Videogames are a unique artistic form, and to analyse and understand them an equally unique language is required. Cremin turns to Deleuze and Guattari's non-representational philosophy to develop a conceptual toolkit for thinking anew about videogames and our relationship to them. Rather than approach videogames through a language suited to other media forms, Cremin invites us to think in terms of a videogame plane and the compositions of developers and players who bring them to life. According to Cremin, we are not simply playing videogames, we are creating them. We exceed our own bodily limitations by assembling forces with the elements they are made up of. The book develops a critical methodology that can explain what every videogame, irrespective of genre or technology, has in common and proceeds on this basis to analyse their differences. Drawing from a wide range of examples spanning the history of the medium, Cremin discerns the qualities inherent to those regarded as classics and what those qualities enable the player to do. Exploring Videogames with Deleuze and Guattari analyses different aspects of the medium, including the social and cultural context in which videogames are played, to develop a nuanced perspective on gendered narratives, caricatures and glorifications of war. It considers the processes and relationships that have given rise to industrial giants, the spiralling costs of making videogames and the pressure this places developers under to produce standard variations of winning formulas. The book invites the reader to embark on a molecular journey through worlds neither 'virtual' nor 'real' exceeding image, analogy and metaphor. With clear explanations and detailed analysis, Cremin demonstrates the value of a Deleuzian approach to the study of videogames, making it an accessible and valuable resource for students, scholars, developers and enthusiasts.

In this first ever monograph on Jacques Derrida's 'Toledo confession' - where he portrayed himself as 'sort of a Marrano of the French Catholic culture' - Agata Bielik-Robson shows Derrida's marranismo to be a literary experiment of auto-fiction. She looks at all possible aspects of Derrida's Marrano identification in order to demonstrate that it ultimately constitutes a trope of non-identitarian evasion that permeates all his works: just as Marranos cannot be characterized as either Jewish or Christian, so is Derrida's 'universal Marranism' an invitation to think philosophically, politically and - last but not least - metaphysically without rigid categories of identity and belonging. By concentrating on Derrida's deliberate choice of marranismo, Bielik-Robson shows that it penetrates deep into the very core of his late thinking, constantly drawing on the literary works of Kafka, Celan, Joyce, Cixous and Valery, and throws a new light on his early works, most of all: Of Grammatology, Dissemination and 'Differance'. She also offers a completely new interpretation of many of Derrida's works only seemingly non-related to the Marrano issue, like Glas, Given Time: Counterfeit Money, Death Penalty Seminar, and Specters of Marx. In these new readings, this book demonstrates that the Marrano Derrida is not a marginal auto-biographical figure overshadowed by Derrida the Philosopher: it is one and the same thinker who discovered marranismo as a literary trope of openness, offering up a new genre of philosophical story-telling which centers around Derrida's Marrano 'auto-fable'.

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor is a key figure in contemporary debates about the self and the problems of modernity.

This book provides a comprehensive, critical account of Taylor's work. It succinctly reconstructs the ambitious philosophical project that unifies Taylor's diverse writings. And it examines in detail Taylor's specific claims about the structure of the human sciences; the link between identity, language, and moral values; democracy and multiculturalism; and the conflict between secular and non-secular spirituality. The book also includes the first sustained account of Taylor's career as a social critic and political activist.

Clearly written and authoritative, this book will be welcomed by students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, politics, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and theology.

This book examines the ways in which religious communities experimentally engage the world and function as fallible inquisitive agents, despite frequent protests to the contrary. Using the philosophy of inquiry and semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce, it develops unique naturalist conceptions of religious meaning and ultimate orientation while also arguing for a reappraisal of the ways in which the world's venerable religious traditions enable novel forms of communal inquiry into what Peirce termed "vital matters." Pragmatic inquiry, it argues, is a ubiquitous and continuous phenomenon. Thus, religious participation, though cautiously conservative in many ways, is best understood as a variety of inhabited experimentation. Religious communities embody historically mediated hypotheses about how best to engage the world and curate networks of semiotic resources for rendering those engagements meaningful. Religions best fulfill their inquisitive function when they both deploy and reform their sign systems as they learn better to engage reality.

