Western philosophy from c 1800 Books
Verso Books Radio Benjamin
Book SynopsisWalter Benjamin was fascinated by the impact of new technology on culture, an interest that extended beyond his renowned critical essays. From 1927 to '33, he wrote and presented something in the region of eighty broadcasts using the new medium of radio. Radio Benjamin gathers the surviving transcripts, which appear here for the first time in English. This eclectic collection demonstrates the range of Benjamin's thinking and his enthusiasm for popular sensibilities. His celebrated "Enlightenment for Children" youth programs, his plays, readings, book reviews, and fiction reveal Benjamin in a creative, rather than critical, mode. They flesh out ideas elucidated in his essays, some of which are also represented here, where they cover topics as varied as getting a raise and the history of natural disasters, subjects chosen for broad appeal and examined with passion and acuity.Delightful and incisive, this is Walter Benjamin channeling his sophisticated thinking to a wide audience, allowing us to benefit from a new voice for one of the twentieth century's most respected thinkers.Trade ReviewA complex and brilliant writer. -- JM CoetzeeWalter Benjamin was one of the unclassifiable ones... whose work neither fits the existing order nor introduces a new genre. -- Hannah ArendtBenjamin buckled himself to the task of revolutionary transformation. his life and work speak challengingly to us all. -- Terry EagletonThere has been no more original, no more serious critic and reader in our time. -- George SteinerHe drew, from the obscure disdained German baroque, elements of the modern sensibility: the taste for allegory, surrealist shock effects, discontinuous utterance, a sense of historical catastrophe. -- Susan SontagWalter Benjamin is the most important German aesthetician and literary critic of the twentieth century. * Sunday Times *Radio Benjamin could hardly be bettered... There really is no parallel for what Benjamin did in these talks. Imagine a particularly engaging episode of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time narrated by Alan Bennett - if Bennett were more profoundly steeped in Marx and politically engaged by the revolutionary potential of the medium of radio - and you have something of their allure. -- Stuart JeffriesThis collection shows a lighter - though entirely characteristic - side to this most influential of 20th-century thinkers. -- Jonathan Gibbs * Independent *Walter Benjamin, one of the first theorists to ponder the social impact of mass media [...] was equally entranced by the way thin air mysteriously transmits radio waves. In 1927, five years before he exiled himself from Germany in advance of the Nazi putsch, Benjamin began a series of experimental broadcasts on this new medium. -- Peter Conrad * Observer *
£14.24
Vintage Publishing Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey
Book SynopsisRoger Scruton is one of the most widely respected philosophers of our time, whose often provocative views never fail to stimulate debate. In Modern Philosophy he turns his attention to the whole of the field, from the philosophy of logic to aesthetics, and in so doing provides us with an essential and comprehensive guide to modern thinking. Considered by many to be the best philosophical primer since Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy, this book is a must for both the student and the general reader.Trade ReviewModern Philosophy succeeds in inspiring readers to explore the topic further, because one senses Scruton the mark of the true thinker, a deep sincerity and conviction -- Alain de Botton * Daily Telegraph *Scruton is a masterly writer; his book is a paradigm of lucidity -- A.C. Grayling * Financial Times *A remarkably rich smorgasbord -- Oliver Letwin * The Times *Invaluable -- Frederic Raphael * Sunday Times *
£22.50
St Augustine's Press Bergson
Book SynopsisLeszek Kolakowski shows how Henri Bergson sought to reconcile Darwin's theory with his own beliefs about the nature of the universe. Bergson believed that time could be thought of in two different ways: as an abstract measuring device used for practical purposes, or as 'duree', the "real" time we actually experience. He also held that all matter is propelled by an internal 'elan vital', or life-drive, and that the life of the universe is constantly creative and unpredictable. On the basis of these ideas he constructed a system of thought that embraced his views on memory, matter, conscousness, movement, religious morality, and the nature of laughter. His pantheistic and dynamic vision of the universe, which emerged at a time of crisis in Western intellectual life, was symptomatic of the struggle between a rigid scientific derminism and the Christian tradition of a divine creation.Table of Contentsnotes, short biography of Bergson, bibliography, index
£12.01
University of Westminster Press Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An
Book SynopsisKnowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism proposes a new critical theory concerning the functioning of capitalism and how we consider knowledge and information.
£24.50
Hachette Livre - BNF Le Monde de MR Descartes, Ou Le Traité de la
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£17.00
Hachette Livre - BNF Discours Philosophique Sur Les Frayeurs de la
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£9.50
Hachette Livre - BNF Montesquieu
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£18.00
Hachette Livre - BNF de la Sagesse. Tome 1
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£24.70
Springer Nature Switzerland AG Postmodern Theory and Progressive Politics: Toward a New Humanism
Book SynopsisThis book explores the origins of the academic culture wars of the late 20th century and examines their lasting influence on the humanities and progressive politics. It puts us in a position to ask this question: what to make now of those furious debates over postmodernism, multiculturalism, relativism, critical theory, deconstruction, post-structuralism, and all the rest? In an effort to arrive at a fair judgment on that question, the book reaches for an understanding of postmodern theorists by way of two genres they despised and hopes, for that very reason, to do them justice. It tells a story, and in the telling, advances two basic claims: first, that the phenomenological/hermeneutical tradition is the most suitable source of theory for a humanism that aspires to be universal; and, second, that the ethical and political aspect of the human condition is authentically accessible only through narrative. In conclusion, it argues that the postmodern moment was a necessary one, or will have been if we rise to the occasion and seize the opportunity it offers: a truly universal humanism might yet be realized even in—or perhaps especially in—this atavistic hour of parochial populism. Table of Contents
£59.99
Springer Nature Switzerland AG Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Pragmatism and Neuroscience
Book SynopsisThis book explores the cultures of philosophy and the law as they interact with neuroscience and biology, through the perspective of American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes’ Jr., and the pragmatist tradition of John Dewey. Schulkin proposes that human problem solving and the law are tied to a naturalistic, realistic and an anthropological understanding of the human condition. The situated character of legal reasoning, given its complexity, like reasoning in neuroscience, can be notoriously fallible. Legal and scientific reasoning is to be understood within a broader context in order to emphasize both the continuity and the porous relationship between the two. Some facts of neuroscience fit easily into discussions of human experience and the law. However, it is important not to oversell neuroscience: a meeting of law and neuroscience is unlikely to prove persuasive in the courtroom any time soon. Nevertheless, as knowledge of neuroscience becomes more reliable and more easily accepted by both the larger legislative community and in the wider public, through which neuroscience filters into epistemic and judicial reliability, the two will ultimately find themselves in front of a judge. A pragmatist view of neuroscience will aid and underlie these events.Table of Contents1. Introduction.- 2. Holmes' Critical Experience in War.- 3. Experience, Inference and Surviving.- 4. Holmes, Pragmatism and Nature.- 5. Duty, Surviving, Social Contract.- 6. Emersonian Sensibilities.- 7. Bounded Choice, Human Freedom and Problem Solving.- 8. Naturalizing Decision-Making.- 9. Ethics, Body Politic, and Neuroscience.- 10. Neuroscientific Considerations and the Law.- 11. Conclusion.
