Western philosophy from c 1800 Books
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) An Introduction to Contemporary Italian Thought
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£17.09
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Fundamental Tendency of Our Time
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£18.99
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Originary Structure
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£28.49
Edinburgh University Press Phenomenology of Black Spirit
Book SynopsisA study of the relationship between Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Black Thought from Frederick Douglass to Angela Davis, which explodes the western canon of philosophy.Trade Review"Thinking about Blackness historically as a manifestation of the deliberate self-conscious efforts of Black people is not only a worthwhile project but a necessary philosophical and conceptual grounding of Black theory and thought. Phenomenology of the Black Spirit is a commendable effort towards establishing a groundwork for the study of Black Spirit as a revelation of time and civilization. ?" -Tommy J. Curry, University of Edinburgh
£18.99
Palgrave USA The Courage of Truth
Book SynopsisThe Courage of the Truth is the last course that Michel Foucault delivered at the College de France before his death in 1984. In this course, he continues the theme of the previous year's lectures in exploring the notion of truth-telling in politics to establish a number of ethically irreducible conditionsbased on courage and conviction.Trade Review'In this, the final year of his lectures at the College de France, Michel Foucault reaches more deeply into the foundations of Western thought than ever. Emphasizing parrhesia, the ancient practice of speaking truth to power, he shows how it is a practice of the care of the self, and in so doing, demonstrates how the dictum 'know oneself' is only a part of our philosophical inheritance. This is an astonishing conclusion to the life's work of one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers.' - Thomas Dumm, Amherst College, USA 'In his powerful final course of lectures, expertly edited by Frédéric Gros and sympathetically translated by Graham Burchell, Foucault provides an explicitly political focus to his work on parrhesia. He offers readings of a range of texts, of which those of the Apology and the Cynics are especially insightful. It is impossible to read these lectures without an eye to the links between his work and his life, but Foucault's focus remains on the material at hand and his long-running interest in the interrelations of truth, power and the subject.' - Stuart Elden, Durham University, UKTable of ContentsForeword: François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana 1 February 1984: First Hour 1 February 1984: Second Hour 8 February 1984: First Hour 8 February 1984: Second Hour 15 February1984: First Hour 15 February 1984: Second Hour 22 February 1984: First Hour 22 February 1984: Second Hour 29 February 1984: First Hour 29 February 1984: Second Hour 7 March 1984: First Hour 7 March 1984: Second Hour 14 March 1984: First Hour 14 March 1984: Second Hour 21 March 1984: First Hour 21 March 1984: Second Hour 28 March 1984: First Hour 28 March 1984: Second Hour Course context Index of notions Index of names
£21.84
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Wittgenstein
Book SynopsisThis revised edition of Sir Anthony Kenny's classic work on Wittgenstein contains a new introduction which covers developments in Wittgenstein scholarship since the book was first published. Widely praised for providing a lucid and historically informed account of Wittgenstein's core philosophical concerns. Demonstrates the continuity between Wittgenstein's early and later writings. Provides a persuasive argument for the unity of Wittgenstein's thought. Kenny also assesses Wittgenstein's influence in the latter part of the twentieth century. Trade Review'Kenny's book remains the best general introduction to Wittgenstein’s work as a whole. Careful, clear, persistent in its pursuit of puzzles, but always stylish and accessible, it will take even a beginner deep into the most difficult issues raised by Wittgenstein’s texts, while still being helpful and provocative to advanced students and scholars.' --Michael Morris, University of Sussex '…Sir Anthony’s remains the most useful critical introduction to Wittgenstein’s life and thought. The updated introduction is more than welcome. Among students and, especially, teachers of Wittgenstein, the long-awaited re-release of this classic is cause for celebration.' --Richard Kortum, East Tennessee State UniversityTable of ContentsPreface vii Abbreviations in References to Works by Wittgenstein ix Introduction to the Revised Edition xi 1 Biographical Sketch of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy 1 2 The Legacy of Frege and Russell 15 3 The Criticism of Principia 35 4 The Picture Theory of the Proposition 44 5 The Metaphysics of Logical Atomism 58 6 The Dismantling of Logical Atomism 82 7 Anticipation, Intentionality and Verification 96 8 Understanding, Thinking and Meaning 111 9 Language-Games 126 10 Private Languages 141 11 On Scepticism and Certainty 160 12 The Continuity of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy 173 Suggestions for Further Reading 184 Index 186
£30.35
John Murray Press Foucault The Key Ideas
Book SynopsisFoucault - The Key Ideas is a concise introduction to the life, works and ideas of this ground-breaking modern philosopher. This book will not only guide you through the events of Foucault''s life and help you to understand his most complex ideas with ease; it will also demonstrate the practical impact of those ideas on life today. Covering everything from Foucault''s views on the philosophy and sociology of knowledge to his analysis of power and institutions in society, this book offers a fascinating insight into the legacy of this revolutionary thinker. NOT GOT MUCH TIME?One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started.AUTHOR INSIGHTSLots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author''s many years of experience.TEST YOURSELFTests in the book and online to keep track of your progress.EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGEExtra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you Table of Contents : Chapter 1: Themes of a life : Chapter 2: The excavation of knowledge : Chapter 3: The nature of power : Chapter 4: The history of punishment : Chapter 5: Living outside the norms : Chapter 6: The rational and the insane : Chapter 7: Political engagement : Chapter 8: The nature of institutions : Chapter 9: The role of the intellectual : Chapter 10: Retrospect of a life
£10.44
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Dissensus
Book SynopsisDissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics brings together some of Jacques Rancière''s most recent writings on art and politics to show the critical potential of two of his most important concepts: the aesthetics of politics and the politics of aesthetics. In this fascinating collection, Rancière engages in a radical critique of some of his major contemporaries on questions of art and politics: Gilles Deleuze, Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou and Jacques Derrida. The essays show how Rancière''s ideas can be used to analyse contemporary trends in both art and politics, including the events surrounding 9/11, war in the contemporary consensual age, and the ethical turn of aesthetics and politics. Rancière elaborates new directions for the concepts of politics and communism, as well as the notion of what a ''politics of art'' might be. This important collection includes several essays that have never previously been published in English, as well as a brand new afterword. TogeTrade ReviewRewarding in its scholarly engagement with Derrida, Arendt, Lyotard et al ... [Rancière] has a certain sardonic precision. -- The GuardianAn accessible introduction to Rancière's thought and an essential collection of his essays. -- Marx & Philosophy Review of BooksSteven Corcoran has provided a timely and coherently organized collection of Rancière's short writings, one that can stand as a solid introduction to the author's thought...There is a distinct shift of emphasis that occurs in Rancière's writings around the late 1990's, however, and the task of a good collection would be to capture both periods and the thematic interaction between them. The writings gathered here, which date from 1996 to 2004, perform both tasks admirably...For those who seek to get a sense of both the richness and the breadth of the work of one of the most significant thinkers of our time, Dissensus provides a valuable resource. I can think of no better starting point than this collection. -- Todd May, Notre Dame Philosophical ReviewsTitle mention in Times Higher Education, January 2010Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Editor's Introduction Part I: The Aesthetics of Politics 1. Ten Theses on Politics 2. Does Democracy Mean Something? 3. Who is the Subject of the Rights of Man? 4. Communism: From Actuality to Inactuality 5. The People or the Multitudes? 6. Biopolitics or Politics? 7. September 11 and Afterwards: A Rupture in the Symbolic Order? 8. Of War as the Supreme Form of Advanced Plutocratic Consensus Part II: The Politics of Aesthetics 9. The Aesthetic Revolution and its Outcomes 10. The Paradoxes of Political Art 11. The Politics of Literature 12. The Monument and its Confidences; or Deleuze and Art's Capacity of 'Resistance' 13. The Ethical Turn of Aesthetics and Politics Part III: Response to Critics 14. The Use of Distinctions Notes Index