This book affords a neopragmatic theory of animal ethics, taking its lead from American Pragmatism to place language at the centre of philosophical analysis. Following a method traceable to Dewey, Wittgenstein and Rorty, Hadley argues that many enduring puzzles about human interactions with animals can be 'dissolved' by understanding why people use terms like dignity, respect, naturalness, and inherent value. Hadley shifts the debate about animal welfare and rights from its current focus upon contentious claims about value and animal mindedness, to the vocabulary people use to express their concern for the suffering and lives of animals. With its emphasis on public concern for animals, animal neopragmatism is a uniquely progressive and democratic theory of animal ethics.

This book explores how language constructs the meaning and praxis of security in the 21st century. Combining the latest critical theories in poststructuralist and political philosophy with discourse analysis techniques, it uses corpus tools to investigate four collections of documents harvested from national and international security organisations. This interdisciplinary approach provides insights into the ways in which discourse has been mobilised to construct a strategic response to major terrorist attacks and geo-political events. The authors identify the way in which it is used to realize tactics of governmentality and form security as a discipline. This at once constructs a state of exception while also adhering to the principles of liberalism. This insightful study will be of particular interest to students and scholars of subjects such as applied linguistics, political science, security studies and international relations, with additional relevance to other areas including law, criminology, sociology and economics.

Drawing on insights into the philosophies of Dewey and Heidegger, this book moves forward the greater philosophical discourse surrounding education. It illuminates deep affinities between the corresponding traditions of Dewey and Heidegger, broadly labeled hermeneutics and pragmatism, and in doing so reveals the potential of the Dewey-Heidegger comparison for the future of education. To accomplish this task, Vasco d'Agnese explores the Deweyan and Heideggerian understanding of existence and experience. Both thinkers believed that humans are vulnerable from the very beginning, delivered to an uncanny and uncertain condition. On the other hand, such an uncanniness and dependency, rather than flowing in nihilistic defeat of educational purposes, puts radical responsibility on the side of the subject. It is, then, educationally promising. The book explains that for both Dewey and Heidegger, being a subject means being-with-others while transcending and advancing one's boundaries, thus challenging the managerial framework of education that currently dominates educational institutions throughout the world.

This book provides a timely, compelling, multidisciplinary critique of the largely tacit set of assumptions funding Modernity in the West. A partnership between Michael Polanyi and Charles Taylor's thought promises to cast the errors of the past in a new light, to graciously show how these errors can be amended, and to provide a specific cartography of how we can responsibly and meaningfully explore new possibilities for ethics, political society, and religion in a post-modern modernity.

Critically and comprehensively examining the works of Habermas and Foucault, two giants of 20th century continental philosophy, this book illuminates the effects of scientific reason as it migrates from its specialized institutions into society. It explores how science permeates shared human consciousness, to produce effects that ripple through the entire social body to restructure relations between discourses, institutions, and power in ways which we are barely conscious of. The book shows how science, through its entwinement with power, politics, discourses, and practices, presents certain social arrangements as natural and certain courses of action as beyond question. By arguing for a non-reductive, liberal scientific naturalism that sees science as one form of rationality amongst others, it opens possibilities for thought and action beyond scientific knowledge. The book analyses the work of Foucault and Habermas in terms of their social, political, and historical contexts. It examines science in relation to society, power, and discourses and their shifting historical relations. But rather than withdrawing from normative dimensions by merely describing scientific practices within their contexts, McIntyre explicitly opens the normative question of the good life and the good society. He thus simultaneously raises the question of philosophy and how philosophical critique is both directed towards science and, at the same time, must accommodate it. Foucault and Habermas emerge as linked by a commitment to the Enlightenment tradition and its emancipatory telos which underlies their work. The significant differences between the two thinkers are seen to result from Foucault's radicalization of this tradition, a radicalization which is, at the same time, implicit within the Enlightenment project itself.

Engaging with several emerging and interconnected approaches in the social sciences, including pragmatism, system theory, processual thinking and relational thinking, this book leverages John Dewey and Arthur Bentley's often misunderstood concept of trans-action to revisit and redefine our perceptions of social relations and social life. The contributors gathered here use trans-action in a more specific sense, showing why and how social scientists and philosophers might use the concept to better understand our social life and social problems. As the first collective sociological attempt to apply the concept of trans-action to contemporary social issues, this volume is a key reference for the growing audience of relational and processual thinkers in the social sciences and beyond.

