This book argues that the primary function of human thinking in language is to make judgments, which are logical-normative connections of concepts. Robert Abele points out that this presupposes cognitive conditions that cannot be accounted for by empirical-linguistic analyses of language content or social conditions alone. Judgments rather assume both reason and a unified subject, and this requires recognition of a Kantian-type of transcendental dimension to them. Judgments are related to perception in that both are syntheses, defined as the unity of representations according to a rule/form. Perceptual syntheses are simultaneously pre-linguistic and proto-rational, and the understanding (Kant's Verstand) makes these syntheses conceptually and thus self-consciously explicit. Abele concludes with a transcendental critique of postmodernism and what its deflationary view of ontological categories-such as the unified and reasoning subject-has done to political thinking. He presents an alternative that calls for a return to normativity and a recognition of reason, objectivity, and the universality of principles.

The question of Nietzsche's use of political theory has a long and vexed history. The contributors of this book re-situate debates around the notion of difference, in relation to historical and scholarly concerns, but with a view to the current political context. Given that today we are faced with a host of political challenges of domination and resistance, the question raised in this volume is how Nietzsche helps us to think through and to address some of the problems. The authors also discuss how his writings complicate our desire for swift solutions to seemingly intractable problems: how to resist slavishness in thought and action, how to maintain hard-won civil liberties and rights in the face of encroaching hegemonic discourses, practices and forces, or how to counteract global environmental degradation, in short, how to oppose 'totalitarian' movements of homogenization, universalization, equalization, and instead to affirm, both politically and ontologically, a culture of difference.

This fully-annotated documentary novel explores the life and thought of Walter Benjamin, imaginatively examining its implications in the political context of a post-War London estate. A startling critical-creative examination of one of the 20th Century's leading thinkers, "The Late Walter Benjamin" is a documentary novel that juxtaposes the life and death of Walter Benjamin with the days, hours and minutes of a working-class council estate on the edge of London in post-war Austerity England. The novel centres on one particular tenant who claims to be Walter Benjamin, and only ever uses words written by Benjamin, apparently oblivious that the real Benjamin committed suicide 20 years earlier whilst fleeing the Nazis. Initially set in the sixties, the text slips back to the early years of the estate and to Benjamin's last days, as he moves across Europe seeking ever-more desperately to escape the Third Reich. Through this fictional narrative, John Schad explores not only the emergence of Benjamin's thinking from a politicised Jewish theology forced to confront the rise of Nazism but also the implications of his utopian Marxism, forged in exile, for the very different context of a displaced working class community in post-war Britain. This series aims to showcase new work at the forefront of religion and literature through short studies written by leading and rising scholars in the field. Books will pursue a variety of theoretical approaches as they engage with writing from different religious and literary traditions. Collectively, the series will offer a timely critical intervention to the interdisciplinary crossover between religion and literature, speaking to wider contemporary interests and mapping out new directions for the field in the early twenty-first century.

Two words describe a "modern" world: limits and limitless. Traditionally, humans recognized limits of their power. Modernity meant a break. Its protagonists aspired to bring worlds of their imagination into reality. They taught a new anthropology. Humans could ascend to a God-like status. Schabert analyzes the history of the project and its result: a civilization in a perennial crisis. Symptoms of the crisis have been exposed, today mostly in ecological terms. Schabert takes his material from many fields: philosophy, cosmology, natural sciences, literature, social studies, economics, architecture, and political thought. While modernity is endlessly disrupted, a world beyond modernity can be traced, especially in the modern theory of constitutional government. Constitutional governments are formed by limitations within a civilization that is meant to have no limits. What appears to be paradoxical has its own logic, as Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Montesquieu, John Adams, the Federalist Papers, John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, and Woodrow Wilson have shown. Schabert carefully explicates their constitutional thought. It realized the limits through which modernity holds a promise.

This book brings together for the first time two philosophers from different traditions and different centuries. While Wittgenstein was a focal point of 20th century analytic philosophy, it was Hegel's philosophy that brought the essential discourses of the 19th century together and developed into the continental tradition in 20th century. This now-outdated conflict took for granted Hegel's and Wittgenstein's opposing positions and is being replaced by a continuous progression and differentiation of several authors, schools, and philosophical traditions. The development is already evident in the tendency to identify a progression from a 'Kantian' to a 'Hegelian phase' of analytical philosophy as well as in the extension of right and left Hegelian approaches by modern and postmodern concepts. Assessing the difference between Wittgenstein and Hegel can outline intersections of contemporary thinking.