£18.04
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC A Political Philosophy
Book SynopsisRoger Scruton''s classic work on conservatism, reissued for a new political moment. Over the past twenty years, Roger Scruton has been developing a conservative view of human beings, society and culture. In the book his arguments are recommendations with the aim of convincing the reader that rumors of the death of Western civilization are greatly exaggerated. Much of our present self doubt, argues Scruton, is brought about by the Darwinian theory of evolution. Darwin encourages us to see human emotion as a reproductive strategy. This is a perspective which Scruton attacks vehemently especially in its modern proponents--Desmond Morris and Richard Dawkins. This the author believes undermines the belief in freedom and the moral imperatives that stem from it.Trade ReviewAn intelllectual challenge and an entertaining read. -- Richard Hayton, Political Studies ReviewWhat may be found here is a collection of acute observations about modern attitudes, arguments undermining their essential assumptions, and references to the past which enable the reader to set moral and intellectual enquiry into a wide frame of reference. The essays are certainly polemical, and are clearly intended to be; they are, however, elevated above the trivial rhetoric of modern politics, and achieve a distinction that is at once apparent and readily accessible. His essays are prophetic assaults upon the superficial and false understandings inherent in the substitute morality now mandatory in modern materialist thought...there remains intellectual engagement of a high order. -- Edward Norman * Church Times *Table of ContentsIntroduction Conserving Nations Conserving Nature Eating our Friends Dying Quietly Meaningful Marriage Extinguishing the Light Religion and Enlightenment The Totalitarian Temptation Newspeak and Eurospeak The Nature of Evil Eliot and Conservatism Acknowledgements Name Index Subject Index
£14.24
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Alfred Hitchcock
Book SynopsisHitchcock was a masterful director, popular with audiences of all ages and critically acclaimed both during and after his unusually long career. What may have been sensed by many viewers but not fully articulated until now is the extent to which his works subtly engage philosophical themes: What is evil, and how does it shield and reveal itself? Can we know what is inside the mind of another person? What is at stake when one knows the truth but cannot speak of it or cannot persuade others? How is Hitchcock's loving critique of humanity manifested in his films? Why are Hitchcock's works so often ambiguous? What is the hidden purpose and theory behind his use of humor?Hitchcock employs cinematic techniquesfrom camera angles and use of light to editing and soundpartly to convey suspense and drama but also to engage and advance philosophical issues, ranging from identity crises to moral ugliness. Roche unlocks Hitchcock's engagement with philosophical themes, and he does so in a way that aTrade ReviewWith characteristic precision, Mark Roche urges us to see through the thrills and entertainment value of Alfred Hitchcock’s films into their philosophical heart. He convincingly argues that timeless philosophical questions are central, not incidental, to Hitchcock’s work. We are better people for thoughtfully engaging them. * Joseph G. Kickasola, Professor of Film and Digital Media, Baylor University, USA *Alfred Hitchcock was an entertainer and an artist, not a philosopher. Mark Roche shows that his films, however, were profoundly and coherently philosophical. Roche brings his enthusiasm and erudition to the puzzle-master that was Hitchcock. He teases out the director’s underlying humanity and irreverent religious thinking. Moreover, he achieves the delightfully unexpected result of making us want to view these often-viewed films once again. * Donald Crafton, Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame, USA *Mark Roche's book is a very valuable contribution to Hitchcockian scholarship. His insightful reflections will be a welcome addition to the library of anyone interested in the study of film and philosophy. My admiration is so great that I include an interview with him in my course on Existentialism and Film.” * Sander Lee, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Keene State College, USA *Written with depth, lucidity and precision, Mark Roche’s masterful analysis of Hitchcock’s cinematography demonstrates that, propelled by suspense and humor, fear and laughter, courage and love, his films open up the possibility of a reconciliation of tragedy and comedy in human existence. * Dmitri Nikulin, Professor of Philosophy, The New School for Social Research, USA *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements 1. Hitchcock's Philosophical Universe 2. Hitchcock as Master of Form 3. Shadow of a Doubt as a Cinematic and Philosophical Masterpiece 4. Hitchcock and Beyond 5. Conclusion Bibliography Index
£20.89
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Marx
Book SynopsisAccording to Michel Henry, no thinker has been more influential than Marx, and no one has been more misunderstood. With his characteristic clarity and elegance, Henry seeks to pull out the philosophical heart of Marx''s work and the reasons this complex philosophy has so often been simplified, distorted and obscured.Marx: An Introduction is not just a recovery of the theoretical centre of Marx''s thinking, but also a brilliant introduction to the work of Marx in general; concise and punchy without glossing over the difficult material, it provides a totally fresh reading of Marx''s corpus.Michel Henry shares with Marx a concern for the living work and the living individual and this shared preoccupation is brilliantly conveyed throughout the book. An essential read for those wrestling with Marx for the first time, and those looking for a new way to approach well-trodden territory.Trade ReviewGiven its brevity, this is a remarkable introduction to Marx’s thought. But more importantly, It is a great introduction to Henry’s philosophy of life. Rejecting the then contemporary readings of Marx (Althusser in particular), rejecting the legacy of Marxism, Henry argues that economic structures are not the foundation for human life. For Marx, the concrete, living individual grounds economic structures. Life is the foundation. Therefore, as Henry concludes, “Marx’s thought confronts us with the abyss of the question: what is life?” * Leonard Lawlor, Sparks Professor of Philosophy and Director of Graduate Studies in Philosophy, Penn State University, USA *In this highly accessible work, we are introduced not only to Marx but to Henry’s vitalisation of Marx, one where the subject is immanent to the world through its living labour, and where Henry concludes that Marx’s thought puts us before the ‘abyss of the question: What is life?’ In Henry’s Introduction, Marx’s thought lives on in every sense * John Ó Maoilearca, Professor of Film, Kingston University, London, UK *Table of ContentsPreface Introduction Thinking about Marx Marx and the Marxist Productive Forces and Subjectivity Translator's Afterword (Kristien Justaert) Index
£14.24
Edinburgh University Press Artmachines
Book SynopsisArtmachines presents and transforms the thought of Deleuze and Guattari, excavating a new philosophy of individuation and production from their work. The essays range over literature, art, philosophy, psychoanalysis and politics to converge around the concepts of individuation, ecology, territory, the machine, transversality and the refrain.
£22.79
Edinburgh University Press Speculative Empiricism
Book SynopsisDidier Debaise focuses in on Whitehead s attempt to construct a metaphysical system of everything in the universe that exists whilst simultaneously claiming that it can account for every element of our experience, giving us a radically new way of conceiving the relations between experience and speculation.Trade Review'In Speculative Empiricism, Didier Debaise expertly guides the reader on a remarkable voyage through Whitehead's metaphysical masterpiece, Process and Reality. The juxtaposition of the two title words sets the agenda, giving notice from the start that we will be heading into unexpected territory. Here, speculation will become a matter of experience, and experience, reciprocally, will be imbued with the futurity of potential. The result is a novel pragmatics of becoming which Debaise maps with unerring lucidity and precision, providing both an introduction to key Whiteheadian concepts and a major contribution to the scholarship that will be of equal interest to specialists.' - Brian Massumi, University of Montreal
£22.79
Edinburgh University Press NietzscheS on the Genealogy of Morality
Book SynopsisA philosophically sophisticated introduction to Nietzsche's most widely read book, for readers coming On the Genealogy of Morality and Nietzsche's thought in general for the first time.