£57.10
Springer Nature Switzerland AG The End of Literature, Hegel, and the Contemporary Novel
Book SynopsisThis book explores the concept of the end of literature through the lens of Hegel's philosophy of art. In his version of Hegel's 'end of art' thesis, Arthur Danto claimed that contemporary art has abandoned its distinctive sensitive and emotive features to become increasingly reflective. Contemporary art has become a question of philosophical reflection on itself and on the world, thus producing an epochal change in art history. The core idea of this book is that this thesis applies quite well to all forms of art except one, namely literature: literature resists its 'end'.Unlike other arts, which have experienced significant fractures in the contemporary world, Campana proposes that literature has always known how to renew itself in order to retain its distinguishing features, so much so that in a way it has always come to terms with its own end. Analysing the distinct character of literature, this book proposes a new and original interpretation of the 'end of art' thesis, showing how it can be used as a key conceptual framework to understand the contemporary novel. Table of ContentsChapter 1: The End of Art and the Resistance of Literature.- Chapter 2: Literature and the Other Arts.- Chapter 3: The End of Literature.- Chapter 4: Philosophisation and Ordinariness.- Chapter 5: The Contemporary Novel after the End of Literature.- Chapter 6: Conclusions.-
£44.99
De Gruyter Eigentum und Staatsbegründung in Kants
Book Synopsis Unlike conventional interpretations of Kant's Rechtslehre, Rainer Friedrich demonstrates that Kant does not derive the necessity of a state of public law from natural property law. Rather, the innate human right of liberty forms the subjective legal basis of the state. The close textual analysis both consults the preparatory studies to the doctrine of law and virtue and Kant's relevant lectures and considers contemporary commentaries. The study emphasizes the systematicity of duty underlying the Rechtslehre, Kant's doctrine of subjective rights, the doctrine of original acquisition and the significance of the general will for private law, together with the transition from private to public law. Rainer Friedrich provides a coherent historically and systematically arranged reconstruction of Kant's rationality of law.
£90.00
De Gruyter Kritische Theologie: Paul Tillich in Frankfurt
Book Synopsis This volume examines the multifaceted origins of Paul Tillich’s “critical theology” during the Frankfurt years (1929-1933) from the perspectives of source and reception history. In this way, it provides a compelling picture of the rich interactions between Tillich and his academic environment as well as the spiritual situation at the University of Frankfurt just before the National Socialist takeover.
£103.55
De Gruyter Søren Kierkegaard: Entweder - Oder
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£20.25
Felix Meiner Erfahrung und Urteil: Untersuchungen zur
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£64.52
Felix Meiner Von der Psychologie zur Phänomenologie
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£51.38
Books on Demand Philosophin der Liebe - Helene Stöcker: Die Neue
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£22.70
Hofenberg Die Ursachen des Deutschenhasses: Eine
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£15.38
Mimesis International Where Thought Hesitates: Gregory Bateson and the
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£18.99
Books on Demand Dialogue in Democracy
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£31.95
MIT Press Ltd Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader
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£15.29
Verso Books Immanent Critiques: The Frankfurt School under
Book SynopsisFifty years after the appearance of The Dialectical Imagination, his pioneering history of the Frankfurt School, Martin Jay reflects on what may be living and dead in its legacy. Rather than treating it with filial piety as a fortress to be defended, he takes seriously its anti-systematic impulse and sensitivity to changing historical circumstances. Honouring the Frankfurt School's practice of immanent critique, he puts critical pressure on a number of its own ideas by probing their contradictory impulses. Among them are the pathologization of political deviance through stigmatizing "authoritarian personalities," the undefended theological premises of Walter Benjamin's work, and the ambivalence of its members' analyses of anti-Semitism and Zionism. Additional questions are asked about other time-honored Marxist themes: the meaning of alienation, the alleged damages of abstraction, and the advocacy of a politics based on a singular notion of the truth. Rather, however, than allowing these questions to snowball into an unwarranted repudiation of the Frankfurt School legacy as a whole, the essays also acknowledge a number of its still potent arguments. They explore its neglected, but now timely analysis of "racket society," Adorno's dialectical reading of aesthetic sublimation, and the unexpected implications of Benjamin's focus on the corpse for political theory. Jay shows that it is a still evolving theoretical tradition which offers resources for the understanding of - and perhaps even practical betterment - of our increasingly troubled world.Trade ReviewA century after its founding, the Institute for Social Research, now better known as the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, continues to generate provocative ideas and critical perspectives on the world that we inhabit. Just as from the vantage point of Adorno, Benjamin, Horkheimer, and others, however, there can be no genuinely critical thought that is not mediated in decisive ways by the history of its own genesis, thereby rendering the task of inheriting the refractory legacy of the Frankfurt School a difficult and ongoing undertaking. Martin Jay's powerful new study provides us with a beautifully articulated path through the thicket of that inheritance, thoughtfully lingering along the way to illuminate central tropes and concerns that emerge from this constellation of writers. By focusing on the characteristic critical gesture that unites many Frankfurt School thinkers-that of immanent critique-Jay succeeds in opening up a productive and unfailingly fascinating perspective on a critical legacy that, even a century on, remains open and still to come. In Jay's masterful hands, the texts that constitute this legacy have lost none of their urgency and abiding interest. -- Gerhard Richter, L. Herbert Ballou University Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature, Brown UniversityThroughout these thought-provoking studies Martin Jay's characteristic lucidity and unrivalled command of the relevant source material is on display. Jay is sensitive both to the socio-political contexts of Frankfurt School thinking and to the continuing relevance of the School's legacy. Even those steeped in the tradition of Critical Theory will learn something new from his wide-ranging and sometimes provocative reflections. -- Peter Dews, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of EssexThat Martin Jay is not only the leading historian of the Frankfurt School, but one of its most creative and interesting practitioners in the third generation, becomes irrevocably apparent in this superb collection of articles. Circling around the notion of "immanent critique", these articles explore the viability of some of this tradition's core ideas in a time of political turbulences and postcolonial challenges. In so doing, Martin Jay teaches us how to actualize Critical Theory without credulously sticking to the original texts. -- Axel HonnethTable of Contents1 1968 in an Expanded Field: The Frankfurt School and the Uneven Course of History2 Adorno and the Role of Sublimation in Artistic Creativity and Cultural Redemption3 Blaming the Victim? Arendt, Adorno and Erikson on the Jewish Responsibility for Anti-Semitism4 The Authoritarian Personality and the Problematic Pathologization of Politics5 The Age of Rackets? Trump, Scorsese and the Frankfurt School6 Go Figure: Fredric Jameson on Walter Benjamin7 Leib, Körper and the Body Politic8 Marx and Mendacity: Can There Be a Politics without Hypocrisy?
