In this manifesto, the author takes a leap of faith. It is a faith in Lost Causes. He asserts that today, architectonic reason has fallen into ruins. As soon as architecture leaves the limits set to it by architectonic reason, no other path is open to it but the path to aestheticism. This is the wrong path contemporary architecture has taken. In its reduction to a pure aesthetic object, architecture negatively affects the human sensorium. Capitalist consumer society creates desires by generating 'surplus-enjoyment' for capitalist profit and contemporary architecture has become an instrument in generating this 'surplus-enjoyment', with fatal consequences. This manifesto is thus both a critique and a work of theory. It is a siren, alarm, klaxon to the current status quo within architectural discourse and a timely response to the conditions of architecture today.

Originally published in 1937. This book addresses the importance of the theory of values that rests on a general metaphysical understanding founded on a comprehensive view of all aspects of the world. The author speaks against the absolutist theories with a realistic one encompassing a theory of space and time and considering value as an object of immediate intuition. These great philosophical questions feed into discussions of the philosophy of religion and of science. Garnett distinguishes between spiritual and other values on the ground that the spiritual values are not subjective to satiety, while other values are. He contends that our knowledge of mind is as direct and reliable as our knowledge of the physical world. This is an important early book by an influential 20th Century thinker.

Originally published in English in 1950 this is one of the most revealing works by one of Italy's foremost philosophers of the 20th century, who was also a courageous and effective opponent of Fascism. Following the Allied landing at Salerno, Croce was called upon by kings, princes, generals and politicians and asked to decide question of vital importance to Italy. This book records the notes Croce made on political matters in 1943 and 1944 and includes some of the many documents Croce possessed which referred to the attempt in Naples (noted in the Autumn of 1943) to form a Corps of Italian volunteers.

Wittgenstein's relationship with scepticism has always been complex. It has even been argued in recent years that Wittgenstein can be best understood as an inheritor of scepticism. Wittgenstein and Scepticism is the first collection to explore this relationship and review our understanding of scepticism.
The essays in this volume address the nature of scepticism and Wittgenstein approach in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language and epistemology. Two main questions inform the volume: How can scepticism enhance our understanding? And does Wittgenstein's insights to scepticism challenge the idea that our ordinary practices are based around knowledge, whether founded or unfounded?
Wittgenstein and Scepticism is a fascinating exploration of one of our most important philosophers. It will be of interest to all Wittgenstein scholars, and all those interested in the philosophy of mind, language and epistemology.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203467795

Read through the lens of a single key concept in twentieth-century French philosophy, that of the "problem", this book relates the concept to specific thinkers and situates it in relation both to the wider history of philosophy and contemporary concerns. How exactly should the notion of problems be understood? What must a problem be in order to play an inaugurating role in thought? Does the word "problem" have a univocal sense? What is at stake - theoretically, ethically, politically, and institutionally - when philosophers use the word? This book addresses these and other questions, and is devoted to making historical and philosophical sense of the various uses and conceptualisations of notions of problems, problematics, and problematisations in twentieth-century French thought. In the process, it augments our understanding of the philosophical programs of a number of recent French thinkers, reconfigures our perception of the history and wider stakes of twentieth-century French philosophy, and reveals the ongoing theoretical richness and critical potential of the notion of the problem and its cognates. Working through the twentieth-century, and focussing on specific thinkers including Foucault and Deleuze, this book will be of interest to all scholars of French philosophy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.

Very Little ... Almost Nothing puts the question of the meaning of life back at the centre of intellectual debate. Its central concern is how we can find a meaning to human finitude without recourse to anything that transcends that finitude. A profound but secular meditation on the theme of death, Critchley traces the idea of nihilism through Blanchot, Levinas, Jena Romanticism and Cavell, culminating in a reading of Beckett, in many ways the hero of the book.
In this second edition, Simon Critchley has added a revealing and extended new preface, and a new chapter on Wallace Stevens which reflects on the idea of poetry as philosophy.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) has exerted a more powerful influence on contemporary philosophy than any other twentieth-century thinker. But what is the nature of this influence and why has it proved so enduring?
In "Wittgenstein's Lasting Significance," twelve contemporary philosophers explore the issues surrounding Wittgenstein's importance and relevance to modern thought. Their articles, ten of which are published here for the first time, cover all of Wittgenstein's major publications: the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus," "Philosophical" "Investigations," "On Certainty," and "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics," They discuss how much originality and continuity can be found in Wittgenstein's thought, how he relates to current traditions and movements within philosophy, and what we can learn from his conceptions of language, knowledge, mathematics and logic.
The international set of contributors are renownedfor their work in both Wittgenstein studies and other fields of philosophy, making "Wittgenstein's Lasting Significance" an important collection for anyone interested in contemporary philosophy.