£19.94
Edinburgh University Press Gaston Bachelard a Philosophy of the Surreal
Book SynopsisZbigniew Kotowicz gives us the first English language, in-depth presentation of the entire spectrum of Bachelard's work: epistemology, poetic imagination and temporality. And he explores an old philosophical tradition that Bachelard's thought opens up atomism a doctrine that has been almost forgotten and is much misunderstood.
£22.79
Edinburgh University Press Deleuze and Anarchism
Book SynopsisThis collection of 13 essays addresses and explores Deleuze and Guattari's relationship to the notion of anarchism: in the diverse ways that they conceived of and referred to it throughout their work, and also expands it in terms of the spirit of their philosophy and in their critique of capitalism and the State.
£20.89
Edinburgh University Press Sublime Art
Book SynopsisStephen Zepke shows how the idea of sublime art waxes and wanes in the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Ranciere and the recent Speculative Realism movement.
£26.09
Edinburgh University Press Whitehead at Harvard 1924 1925
Book SynopsisIn these newly commissioned essays, leading Whitehead scholars ask a range of important questions about Whitehead's first year of philosophy lectures. Also included in this volume is the text of Whitehead's first lecture at Harvard, allowing for a clearer understanding of Whitehead's plans and goals for his first philosophy lectures.
£19.94
Edinburgh University Press Homo Natura
Book SynopsisLemm offers an original reading of Nietzsche's enigmatic term homo natura that brings back the ancient Greek idea of nature and sexuality as creative chaos and of the philosophical life as outspoken and embodied truth, perhaps best exemplified by the cynics' embrace of social and cultural transformation.
£22.79
Stanford University Press Walter Benjamin and the Idea of Natural History
Book SynopsisIn this incisive new work, Eli Friedlander demonstrates that Walter Benjamin's entire corpus, from early to late, comprises a rigorous and sustained philosophical questioning of how human beings belong to nature. Across seemingly heterogeneous writings, Friedlander argues, Benjamin consistently explores what the natural in the human comes to, that is, how nature is transformed, actualized, redeemed, and overcome in human existence. The book progresses gradually from Benjamin's philosophically fundamental writings on language and nature to his Goethean empiricism, from the presentation of ideas to the primal history of the Paris arcades. Friedlander's careful analysis brings out how the idea of natural history inflects Benjamin's conception of the work of art and its critique, his diagnosis of the mythical violence of the legal order, his account of the body and of action, of material culture and technology, as well as his unique vision of historical materialism. Featuring revelatory new readings of Benjamin's major works that differ, sometimes dramatically, from prevailing interpretations, this book reveals the internal coherence and philosophical force of Benjamin's thought.Trade Review"Friedlander's interpretative lens offers his readers a genuinely illuminating and deeply convincing way of appreciating both the local detail and the overarching significance of Benjamin's texts."—Stephen Mulhall, University of Oxford"Friedlander's highly original study resituates the interpretation and evaluation of Benjamin's immensely fecund work within the context of the most advanced contemporary thinking on first and second nature. The book will have a considerable impact across the humanistic disciplines."—David E. Wellbery, University of Chicago"Friedlander succeeds beautifully and convincingly in presenting Benjamin's seemingly heterogeneous oeuvre as a coherent philosophical effort. Timely reading for philosophers, Benjamin scholars, and all readers interested in the question of the human as a life-form in trying times."—Eva Geulen, Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und KulturforschungTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: The Natural in the Human Part I: Nature in Language 1. God, Nature, and Man in Language 2. Naming Beauty 3. The Life and Afterlife of Words 4. The Life of Forms Part II: Life and Fate 5. The Guilt and Innocence of Life 6. Fate, Redemption, and Hope in Love 7. Myth, Law, and Life in Common Part III: Body and Corporeality 8. The Language of the Body and the Body of Language 9. Acting Naturally Part IV: Primal History 10. "From the Pagan Context of Nature into the Jewish Context of History" 11. Matters of Memory 12. First and Second Nature in Art Part V: The Image of the Contingent 13. Distorted Life Notes Bibliography Index
£23.79
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Speculative Realism: An Introduction
Book SynopsisOn April 27, 2007, the first Speculative Realism (SR) workshop was held at Goldsmiths, University of London, featuring four young philosophers whose ideas were loosely allied. Over the ensuing decade, the ideas of SR spread from philosophy to the arts, architecture, and numerous disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. SR has been arguably the most influential new current in continental philosophy since the works of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari found their second wind in the 1990s. But what is SR? This book is the first general overview by one of its original members, focusing on the aesthetic, ethical, ontological, and political themes of greatest importance to the movement. Graham Harman provides a balanced but critical assessment of his original SR colleagues – Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Quentin Meillassoux – along with a clear summary of his own Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO). A number of central philosophical questions tie the four chapters together: What exactly is "correlationism," the chief enemy of SR? What are the stakes of philosophical realism, and is such realism better served by mathematics and the natural sciences, or by a broader model of cognitive activity that includes aesthetics? This book covers both the historical and conceptual development of the movement, providing a first-rate introduction for students, aided by helpful end-of-chapter study questions chosen by Harman himself. SR, Harman shows, is a vital and fast-developing field in contemporary philosophy.Trade Review"An essential guide by the foremost philosopher of our age. This book will educate and delight both aficionados and those unfamiliar with the first major philosophical movement of the twenty-first century."—Timothy Morton, Rice University "Harman presents a clear overview of the development of Speculative Realism's core debates. He not only reconstructs its genealogy but offers a remarkably concise introduction to his own ontology by putting it in its larger context."—Markus Gabriel, University of Bonn "A unique contribution to the growing literature on [Speculative Realism] and ... a go-to text for anyone looking for an efficient and nuanced introduction to its subject, from undergraduate students to curious readers outside of academe."—Tom Sparrow, Notre Dame Philosophical ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Prometheanism A. Brassier at Goldsmiths B. Brassier's Nihilism C. The Path Ahead 2. Vitalist Idealism A. Grant at Goldsmiths B. Philosophies of Nature After Schelling C. A New Sense of Idealism 3. Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) A. OOO at Goldsmiths B. The Withdrawn C. Objects and Their Qualities D. Vicarious Causation E. The Crucial Place of Aesthetics 4. Speculative Materialism A. Meillassoux at Goldsmiths B. After Finitude C. Glimpses of the Divine Inexistence Conclusion: The Two Axes of Speculative Realism Notes References Index
£17.09
Manchester University Press Critical Theory and Feeling: The Affective