£18.99
Imprint Academic Logic, Truth and Meaning: Writings of G.E.M.
Book SynopsisThis fourth and final volume of writings by Elizabeth Anscombe reprints her Introduction to Wittgenstein''s Tractatus, together with a number of later essays on thought and language in which she explores issues of reason, representation, truth and existence. As with previous volumes this gathers hitherto inaccessible publications and previously unpublished texts. Singly and collectively the four volumes provide for a broader and deeper understanding of the thought of one of the twentieth century''s most important anglophone philosophers.
£18.95
University of Notre Dame Press Ricoeur on Time and Narrative
Book SynopsisRicoeur on Time and Narrative strikes just the right balance by providing a succinct and substantive presentation of Ricoeur’s argument in Time and Narrative.Trade Review"The scholarship in William C. Dowling's Ricoeur on Time and Narrative is impeccable; Dowling knows Ricoeur inside out. He highlights Ricoeur's most important arguments, presents them in a limpid, concise language, and links them to the relevant nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophical developments. Dowling's book provides us with a lucid, intelligible version of Ricoeur's major work, one that will be of considerable significance to philosophers, historians, and literary theorists." —Thomas Pavel, Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor of French Literature, and the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago"William C. Dowling's Ricoeur on Time and Narrative is a subtle and remarkably well-sustained piece of work. It provides a detailed introduction to a major work of philosophy and narrative theory—already a considerable achievement, given the difficulty of Ricoeur's text. However, Dowling also shows us, sometimes explicitly, sometimes simply through the way he conducts his argument, why we should bother with Ricoeur—what we have to gain from knowing him better than we do, however well we may think we know him." —Michael Wood, Princeton University“This subtle and remarkably well-sustained piece of work provides a detailed introduction to a major work of philosophy and narrative theory.” —Michael Wood, Princeton University“Ricoeur on Time and Narrative strikes just the right balance by providing a succinct and substantive presentation of Ricoeur’s argument in Time and Narrative. . . . Teachers of Ricoeur’s work will appreciate Dowling’s ability to contextualize Ricoeur’s engagement with a wide range of his contemporaries, while scholars are likely to turn to it as a valuable reference point for their own engagements with specific issues in Ricoeur studies.” —Philosophy in Review
£52.70
Harvard University Press Philosophical Explanations
Book SynopsisNozick develops new views on philosophy’s central topics and weaves them into a unified perspective. He ranges widely over philosophy’s fundamental concerns: the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the question of why there is something rather than nothing, the foundations of ethics, the meaning of life.Trade Review[Philosophical Explanations] will attract intelligent people of all backgrounds… Nozick is moved by a splendid passion… His arguments link his explanations to what he is rightly confident of…his vision of a persistent role for philosophy in common life. -- Ian Hacking * New Republic *An important book… [Nozick is] a philosopher who is answering the questions posed by such philosophers as Kierkegaard, Sartre, Marcel and Buber with the aid of tools produced by such very different philosophers as W. V. Quine, Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam… [He displays a] striking and imaginative originality. For he does nothing less than propose a new way of doing philosophy… Perhaps one good way for the serious general reader to attack this often difficult but always rewarding book would be to begin at the end. First read the fine last chapter on ‘Philosophy and the Meaning of Life’… It should then be very clear why it is important for you, whoever you are, to go back and read the rest of this book. -- Alasdair MacIntyre * New York Times Book Review *[This] remarkable new book…brings a reader into immediate and unmistakable contact with an uncommon mind. The clarity of [Nozick’s] style mirrors the lucidity of his thought… This is a major book. -- Robert Taylor * Boston Globe *It is not surprising that Nozick has a following. He does not come at the reader with heavy solemnity. His prose style is insouciant, his manner whimsical, and he gives every indication of having lots of fun. * Fortune *Toward the end of his talented, diverse…book, Robert Nozick embraces the idea of philosophy as an art form, and of the philosopher as a literary creator who works with ideas… [This book] is as brilliant and exciting as anything in contemporary philosophy. -- Bernard Williams * New York Review of Books *[Nozick is] a theorist with a style and method of his own, and ideas as bold as they are bright. -- Maurice Cranston * Washington Post Book World *Table of ContentsIntroduction Coercive Philosophy Philosophical Explanations Status of the Hypotheses Explanation versus Proof Philosophical Pluralism METAPHYSICS 1. The Identity of the Self I. Personal Identity Through Time The Closest Continuer Theory The Theory Applied Overlap Structuring Philosophical Concepts Problem Cases Ties and Caring II. Reflexivity Reflexive Self-Reference Essence as a Self How is Reflexive Self-Knowledge Possible? Classification and Entification Self-Synthesis What Synthesis Explains Unities and Wholes The Self-Conception of the Self Reflexive Caring An Ontologically Solid Self? 2. Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Explaining Everything Inegalitarian Theories Egalitarianism Fecundity Fecundity and Self-Subsumption Ultimacy The Principle of Sufficient Reason How Are Laws Possible? Beyond Mystical Experience EPISTEMOLOGY 3. Knowledge and Skepticism I. Knowledge Conditions for Knowledge Ways and Methods Knowledge of Necessities Cases and Complications II. Skepticism Skeptical Possibilities Skeptical Results Nonclosure Skepticism and the Conditions for Knowledge Narrower Skepticisms Details of Nonclosure Proof and the Transmission of Knowledge Skepticism Revisited Knowing That One Knows III. Evidence The Evidential Connection Evidence Based on Probability Inference Based on Probability The Contingency of the Evidential Tie Is There Evidence for Skepticism? Knowledge, Evidence, and Justification Evidence for the Evidential Relation How the Regress Stops Knowing Inside Out What's So Special about Knowledge? VALUE 4. Free Will I. Choice and Indeterminism Weigh(t)ing Reasons Nonrandom Weighting Understanding and Explaining Free Choices Could One Have Bestowed Otherwise? Why Free Will, and How Is Free Will Valuable? II. Deteminism and Aligning with Value Tracking Bestness How the Tracking Is Mediated How Illuminating Is the Parallel? Does Neurophysiological Reduction Undercut