The concept of schizoanalysis is Deleuze and Guattari's fusion of psychoanalytic-inspired theories of the self, the libido and desire with Marx-inspired theories of the economy, history and society. Schizoanalysis holds that art's function is both political and aesthetic - it changes perception. If one cannot change perception, then, one cannot change anything politically. This is why Deleuze and Guattari always insist that artists operate at the level of the real (not the imaginary or the symbolic). Ultimately, they argue, there is no necessary distinction to be made between aesthetics and politics. They are simply two sides of the same coin, both concerned with the formation and transformation of social and cultural norms. Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Visual Art explores how every artist, good or bad, contributes to the structure and nature of society because their work either reinforces social norms, or challenges them. From this point of view we are all artists, we all have the potential to exercise what might be called a 'aesthetico-political function' and change the world around us; or, conversely, we can not only let the status quo endure, but fight to preserve it as though it were freedom itself. Edited by one of the world's leading scholars in Deleuze Studies and an accomplished artist, curator and critic, this impressive collection of writings by both academics and practicing artists is an exciting imaginative tool for a upper level students and academics researching and studying visual arts, critical theory, continental philosophy, and media.

"Marx Through Post-Structuralism" presents a thorough critical examination of the readings of Marx given by four post-structuralist thinkers, all key figures in Continental philosophy: Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze. Arguing that both Marx and the post-structuralists seek to produce a genuinely materialist philosophy, the author aims to develop a better understanding of both Marx and post-structuralism and in so doing to reflect on the possibilities and problems for materialist philosophy more broadly.
Against the common assumption that post-structuralism begins with a rejection of Marx, Choat argues that Marx has been a key influence on post-structuralist thought and that each of the four thinkers examined affirms Marx's contemporary significance. By looking at how these thinkers have read Marx - analysing their direct comments, unspoken uses, and implicit criticisms - the book demonstrates that there is a distinct and original post-structuralist approach to Marx that allows us to read him in a new light.

Analysing the reception of contemporary French philosophy in architecture over the last four decades, Adventures with the Theory of the Baroque and French Philosophy discusses the problematic nature of importing philosophical categories into architecture. Focusing particularly on the philosophical notion of the Baroque in Gilles Deleuze, this study examines traditional interpretations of the concept in contemporary architecture theory, throwing up specific problems such as the aestheticization of building theory and practice. Identifying these and other issues, Nadir Lahiji constructs a concept of the baroque in contrast to the contemporary understanding in architecture discourse. Challenging the contemporary dominance of the Neo-Baroque as a phenomenon related to postmodernism and late capitalism, he establishes the Baroque as a name for the paradoxical unity of 'kitsch' and 'high' art and argues that the digital turn has enhanced the return of the Baroque in contemporary culture and architectural practice that he brands a pseudo-event in the term 'neobaroque'. Lahiji's original critique expands on the misadventure of architecture with French Philosophy and explains why the category of the Baroque, if it is still useful to keep in architecture criticism, must be tied to the notion of Post-Rationalism. Within this latter notion, he draws on the work of Alain Badiou to theorize a new concept of the Baroque as Event. Alongside close readings of Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault related to the criticism of the Baroque and Modernity and discussions of the work of Frank Gehry, in particular, this study draws on Jacque Lacan's concept of the baroque and presents the first comprehensive treatment of the psychoanalytical theory of the Baroque in the work of Lacan.

The current intensification of scholarly interest in the response of American intellectuals to the rise and fall of American and Soviet Communism, the Cold War, the student movement, and Neo-Conservatism has brought the controversial and fascinating work of Sidney Hook once again to the attention of scholars of American political thought and culture. Beginning his career as the first American scholar of Marxism, a leading disciple of John Dewey, and an early supporter of Soviet Communism, Hook eventually renounced Marxism and came to be one of the most vehement supporters of the Cold War. Throughout his long and unquiet life, Hook was revered as the heir to Dewey's legacy, feared as a fierce polemicist, and criticized from all points of the political spectrum.
The essays in this volume are the outcome of a centennial celebration honoring his life and career. In addition to some of his former students, colleagues, allies and adversaries, this volume contains several essays by relatively unknown scholars. The value of their contributions is measured by fresh insights into Hook's philosophical significance, as well as the underlying argument that adequate distance is needed to evaluate his historical relevance. Despite the contentious nature of these two approaches, ultimately these essays represent the comprehensive attempt to both reexamine Hook's legacy and celebrate his life.
The contributors include Jo-Ann Boydston, Gary Bullert, Steven Cahn, Matthew Cotter, Michael Eldridge, Barbara Forrest, Nathan Glazer, Neil Jumonville, Marvin Kohl, Paul Kurtz, Tibor Machan, Christopher Phelps, Kathleen Poulos, Edward Shapiro, David Sidorsky, Robert Talisse, and Bruce Wilshire.
With a completely revised and updated bibliography of Hook's works, plus an afterword by Richard Rorty, this outstanding collection of essays examining the rich and varied experience of one of America's most misunderstood intellectuals will be of great interest to students and scholars of American intellectual history and philosophy.