Book SynopsisThis book offers a unique and timely reading of the early Frankfurt School in response to the recent ‘affective turn’ within the arts and humanities. Resisting the overly rationalist tendencies of political philosophy, it argues that critical theory actively cultivates a powerful connection between thinking and feeling, and rediscovers a range of often neglected concepts that were of vital importance to the first generation of critical theorists, including melancholia, hope, (un)happiness, objects and mimesis. In doing so, it brings the dynamic work of Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch and Siegfried Kracauer into conversation with more recent debates around politics and affect. An important intervention in the fields of affect studies and social and political thought, Critical theory and feeling shows that sensuous experience is at the heart of the Frankfurt School’s affective politics.Trade Review'From new materialism to affect theory to object-oriented ontology/speculative realism, the Frankfurt School and critical theory have seldom been swept up into their escape velocities. Simon Mussell’s book strikes like a force of gravity, a dialectical rebalancing that sturdies one’s feet before launch, rekindling the historical-materialist engines that drive critique’s politics to a full head of steam, shaking off whatever dust presumably clings to the Frankfurt School in order to show how emerging thought can always shudder in its orbit.'Gregory J. Seigworth, Professor of Communication Studies, Millersville University‘In a Brexit, Trump and “post-truth” world, Simon Mussell gives us first-generation critical theory tools to think through the emotional politics and political emotions of contemporary discontent. Chapters focused on hope, conscious un/happiness, and “entanglement of human beings, capital and objects” create a persuasive case for understanding the centrality of feelings in and for progressive social change.’Catherine Lane West-Newman, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology, University of Auckland -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: once more, with feeling 1 Thinking through feeling: critical theory and the affective turn 2 Feeling blue: melancholic dispositions and conscious unhappiness3 A feeling for things: objects, affects, mimesis 4 Expectant emotion and the politics of hopeCodaIndex
£999.99
Fordham University Press The Livable and the Unlivable
Book SynopsisThe unlivable is the most extreme point of human suffering and injustice. But what is it exactly? How do we define the unlivable? And what can we do to prevent and repair it? These are the intriguing questions Judith Butler and Frédéric Worms discuss in a captivating dialogue situated at the crossroads of contemporary life and politics. Here, Judith Butler criticizes the norms that make life precarious and unlivable, while Frédéric Worms appeals to a “critical vitalism” as a way of allowing the hardship of the unlivable to reveal what is vital for us. For both Butler and Worms, the difference between the livable and the unlivable forms the critical foundation for a contemporary practice of care. Care and support, in all their aspects, make human life livable, that is, “more than living.” To understand it, we must draw on the concrete practices of humans who are confronted with the unlivable: the refugees of today and the witnesses and survivors of past violations and genocide. They teach us what is intolerable but also undeniable about the unlivable, and what we can do to resist it. Crafted with critical rigor, mutual respect, and lively humor, the compelling dialogue transcribed and translated in this book took place at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) on April 11, 2018, at a time when close to two thousand migrants were living in nearby makeshift camps in northern Paris. The Livable and the Unlivable showcases this 2018 dialogue in the context of Butler’s and Worms’s ongoing work and the evolution of their thought, as presented by Laure Barillas and Arto Charpentier in their equally engaging introduction. It concludes with a new afterword that addresses the crises unfolding in our world and the ways a philosophically rigorous account of life must confront them. While this book will be of keen interest to readers of philosophy and cultural criticism, and those interested in vitalism, new materialism, and critical theory, it is a far from merely academic text. In the conversation between Butler and Worms, we encounter questions we all grapple with in confronting the distress and precarity of our times, marked as it is by types of survival that are unlivable, from concentration camps to prisons to environmental toxicity, to forcible displacement, to the Covid pandemic. The Livable and the Unlivable at once considers longstanding philosophical questions around why and how we live, while working to retrieve a philosophy of life for today’s Left.Table of ContentsPreface | vii Introduction By Arto Charpentier and Laure Barillas | 1 The Livable and the Unlivable | 11 Afterword | 43 Notes | 77
£16.14
SteinerBooks, Inc The New Essential Steiner: An Introduction to
Book SynopsisThe New Essential Steiner is a completely new introduction to the philosophy and essential writings of Rudolf Steiner, introduced and edited by Robert McDermott. This new volume offers selections from a wide variety of Steiners published works, presenting a broad, accessible overview of anthroposophy.In his introduction, McDermott recounts Steiners life and work, from his childhood and education to his work as a natural scientist, philosopher, scholar, educator, artist, interpreter of culture and seer. He places Steiner in relation to major traditions of thought and explores the genesis and development of anthroposophy.The New Essential Steiner includes selections from Steiners writings, which are grouped into chapters that demonstrate the breadth of his thinking and spiritual accomplishments. This is an invaluable compendium.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy -- Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner -- Autobiographical Notes: 'The Barr Document' -- 'Introducing Rudolf Steiner' by Owen BarfieldPhilosophy: Self and WorldEvolution: Cosmic & HumanAnthropos: Body, Soul, and SpiritSpiritual IntelligenceChrist and Other Exalted BeingsReincarnation, Karma, and the DeadArtsSocietyEducationPsychologyHealth and HealingGaia and the Future
£24.00
Focus Publishing/R Pullins & Co Two Treatises of Government
Book Synopsis
£16.14
Taylor & Francis Inc Radical Philosophy: An Introduction
Book SynopsisIn this concise introduction, Chad Kautzer demonstrates the shared emancipatory goals and methods of several radical philosophies, from Marxism and feminism to critical race and queer theory. Radical Philosophy examines the relations of theory and practice, knowledge and power, as well as the function of law in creating extralegal forms of domination. Through a critical engagement with the history of philosophy, Kautzer reconstructs important counter-traditions of historical, dialectical, and reflexive forms of critique relevant to contemporary social struggles. The result is an innovative, systematic guide to radical theory and critical resistance.Trade Review“Turn the university upside down! Turn philosophy upside down. Think against the world of destruction and oppression—and cultivate resistance. This book is a terrific place to start, just what we need.” —John Holloway, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico, author of Change the World without Taking Power and Crack Capitalism “Radical Philosophy: An Introduction constitutes a major scholarly contribution without rival. The analysis of domination through the lenses of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the context of a rich historical engagement is a hallmark of Kautzer’s scholarship. The book concludes with a novel conception of the function of whiteness in extra-legal structures of racism. The elegant style renders the book highly readable, which is an important benefit of a text that has much to offer scholars, students, and activists.” — Cynthia Willett, Emory University, author of Interspecies Ethics and Irony in the Age of Empire “ Ever since Socrates, philosophy has been a dangerous endeavor, but it loses its critical edge if practiced only as an academic exercise. Chad Kautzer renews philosophy’s original stance by making a forceful case for an interventionist thinking informed by contemporary social struggles. This book is an indispensable tool for all who want not only to interpret the world but to change it.” — Daniel Loick, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, author of The Critique of Sovereignty (Kritik der Souveränität) Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Critical Methodology 2. Marxism and Class Critique 3. Feminism and Queer Theory 4. Antiracism and the Whiteness Problem
£38.40
Rowman & Littlefield International On the Brink: Language, Time, History, and