Tracking? Does Sociobiology Undercut Tracking? Acts in Equilibrium Self-choosing III. Retributive Punishment A Framework for Retribution A Rationale Is Needed Retribution and Revenge The Message of Retribution Connecting with Correct Values The Act Requirement Flouting Correct Values Retributive Contours More on the r x H Structure Offenders and the Law Determinism and Punishment 5. Foundations of Ethics I. Ethical Push Glaucon's Challenge Inconsistency and Motivation The Moral Benefit Leading the Most Valuable Life Intrinsic Value Degree of Organic Unity Value as Degree of Organic Unity The Structure of Value Conditions on Value and Disvalue The Allure of Value Explaining the Role of Organic Unity Designing Value Pluralism and Creativity II. Ethical Pull The Moral Basis Seeking Value Blocking Moral Avoidance Moral Responsiveness Responding and Anti-Responding Responsive Interaction and Moral Principles III. The Structure of Ethical Pull Moral Complications and Moral Structures The Simple Balancing Structure Judgment in Ethics The Complex Structure: Alternative Actions Measurement of Moral Weight The Complex Structure: Larger Courses of Action Deontology and Teleology Rights IV. The Life of Value Self-Improvement Harmonious Hierarchical Development Developing Self and Others Flourishing The Value of Valuers Treating in Accordance with Value Responsive Connection to Reality Parity of Push and Pull Does Push Cover Pull? V. Fact and Value Chasms Ethical Explanation and Self-Subsumption Kantian Structuring VI. The Basis of Value The Euthyphro Question Nihilism, Realism, Idealism, Romanticism, and Realizationism Choosing That There Be Value The Relationship Between Fact and Value 6. Philosophy and the Meaning of Life Modes of Meaning(fulness) Death Traces God's Plan Transcending Limits The Unlimited Meaning and Value Philosophy as Part of the Humanities Reductionism Nonreductive Understanding Philosophy as an Art Form Notes
£32.36
Cornell University Press The Reenchantment of the World
Book SynopsisThe Reenchantment of the World is a perceptive study of our scientific consciousness and a cogent and forceful challenge to its supremacy. Focusing on the rise of the mechanistic idea that we can know the natural world only by distancing ourselves...Trade Review"This pioneering holistic work is still one of the best discussions of the spiritual havoc wrought by the 'disgodding' of nature and the split in the Western mind between facts and values."—Chip Brown, The List"Morris Berman's book addresses what I consider to be the most important topic at our present moment in history. He is searching for the underpinnings of a new world view that can give rise to a culture capable of relating gently and self-sustainingly to the earth."—Frederick Ferré
£23.74
University of Minnesota Press Clang
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Geoffrey Bennington and David Wills’s new translation deserves the highest praise. They have rendered this most Joycean of Derrida’s works with an endless tact and feel for English—an immense feat. Clang renews Glas’s lease on life under this new name, where new readers can now encounter it. How fortunate they are!"—Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California
£28.80
ME - Fordham University Press Literature and the Remains of the Death Penalty
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£64.80
Fordham University Press Totality Inside Out
Book SynopsisHowever divergent their analyses may be in other ways, some prominent anti-capitalist critics have remained critical of contemporary debates over reparative justice for groups historically oppressed and marginalized on the basis of race, gender, sexual identity, sexual preference, and/or ability, arguing that the most these struggles can hope to produce is a more diversity-friendly capital. Meanwhile, scholars of gender and sexuality as well as race and ethnic studies maintain that, by elevating the socioeconomic above other logics of domination, anti-capitalist thought fails to acknowledge specific forms and experiences of subjugation. The thinkers and activists who appear in Totality Inside Out reject this divisive logic altogether. Instead, they aim for a more expansive analysis of our contemporary moment to uncover connected sites of political struggle over racial and economic justice, materialist feminist and queer critique, climate change, and aesthetic value. The re-imagined aTable of ContentsIntroduction: Totality Inside Out Kevin Floyd, with Brent Ryan Bellamy, Sarah Brouillette, Sarika Chandra, Chris Chen, and Jen Hedler Phillis | 1 1 Let the Dead Bury the Dead: Race, Gender, and Class Composition in the U.S. after 1965 Tim Kreiner | 29 2 (Un)making Value: Reading Social Reproduction through the Question of Totality Marina Vishmidt and Zoe Sutherland | 67 3 Tripartheid: How Global White Supremacy Triumphs through Neoliberalism Arthur Scarritt | 91 4 Remapping the Race/Class Problematic Sarika Chandra and Chris Chen | 135 5 On Artistic Autonomy as a Bourgeois Fetish Sarah Brouillette and Joshua Clover | 192 6 Ecology with Totality: The Case of Morton’s Hyperobjects and Klein’s This Changes Everything Brent Ryan Bellamy | 211 Acknowledgments | 237 List of Contributors | 239 Index | 243
£21.59
Stanford University Press Religion: Rereading What Is Bound Together
Book SynopsisWith this profound final work, completed in the days leading up to his death, Michel Serres presents a vivid picture of his thinking about religion—a constant preoccupation since childhood—thereby completing Le Grand Récit, the comprehensive explanation of the world and of humanity to which he devoted the last twenty years of his life. Themes from Serres's earlier writings—energy and information, the role of the media in modern society, the anthropological function of sacrifice, the role of scientific knowledge, the problem of evil—are reinterpreted here in the light of the Old Testament accounts of Isaac and Jonah and a variety of Gospel episodes, including the Three Wise Men of the Epiphany, the Transfiguration, Peter's denying Christ, the Crucifixion, Emmaus, and the Pentecost. Monotheistic religion, Serres argues, resembles mathematical abstraction in its dazzling power to bring together the real and the virtual, the natural and the transcendent; but only in its Christian embodiment is it capable of binding together human beings in such a way that partisan attachments are dissolved and a new era of history, free for once of the lethal repetition of collective violence, can be entered into.Trade Review"A stunning book by one of the most profound and original philosophers of science of the twentieth century, written in the final moments that separate life from death. Michel Serres realized that the whole of his thought over the course of an astonishingly prolific career would be incomplete if it did not take into account the indispensable role played by religion in every aspect of human life, and he tells us why in his own inimitable way."—Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, École Polytechnique, Paris
