Description
Book SynopsisIn 1944 Horkheimer and Adorno warned that industrial society turns reason into rationalization, and Polanyi warned of the dangers of the self-regulating market, but today, argues Stiegler, this regression of reason has led to societies dominated by unreason, stupidity and madness.
Trade ReviewThis is Stiegler at his finest. This book offers a penetrating diagnosis of a contemporary configuration that links the shocks of modern political economy to profound transformations in the psychic sphere. But Stiegler also gives us a powerful argument -- based on highly original interpretations of major thinkers -- revealing the radical importance of technology for all human experience. This is in essence a call for a new Enlightenment, one appropriate to our digital age.
David Bates, University of California Berkeley
Stiegler poses the question of how reason can renew itself in the face of unfettered global capitalism and the economic ideologies which propel it. Moving decisively beyond French postructuralism his thinking creates new conceptual weapons with which thought and knowledge can renew their sense of responsibility and engagement in the early 21st century.
Ian James, University of Cambridge
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part One. Pharmacology of Stupidity. Introduction to the Poststructuralist Epoch
1. Madness
2. Doing and Saying Stupid Things in the Twentieth Century
3. Différance and Repetition. Thinking Différance as Individuation
4. Après Coup, the Differend
5. Reading and Re-reading Hegel After Poststructuralism
6. Re-reading the Grundrisse. Beyond Two Marxist and Post-Structuralist Misunderstandings
Part Two. The University With Conditions
7. The New Responsibilities of the University. In the Global Economic War
8. Internation and Interscience
9. Interscience, Intergeneration and the University Autonomy