Book SynopsisAs its title suggests, this collections of essays by one of the foremost theorists working today takes as its theme the edge or limit between language, time, history, and politics. These are essays that are all on the brink, about the edge, the very extreme at which one can no longer say where one is located, neither on the cliff, say, nor over the edge. To be on the brink, then, is to take up that extreme limit, the point of contamination or indetermination where language, time, history, and politics all converge upon one another.The book begins with a consideration of Kant’s treatment of time as representation, before moving toward more explicitly political themes as it engages political theology and messianism in Hegel and Hölderlin. The second section explores the questionof language in a variety of manifestations—from translation to complaint and greeting—and through a number of literary and cultural forms, from the work of Mallarmé to email. The volume concludes with an interview in which Hamacher offers a revealing overview of his work, beginning with an account of his early writings and moving up to his most recent essays.Table of Contents1. Ex Tempore: Time as Representation in Kant / 2. On Some Differences Between the History of Literary and the History of Phenomenal Events / 3. (The End of Art with the Mask) / 4. Contraductions / 5. Notes on Greeting / 6. Remarks on Complaint / 7. Uncalled: A Commentary on Kafka’s “The Test” / 8. Working Through Working / 9. Sketches Toward a Lecture on Democracy / 10. Amphora
£86.25
Multilingual Matters The Pragmatics of Intercultural Communicative
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£31.46
Verso Books Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of
Book SynopsisWalter Benjamin, one of the foremost cultural commentators and theorists of this century, is perhaps best known for his analyses of the work of art in the modern age and the philosophy of history. Yet it was through his study of the social and cultural history of the late nineteenth-century Paris, examined particularly in relation to the figure of the great Parisian lyric poet Charles Baudelaire, that Benjamin tested and enriched some of his core concepts and themes. Contained within these pages are, amongst other insights, his notion of the flaneur, his theory of memory and remembrance, his assessment of the utopian Fourier and his reading of the modernist movement.Trade ReviewA series of brilliant insights ... a remarkable volume. * Times Educational Supplement *His analyses are inspired. His fragments about with insights. -- George SteinerBenjamin is indispensable as well as brilliant. -- Raymond Williams
£12.34
Verso Books The Origin of German Tragic Drama
Book SynopsisThe Origin of German Tragic Drama is Walter Benjamin's most sustained and original work. It begins with a general theoretical introduction on the nature of the baroque art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concentrating on the peculiar stage-form of royal martyr dramas called Trauerspiel. Benjamin also comments on the engravings of Durer and the theatre of Calderon and Shakespeare. Baroque tragedy, he argues, was distinguished from classical tragedy by its shift from myth into history. Georg Lukacs, an opponent of Benjamin's aesthetics, singled out The Origin of German Tragic Drama as one of the main sources of literary modernism in the twentieth century.Trade ReviewHe drew, from the obscure disdained German baroque, elements of the modern sensibility: the taste for allegory, surrealist shock effects, discontinuous utterance, a sense of historical catastrophe. -- Susan SontagIf the killing of Lorca was Fascism's first great crime against literature, Benjamin's death was undoubtedly the second. * The Listener *Walter Benjamin is the most important German aesthetician and literary critic of this century. -- George Steiner
£12.34
Verso Books The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing:
Book SynopsisFor several years after 1968, Herbert Marcuse was one of the most famous philosophers in the world. He became the face of Frankfurt School Critical Theory for a generation in turmoil. His fame rested on two remarkable books, Eros and Civilization and One-Dimensional Man. These two books represent the utopian hopes and dystopian fears of the time. In the 1960s and 70s, young people seeking a theoretical basis for their revolution found it in his work. Marcuse not only supported their struggles against imperialism and race and gender discrimination, he foresaw the far-reaching implications of the destruction of the natural environment. Marcuse's Marxism was influenced by Husserl and Heidegger, Hegel and Freud. These eclectic sources grounded an original critique of advanced capitalism focused on the social construction of subjectivity and technology. Marcuse contrasted the "one-dimensionality" of conformist experience with the "new sensibility" of the New Left. The movement challenged a society that "delivered the goods" but devastated the planet with its destructive science and technology. A socialist revolution would fail if it did not transform these instruments into means of liberation, both of nature and human beings. This aspiration is alive today in the radical struggle over climate change. Marcuse offers theoretical resources for understanding that struggle.Trade ReviewA student and friend of Herbert Marcuse in the late 1960s, Andrew Fenberg gives in this new book an outstanding contribution not only to the knowledge of his philosophy, but also to the "ruthless criticism" of advanced capitalism. Feenberg shows, with great insight, how Marcuse's Marxism, rooted in Phenomenology, Hegelian dialectics, and Freudian Eros, was able to combine rationality and imagination, producing a radical version of Critical Theory which won the hearts and souls of the rebellious youth of the 1960's. And which is still very much relevant in our times, because, as Feenberg concludes, climate change validates his revolutionary call for a new society, based on life-affirmative values. -- Michael Löwy, author of On Changing the Word: Essays in Political Philosophy, from Karl Marx to Walter Benjamin (Haymarket Books).For a half century, Andrew Feenberg has tirelessly explicated, interrogated and applied the lessons of his controversial mentor, Herbert Marcuse. The Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing is the culmination of these efforts, building on the strengths of Marcuse's thought, while candidly confronting its weaknesses, in the hope of convincing a new generation of readers of its abiding relevance. -- Martin JayAndrew Feenberg's new book is a tour de force. With detailed yet crystal-clear analyses of Marcuse's major writings in their historical context, it reconstructs the implicit ontology of meaning that sustains Marcuse's unique version of critical theory. Arguing that Marcuse's embrace of phenomenology far outlived his break with Heidegger, Feenberg demonstrates its importance in chapters devoted to Marcuse's reading of Marx, Hegel, and Freud, engaging unflinchingly, yet constructively, with the more controversial aspects of those readings and the famous debates they provoked. Two final chapters - on techno-science and on the environmental crisis - concretize the potential contained in Marcuse's idea of "libidinous reason" for tackling the ideological and structural impasses of our own desperate times. -- Steven Crowell (Rice University)The title of Feenberg's book is to be taken literally: the ruthless critique of everything existing is today needed more than ever, and this critique has to denounce ruthlessly also the limitations of today's forms of Leftist critiques of the establishment which de facto help the establishment to reproduce itself. Is Political Correctness the right way to undermine sexism and racism? Is the elevation of nature into Mother Earth the right way to prevent the destruction of our environment? In short, what we need is to repeat today what Marcuse, in his critique of traditional Marxism, did in the 1960s, and Feenberg does this at the highest possible level. -- Slavoj Zizek
£17.09
Verso Books The Last Man Takes LSD: Foucault and the End of