This book introduces readers to global brain singularity through a logical meditation on the temporal dynamics of the universal process. Global brain singularity is conceived of as a future metasystem of human civilization that represents a qualitatively higher coherence of order. To better understand the potential of this phenomenon, the book begins with an overview of universal history. The focus then shifts to the structure of human systems, and the notion that contemporary global civilization must mediate the emergence of a commons that will transform the future of politics, economics and psychosocial life in general. In this context the book presents our species as biocultural evolutionary agents attempting to create a novel and independent domain of technocultural evolution that affords us new levels of freedom. Lastly, the book underscores the internal depths of the present moment, structured by a division between subject and object. The nature of the interaction between subject and object would appear to govern the mechanics of a spiritual process that is key to understanding the meaning of singularity inclusive of observers. Given its scope, the book will appeal to readers interested in systems approaches to the emerging world society, especially historians, philosophers and social scientists.

Theodor W. Adorno's aesthetics has dominated discussions about art and aesthetic modernism since World War II, and continues to inform contemporary theorizing. Situating Adorno's aesthetic theory in the context of post-Kantian European philosophy, Espen Hammer explores Adorno's critical view of art as engaged in reconsidering fundamental features of our relation to nature and reality. His book is structured around what Adorno regarded as the contemporary aesthetician's overarching task: to achieve a vision of the fate of art in the modern world, while demonstrating its unique cognitive potential. Hammer offers a lively examination of Adorno's work through the central problem of what full human self-actualization would require, and also discusses the wider philosophical significance of aesthetic modernism. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of social philosophy, art, and aesthetics.

Two of Chomsky's most famous and accessible works available in an affordable and attractive edition.
Described by the "New York Times" as "arguably the most important intellectual alive," Noam Chomsky is known throughout the world for his highly influential writings on language and politics. Featuring two of Chomsky's most popular and enduring books in one omnibus volume, "On Language" contains some of the noted linguist and political critic's most informal and accessible work to date, making it an ideal introduction to his thought.
In Part I, "Language and Responsibility" (1979), Chomsky presents a fascinating self-portrait of his political, moral, and linguistic thinking through a series of interviews with Mitsou Ronat, the noted French linguist. In Part II, "Reflections on Language" (1975), Chomsky explores the more general implications of the study of language and offers incisive analyses of the controversies among psychologists, philosophers, and linguists over fundamental questions of language.

This book explores Sartre's engagement with the Cuban Revolution. In early 1960 Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir accepted the invitation to visit Cuba and to report on the revolution. They arrived during the carnival in a land bursting with revolutionary activity. They visited Che Guevara, head of the National Bank. They toured the island with Fidel Castro. They met ministers, journalists, students, writers, artists, dockers and agricultural workers. Sartre spoke at the University of Havana. Sartre later published his Cuba reports in France-Soir. Sartre endorsed the Cuban Revolution. He made clear his political identification. He opposed colonialism. He saw the US as colonial in Cuban affairs from 1898. He supported Fidel Castro. He supported the agrarian reform. He supported the revolution. His Cuba accounts have been maligned, ignored and understudied. They have been denounced as blind praise of Castro, 'unabashed propaganda.' They have been criticised for 'cliches,' 'panegyric' and 'analytical superficiality.' They have been called 'crazy' and 'incomprehensible.' Sartre was called naive. He was rebuked as a fellow traveller. He was, in the words of Cuban author Guillermo Cabrera Infante, duped by 'Chic Guevara.' This book explores these accusations. Were Sartre's Cuba texts propaganda? Are they blind praise? Was he naive? Had he been deceived by Castro? Had he deceived his readers? Was he obligated to Castro or to the Revolution? He later buried the reports, and abandoned a separate Cuba book. His relationship with Castro later turned sour. What is the impact of Cuba on Sartre and of Sartre on Cuba?

The book offers a collection of essays on various aspects of Leibniz's scientific thought, written by historians of science and world-leading experts on Leibniz. The essays deal with a vast array of topics on the exact sciences: Leibniz's logic, mereology, the notion of infinity and cardinality, the foundations of geometry, the theory of curves and differential geometry, and finally dynamics and general epistemology. Several chapters attempt a reading of Leibniz's scientific works through modern mathematical tools, and compare Leibniz's results in these fields with 19th- and 20th-Century conceptions of them. All of them have special care in framing Leibniz's work in historical context, and sometimes offer wider historical perspectives that go much beyond Leibniz's researches. A special emphasis is given to effective mathematical practice rather than purely epistemological thought. The book is addressed to all scholars of the exact sciences who have an interest in historical research and Leibniz in particular, and may be useful to historians of mathematics, physics, and epistemology, mathematicians with historical interests, and philosophers of science at large.

