexisting, and mixed planetary fields to emerge. In other words, it is possible for matter to distribute itself differently over time into different patterns or orders of arrangement. There is no way to know what the earth is without understanding its historical process of becoming. If this is the case then it is possible to study this material history and to discern the planetary regimes or fields along with the different elements and beings that are distributed there: minerals, atmosphere, plants, and animals. What this means is that the contemporary earth is not defined by a single geokinetic field or pattern of motion, but is composed of a motley mixture of everything that has ever been. 5Hadean Earth chapter abstractIn this chapter we look closely at the kinetic patterns produced by three major geokinetic phenomena that define the Hadean earth: meteors, the moon, and water. The argument of this chapter is that each of these major phenomena is defined predominately by a distinctly centripetal pattern of motion and a geokinetics of mineralization. Centripetal mineralization was the first major transcendental kinetic regime invented by the earth. This first movement inward toward the center from the periphery along differentiated layers continues today as the immanent condition of planetary life and mineral-based technologies. 6Centrifugal Atmospherics chapter abstractThe second major geokinetic field to rise to dominance in the earth's history was the atmospheric field. This second type of field became increasingly prevalent over the course of the Archean Eon, from about 4 billion years ago to about 2.5 billion years ago. Three major events define this transition: the end of heavy meteor bombardment, the emergence of living organisms, and the rise of a highly oxygenated atmosphere. These events were the cause of a dramatic historical shift in the earth's pattern of motion, from one of largely centripetal accretion and crystallization to one of increasingly centrifugal movements of outward expansion, respiration, and reproduction. 7Archean Earth I: Pneumatology chapter abstractDuring the Archean Eon (4 to 2.5 billion years ago), the entire planet began to move in an increasingly centrifugal pattern of motion from the center out to the periphery (and back). This chapter argues that the emergence of a prevailing centrifugal pattern of motion occurs increasingly over the course of the Archean Eon. The deep history of atmospherization is the material condition of terrestrial motion for all subsequent eons, up to the present. In this chapter we look closely at the kinetic patterns produced by four major geokinetic phenomena that define the Archean earth: sky, clouds, mountains, and life. The argument of this chapter is that each of these major phenomena is defined predominately by a distinctly centrifugal pattern of motion and a geokinetics of atmospherics. 8Archean Earth II: Biogenesis chapter abstractThe second major historical event of the Archean Eon was the emergence of living organisms (prokaryotic bacteria and archaea) with metabolism, genetic multiplication, and natural selection. Organisms are dissipative or vortical systems that have the distinct ability to remember and reproduce the material kinetic patterns that produced them. During the Archean, the entire earth erupted into centrifugal motion. Volcanoes blasted themselves into the air, the ocean evaporated into the clouds, and organisms released an incredible amount of volatiles and stored energy. However, by the end of the Archean Eon, around 2.5 billion years ago, a new form of life emerged that would change the motion of the planet yet again: plants. 9Tensional Vegetality chapter abstractThe third major geokinetic planetary field to rise to dominance in the earth's history was the vegetal field. Over the course of the Proterozoic Eon, the longest eon in the earth's history, from about 2.5 billion years ago to 541 million years ago, three major events occurred: the emergence of eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus and organelles), the development of multicellular organisms (such as protozoa, fungi, and plants), and the arrival of life on land. All these events were defined by a new kind of tensional motion inside, between, and through these organisms. But this new pattern of motion defined by a system of held contrasts was not limited to life alone. Life, like mineral and atmospheric flows, is not just one discrete region among others, in isolation. Vegetal life completed, saturated, and transformed all planetary processes. 10Proterozoic Earth chapter abstractDuring the Proterozoic Eon, the entire life-saturated planet began to fold itself up into a vast knotwork of cellularized tensions. The birth of cellular and complex cellular life was not just the birth of a new type of substance "on" the earth but a new kinetic relation of the earth to itself. This chapter argues that the emergence of a prevailing tensional pattern of motion occurred increasingly over the course of the Proterozoic Eon. I argue that the deep history of phytality is the material condition of terrestrial motion for all subsequent eons, up to the present. In this chapter we look closely at the increasingly tensional kinetic patterns produced by vegetal bodies and that eventually defined the Proterozoic and early Phanerozoic earth: thallus, stem, leaf, root, seed, and flower. 