Book SynopsisHow Michel Foucault, drugs, California and the rise of neoliberal politics in 1970s France are all connectedIn May 1975, Michel Foucault took LSD in the desert in southern California. He described it as the most important event of his life, one which would lead him to completely rework his History of Sexuality. His focus now would not be on power relations but on the experiments of subjectivity and the care of the self. Through this lens, he would reinterpret the social movements of May '68 and position himself politically in France in relation to the emergent anti- totalitarian and anti-welfare state currents. He would also come to appreciate the possibilities of autonomy offered by a new force on the French political scene that was neither of the Left nor the Right: neoliberalism.For this paperback edition, the authors have written an afterword responding to the debate occasioned by the book's first publication.Trade ReviewThe contribution of this important essay is to place Foucault's thought on neoliberalism in its political context of the time. This is the whole point of this essay, all the more fascinating since it offers an overview of the work on Foucault, in particular on its relation to neoliberalism. -- Olivier Doubre * Politis *In The Last Man Takes LSD, the sociologists Mitchell Dean and Daniel Zamora meticulously examine the turning point of the seventies to take a critical look at Foucault's political heritage, and to revive the debate on his relationship to the neoliberal school of thought. -- Mathieu Dejean * Les Inrocks *A volume that offers us an overview of the political field that gave rise to Foucault's ideas. The two authors enrich the debate by proposing to consider the alleged Foucaultian sympathy for neoliberalism as a moment where power seemed to criticize himself, making possible, on the one hand, a policy finally free from the conquest of the State and institutions, and on the other, the idea of an autonomous constitution of oneself - or, what would today be inexorably described as an entrepreneur of the self. -- Carlo Crosato * Il Manifesto *Michel Foucault saw neoliberalism as an opportunity to think about the revitalization of the left in civil society. The authors Daniel Zamora and Mitchell Dean explain why he lost sight of its authoritarian dimension. -- Pascal Jurt * Woz *Michel Foucault was among the most prescient analysts of neoliberalism but his own relation to it is now a topic of fierce intellectual dispute. In this brilliant and incisive book, Mitchell Dean and Daniel Zamora show that neoliberalism appeared to Foucault to offer a break with the normalization of the welfare state and a space for new political experiments and individual freedoms. Looking back from our context of generalised precarity, deep inequality and economic and environmental crises, they challenge us to break with this tattered utopia and move beyond Foucault's fascination with the aesthetics of the self to re-invent politics for our time. -- Jessica WhyteDean and Zamora use Foucault's thesis of the dissolution of the Author as the key to understanding his later shift to issues of governmentality, neoliberalism, and his turn to subjectivity. By so doing, they violate his own injunction of resorting to the author's life to comprehend any work, and consequently produce the best account of his work I have ever encountered. -- Philip Mirowski, University of Notre DameBy locating Foucault's later work in the social and political context of the 1970s and 80s, in France, California, and elsewhere, Dean and Zamora have performed a double service. We finish their study better understanding the roots of Foucault's ideas, and the motivation for his dalliance with a nascent neoliberalism. But we also perceive the limited shelf-life of his idiosyncratic notion of freedom; in our time, it would be folly to carry on revering him as - in Sartre's phrase - the 'unsurpassable horizon' of radical thought. -- Peter Dews, University of Essex"When I say something," Foucault claimed, "I am speaking to the present." How ironic that so little of the discussion around Foucault, particularly in the United States, has focused on his present. In their riveting study, Dean and Zamora do just that, putting Foucault in dialogue not only with the anti-Marxist New Philosophers of the 1970s but also with a neoliberalism emerging from within French socialist circles after 1968. The result is a completely unexpected Foucault, more rooted in the struggles of his own time, yet still speaking, as a cautionary tale, to our own. One would be hard pressed to find a better book on such a complex thinker or a more compulsively readable introduction to the contradictory politics of the left in our current moment. * Corey Robin *The Last Man Takes LSD is the best account of Foucault's engagement with neoliberalism. The book raises a number of intriguing questions, not the least of which is: What is left? -- John Foster * The Battleground *Dean and Zamora do an excellent job contextualizing Foucault's research and ideas in his final years. They methodically trace the nuances of the era's prickly political climate, creating a sympathetic portrait of Foucault's promotion of a damaging and - for a thinker who fruitfully explored power and exploitation - self-defeating philosophical turn. -- Jonathan Russell Clark * Los Angeles Times *Not just a brilliant and well-timed exploration of Foucault's intellectual trajectory ... it is also a necessary addition to the literature that has emerged over the past five years on the intellectual history of neoliberalism. -- Gavin Jacobson * New Statesman *The Last Man Takes LSD questions the lingering significance of Foucault's work today, highlighting a greater gap in Foucauldian thought: the absence of a well-developed theory of the state. -- Samuel Clowes Huneke * The Point *A fascinating study of Foucault's American years. -- Stuart Jeffries * Spectator *Compelling. -- Jasper Friedrich * Foucault Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Last Man Takes LSD1. The Birth of a ControversyFoucault and the liberal arts of governmentFoucault in his presentNeoliberalismThe intellectual2. Searching for a Left GovernmentalityFoucault against the post-war LeftNeoliberalism beyond Right and LeftTowards a 'new political culture'3. Beyond the Sovereign Subject: Against InterpretationAgainst the sovereignty of the authorTh e rise and fall of the modern subject4. Ordeals: Personal and PoliticalVeridiction and forms of truthExperimentation and knowledge through the ordealA 'political spirituality' against the sovereign5. The Revolution BeheadedTh e self as a battlefieldResistance as 'desubjectification'Proliferation against powerNeoliberalism: a framework for pluralismAn 'intelligent use' of neoliberalism6. Foucault's NormativitySexuality and moralityTh e revolutionInequality and neoliberal governmentalityThe California Foucault7. Rogue Neoliberalism and Liturgical PowerThe 1970s: coming downTowards a left governmentalityConfessional civil warEpilogueAfterwordIndex
£12.34
Headline Publishing Group Pocket Philosophy: Schopenhauer's Porcupine
Book SynopsisArthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher and a proponent of pessimistic philosophy. Deeply cynical of love and the want for children, he believed humans are all mere animals – just far more unhappy, because of our self-awareness.The porcupine dilemma is a metaphor about the challenges of human intimacy. Schopenhauer believed that, despite our good intentions, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial harm.By adapting famous animal parables, the Pocket Philosophy series seeks to introduce inquisitive readers of all ages – from 1 to 100! – to the biggest names in philosophy.
£7.59
Verso Books The Destruction of Reason
Book SynopsisA classic of Western Marxism, The Destruction of Reason is Georg Lukács's trenchant criticism of German philosophy after Marx and the role it played in the rise of National Socialism. Originally published in 1952, the book is a sustained and detailed polemic against post-Hegelian German philosophy and sociology from Kierkegaard to Heidegger. The Destruction of Reason is unsparing in its contention that with almost no exceptions, the post-Hegelian tradition prepared the ground fascist thought. In this, the main culprits are Friedrich Nietzsche and Martín Heidegger who are accused, in turn, of introducing irrationalism into social and philosophical thought, pronounced antagonism to the idea of progress in history, an aristocratic view of the "masses," and, consequently, hostility to socialism, which in its classic expressions are movements for popular democracy-especially, but not exclusively, the expropriation of most private property in terms of material production.The Destruction of Reason remains one of Lukács's most controversial, albeit little read, books. This new edition, featuring an historical introduction by Enzo Traverso, will finally see this classic come back in to print.Trade Review[Lukacs possessed] a very specific and important kind of mind, raised to an extraordinary degree of interest by its quite exceptional ability. -- Raymond Williams
£27.00
Imprint Academic Peirce and Spencer-Brown: History and Synergies
Book SynopsisThis special double issue of Cybernetics and Human Knowing is comprised of a collection of papers devoted to the cybernetics and mathematics of Charles Sanders Peirce with a special focus on its synergies with George Spencer-Brown''s thinking. Peirce was a truly original American philosopher and logician working in the late 1800s and early 1900s; Spencer-Brown is an English polymath, best known as the author of Laws of Form. The contributions reflect the extraordinary richness of Peirce''s work and his relevance to present concerns in cybernetics. The similarities in the focus on some of the deep foundational subjects are astonishing, amongst those especially the concept of the void or Firstness and the continuity of mind and matter.