Are there any universal entities? Or is the world populated only by particular things? The problem of universals is one of the most fascinating and enduring topics in the history of metaphysics, with roots in ancient and medieval philosophy. This collection of new essays provides an innovative overview of the contemporary debate on universals. Rather than focusing exclusively on the traditional opposition between realism and nominalism, the contributors explore the complexity of the debate and illustrate a broad range of positions within both the realist and the nominalist camps. Realism is viewed through the lens of the distinction between constituent and relational ontologies, while nominalism is reconstructed in light of the controversy over the notion of trope. The result is a fresh picture of contemporary metaphysics, in which traditional strategies of dealing with the problem of universals are both reaffirmed and called into question.

In this new study, Cristina Chimisso explores the work of the French Philosopher of Science, Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) by situating it within French cultural life of the first half of the century. The book is introduced by a study - based on an analysis of portraits and literary representations - of how Bachelard's admirers transformed him into the mythical image of the Philosopher, the Patriarch and the 'Teacher of Happiness'. Such a projected image is contrasted with Bachelard's own conception of philosophy and his personal pedagogical and moral ideas. This pedagogical orientation is a major feature of Bachelard's texts, and one which deepens our understanding of the main philosophical arguments. The primary thesis of the book is based on the examination of the French educational system of the time and of French philosophy taught in schools and conceived by contemporary philosophers. This approach also helps to explain Bachelard's reception of psychoanalysis and his mastery of modern literature. Gaston Bachelard: Critic of Science and the Imagination thus allows for a new reading of Bachelard's body of work, whilst at the same time providing an insight into twentieth century French culture.

"There are many reasons for writing a biography of Semyon Frank. Quite apart from his philosophy, he lived a remarkable life. Born in Moscow in 1877, he was exiled from Soviet Russia in 1922 and died in London in 1950. The son of a Jewish doctor, he became a revolutionary Social Democrat in his teens and finished his life as a Neoplatonist Christian. One of the Russian revisionist Marxists, he was then involved in the Kadet Party during the 1905 revolution before breaking with active political activity and turning to philosophy. He lived in Petrograd through the First World War until September 1917, after which he went to Saratov, where he experienced the chaos of the Russian Civil War. Living in Germany after his exile, he witnessed the rise of Hitler in Berlin, left for France in a hurry in 1937, and spent part of the war hiding from the Gestapo in the Grenoble mountains. It was a life that encompassed a lot of history. "Yet along with this, Frank was arguably Russia's greatest twentieth-century philosopher. Indeed, V.V. Zen'kovskii, the historian of Russian philosophy, considered Frank 'in strength of philosophic vision ...the most outstanding among Russian philosophers generally -- not merely among those who share his ideas. ' For its lucidity, conciseness, systematic character, and unity, Zen'kovskii considered Frank's system ' the highest achievement ...of Russian philosophy.' Doubtless, Zen'kovskii's assessment is disputable, but his remarks emphasize Frank's stature in the Russian tradition. In the style of German idealism, Frank constructed a comprehensive philosophical system, which he believed offered a coherent alternative to materialism. He was deeply worried by the implications of epistemological relativism and constructed a system of metaphysics designed to link epistemology and ontology, to bridge the gulf between thought and being. In addition, he attempted to express the idea of a personal God in philosophical language. His system also embraced social philosophy, anthropology, and ethics." -- from the Introduction by the author

After the demise of German Idealism, Neo-Kantianism flourished as the defining philosophical movement of Continental Europe from the 1860s until the Weimar Republic. This collection of new essays by distinguished scholars offers a fresh examination of the many and enduring contributions that Neo-Kantianism has made to a diverse range of philosophical subjects. The essays discuss classical figures and themes, including the Marburg and Southwestern Schools, Cohen, Cassirer, Rickert, and Natorp's psychology. In addition they examine lesser-known topics, including the Neo-Kantian influence on theory of law, Husserlian phenomenology, Simmel's study of Rembrandt, Cassirer's philosophy of science, Cohen's philosophy of religion in relation to Rawls and Habermas, and Rickert's theory of number. This rich exploration of a major philosophical movement will interest scholars and upper-level students of Kant, twentieth-century philosophy, continental philosophy, sociology, and psychology.