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press Archives of Infamy: Foucault on State Power in
Book SynopsisExpanding the insights of Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault’s Disorderly Families into policing, public order, (in)justice, and daily life What might it mean for ordinary people to intervene in the circulation of power between police and the streets, sovereigns and their subjects? How did the police come to understand themselves as responsible for the circulation of people as much as things—and to separate law and justice from the maintenance of a newly emergent civil order? These are among the many questions addressed in the interpretive essays in Archives of Infamy.Crisscrossing the Atlantic to bring together unpublished radio broadcasts, book reviews, and essays by historians, geographers, and political theorists, Archives of Infamy provides historical and archival contexts to the recent translation of Disorderly Families by Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault. This volume includes new translations of key texts, including a radio address Foucault gave in 1983 that explains the writing process for Disorderly Families; two essays by Foucault not readily available in English; and a previously untranslated essay by Farge that describes how historians have appropriated Foucault.Archives of Infamy pushes past old debates between philosophers and historians to offer a new perspective on the crystallization of ideas—of the family, gender relations, and political power—into social relationships and the regimes of power they engender. Contributors: Roger Chartier, Collège de France; Stuart Elden, U of Warwick; Arlette Farge, Centre national de recherche scientifique; Michel Foucault (1926–1984); Jean-Philippe Guinle, Catholic Institute of Paris; Michel Heurteaux; Pierre Nora, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales; Michael Rey (1953–1993); Thomas Scott-Railton; Elizabeth Wingrove, U of Michigan.Trade Review"Listening to the voices rising from the archives, grasping the distant echoes of confrontations with power, exhuming the tenuous grain of tiny existences—this is what Michel Foucault chose to do. Does the philosopher’s gesture conflict with the historical understanding of archival material? This look back at an exciting debate asks: is it possible to build together a concern for anonymous lives, a literary passion for documentary fragments, and the desire to make a history of the discourses and practices of power?" —Judith Revel, Université Paris Nanterre"The book should be of interest to Foucault scholars, political scientists, historians of eighteenth century France, as well as general readers."—Foucault Studies
£23.39
Fordham University Press The Philology of Life: Walter Benjamin's Critical
Book SynopsisThe Philology of Life retraces the outlines of the philological project developed by Walter Benjamin in his early essays on Hölderlin, the Romantics, and Goethe. This philological program, McLaughlin shows, provides the methodological key to Benjamin’s work as a whole. According to Benjamin, German literary history in the period roughly following the first World War was part of a wider “crisis of historical experience”—a life crisis to which Lebensphilosophie (philosophy of life) had instructively but insufficiently responded. Benjamin’s literary critical struggle during these years consisted in developing a philology of literary historical experience and of life that is rooted in an encounter with a written image. The fundamental importance of this “philological” method in Benjamin’s work seems not to have been recognized by his contemporary readers, including Theodor Adorno who considered the approach to be lacking in dialectical rigor. This facet of Benjamin’s work was also elided in the postwar publications of his writings, both in German and English. In recent decades, the publication of a wider range of Benjamin’s writings has made it possible to retrace the outlines of a distinctive philological project that starts to develop in his early literary criticism and that extends into the late studies of Baudelaire and Paris. By bringing this innovative method to light this study proposes “the philology of life” as the key to the critical program of one of the most influential intellectual figures in the humanities.Table of ContentsNote on Abbreviations | ix Introduction: The Philology of Life | 1 1. “Two Poems by Friedrich Hölderlin” | 15 2. The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism | 42 3. “Goethe’s Elective Affinities” | 68 Coda: The Afterlife of Philology | 109 Acknowledgments | 127 Appendix: Sources for Benjamin’s “Goethe’s Elective Affinities” (1924–25) | 129 Notes | 131 Bibliography | 179 Index | 189
£25.19
Fordham University Press Indifference and Repetition; or, Modern Freedom
Book SynopsisIn capitalism human beings act as if they are mere animals. So we hear repeatedly in the history of modern philosophy. Indifference and Repetition examines how modern philosophy, largely coextensive with a particular boost in capitalism’s development, registers the reductive and regressive tendencies produced by capitalism’s effect on individuals and society. Ruda examines a problem that has invisibly been shaping the history of modern, especially rationalist philosophical thought, a problem of misunderstanding freedom. Thinkers like Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and Marx claim that there are conceptions and interpretations of freedom that lead the subjects of these interpretations to no longer act and think freely. They are often unwillingly led into unfreedom. It is thus possible that even “freedom” enslaves. Modern philosophical rationalism, whose conceptual genealogy the books traces and unfolds, assigns a name to this peculiar form of domination by means of freedom: indifference. Indifference is a name for the assumption that freedom is something that human beings have: a given, a natural possession. When we think freedom is natural or a possession we lose freedom. Modern philosophy, Ruda shows, takes its shape through repeated attacks on freedom as indifference; it is the owl that begins its flight, so that the days of unfreedom will turn to dusk.Table of ContentsForeword: Frank Ruda’s Philosophical Oeuvre by Alain Badiou | vii Preface to the English Edition: Freedom as Slavery | xi List of Abbreviations | xxv Introduction: Indifference and the History of Philosophical Rationalism | 1 1 Descartes and the Transcendental of All My Future Errors | 13 2 Kant and the Fall into Natural Necessity | 47 3 Hegel, the Dead Disposition, and the Mortification of Freedom | 82 Conclusion: Toward Another Type of Indifference | 113 Translator’s Afterword by Heather H. Yeung | 127 Acknowledgments | 133 Notes | 135 Bibliography | 171 Index | 183
£23.39
Reaktion Books The Shape of Things: a Philosophy of Design
