Description
Book SynopsisThe innovative characteristic of the book lies in its tackling an extremely timely and important issuemainly individualismfrom the original point of view of a theory of passions. It underlines the importance of the problem of the passions both in forming individual identity and in building the social bond. Drawing inspiration from classic authors who represent fundamental milestones along the route of modern individualism (from Montaigne to Hobbes, from Locke to Smith, from Rousseau to Tocqueville etc.), it puts forward new hypotheses that contrast with the consolidated views of contemporary reflection, both modern and postmodern. The main argument is that passions are crucial not only when they are strong (homo oeconomicus), but also when absent or weak (homo democraticus), in both cases producing pathological effects on the Self and the social bond. Finally, the book underlines, in a normative perspective, that the image of the modern individual does not end with the egoistical passi
Trade ReviewIn The Individual without Passions, Elena Pulcini brilliantly deconstructs the presuppositions behind our possessive, narcissistic, and frequently male individualism. Above all she suggests that we should reexamine the bonds between individual and community through a new approach to democracy that revives the requirement for equality based on the gift relationship. With this book Elena Pulcini brings a major contribution to this debate that has the potential to renew political thought. -- Marcel Hénaff, University of California, San Diego
While complying scrupulously to the ordinary demands of criticism and exegesis of philosophical texts, Elena Pulcini has always taken care, in her studies relevant to the history of ideas, to focus on the particular historicity of the discursive sets examined--that is to say, on the fact of their intelligibility is conditioned on a certain type of correlation between the concepts developed by the philosophers and the way the world works--that they express in their manner while influencing the course. The project brought by Elena Pulcini strikes immediately with its ambition. The work of Elena Pulcini has finally donned a remarkable breadth and an undeniable originality that resembles, that of Martha Nussbaum, or that of Axel Honneth and Daniel Innerarity, with whom she also engages in explicit conversation * nonfiction.fr *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Individual Without Passions Chapter 1: From the Ethics of Honor to Self-Preservation Chapter 2: Homo oeconomicus: Between Acquisitive Passion and Passion of the Self Chapter 3: The Critique of Acquisitive Individualism and the Search for Authenticity Chapter 4: The Disappearance of the Passions: homo democraticus Chapter 5: Homo reciprocus: The passion of Giving and the Communitarian Individual