This is one of the most respected books on Marx's philosophical thought. Wood explains Marx's views from a philosophical standpoint and defends him against common misunderstandings and criticisms. All the major philosophical topics in Marx's work are considered: the central concept of alienation; historical materialism and Marx's account of social classes; the nature and social function of morality; philosophical materialism and Marx's atheism; and Marx's use of the Hegelian dialectical method and the Marxian theory of value.
This second edition has been revised to include a new chapter on capitalist exploitation and new suggestions for further reading. Wood has also added a substantial new preface which looks at Marx's thought in light of the fall of the Soviet Union and our continued ambivalence towards capitalism, exploring Marx's continuing relevance in the twenty-first century.

The writings of the American philosopher John Dewey contend systematically with metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy education, aesthetics, social problems, and public policy. Given the recent revival of Dewey's legacy, it is surprising that the ramifications of his thought have not been explored in relation to economic theory and the philosophy of economics. This book brings together philosophers of pragmatism and economists interested in methodological questions. The main theoretical thrust of Dewey is to unite inquiry with behaviour and this book's contributions assess this insight in the light of developments in modern American philosophy, social and legal theories, and the theoretical orientation of economics. This unique book contains impressive contributions from a range of different perspectives and its unique nature will make it required reading for academics involved with philosophy and economics.

The recent rise in Europe of extreme right-wing political parties along with outbreaks of violent nationalist fervor in the former communist bloc has occasioned much speculation on a possible resurgence of fascism. At the polemical level, fascism has become a generic term applied to virtually any form of real or potential violence, while among Marxist and left-wing scholars discredited interpretations of fascism as a "product of late capitalism" are revived. Empty of cognitive significance, these formulas disregard the historical and philosophical roots of fascism as it arose in Italy and spread throughout Europe. In "Giovanni Gentile: Philosopher of Fascism," A. James Gregor returns to those roots by examining the thought of Italian Fascism's major theorist.

In Gregor's reading of Gentile, fascism was-and remains-an anti-democratic reaction to what were seen to be the domination by advanced industrial democracies of less-developed or status-deprived communities and nations languishing on the margins of the "Great Powers." Sketching in the political background of late nineteenth-century Italy, industrially backward and only recently unified, Gregor shows how Gentile supplied fascism its justificatory rationale as a developmental dictatorship. Gentile's Actualism (as his philosophy came to be identified) absorbed many intellectual currents of the early twentieth century including nationalism, syndicalism, and futurism and united them in a dynamic rebellion against new perceived hegemonic impostures of imperialism. The individual was called to an idealistic ethic of obedience, work, self-sacrifice, and national community. As Gregor demonstrates, it was a paradigm of what we can expect in the twenty-first century's response, on the part of marginal nations, to the globalization of the industrialized democracies. Gregor cites post-Maoist China, nationalist Russia, Africa, and the Balkans at the development stage from which fascism could grow.

The first book-length analysis in English of Gentile's thought in over thirty years, this volume is valuable not only as a work of historical scholarship but as a timely warning. While Marxism-Leninism has passed into history, fascism may yet reemerge as an external threat to democratic nations.

At the heart of contemporary relativism, is the idea that the world has no mind-independent characteristics. As there is no way that the world is on its own, any opinions held may be regarded as valid. Critical realism is a promising alternative to such a position. Critical realism allows for the conclusion that certain processes lead to specific outcomes regardless of how we think about them, which in turn places a limited but crucial check on relativism. Groff defends 'realism about causality' through close discussions of Kant, Hilary Putnam, Brian Ellis and Charles Taylor, among others. In so doing she affirms critical realism, but with several important qualifications. In particular, she rejects the theory of truth advanced by Roy Bhaskar. She also attempts to both clarify and correct earlier critical realist attempts to apply realism about causality to the social sciences. By connecting issues in metaphysics and philosophy of science to the problem of relativism, Groff bridges the gap between the philosophical literature and broader debates surrounding socio-political theory and poststructuralist thought. This unique approach will make the book of interest to philosophers and