£21.49
Vintage Publishing Affirming: Letters 1975-1997
Book Synopsis‘IB was one of the great affirmers of our time.’ John Banville, New York Review of BooksThe title of this final volume of Isaiah Berlin’s letters is echoed by John Banville’s verdict in his review of its predecessor, Building: Letters 1960–75, which saw Berlin publish some of his most important work, and create, in Oxford’s Wolfson College, an institutional and architectural legacy. In the period covered by this new volume (1975–97) he consolidates his intellectual legacy with a series of essay collections. These generate many requests for clarification from his readers, and stimulate him to reaffirm and sometimes refine his ideas, throwing substantive new light on his thought as he grapples with human issues of enduring importance.Berlin’s comments on world affairs, especially the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the collapse of Communism, are characteristically acute. This is also the era of the Northern Ireland Troubles, the Iranian revolution, the rise of Solidarity in Poland, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, and wars in the Falkland Islands, the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. Berlin scrutinises the leading politicians of the day, including Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev, and draws illuminating sketches of public figures, notably contrasting the personas of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrey Sakharov. He declines a peerage, is awarded the Agnelli Prize for ethics, campaigns against philistine architecture in London and Jerusalem, helps run the National Gallery and Covent Garden, and talks at length to his biographer. He reflects on the ideas for which he is famous – especially liberty and pluralism – and there is a generous leavening of the conversational brilliance for which he is also renowned, as he corresponds with friends about politics, the academic world, music and musicians, art and artists, and writers and their work, always displaying a Shakespearean fascination with the variety of humankind.Affirming is the crowning achievement both of Berlin’s epistolary life and of the widely acclaimed edition of his letters whose first volume appeared in 2004.Trade ReviewOne of the great thinkers of the age. Anyone seeking to understand the 20th century should acquire this volume, and its three predecessors. They will be both stimulated and enlightened -- Vernon Bogdanor, five stars * Daily Telegraph *This fourth and final volume of Berlin's letters, admirably edited by Henry Hardy and Mark Pottle, brings vividly back to life one of the most wise, witty and generous of men -- Philip Ziegler * Spectator *The great magus of 20th-century liberalism -- Matthew d'Ancona * Guardian *Berlin, at his best, reminding us that he was one of the great liberal thinkers of the postwar period -- David Herman * New Statesman *Modest, polite and beautifully written, these letters can be viewed as open-ended conversations with kindred spirits. They are also an important attempt to document the history of the late 20th century. * Prospect *
£999.99
Collective Ink Prince and the Wolf: Latour and Harman at the
Book SynopsisThe Prince and the Wolf contains the transcript of a debate which took place on 5th February 2008 at the London School of Economics (LSE) between the prominent French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher Bruno Latour and the Cairo-based American philosopher Graham Harman. The occasion for the debate was the impending publication of Harman's book, Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. During the discussion, Latour (the 'Prince') compared the professional philosophers who have pursued him over the years to a pack of wolves. The Prince and the Wolf is the story of what happens when the wolf catches up with the prince. Latour and Harman engage in brisk and witty conversation about questions that go to the heart of both metaphysics and research methodology: What are objects? How do they interact? And best how to study them?Trade ReviewToo often debates are sterile. Each participant lines up behind the other, each with their own point of view. All is on show but nothing much happens. This debate is different. Something happened. (Nigel Thrift, University of Warwick) This is an especially welcome book. It is rare that one has the opportunity to be a near eye witness to a constructive and intellectually generous exchange of provocative ideas-in-the-making. Graham Harman, Bruno Latour and the assembled audience put on a great show. The exchange is fresh, laced with good humor, and informative. There is much to be learned here about empirical metaphysics-and collegiality. (Michael Flower, Portland State University)
£9.49
Icon Books Introducing Heidegger: A Graphic Guide
Book SynopsisMartin Heidegger - philosophy's 'hidden king', or leading exponent of a dangerously misguided secular mysticism. Heidegger has been acclaimed as the most powerfully original philosopher of the twentieth century. Profoundly influential on deconstruction, existentialism and phenomenology, he stands behind all major strands of post-structuralist and postmodern thought. Heidegger announced the end of philosophy and of humanism, and was a committed Nazi and vocal supporter of Hitler's National Socialism. Was Heidegger offering a deeply conservative mythology or a crucial deconstruction of philosophy as we have known it? "Introducing Heidegger" provides an accessible introduction to his notoriously abstruse thinking, mapping out its historical contexts and exploring its resonances in ecology, theology, art, architecture, literature and other fields. The book opens up an encounter with a kind of thinking whose outlines might still not yet be clear, and whose forms might still surprise us.Trade ReviewJeff Collins has done an admirable job of explicating this profound thinker.' * John Banville, Irish Times *
£7.99
Icon Books Introducing Derrida: A Graphic Guide
Book SynopsisBrilliant illustrated guide to the best-known and most controversial continental philosopher of the latter 20th century. Jacques Derrida is the most famous philosopher of the late 20th century. Yet Derrida has undermined the rules of philosophy, rejected its methods, broken its procedures and contaminated it with literary styles of writing. Derrida's philosophy is a puzzling array of oblique, deviant and yet rigorous tactics for destabilizing texts, meanings and identities. 'Deconstruction', as these strategies have been called, is reviled and celebrated in equal measure. Introducing Derrida introduces and explains his work, taking us on an intellectual adventure that disturbs some of our most comfortable habits of thought.
£7.99
Icon Books Introducing Baudrillard: A Graphic Guide
Book SynopsisIllustrated guide to the controversial sociologist Jean Baudrillard, who died in 2007. Did the Gulf War take place? Is it possible to fake a bank robbery? Was sexual liberation a disaster? Jean Baudrillard has been hailed as one of France's most subtle and powerful theorists. But his provocative style and assaults on sociology, feminism and Marxism have exposed him to accusations of promoting a dangerous new orthodoxy - of being the 'pimp' of postmodernism. Introducing Baudrillard cuts beneath the controversy of this misunderstood intellectual to present his radical claims that reality has been replaced by a simulated world of images and events ranging from TV news to Disneyland. It provides a clear account of Baudrillard's work on obesity, pornography and terrorism and traces his development from critic of mass consumption to prophet of the apocalypse. Chris Horrocks' text and Zoran Jevtic?s artwork invite us to decide whether Baudrillard was a cure for the vertigo of contemporary culture - or one of its symptoms
£8.54
Reaktion Books Ludwig Wittgenstein
Book SynopsisLudwig Wittgenstein, writes noted scholar Edward Kanterian, was a philosopher's philosopher'. He was one of the founders of modern analytic philosophy and is regarded as the greatest philosophical genius since Immanuel Kant. In this book, Kanterian traces the complex relationship between the philosopher's life, his work and his time. The author describes Wittgenstein's eventful life, his numerous trips, and his friendships with some of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, including Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Keynes, George Edward Moore and Gilbert Royle. Kanterian also presents a careful account of Wittgenstein's notoriously abstract philosophical works, from his early masterpiece Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) to the Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953. The author makes Wittgenstein's work comprehensible to lay readers, as well as offering original interpretations that further illuminate the writings. Emerging from the highly sophisticated Viennese upper class at the turn of the last century, Wittgenstein had intellectual and artistic aspirations going far beyond theoretical philosophy. In particular he took great interest in art and music, and during his entire lifetime was deeply tormented by ethical and religious questions. There is something about Wittgenstein's life and persona, the author believes, that captivates our collective imagination and seems to offer answers to the ethical problems of our own time. Kanterian sees Wittgenstein's life as the focal point of important conflicts and tensions of an entire age. A readable, concise account that uses many telling quotations from the philosopher's own writings, as well as numerous illustrations, this book will appeal to scholars and students of Wittgenstein, and the broad audience for introductions to philosophy.Trade Reviewbeautiful ... well produced, compact ... with outstanding illustrations Manna