The first English translation of his work, The Withholding Power, offers a fascinating introduction to the thought of Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari. Cacciari is a notoriously complex thinker but this title offers a starting point for entering into the very heart of his thinking. The Withholding Power provides a comprehensive and synthetic insight into his interpretation of Christian political theology and leftist Italian political theory more generally. The theme of katechon - originally a biblical concept which has been developed into a political concept - has been absolutely central to the work of Italian philosophers such as Agamben and Eposito for nearly twenty years. In The Withholding Power, Cacciari sets forth his startlingly original perspective on the influence the theological-political questions have traditionally exerted upon ideas of power, sovereignty and the relationship between political and religious authority. With an introduction by Howard Caygill contextualizing the work within the history of Italian thought, this title will offer those coming to Cacciari for the first time a searing insight into his political, theological and philosophical milieu.

"An eloquent work. Somer Brodribb not only gives us a feminist critique of postmodernism with its masculinist predeterminants in existentialism, its Freudian footholdings and its Sadean values, but in the very form and texture of the critique, she literally creates new discourse in feminist theory. Brodribb has transcended not only postmodernism but its requirement that we speak in its voice even when criticizing it. She creates a language that is at once poetic and powerfully analytical. Her insistent and compelling radical critique refuses essentialism--from both masculinist thinkers and their women followers. She demystifies postmodernism to reveal that it and its antecedents represent yet another mundane version of patriarchal politics. Ultimately Brodribb returns us to feminist theory with the message that we must refuse to be derivative and continue to originate theory and politics from the condition of women under male domination."
--Kathleen Barry, author of "Female Sexual Slavery"

An iconoclastic work brilliantly undertaken . . . "Nothing Mat(T)ers" magnificently shows that postmodernism is the cultural capital of late patriarchy. It is the art of self- display, the conceit of masculine self and the science of reproductive and genetic engineering in an ecstatic Nietzschean cycle of statis."
--Andre Michel

"Nothing Mat(T)ers" encapsulates in its title the valuelessness of the current academic fad of postmodernism. Somer Brodribb has written a brave and witty book demolishing the gods and goddesses of postmodernism by deconstructing their method and de-centering their subjects and, in the process, has deconstructed deconstructionism and decentered decentering! Thisis a long-awaited and much-needed book from a tough- minded, embodied, and unflinching scholar."
--Janice Raymond

This book poses the question of what lies at the limit of philosophy. Through close studies of French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty's life and work, the authors examine one of the twentieth century's most interdisciplinary philosophers whose thought intersected with and contributed to the practices of art, psychology, literature, faith and philosophy. As these essays show, Merleau-Ponty's oeuvre disrupts traditional disciplinary boundaries and prompts his readers to ask what, exactly, constitutes philosophy and its others. Featuring essays by an international team of leading phenomenologists, art theorists, theologians, historians of philosophy, and philosophers of mind, this volume breaks new ground in Merleau-Ponty scholarship--including the first sustained reflections on the relationship between Merleau-Ponty and religion--and magnifies a voice that is talked-over in too many conversations across the academic disciplines. Anyone interested in phenomenology, art theory and history, cognitive science, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of religion will find themselves challenged and engaged by the articles included in this important effort at inter-disciplinary philosophy. >

While the fiction of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand is extremely popular and enduring, little has been written on it so far. This book consists of essays, most of which are new, by top Rand scholars on Atlas Shrugged, her magnum opus. The essays deal with historical, literary, and philosophical topics, surpassing related writings in breadth and depth of analysis. The historical essays cover the writing of Atlas Shrugged, its publication history, and its reception. The literary essays cover analysis of the novel's plot, theme, and characterization; comparisons with other works, such as the novels of Hugo, Dostoyevsky, and Joyce; and the proper approach to adapting Atlas Shrugged to film. The philosophical essays cover a vast range of topics, including the place of Galt's speech in the novel, the role of the mind in human life, and the evil of non-objective law. Some of the essays make use of previously unpublished material from the Ayn Rand Archives.

This is an original study aiming to explain fully Lacanian thought and apply it to the study of literary texts.In contemporary academic literary studies, Lacan is often considered impenetrably obscure, due to the unavailability of his late works, insufficient articulation of his methodologies and sometimes stereotypical use of Lacanian concepts in literary theory.This study aims to integrate Lacan into contemporary literary study by engaging with a broad range of Lacanian theoretical concepts, often for the first time in English, and using them to analyse a range of key texts from different periods.Azari explores Lacan's theory of desire as well as his final theories of lituraterre, littoral, and the sinthome and interrogates a range of poststructuralist interpretive approaches. In the second part of the book, he outlines the variety of ways in which Lacanian theory can be applied to literary texts and offers detailed readings of texts by Shakespeare, Donne, Joyce and Ashbery. This ground-breaking study provides original insights into a number of the most influential intellectual discussions in relation to Lacan and will fill a recognised gap in understanding Lacan and his legacy for literary study and criticism.