Political philosopher, convicted activist, leftist intellectual and coauthor of the bestselling "Empire," Antonio Negri is one of the most controversial thinkers at work today. In this booklength conversation with Anne Dufourmentelle, Negri offers thoughtful responses to twenty-six terms, alphabetically arranged, that have had special significance for his life and work. Negri speaks openly here of his involvement with political movements, his exile, his return to Italy and years there in prison, and his life since. But beyond the biographical there is much here to explain Negri's ideas on globalization, the future of social change, and the history of political thought. The book's subjects - fascism, Heidegger, the Red Brigades, Wittgenstein, empire, Kant, the unconscious, and many others - are often thresholds from which Negri shares his views on still larger topics. "Negri on Negri" provides a fascinating glimpse into his mind and life. Perhaps nowhere else can one engage so readily the ideas of this major contemporary thinker.

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a defining figure of the twentieth century; a philosopher, Christian, resistance fighter, anarchist, feminist, Labour activist and teacher. She was described by T. S. Eliot as 'a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints', and by Albert Camus as 'the only great spirit of our time'. Originally published posthumously in two volumes, these newly reissued notebooks, are among the very few unedited personal writings of Weil's that still survive today. Containing her thoughts on art, love, science, God and the meaning of life, they give context and meaning to Weil's famous works, revealing an unique philosophy in development and offering a rare private glimpse of her singular personality.

Political philosopher, convicted activist, leftist intellectual and coauthor of the bestselling "Empire," Antonio Negri is one of the most controversial thinkers at work today. In this booklength conversation with Anne Dufourmentelle, Negri offers thoughtful responses to twenty-six terms, alphabetically arranged, that have had special significance for his life and work. Negri speaks openly here of his involvement with political movements, his exile, his return to Italy and years there in prison, and his life since. But beyond the biographical there is much here to explain Negri's ideas on globalization, the future of social change, and the history of political thought. The book's subjects - fascism, Heidegger, the Red Brigades, Wittgenstein, empire, Kant, the unconscious, and many others - are often thresholds from which Negri shares his views on still larger topics. "Negri on Negri" provides a fascinating glimpse into his mind and life. Perhaps nowhere else can one engage so readily the ideas of this major contemporary thinker.

This book was first published in 2003: Developing a reading of some of Beauvoir's and Sartre's most influential writings in philosophy, Max Deutscher explores contemporary philosophy in the light of the phenomenological tradition within which Being and Nothingness and The Second Sex occurred as striking events operating on the border of the modern and the post-modern. Deutscher traces the shifts of genre that produce their gendered philosophies, and responds in terms of contemporary experience to the mood and the arguments of their works. Drawing upon the writings of two contemporary critics in particular - Michele Le DA"uff and Luce Irigaray - Deutscher reworks this part of philosophy's history in order to advance thinking in contemporary philosophy, generate renewed philosophical reflection on consciousness, freedom and one's relation to others, and to return a look still cast in our direction from an earlier time.

The latest book by the Slovenian critic Slavoj Zizek takes the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze as the beginning of a dazzling inquiry into the realms of radical politics, philosophy, film (Hitchcock, Fight Club), and psychoanalysis. Of Organs Without Bodies Joan Copjec (Imagine There's No Woman) has written: 'With all his usual humor and invention, Zizek -- the acknowledged master of the 180 degree turn -- here takes a trip into "enemy" territory to deliver Deleuze of a marvelously rebellious child, one that seriously challenges Deleuze's other progeny with a surprising but convincing bid for succession. Those who thought Deleuze's forward march into the future would follow a straight path are forced to rethink their stance. From now on all readings of Deleuze will have to take a detour through this important -- even necessary -- book.' Eric Santner (On the Psychopathology of Everyday Life) describes Organs Without Bodies as offering 'an entirely new degree of conceptual clarity and political urgency. Through his deep engagement with the logic of Deleuze's project, Zizek opens up new possibilities of thought beyond the terms of the current political debates on globalization, democratization, war on terror. Once again, Zizek has produced an utterly timely and radically untimely meditation.' Recently profiled in the New Yorker, and hailed by the Village Voice as 'the giant of Ljubljana,' Zizek is one of the most provocative and entertaining thinkers at work today.