Book SynopsisThis title includes an introduction by Martin Pawley. This book presents for the first time in English an array of essays on design by the seminal media critic and philosopher Vilem Flusser. It puts forward the view that our future depends on design. In a series of insightful essays on such ordinary 'things' as wheels, carpets, pots, umbrellas and tents, Flusser emphasizes the interrelationships between art and science, theology and technology, and archaeology and architecture. Just as formal creativity has produced both weapons of destruction and great works of art, Flusser believed that the shape of things (and the designs behind them) represents both a threat and an opportunity for designers of the future.Trade ReviewThere is nothing difficult or obscure about these essays. They are as sharp and lucid as precious stones because they proceed not by argument but poetically, by metaphor, story telling and myth. Architects' Journal 'Books of the Year'Table of ContentsIntroduction by Martin Pawley About the Word Design Form and Material War and the State of Things About Forms and Formulae The Designer's Way of Seeing The Factory The Lever Strikes Back Shelters, Screens and Tents Design: Obstacle for/to the Removal of Obstacles Why Do Typewriters Go 'Click'? The Ethics of Industrial Design? Design as Theology Wittgenstein's Architecture Bare Walls With As Many Holes As a Swiss Cheese The Non-Thing The Non-Thing Carpets Pots Shamans and Dancers with Masks The Submarine Wheels Biographical Note
£16.95
Zulu Planet Publishers UBUNTU Contributionism: A Blueprint for Human
Book Synopsis
£20.70
Cornell University Press Introduction to the Reading of Hegel
Book SynopsisThis collection of lectures shows the intensity of Kojève's study and thought and the depth of his insight into Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.Table of Contents1. In Place of an Introduction2. Summary of the First Six Chapters of the Phenomenology of Spirit Complete Text of the First Three Lectures of the Academic Year 1937–19383. Summary of the Course in 1937–1938 Excerpt from the 1938–1939 Annuaire of the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des Sciences religieuses4. Philosophy and Wisdom Complete Text of the First Two Lectures of the Academic Year 1938–19395. A Note on Eternity, Time, and the Concept Complete Text of the Sixth through Eighth Lectures of the Academic Year 1938–19396. Interpretation of the Third Part of Chapter VIII of the Phenomenology of Spirit (conclusion) Complete Text of the Twelfth Lecture of the Academic Year 1938–19397. The Dialectic of the Real and the Phenomenological Method in Hegel Complete Text of the Sixth through Ninth Lectures of the Academic Year 1934-1935Appendix The Structure of the Phenomenology of Spirit
£18.89
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Evolution and Conversion Dialogues on the Origins
Book SynopsisRené Girard (1923-) was Andrew B. Hammond Professor Emeritus of French Language, Literature, and Civilization at Stanford University, USA, from 1981 to his retirement in 1995. A historian, literary critic and philosopher, he is the author of over 30 books including Violence and the Sacred.Trade ReviewFor those who want a lively, general introduction to the thought of this seminal religious thinker [Rene Girard], Evolution and Conversion is a book not to be missed. * Theology *Girard is now well known for his multidisciplinary writings on religion and violence ... This book develops and reassesses ideas set out thirty years ago. * Theological Book Review *Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction: 'One long argument from the beginning to the end' Pierpaolo Antonello and Joao Cezar Castro Rocha 1 The Life of the Mind 2 'A Theory by Which to Work': The Mimetic Mechanism 3 The Symbolic Species 4 Dialogues and Criticism: From Frazer to Levi-Strauss 5 Method, Evidence and Truth 6 The Scandal of Christianity 7 Modernity, Postmodernity and Beyond Chronology of Girard's Life List of Girard's Publications Index
£24.13
North Atlantic Books,U.S. All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the
Book SynopsisAll the World an Icon is the fourth book in an informal "quartet" of works by Tom Cheetham on the spirituality of Henry Corbin, a major twentieth-century scholar of Sufism and colleague of C. G. Jung, whose influence on contemporary religion and the humanities is beginning to become clear. Cheetham''s books have helped spark a renewed interest in the work of this important, creative religious thinker.Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was professor of Islamic religion at the Sorbonne in Paris and director of the department of Iranic studies at the Institut Franco-Iranien in Teheran. His wide-ranging work includes the first translations of Heidegger into French, studies in Swedenborg and Boehme, writings on the Grail and angelology, and definitive translations of Persian Islamic and Sufi texts. He introduced such seminal terms as "the imaginal realm" and "theophany" into Western thought, and his use of the Shi''ite idea of ta''wil or "spiritual interpretation" influenced psychologist James Hillman and the literary critic Harold Bloom. His books were read by a broad range of poets including Charles Olson and Robert Duncan, and his impact on American poetry, says Cheetham, has yet to be fully appreciated. His published titles in English include Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, and The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism.As the religions of the Book place the divine Word at the center of creation, the importance of hermaneutics, the theory and practice of interpretation, cannot be overstated. In the theology and spirituality of Henry Corbin, the mystical heart of this tradition is to be found in the creative, active imagination; the alchemy of spiritual development is best understood as a story of the soul''s search for the Lost Speech. Cheetham eloquently demonstrates Corbin''s view that the living interpretation of texts, whether divine or human—or, indeed, of the world itself seen as the Text of Creation—is the primary task of spiritual life.In his first three books on Corbin, Cheetham explores different aspects of Corbin''s work, but has saved for this book his final analysis of what Corbin meant by the Arabic term ta''wil—perhaps the most important concept in his entire oeuvre. "Any consideration of how Corbin''s ideas were adapted by others has to begin with a clear idea of what Corbin himself intended," writes Cheetham; "his own intellectual and spiritual cosmos is already highly complex and eclectic and a knowledge of his particular philosophical project is crucial for understanding the range and implications of his work." Cheetham lays out the implications of ta''wil as well as the use of language as integral part of any artistic or spiritual practice, with the view that the creative imagination is a fundamentally linguistic phenomenon for the Abrahamic religions, and, as Corbin tells us, prayer is the supreme form of creative imagination.
