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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Social & political philosophy
Power is classically understood as the playing out of relations
between the ruler and the ruled. Political impasse is often viewed
as a moment in which no clear-cut delineation of power exists,
resulting in an overwhelming sense of frustration or feeling stuck
in a no-win situation. The new globalised world has produced a real
shift in how power works: not only has power been concentrated in
the hands of very few while many millions become more oppressed by
radical shortages and growing costs, but we also have a new
category of political subjectivity in which many find themselves
neither rulers nor radically oppressed. Those who live the
neither/nor of contemporary power live the new global impasse. For
those of us who are stuck and compelled to wait for dominant power
to break, this book uncovers possibilities in thought, imagination,
and self-appropriation through oikeiosis, that is, making oneself
at home in oneself, and constancy.
At once narrative and reflective, Loving Immigrants in America: An
Experiential Philosophy of Personal Interaction is a philosophical
account of Daniel Campos's experience as a Latin American immigrant
to the United States of America. A series of interrelated personal
essays together convey this experience of walking or sauntering,
going on road trips, reading American literature in the southern
United States, playing association football (soccer or futbol),
churchgoing, and Latin dancing in the U.S. This book's central
motif is the caring saunterer, who is understood to be a person who
makes him or herself at home anywhere, even as a Latino immigrant
in the U.S. The narrative essays convey one immigrant's experience
seeking an affective, social, and intellectual home in a new land.
The intertwined philosophical reflections lead to the
recommendation of an ethic of love-resilient love-for the
day-to-day interactions and long-term relations between immigrants
and hosts in this country. The author's aim is to establish an open
and earnest philosophical dialogue with critical readers interested
in the problems surrounding immigration in the U.S. today. He
writes as an American philosopher-in the continental sense of
North, Central, and South America-whose reflections provide an
accessible and provocative angle for the development of insight
into the experiences of immigrants in the United States. Thus he
brings philosophical reflection drawn from experience, in the broad
American tradition, to bear on current issues-on the problems of
people and not of philosophers, as John Dewey might put it.
The Grundrisse is widely regarded as one of Marx's most important
texts, with many commentators claiming it is the centrepiece of his
entire oeuvre. It is also, however, a notoriously difficult text to
understand and interpret. In this - the first guide and
introduction to reading the Grundrisse - Simon Choat helps us to
make sense of a text that is both a first draft of Capital and a
major work in its own right. As well as offering a detailed
commentary on the entire text, this guide explains the Grundrisse's
central themes and arguments and highlights its impact and
influence. The Grundrisse's discussions of money, labour, nature,
freedom, the role of machinery, and the development and dynamics of
capitalism have influenced generations of thinkers, from
Anglo-American historians such as Eric Hobsbawm and Robert Brenner
to Continental philosophers like Antonio Negri and Gilles Deleuze,
as well as offering vital insights into Marx's methodology and the
trajectory of his thought. Contemporary examples are used
throughout this guide both to illuminate Marx's terminology and
concepts and to illustrate the continuing relevance of the
Grundrisse. Readers will be offered guidance on: -Philosophical and
Historical Context -Key Themes -Reading the Text -Reception and
Influence
On the Pleasure of Hating, William Hazlitt's classic contemplation
of human hatred, is in this edition accompanied by several of his
finest essays. As one of England's most distinguished wits of the
early 19th century, William Hazlitt was an accomplished author,
painter and critic whose barbed prose was notorious in literary
circles at the time. Hazlitt wrote the titular essay of this
collection in 1826, when his personal circumstances were strained;
we thus find his tone both markedly resentful and embittered. On
the Pleasure of Hating is, however, among the finest and most
consistently insightful and lucid works Hazlitt ever wrote. Perhaps
Hazlitt's greatest claim to prowess was his ability to produce
succinct and quotable passages. Each of the six essays in this
compendium contain prime examples of the perceptive phrases and
summations which Hazlitt regularly produced in his prime.
In the 1970s, a multifaceted alternative scene developed in West
Germany. At the core of this leftist scene was a struggle for
feelings in a capitalist world that seemed to be devoid of any
emotions. Joachim C. Haberlen offers here a vivid account of these
emotional politics. The book discusses critiques of rationality and
celebrations of insanity as an alternative. It explores why
capitalism made people feel afraid and modern cities made people
feel lonely. Readers are taken to consciousness raising groups,
nude swimming at alternative vacation camps, and into the squatted
houses of the early 1980s. Haberlen draws on a kaleidoscope of
different voices to explore how West Germans became more concerned
with their selves, their feelings, and their bodies. By
investigating how leftists tried to transform themselves through
emotional practices, Haberlen gives us a fresh perspective on a
fascinating aspect of West German history.