This book offers a comprehensive survey of Heidegger's ideas on technology and modernity.The scale of some environmental problems, such as climate change and human overpopulation, exceed any one nation state and require either co-ordinated governance or a shift in the culture of modernity. "Heidegger, Politics and Climate Change" examines this crisis alongside Heidegger's ideas about technology and modernity. Heidegger suggests that refocusing on the primary questions that make it meaningful to be human - the question of Being - could create the means for alternative discourses that both challenge and sidestep the attempt for total surveillance and total control. He advocates recognising the problematic relationship humanity has with the environment and reinventing new trajectories of understanding ourselves and our planet.This book aims to properly integrate environment into philosophy and political theory, offering a constructive critique of modernity with some helpful suggestions for establishing a readiness for blue sky scenarios for the future. The book lays out the practical implications of Heidegger's ideas and engages with philosophy of technology, considering the constraints and the potentials of technology on culture and environment.

Much attention has been paid to Wittgenstein's treatment of solipsism and to Cavell's treatment of skepticism. But comparatively little has been made of the striking connections between the early Wittgenstein's view on the truth of solipsism and Cavell's view on the truth of skepticism, and how that relates to the claim that the later Wittgenstein sees privacy as a constant human possibility. This book offers close readings of representative writings by both authors and argues that an adequate understanding of solipsism and skepticism requires taking into account a set of underlying difficulties related to a disappointment with finitude which might ultimately lead to the threat of solipsism. That threat is further interpreted as a wish not to bear the burden of having to constantly negotiate and nurture the fragile connections with the world and others which are the conditions of possibility for finite beings to achieve meaning and community. By presenting Wittgenstein's and Cavell's responses in an order which reflects the chronology of their writings, the result is a cohesive articulation of some under-appreciated aspects of their philosophical methodologies which has the potential of reorienting our entire reading of their work.

Alienation After Derrida rearticulates the Hegelian-Marxist theory of alienation in the light of Derrida's deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence. Simon Skempton aims to demonstrate in what way Derridian deconstruction can itself be said to be a critique of alienation. In so doing, he argues that the acceptance of Derrida's deconstructive concepts does not necessarily entail the acceptance of his interpretations of Hegel and Marx. In this way the book proposes radical reinterpretations, not only of Hegel and Marx, but of Derridian deconstruction itself. The critique of the notions of alienation and de-alienation is a key component of Derridian deconstruction that has been largely neglected by scholars to date. This important new study puts forward a unique and original argument that Derridian deconstruction can itself provide the basis for a rethinking of the concept of alienation, a concept that has received little serious philosophically engaged attention for several decades. >

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.

Written at a time when violence has many faces and goes by many names, this collection is proof that philosophy can remain a vital partner in the twin tasks of diagnosis and action. Emerging across specters of genocide, racism, oppression, terror, poverty, or war, the threat of violence is not only concrete and urgent, but all too often throws the work of critical reflection into vulnerable paralysis. With essays by some of today's finest scholars, these pages breathe new life into the hard work of intellectual engagement. Philosophers such as Peg Birmingham, Robert Bernasconi, and Bernhard Waldenfels not only feel the distinct burden of our age but, with unflagging attention to the philosophical tradition, forge a pronounced counterweight to the violent gyre of today. The result is a stirring critique that looks outward upon the phenomena of injustice, and inward upon the instruments and assumptions of philosophical discourse itself.

John Searle (1932-) is one of the most famous living American philosophers. A pupil of J. L. Austin at Oxford in the 1950s, he is currently Mills Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1995 John Searle published "The Construction of Social Reality", a text which not only promises to disclose the institutional backdrop against which speech takes place, but initiate a new 'philosophy of society'. Since then "The Construction of Social Reality" has been subject to a flurry of criticism. While many of Searle's interlocutors share the sense that the text marks an important breakthrough, he has time and again accused critics of misunderstanding his claims. Despite Searle's characteristic crispness and clarity there remains some confusion, among both philosophers and sociologists, regarding the significance of his proposals. This book traces some of the high points of this dialogue, leveraging Searle's own clarifications to propose a new way of understanding the text. In particular, Joshua Rust looks to Max Weber in suggesting that Searle has articulated an ideal type. In locating The Construction of Social Reality under the umbrella of one of sociology's founding fathers, this book not only makes Searle's text more accessible to the readers in the social sciences, but presents Max Weber as a thinker worthy of philosophical reconsideration. Moreover, the recharacterization of Searle's claims in terms of the ideal type helps facilitate a comparison between Searle and other social theorists such as Talcott Parsons.