£15.26
Reaktion Books Simone Weil
Book SynopsisSimone Weil, legendary French philosopher, mystic and political activist who died in England in 1943 at the age of thirty-four, belongs to a select group of thinkers: as with St Augustine, Pascal and Nietzsche, so with Weil a single phrase can permanently change one's life. In this book, Palle Yourgrau follows Weil on her life's journey, from her philosophical studies at the Ecole Normale Superieure, to her years as a Marxist labour organizer, her explosive encounter with Leon Trotsky, her abortive attempt to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War, her mystical experience in the town of Assisi. We see how Weil's struggle to make sense of a world consumed by despotism and war culminated in her monumental attempt, following St Augustine, to re-imagine Christianity along Platonistic lines, to find a bridge between human suffering and divine perfection. How seriously, however, should Weil's ideas be taken? They were admired by Albert Camus and T. S. Eliot, yet Susan Sontag wrote famously that 'I can't imagine more than a handful of the tens of thousands of readers she has won ...really share her ideas.' If this is really true, Palle Yourgrau must count as one of the handful. Though he brings to life the pathos of Weil's tragi-comic journey, Yourgrau devotes equal attention to the question of truth. He shines a bright light on the paradox of Simone Weil: at once a kind of modern saint, and a bete noire, a Jew accused of having abandoned her own people in their hour of greatest need. The result is a critical biography that is in places as disturbing as Weil's own writings, an account that confronts head-on her controversial critique of the Hebrew Bible, as well as her radical rejection of the received wisdom that the Resurrection lies at the heart of Christianity. @font-face { font-family: Times New Roman; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: Times New Roman; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
£18.84
Granta Books How To Read Beauvoir
Book Synopsis'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' Simone de Beauvoir To what extent does our social existence determine who we are? What is the meaning of sexuality for human existence? What is the meaning of 'old age'? What is a woman? And what, for that matter, is a man? Stella Sandford explores the philosophical basis of Beauvoir's reflections on these and other questions, from her early moral period, through her post-war philosophical crisis, to the astounding polymathic studies of her mature thought. She demonstrates the persistence of the fundamental existential and ethical questions that drove Beauvoir's work and her constant revision of her own positions. With a central emphasis on Beauvoir's major work, The Second Sex, extracts are also taken from her first philosophical and political essays, as well as The Mandarins, Old Age and her essay on the Marquis de Sade.Trade ReviewBeauvoir, like Sartre, is a founder of existentialism- the most popular philosophy of the modern day Renewed interest in this 'personality' philosopher with the recent publication of Hazel Rowley's Tete-a-Tete: The Lives and Loves of Simone Le Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre (read on BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week) Adding to 10 other titles currently available in the How to Read series
£6.99
Macat International Limited An Analysis of Jacques Derrida's Structure, Sign,
Book SynopsisJacques Derrida’s Structure, Sign, and Play is one of the most controversial and influential philosophical texts of the 20th century. Delivered at a conference on structuralism at Johns Hopkins, the lecture took aim at the critical and philosophical fashions of the time and radically proposing a world in which meaning cannot be pinned down or traced to an origin, but instead is continuously shifting, fleeting, and open to play. Hailed by many as a watershed in philosophy and literary theory, Derrida’s lecture has shaped both disciplines. At once dense, brilliant, and humorous, it is a crucial read for anyone interested in questioning our natural assumptions about meaning in the world. Table of ContentsWays in to the text Who was Jacques Derrida? What does Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Science Say? Why does Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Science Matter? Section 1: Influences Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context Module 2: Academic Context Module 3: The Problem Module 4: The Author's Contribution Section 2: Ideas Module 5: Main Ideas Module 6: Secondary Ideas Module 7: Achievement Module 8: Place in the Author's Work Section 3: Impact Module 9: The First Responses Module 10: The Evolving Debate Module 11: Impact and Influence Today Module 12: Where Next? Glossary of Terms People Mentioned in the Text Works Cited
£8.58
For Beginners Derrida for Beginners
Book Synopsis
£13.29
Nightboat Books Sun of Consciousness
Book SynopsisSoleil de la Conscience (Sun of Consciousness) was Martinican philosopher Édouard Glissant’s first published work, and opened the Poétique (Poetics) strain of his oeuvre. This book-length essay, which is characterized by its exploratory, intimate character, announces Glissants concerns with créolisation (creolization), mondialité (worldliness, as against globalization), or opacité (opacity) and inscribes in this work a refusal of colonialism and of inverted exoticism. The sense of estrangement experienced by the author who arrives as a “foreigner” in a country to which he is bound by “the first page of his passport” is the author’s principal preoccupation. By positioning himself as both different and same, Glissant opens a space for the writing of a(nother) history: that of the Caribbean.Trade Review“As a writer of the African Diaspora, of the Carribean, and of the world, Glissant offers such braiding and breaking as a method that shows places of slippage, kinks that retrace the love, displacement, renewal, and violence inherent in the act of writing”—Rachel Ellis Neyra, Obsidian “Betsy Wing has made a fine job of rendering the specificities of Glissant's poetic vocabulary. For this poet's prose, and French poet's prose, written in an idiom which is felt as so foreign to English that it can evoke reactions of exasperation and impatience. . . . Glissant's influence on the next, third, generation of francophone writers, and not just Martinican writers, can hardly be overstated."—Times Literary Supplement "How rewarding to read a text in the last moments of this century that has absorbed quantum physics, jazz, modernist poetics, mathematics, and all for the sake of adding to the discourse of our planetary reality. "—Zoe Anglesey, Multicultural Review "Glissant’s assertions about poetry and language anticipate today’s most urgent and penetrating verse, such that Sun of Consciousness makes for a most timely text for study."—Ron Slate, On the Seawall
£10.44
For Beginners Literary Theory for Beginners
Book Synopsis
£12.34
De Gruyter Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants: Akten
Book SynopsisDie fünf Bände enthalten die Hauptvorträge und eingeladene Beiträge der panels des X. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, der 2005 in Sao Paolo stattfand.Table of ContentsBand 1: HauptvorträgeMario Caimi: Comments on the Conception of Imagination in the Critique of Pure Reason; Bernd Dörflinger: Die Rolle der Gottesidee in Kants Konzeption des ethischen Gemeinwesens; Michel Fichant: L’Amphibologie des concepts de la réflexion: la fin de l’ontologie; José Arthur Giannotti: The Unveiling of Meaning; Paul Guyer: Proving Ourselves Free; Otfried Höffe: Kants universaler Kosmopolitismus; Jean-François Kervegan: Remarques sur la théorie kantienne de la normativité, en particulier juridique; Patricia Kitcher: Kant’s ‘I think’; Silvestro Marcucci: Le «savant»Kant âgé de trente ans; António Marques: Unity and Diversity of Transcendental Reflection in Kant; François Marty: L'être commun éthique, peuple de Dieu sous des lois morales. Sur le chemin de la paix perpétuelle; Claude Piché: Le concept de phénoménologie chez Kant et Reinhold; Valerio Rohden: Neue Überlegungen zu Kants Kritik an einem praktischen Solipsismus; Marcus Willaschek: Kant on the Necessity of Metaphysics; Howard Williams: Why Kant is not a HobbesianBand 2Sektion I: Der vorkritische KantSektion II: Kants theoretische PhilosophieBand 3Sektion III: Kants praktische PhilosophieSektion IV: Kants ÄsthetikBand 4Sektion V: Kants GeschichtsphilosophieSektion VI: Kants ReligionsphilosophieSektion VII: Kants Rechts-, Staats- und politische PhilosophieBand 5Sektion VIII: Kants AnthropologieSektion IX: Kants LogikSektion X: Kants Opus postumumSektion XI: Kant und die zeitgenössische KritikSektion XII: Kant und der deutsche IdealismusSektion XIII: Transformationen kantischer PhilosophieSektion XIV: Kant im Kontext der Gegenwartsphilosophie
£234.75