11Elastic Animality chapter abstractAnimality is the fourth major geokinetic planetary pattern of motion. The rise of animality overlapped with the end of the Proterozoic Eon as vegetality slowly dovetailed into the Phanerozoic Eon, from 541 million years ago to the present. The Phanerozoic Eon began with the Cambrian explosion of diverse animal and plant life. This explosion was itself made possible by increased oxygen in the atmosphere and mineral-rich soils produced by vegetal life across the continents. The emergence and proliferation of animals on the earth was the source of a radical new regime of elastic motion defined by the ability of living matter to expand, contract, stretch and oscillate back and forth to a degree never before seen on the earth. 12Phanerozoic Earth I: Kinomorphology chapter abstractThe Phanerozoic Eon (541 million years ago to the present) is our geological eon. It began with the Cambrian explosion of living forms, the greatest number of evolving creatures in a a single period in the history of the earth. During the Phanerozoic, the entire planet became increasingly elastic as the proliferation of life forms expanded, contracted, and mutated more rapidly than ever before. The more new organisms emerged, the faster they changed their environment. This chapter argues that the emergence of a prevailing elastic pattern of motion occurred increasingly over the course of the Phanerozoic Eon. In this chapter we look closely at the increasingly elastic kinetic structures produced by animal bodies that eventually saturated the late Proterozoic and early Phanerozoic Earth: body, head, and tail. 13Phanerozoic Earth II: Terrestrialization chapter abstractThe third major historico-morphological event of the Phanerozoic Eon was the explosion of elastic sensory organs and limbs in the animal body. With the evolution of mollusks, arthropods, and vertebrates, an enormous transformation occurred as animal life in the seas spread to the land and the skies. The process of terrestrial animality saturated the untapped energy of these new regions—completing the transformation of the earth into its full animality. The material evolution of animal morphology is also a kinetic evolution toward the increasingl elasticity, mobility, sensitivity, and energy expenditure of the earth more broadly. Animals are not on the earth but aspects of the earth itself—the becoming animal and becoming elastic of the earth. 14Kinocene Earth chapter abstractToday, the earth is in increasingly unstable motion. The earth, as we have seen in this book, has always been in motion, but today these four major patterns of geological motion have become increasingly disrupted due to the coordinated efforts of certain human groups. What I am calling the "Kinocene" in the final Part of this book is a new geological period not because motion is new to the earth, as we have seen, but because of the increasing mobility of the earth's geological strata, described in Parts I and II. At the same time, however, we are also witnessing for the first time in a long time a significant reduction in the net kinetic expenditure of the planet as a whole. 15Kinocene Ethics chapter abstractThe ethics of kinetic expenditure is not a universal ethical ground but a hypothetical ethical ground that allows us to say not only that capitalism is descriptively wrong about nature but that it is unethical (assuming we want to survive), on the grounds that it leads to the reduction of planetary expenditure (including the reduction of human and ecological diversity). Furthermore, the ethics of expenditure relates to the material conditions of all human society as such. If we even want to have humanist ethics in the first place, there must be humans alive to practice it. Thus, implicit in all humanist ethics is the assumption of planetary existence and survival. In short: If we want human ethics, then we need to be alive and survive, and if we want to survive then we need to try to increase planetary expenditure (with all that entails). Conclusion: The Future chapter abstractEverything is in motion. The earth is in motion because so is the cosmos. The West's historically mistaken belief in a static or stable earth is one of the biggest mistakes ever made. This mistake is symptomatic of a similar belief in stasis in politics, ontology, science, and the arts. Together, the belief in stasis of one form or another across the major domains of human knowledge and activity is the source of our contemporary world crisis. Movement and expenditure had always been primary. Human history was not the progressive realization of static forms. Progress and development in the Western tradition are dead. Human history can now be seen for what it is: a series of kinetic patterns iterated in the material diffusion of the cosmos itself.
£23.39
Amsterdam University Press Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology:
Book SynopsisHelmuth Plessner (1892-1985) was one of the founders of philosophical anthropology, and his book The Stages of the Organic and Man, first published in 1928, has inspired generations of philosophers, biologists, social scientists, and humanities scholars. This volume offers the first substantial introduction to Plessner’s philosophical anthropology in English, not only setting it in context with such familiar figures as Bergson, Cassirer, and Merleau-Ponty, but also showing Plessner’s relevance to contemporary discussions in a wide variety of fields in the humanities and sciences.Table of ContentsPART I ANTHROPOLOGY Joachim Fischer Philosophical Anthropology - a third way: between Darwinism and Foucaultism Hans-Peter Krüger The Nascence of Modern Man: Two Approaches to the Problem - Biological Evolutionary Theory and Philosophical Anthropology Karl-Siegbert Rehberg New Biology and Unchanged Old Questions: Recent Research and the 'Sonderstellungs'-hypotheses of the Philosophical Anthropology? Heike Delitz 'True' and 'false' Evolutionism. Bergson's critique of Spencer, Darwin & Co. and its