In this vibrant debate with intellectuals influenced by Marcel Mauss, including Alain Caille and Chantal Mouffe, the incisive Greek-French activist and philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis addresses the challenge of critical thinking in an international context. The first half explores the tradition of radical self-critique and the prospect of affirming its value in a non-ethnocentric way. While defending ancient Greek contributions to the Western tradition of radical self-critique - including the practice of "relativizing" one's own culture, of engaging in philosophical interrogation, and of establishing democratic institutions - Castoriadis is challenged to explore the trans-contextual features of any self-critical, or "autonomous," social institution. In the second half Castoriadis offers a penetrating critique of representative democracy, and the discussion makes important strides toward a new conception of direct democracy, of political education, and of the institutional prerequisites for the continuation of radical self-critique in politics and philosophy.

This book examines the concept of post-truth and the impact it is having on contemporary life, bringing out both its philosophical and political dimensions. Post-truth is contextualised within the philosophical discourse of truth, with particular reference to theories of scepticism and relativism, to explore whether it can take advantage of these to claim any intellectual credibility. Sim argues that post-truth cannot be defended on either sceptical or relativistic grounds - even those provided by recent iconoclastic philosophical movements such as poststructuralism and postmodernism. The affinity between post-truth and conspiracy theory is emphasised, and the extent to which post-truth plays a role in religious doctrine is also considered. Post-truth is seen to constitute a threat to liberal democratic ideals and our Enlightenment heritage, raising the question of whether we are moving into a post-liberal age where the far right would hold power. To prevent this, post-truth urgently needs to be countered.

Paul Feyerabend ranks among the most exciting and influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century. This reconstruction of his developing ideas combines historical and systematic considerations. Part I examines the three main influences on Feyerabend's philosophical development: Wittgenstein's later philosophy, Popper critical rationalism and Ehrenhaft's experimental effects. Part II focuses on Feyerabend's development and use of the notion of incommensurability at the heart of his philosophical critiques, and investigates his relation to realism. Feyerabend initially developed the notion of incommensurability from ideas he found in Duhem. He used the notion of incommensurability to attack many different forms of conceptual conservativism in philosophy and the natural sciences. He argued against many views on the grounds that that they would constrain the freedom necessary to develop alternative points of view, and thereby hinder scientific advance. Contrary to widespread opinion, he was never a scientific realist. Part III reconstructs Feyerabend's pluralistic conception of knowledge in the context of his pluralistic philosophical method. Feyerabend was a philosophical pluralist, who practiced pluralism in pursuit of progress.

Eros, Song and Philosophy in Plato raises critical issues regarding conceptions of how song and philosophy in erotic contexts are treated by Plato in his attempt to rewrite, to some degree, the cultural tradition. A question that seems to be repeatedly raised throughout the Platonic dialogues is why it is precisely song that needs to be put aside before we can start doing philosophy - as a more serious and perfect kind of song. Extensive discussion of this key thematic cluster with an emphasis on the concept of beauty, which is harmoniously interwoven with eros and song, has been absent. Chara Kokkiou argues that there is a constant interplay among erotic, musical-poetic and spatial motifs and the way those are incorporated into the very essence of philosophical dialectic is indicative of the unique nature of Plato's philosophy. Her analysis centers on paiderastic and mousikos eros, which, if thoroughly purified, contribute significantly to the composition of Socrates' portrait as mousikos philosophos. The Socratic philosophical logos displays reformed erotic and song-authorized patterns, such as the power to inspire and heal. Through close reading of certain Platonic passages and detailed attention to choral and mythical patterns, such as those included in the eschatological myths of Republic and Phaedo, and to the descriptions of locus amoenus in Phaedrus and Laws, she demonstrates that Plato through his painstakingly purged philosophical model delineates the route towards

The economic impact of the U. S. financial market meltdown of 2008 has been devastating both in the U. S. and worldwide. One consequence of this crisis is the widening gap between rich and poor. With little end in sight to global economic woes, it has never been more urgent to examine and re-examine the values and ideals that animate policy about the market, the workplace, and formal and informal economic institutions at the level of the nation state and internationally. Re-entering existing debates and provoking new ones about economic justice, this volume makes a timely contribution to a normative assessment of our economic values and the institutions that active those norms. Topics covered by this volumes essays range from specific or relatively small-scale problems such as payday lending and prisoners' access to adequate healthcare; to large-scale such as global poverty, the free market and international aid. Economic Justice will stimulate and provoke philosophers, policy makers, the engaged readers who and better outcomes from financial institutions and more effect distribution of economic goods. "