In the last decades of the twentieth century, French poststructuralist 'theory' transformed the humanities. Yet it also met with resistance, and today we frequently hear that theory is 'dead'.
Brilliantly argued and clearly written, this is an account of the past and present fortunes of theory, suitable for anyone researching, teaching, or studying in the field. It also maps out a way forward for the humanities in which theory will play a crucial part.
Colin Davis:
*reconsiders key arguments for and against theory, identifying significant misreadings
*reassesses the contribution of poststructuralist thought to the issues of knowledge, ethics, hope and identity*sheds new light on the work of Lyotard, Levinas, Althusser and Kristeva
*offers a fresh perspective on recent debates on the death of theory.
In closing, he argues forcefully that theory may change, but it will not go away.

A Biography of Ordinary Man is a foundational text for our understanding of Francois Laruelle, one of France s leading thinkers, whose ideas have emerged as an important touchstone for contemporary theoretical discussions across multiple disciplines. One of Laruelle s earliest systematic elaborations of his ethical and "non-philosophical" thought, this critical dialogue with some of the dominant voices of continental philosophy, including Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Deleuze, and Derrida, offers a rigorous science of individuals as minorities or as separated from the World, History, and Philosophy. Through novel theorizations of finitude and determination in the last instance, Laruelle develops a thought "of the One" as a "minoritarian" paradigm that resists those paradigms that foreground difference as the conceptual matrix for understanding the status of the minority. The critique of the "unitary illusion" of philosophy developed here stands at the foundation of Laruelle s approach to "uni-lateralizing" the power of philosophy and the universals with which it has always thought, and thereby acts as a basis for his subsequent investigations of victims, mysticism, and Gnosticism. This book will appeal to the many students and scholars interested in Continental Philosophy and in the development of Laruelle s thought, as well as to students and scholars in the philosophy of religion, ethics, aesthetics and cultural theory.

Contents:
Introduction: An encounter, not a Dialogue; Deleuze; The Reality of the Virtual; Becoming versus History; "Becoming-Machine"; Un jour, peut-être, le siècle sera empiriomoniste?; Quasi-Cause; Spinoza; Kant, Hegel: Hegel 1: Taking Deleuze from Behind; Hegel 2: From Epistemology to Ontology... and back; Hegel 3: The Minimal Distance; The Torsion of Meaning; A Comic Hegelian Interlude: Dumb and Dumber; The Becoming-Oedipal of Deleuze; Phallus; Fantasy; RIS; On the Permanent Actuality for Revolutionary Cultural Politics of President Mao Ze Dong's Slogan "Long Live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution"; Consequences; Science: Cognitivism with Freud; "Autopoiesis"; Memes, Memes Everywhere; Against Hyphen-Ethics; Cognitive Closure?; "Little jolts of enjoyment"; Art: The Talking Heads; Kino-Eye; Hitchcock as Anti-Plato; The Cut of the Gaze; When the Fantasy Falls Apart; "I, the truth, am speaking"; Beyond Morality; Politics: the Ongoing "Soft Revolution"; A Yuppie Reads Deleuze; Micro-Fascisms; Netocracy; Blow against the Empire; The Liberal Fake; How to Live with Catastrophes?; A Modest Proposal for an Act in the Middle East

Contents:
1. Introduction: Realism, Discourse and Deconstruction Jonathan Joseph and John Michael Roberts
Part One: Realism and Critical Discourse Analysis
2. Critical Realism and Semiosis Norman Fairclough, Bob Jessop and Andrew Sayer
3. Critical Realism, Critical Discourse Analysis, Concrete Research Martin Jones
4. How Might the Inclusion of Discursive Approaches Enrich Critical Realist Analysis? The Case of Environmentalism Jenneth Parker
Part Two: Voloshinov and Bakhtin
5. Will the Materialists in the Bakhtin Circle Please Stand Up? John Michael Roberts
6. Value and Contract Formation Howard Engelskirchen
Part Three: Realism and Post-Marxism
7. Lost in Transit: Reconceptualising the Real Neil Curry
8. Laclau and Mouffe and the Discursive Turn: Gains and the Losses Kathryn Dean
Part Four: Realism and Eurocentric Discourse
9. Eurocentrism, Realism and the Anthropic Carthography of Emancipation Rajani Kanth
10. The Dialectics of Realist Theory and the Eurocentric Problem of Modern Discourse Nick Hostettler
11. Limited Incorporation or Sleeping with the Enemy: Reading Derrida as a Critical Realist Colin Wight
12. Dialectics, Deconstruction and the Legal Subject Alan Norrie
13. Learning to Live (with Derrida) Jonathan Joseph
14. Deconstructing Anti-Realism: Derrida's 'White Mythology Christopher Norris