relevance for Plessner (and us) Thomas Ebke Life, Concept and Subject: Plessner's vital turn in the light of Kant and Bergson Thomas Fröhlich Biophysical Remarks on Plessner's Term Positionality Jasper van Buuren Plessner and the Mathematical-Physical Perspective: The Prescientific Objectivity of the Human Body Martino Enrico Boccignone The Duty of Personal Identity: Authenticity and Irony PART II CULTURE Robert Mugerauer Bi-Directional Boundaries: Eccentric Life and Its Environments Jetske van Oosten The unbearable freedom of dwelling Huib Ernste Eccentric Positionality and Urban Space Kirsten Pols Strangely Familiar. The Debate on Multiculturalism and Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology Scott Davis Plessner and the Structural Study of Ancient China Veronika Magyar-Haas De-Masking as a Characteristic of Social Work? Bas Hengstmengel Helmuth Plessner as a Social Theorist - Role Playing in Legal Discourse Henrike Lerch Anthropology as a Foundation of Cultural Philosophy. The Connection of Human Nature and Culture by Helmuth Plessner and Ernst Cassirer Petran Kockelkoren The quest for the sources of the self, seen from the vantage-point of Plessner's material a priori PART III TECHNOLOGY Gesa Lindemann The Brain in the Vat as the Epistemic Object of Neurobiology Johannes Hätscher Switching 'On', Switching 'Off' - Does Neurosurgery in Parkinson's Disease Create Man-Machines? Oreste Tolone Plessner's Theory of Eccentricity: a Contribution to the Philosophy of Medicine Heleen J. Pott On Humor and 'Laughing' Rats: Plessner's Importance for Affective Neuroscience Mireille Hildebrandt Eccentric positionality as a precondition for the criminal liability of artificial life forms Janna van Grunsven The Body Exploited: Torture and the Destruction of Self Dierk Spreen Not Terminated: Cyborgized Men Still Remain Human Being Peter-Paul Verbeek The Limits of Man Jos de Mul Philosophical anthropology 2.0: Reading Plessner in the age of converging technologies
£142.50
University of Minnesota Press Advances
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1995, Advances was first written by Jacques Derrida as a long foreword to a book by one of his most promising former students, the philosopher Serge Margel’s Le Tombeau du Dieu Artisan (The Tomb of the Craftsman). What Derrida uncovers for us is Margel’s own unique theory of the promise in relation to an an-archic, pre-chronological temporality, in conjunction with Margel’s radical rereading of Plato’s Timaeus. As Derrida states right away, Margel’s reading is a new one, a new reading of the Demiurge. A new promise. A new advance. In this magisterial late essay by Derrida, what the reader soon discovers is in part a conversation with his former student, as well as an opening for a new reflection on our current ecological and political crises that are all the more urgent today where the possibility of giving ourselves death as a human race and the end of the world is now, within an era of climate change, more real than ever.As part of Univocal’s Pharmakon series, this essay, itself published in advance, becomes a brief but powerful light pointing toward Univocal’s forthcoming publication of the translation of Serge Margel’s Le Tombeau du Dieu Artisan. “Once again the Timaeus, of course, but a different Timaeus, a new Demiurge, I promise.”
£17.99
Open Court Publishing Co ,U.S. Jimi Hendrix and Philosophy
Book SynopsisPhilosophical feedback on the messiah of electric rock
£13.49
Rowman & Littlefield International Philosophy After Nature
Book SynopsisThe significant changes that have dominated the social and the scientific world over the last thirty years have brought about upheavals and critical re-appraisals that have proved quite positive in fostering 21st century thought. This interdisciplinary collection of state-of-the-art essays offers innovative and thought-provoking insights concerning contemporary philosophical and cultural reflection on the nature-culture interaction. Starting from the assumption that the binary opposition between the two terms has been replaced by a continuum of the two, the volume explores both the terms of this new interaction, and its implications. Technology occupies a central place in the shift towards a nature-cultural continuum, but it is not the only factor. The consequences of economic globalization, notably the global spread of digital mediation, also account for this change of perspective. Last but not least the climate change issue and a renewed urgency around the state of the environmental crisis also contribute to bring the 'natural' much closer to home. Digital mediation has by now become a standard way to live and interact. The electronic frontier has altered dramatically the practice of education and research, especially in the Humanities and social sciences, with direct consequences for the institutional practice and the methodology of these disciplinary fields. This book aims to explore the implications of these complex shifts for the practice of critical thinking.Trade ReviewWhat have we done? Why did we do it? Against cynicism, the philosophers in this volume stand out for the originality of their analyses of our ties to nature. They encourage us to seek solutions beyond greed, spectacle and division. The strongest thread running through this impressive collection is that we can think innovatively; we can work together with nature. -- James Williams, Professor of Philosophy, Deakin UniversityPhilosophy after Nature provides an indispensable introduction and guide to current transformative thinking about nature today. In the context of climate change, globalization and a logic of advanced capitalism, it brings together a number of