£15.29
Oxford University Press Husserls Legacy
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£25.64
University of Notre Dame Press Whose Justice Which Rationality
Book SynopsisOffers a persuasive argument of there not being rationality that is not the rationality of some tradition. MacIntyre examines the problems presented by the existence of rival traditions of inquiry in the cases of four major philosophers: Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Hume.Trade Review"Alasdair MacIntyre has done it again. . . . [He] delivers on his promise in After Virtue to develop an account of rationality and justice that is tradition specific. It is a long and complex book, but will repay any reader's labors. In this book MacIntyre tells the story of four traditions: the Aristotelian, the Augustinian, the Scottish, and the rise of the liberal tradition. His narrative shows the interaction of these in a manner that illumines our current intellectual and moral context. . . ." —Commonweal"It is a step in the right direction, not of returning to some Catholic version of fundamentalist bibliotary, but of reading a Christian theologian and philosopher whose immense wisdom repays careful study by Christians and non-Christians alike." —New Oxford Review“Whose Justice? Which Rationality? is a work of signal importance ... [it] is usually convincing, always provocative, and has wide-reaching implications for the way we think about our historical moment." —Commentary“MacIntyre’s rich historical exposition displays all the erudition and philosophical subtlety that his readers have come to expect from his work. . . . [T]here is much to admire in MacIntyre’s unflinching indictment of liberal modernity.” —The New Criterion“[MacIntyre’s] diagnosis of what ails recent moral philosophy is brilliant.” —Wilson Quarterly“MacIntyre is widely informed and his story of developments in the traditions that he identifies is learned, interesting, and notably well-written.” —London Review of Books
£25.19
Harvard University Press Essays on Anscombes Intention
Book Synopsis
£24.26
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics
Book SynopsisThis substantially revised edition of Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics contains one section, an essay of fifty pages, not previously published, as well as considerable additions to others sections.Table of ContentsPreface to The Revised Edition Part I Circa 1937-1938 Part II 1938 Part III 1939-40 Part IV 1942-1944 Part V 1942-1944 Part VI ca. 1943/1944 Part VII 1941 and 1944 Index
£31.30
Duke University Press William James
Book SynopsisOriginally published in French in 1997 and appearing here in English for the first time, David Lapoujade''s William James: Empiricism and Pragmatism is both an accessible and rigorous introduction to James''s thought and a pioneering rereading of it. Examining pragmatism''s fundamental questions through a Deleuzian framework, Lapoujade outlines how James''s pragmatism and radical empiricism encompass the study of experience and the making of reality, and he reopens the speculative side of pragmatist thought and the role of experience in it. The book includes an extensive afterword by translator Thomas Lamarre, who illustrates how James''s interventions are becoming increasingly central to the contemporary debates about materialist ontology, affect, and epistemology that strive to bridge the gaps among science studies, media studies, and religious studies.Trade Review“David Lapoujade's book, at last translated, was an event in France, and so it will be for his American readers, who will rediscover what they thought they knew. Lapoujade does not write about William James but rather embraces the movement of James's thought, performing it as a musician performs a score, making it alive and audible for its own sake and enabling his readers to go back and read James as if for the first time.” -- Isabelle Stengers, author of * In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism *“In this crisp, well-argued book, David Lapoujade rescues the whole idea of pragmatism from the dismissive and misguided views that it is an ‘American’ philosophy by recasting its fundamental questions along new lines. He advances a vision of pragmatism that is based in trust in the world of things in the making, in effect reopening pragmatist thought from a fresh angle.” -- John Rajchman, author of * The Deleuze Connections *“Originally published in French in 1997 and finally translated into English, David Lapoujade's William James is varnished by the specter of Deleuzean transcendental empiricism.... William James is as much an archeological disinterring of Deleuze by way of James as it is a recovery of James’s pragmatism from Richard Rorty’s neo-pragmatism....” -- Ekin Erkan * Continental Thought & Theory *“[William James] is well written, with a verve that will repay the attentive reader. Recommended.” -- J. A. Fischel * Choice *“For those attentive to connection, who seek to multiply relations, [William James] will prove instructive through its experimentation with the prospective possibilities of a philosopher’s thought. As Lapoujade performatively reminds us, every act of interpretation is also an act of creation.” -- Bonnie Sheehey * American Literary History *Table of ContentsA Note on References vii Preface / Thomas Lamarre ix Introduction 1 1. Radical Empiricism 9 2. Truth and Knowledge 27 3. Faith and Pragmatic Community 51 Conclusion 73 Afterword: Diversity as Method / Thomas Lamarre 77 Notes 119 Bibliography 137 Index 143
£17.99
University of Pennsylvania Press Becoming Foucault: The Poitiers Years
Book SynopsisThough Michel Foucault is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, little is known about his early life. Even Foucault’s biographers have neglected this period, preferring instead to start the story when the future philosopher arrives in Paris. Becoming Foucault is a historical reconstruction of the world in which Foucault grew up: the small city of Poitiers, France, from the 1920s until the end of the Second World War. Beyond exploring previously unexamined aspects of Foucault’s childhood, including his wartime ordeals, it proposes an original interpretation of Foucault’s oeuvre. Michael Behrent argues that Foucault, in addition to being a theorist of power, knowledge, and selfhood, was also a philosopher of experience. He was a thinker intent on making sense of the events that he lived through. Behrent identifies four specific experiences in Foucault’s childhood that exercised a decisive influence on him and that, in various ways, he later made the subject of his philosophy: his family’s deep connections to the medical profession; his upbringing in a bourgeois