Dignity is humanity's most prized possession. We experience the loss of dignity as a terrible humiliation: when we lose our dignity we feel deprived of something without which life no longer seems worth living. But what exactly is this trait that we value so highly? In this important new book, distinguished philosopher Peter Bieri looks afresh at the notion of human dignity. In contrast to most traditional views, he argues that dignity is not an innate quality of human beings or a right that we possess by virtue of being human. Rather, dignity is a certain way to lead one's life. It is a pattern of thought, experience and action in other words, a way of living. In Bieri's account, there are three key dimensions to dignity as a way of living. The first is the way I am treated by others: they can treat me in a way that leaves my dignity intact or they can destroy my dignity. The second dimension concerns the way that I treat other people: do I treat them in a way that allows me to live a dignified life? The third dimension concerns the view that I have of myself: which ways of seeing and treating myself allow me to maintain a sense of dignity? In the actual flow of day-to-day life these three dimensions of dignity are often interwoven, and this accounts in part for the complexity of the situations and experiences in which our dignity is at stake. So, why did we invent dignity and what role does it play in our lives? As thinking and acting beings, our lives are fragile and constantly under threat. A dignified way of living, argues Bieri, is humanity's way of coping with this threat. In our constantly endangered lives, it is important to stand our ground with confidence. Thus a dignified way of living is not any way of living: it is a particular way of responding to the existential experience of being under threat. It is also a particular way of answering the question: What kind of life do we wish to live? This beautifully written reflection on our most cherished human value will be of interest to a wide readership.

To the surprise of many readers, Jurgen Habermas has recently made religion a major theme of his work. Emphasizing both religion's prominence in the contemporary public sphere and its potential contributions to critical thought, Habermas's engagement with religion has been controversial and exciting, putting much of his own work in fresh perspective and engaging key themes in philosophy, politics and social theory. Habermas argues that the once widely accepted hypothesis of progressive secularization fails to account for the multiple trajectories of modernization in the contemporary world. He calls attention to the contemporary significance of "postmetaphysical" thought and "postsecular" consciousness - even in Western societies that have embraced a rationalistic understanding of public reason. "Habermas and Religion "presents a series of original and sustained engagements with Habermas's writing on religion in the public sphere, featuring new work and critical reflections from leading philosophers, social and political theorists, and anthropologists. Contributors to the volume respond both to Habermas's ambitious and well-developed philosophical project and to his most recent work on religion. The book closes with an extended response from Habermas - itself a major statement from one of today's most important thinkers.

Formulating a new approach to philosophy which, instead of simply rejecting postmodern thought, tries to assimilate some of its main features, Paul Crowther identifies conceptual links between value, knowledge, personal identity and civilization understood as a process of cumulative advance.
To establish these links, Crowther deploys a mode of analytic philosophy influenced by Cassirer. This approach recontextualizes precisely those aspects of postmodernism which appear, superficially, to be fuel for the relativist fire. This method also enables him to illuminate some of the great practical dangers of the postmodern era - most notably the widespread inability or unwillingness to distinguish between signs and reality. Crowther renews analytic philosophy as a searching form of conceptual and cultural critique that pushes beyond the limits of postmodern thought.
Essential reading for advanced students and academics interested in Twentieth Century Philosophy, Philosophy After Postmodernism will also be of value to scholars working in the fields of Cultural Studies and Sociology.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203416384

Ideology is one of the most hotly disputed terms in the lexicon of social and political theory. It continues to generate intellectual dispute more than 200 years after its birth in the fervour of the French Revolution. The most recent battle-lines around the idea of ideology have formed in the aftermath of the strident critique of ideology launched by post-structuralists such as Foucault and Deleuze. Their claim that "there is no such thing as ideology" has created a theoretical environment which polarizes critical opinion either for or against ideology.;This work aims to break with this culture of antagonism by bringing together leading scholars in the field to establish a dialogue between post-structuralism and ideology critique. For the post-structuralists there is a need to generate a sensitive account of ideology so as to bolster their claim that they have a significant contribution to make to social and political criticism. For the ideology theorists there is a need to engage with the post-structuralist critique of ideology without taking the assumptions that post-structuralists have so thoroughly criticized. The essays in this book aim to show how the intellectual posturing