outstanding contributions, in which components from the history of philosophy are retrieved from neglect. These components are then deployed to help make sense of an unprecedented crisis in the relation between human beings and the context they have become used to thinking of as ‘natural’. -- Joanna Hodge, Professor, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityWhen philosophy talks about nature, too often it is only through its own idea of nature – the physical, living, world is forced to fit the ends of philosophy. In Philosophy After Nature, we see a radical inversion being performed, one where the idea must follow nature, where philosophy is forced to think alongside matter in all its vital unruliness. -- John Ó Maoilearca, Professor, Film and Television Studies, Kingston UniversityTable of Contents1. Introduction: Nature, and After... Rosi Braidotti and Rick Dolphijn / Part I: After Matter / 2. Information and Thought, Michel Serres / 3. Die Natur ist nur Einmal da, Francoise Balibar / 4. Generic Mediality, Post-Alphabetical?, Vera Buhlmann / 5. The Nature of Ideas: On Stones, Feelings and the Ecology of Form, Rick Dolphijn / Part II: After Machines / 6. Media Entangled Phenomenology, Mark Hansen / 7. On Reason and Spectral Machines: Robert Brandom and Bounded Posthumanism, David Roden / 8. Circuits of Desire: Cybernetics and the Post-natural According to Lyotard and Stiegler, Ashley Woodward / 9. History as an Ecological Niche: Beyond Benjamin's Nature, Damiano Roberi / 10. Individuation, Cosmogenesis and Technology: Sri Aurobindo and Gilbert Simondon, Debashish Banerji / Part III: After Man / 11. Being without Life: On the Trace of Organic Chauvinism with Derrida and DeLanda, Richard Iveseon / 12. Returning to Text: Deconstructive Paradigms and Posthumanism, Danielle Sands / 13. Primary and Secondary Nature: The Role of Indeterminacy in Spinoza and Bartleby, Christopher Thomas / Index
£36.90
Prometheus Books Philosophical Dictionary
Book SynopsisThis lexicon of modern Western philosophical concepts, problems, principles, and theories may well be the shortest dictionary of philosophy in the English language, but one of the most useful. Organized by internationally recognized philosopher Mario Bunge, this indispensable volume, directed to general and university audiences, elucidates and evaluates many contemporary philosophical ideas from a humanist and scientifically oriented perspective. From A to Z, most entries are brief and nontechnical in nature, highlighting useful philosophical terms rather than trendy ones. Placing emphasis on "living" philosophy, Bunge has deliberately excluded many of the archaic terms and philosophical curios of other dictionaries. He has incorporated a number of "minipapers," or longer definitions of some terms, and he critically analyzes such influential doctrines as existentialism, phenomenology, idealism, materialism, pragmatism, deontological ethics, utilitarianism, and many others. Constructive alternatives are offered to all philosophical approaches criticized. This is a superb reference work for both students and professional philosophers.
£17.99
Prometheus Books M.N. Roy: Radical Humanist: Selected Writings
Book SynopsisWhen humanism was first receiving widespread public attention in the West, through such publications as The Humanist Manifesto in 1933, unbeknownst to most Westerners humanism was proceeding on a parallel track in India, largely due to the efforts of philosopher and political activist M.N. Roy (1887-1954). Sadly, it wasn't until the early fifties, at the end of Roy's life that European humanists began to notice his work. To rectify the unfortunate neglect in the West of one of India's premier intellectuals, philosopher Innaiah Narisetti has compiled this new collection of Roy's most significant works. Roy conceived of humanism as a scientific, integral, and radically new worldview. Among many interesting selections in this volume, Roy's "Principles of Radical Democracy: 22 Theses" is especially representative of his thinking. Here he emphasized ethics and eschewed supernatural interpretations as antithetical to his scientifically oriented conception of "new humanism." He also underscored the importance of universal education to make average people scientifically literate and to teach them critical thinking. Roy was not only a thinker but a doer as well. He spent six years in an Indian prison during the 1930s for opposing the British rule of India. For humanists, philosophers, political scientists, and others, M.N. Roy's unique and still very relevant view of humanism will have great appeal and broad application beyond its original Indian context.
£21.25
Prometheus Books Liberalism and Social Action
Book SynopsisIn this, one of Dewey's most accessible works, he surveys the history of liberal thought from John Locke to John Stuart Mill, in his search to find the core of liberalism for today's world. While liberals of all stripes have held to some very basic values-liberty, individuality, and the critical use of intelligence-earlier forms of liberalism restricted the state function to protecting its citizens while allowing free reign to socioeconomic forces. But, as society matures, so must liberalism as it reaches out to redefine itself in a world where government must play a role in creating an environment in which citizens can achieve their potential. Dewey's advocacy of a positive role for government-a new liberalism-nevertheless finds him rejecting radical Marxists and fascists who would use violence and revolution rather than democratic methods to aid the citizenry.
£10.79
Autonomedia Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and Interviews
Book Synopsis
£15.29