household; the German Occupation during World War II; and his Catholic education. Behrent not only reconstructs the specific nature of these experiences but also shows how reference to them surfaces in Foucault’s later work. In this way, the book both sheds light on a formative period in the philosopher’s life and offers a unique interpretation of key aspects of his thought.Trade Review"In this innovative and thought-provoking intellectual history, Michael Behrent paints an intimate portrait of the young Foucault and his family, as well as a panorama of early twentieth-century Poitiers, the town in central France in which they made their lives. In doing so, he gives us a radically new perspective on one of the most important thinkers of modern times. Becoming Foucault should be on the bookshelf of every scholar interested in postwar French thought." * Edward G. Baring, Princeton University *"In what may very well be the definitive work on the topic, Michael Behrent’s innovative and insightful Becoming Foucault shows how understanding the thinker’s early milieu—born of a family of doctors, submitted to middle-class strictures, navigating wartime occupation, surviving local schooling—casts new light on his mature projects and positions. Neither traditional biography nor conventional intellectual history, Behrent’s book breaks new ground by demonstrating the mutual, irreducible relations between thought and experience. Well-written and accessible, based on remarkable archival research, and imaginatively argued, Becoming Foucault will interest anyone devoted to experiencing thought and thinking about experience." * Julian Bourg, Boston College *
£34.00
Random House USA Inc Silence
Book SynopsisA joyful celebration (NPR) that shows us why silence is essential to our sanity and happiness—and how it can open doors to wonder and gratitude—from a renowned explorer and acclaimed author. In this astonishing and transformative meditation, Erling Kagge, famed Norwegian explorer and the first person to reach the South Pole alone, explores the silence around us, the silence within us, and the silence we must create. By recounting his own experiences and discussing the observations of poets, artists, and explorers, Kagge shows us what silence is, where it can be found, and why it is now more important than ever.
£13.46
Princeton University Press Walter Kaufmann
Book SynopsisTrade Review"A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year""Best known for inaugurating the rehabilitation of Nietzsche, Kaufmann is portrayed in Stanley Corngold’s splendid recent biography—Walter Kaufmann: Philosopher, Humanist, Heretic—as the conduit through which [Martin] Buber’s teaching entered the American conversation."---Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal"[A] luminous biography." * Kirkus *"In this new work, [Stanley] Corngold presents a historical account of philosopher Walter Kaufmann's writings, which ranged widely from ethics and religion to a major rethinking of Friedrich Nietzsche. Thorough and engaging, Corngold presents a vivid picture of Kaufmann's life through an analysis of his most influential works."---William Simkulet, Library Journal"Corngold’s ‘philosophical biography’ portrays Kaufmann as a fascinating, admirable, and flawed character. After a brief biographical chapter, Corngold takes us through Kaufmann’s intellectual journey from his first book to his last. The detailed discussions of Kaufmann’s individual works, supplemented by an array of philosophical and literary references, are balanced and rich."---Lewis Rosenberg, Australian Book Review"Corngold writes with a tenacity and intensity that matches his subject . . . [and] proves an admirable guide."---Robert L. Kehoe III, Los Angeles Review of Books"[A] brilliantly erudite and playful intellectual biography of Kaufmann."---Hugo Drochon, Times Literary Supplement
£31.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Third Person
Book Synopsis* Roberto Esposito is one of leading figures in a new generation of Italian philosophers. * This book criticizes the notion of the person and develops an original account of the concept of the impersonal - what he calls the third person.Trade Review'Third Person recasts the nebulous history of biopolitics with insight and ingenuity. Weaving together the biological, anthropological, linguistic and philosophic filaments of its genesis, Esposito finds that both liberal traditions of personalism and the catastrophic biopolitics of the twentieth-century share a common focus in the centrality of personhood.'Evening Haze"In this slim and powerful volume, Roberto Esposito not only diagnoses how this dispositif undermines attempts to secure human rights, but he also provides humankind a means of moving forward, past the person, into the life-validating realm of the impersonal."Marx and Philosophy "Is there a term that dominates thought today more than person? From biotechnology and social networking to corporations, person increasingly appears as the dark heart of contemporary life. In this compelling and at times troubling reflection, Roberto Esposito measures the biopolitical costs of our obsession with everything personal in a failed project of the common. In place of the person, Esposito counsels the impersonal perspective of the 'third person.' Part genealogy, part philosophical guide-book, this book is a bold reflection on life and politics that continues in unexpected ways Esposito's previous readings of biopolitics."Timothy Campbell, Cornell University "Beyond the horizon of Western subjectivity, behind the sacralization of the person, lies Esposito's impersonal life. Deconstructing the 'human' and its juridical-biological constitution, Third Person casts incisive light on the perilous region which silently encircles it - the event, its anonymity and uncanniness."Andrea Rossi, Lancaster UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction i. The double life (The machine of the human sciences) ii. Person, man, thing iii. Third person 1. Non-person 2. The animal 3. The Other (Autrui) 4. He/She 5. The neuter 6. The outside 7. The event
£15.91
Stanford University Press The Instant of My Death Meridian Crossing
Book SynopsisThis volume, a powerful short prose piece by Blanchot with an extended essay by Derrida, records a remarkable encounter in critical and philosophical thinking.Trade Review“This is a very useful book because it makes Blanchot’s powerful text widely available in both French and English.”—The European LegacyTable of ContentsThe Instant of my Death Maurice Blanchot Demure: Fiction and Testimony Jacques Derrida Reading 'beyond the beginning' or, on the Venom in Letters: Postcript and 'literary supplement' Notes.
£16.14