Hegel's Philosophy of Right has long been recognized as the only
systematic alternative to the dominant social contract tradition in
modern political philosophy. Dean Moyar here takes on the difficult
task of reading and representing Hegel's view of justice with the
same kind of intuitive appeal that has made social contract theory,
with its voluntary consent and assignment of rights and privileges,
such an attractive model. Moyar argues that Hegelian justice
depends on a proper understanding of Hegel's theory of value and on
the model of life through which the overall conception of value,
the Good, is operationalized. Closely examining key episodes in
Phenomenology of Spirit and the entire Philosophy of Right, Moyar
shows how Hegel develops his account of justice through an
inferentialist method whereby the content of right unfolds into
increasingly thick normative structures. He asserts that the theory
of value that Hegel develops in tandem with the account of right
relies on a productive unity of self-consciousness and life, of
pure thinking and the natural drives. Moyar argues that Hegel's
expressive account of the free will enables him to theorize rights
not simply as abstract claims, but rather as realizations of value
in social contexts of mutual recognition. Moyar shows that Hegel's
account of justice is a living system of institutions centered on a
close relation of the economic and political spheres and on an
understanding of the law as developing through practices of public
reason. Moyar defends Hegel's metaphysics of the State as an
account of the sovereignty of the Good, and he shows why Hegel
thought that philosophy needs to offer an account of world history
and reformed religion to buttress the modern social order.
Climate Engineering: A Normative Perspective takes as its subject a
prospective policy response to the urgent problem of climate
change, one previously considered taboo. Climate engineering, the
"deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment
in order to counteract anthropogenic climate change," encapsulates
a wide array of technological proposals. Daniel Edward Callies here
focuses on one proposal currently being researched-stratospheric
aerosol injection-which would spray aerosol particles into the
upper atmosphere to thus reflect a small portion of incoming
sunlight and slightly cool the globe. This book asks important
questions that should guide moral and political discussions of
geoengineering. Does engaging in such research lead us towards
inexorable deployment? Could this research draw us away from the
more important tasks of mitigation and adaptation? Should we avoid
risky interventions in the climate system altogether? What would
legitimate governance of this technology look like? What would
constitute a just distribution of the benefits and burdens
associated with stratospheric aerosol injection? Who ought to be
included in the decision-making process? Callies offers a normative
perspective on these and other questions related to engineering the
climate, ultimately arguing for research and regulation guided by
norms of legitimacy, distributive justice, and procedural justice.
Gandhi and Philosophy presents a breakthrough in philosophy by
foregrounding modern and scientific elements in Gandhi's thought,
animating the dazzling materialist concepts in his writings and
opening philosophy to the new frontier of nihilism. This
scintillating work breaks with the history of Gandhi scholarship,
removing him from the postcolonial and Hindu-nationalist axis and
disclosing him to be the enemy that the philosopher dreads and
needs. Naming the congealing systematicity of Gandhi's thoughts
with the Kantian term hypophysics, Mohan and Dwivedi develop his
ideas through a process of reason that awakens the possibilities of
concepts beyond the territorial determination of philosophical
traditions. The creation of the new method of criticalisation - the
augmentation of critique - brings Gandhi's system to its exterior
and release. It shows the points of intersection and infiltration
between Gandhian concepts and such issues as will, truth, violence,
law, anarchy, value, politics and metaphysics and compels us to
imagine Gandhi's thought anew.
Rhetoric, Humor, and the Public Sphere: From Socrates to Stephen
Colbert investigates classical and contemporary understandings of
satire, parody, and irony, and how these genres function within a
deliberative democracy. Elizabeth Benacka examines the rhetorical
history, theorization, and practice of humor spanning from ancient
Greece and Rome to the contemporary United States. In particular,
this book focuses on the contemporary work of Stephen Colbert and
his parody of a conservative media pundit, analyzing how his humor
took place in front of an uninitiated audience and ridiculed a
variety of problems and controversies threatening American
democracy. Ultimately, Benacka emphasizes the importance of humor
as a discourse capable of calling forth a group of engaged citizens
and a source of civic education in contemporary society.
This volume traces the topic of affect across Lyotard's corpus and
accounts for Lyotard's crucial and original contribution to the
thinking of affect. Highlighting the importance of affect in
Lyotard's philosophy, this work offers a unique contribution to
both affect theory and the reception of Lyotard. Affect indeed
traverses Lyotard's philosophical corpus in various ways and under
various names: "figure" or "the figural" in Discourse, Figure,
"unbound intensities" in his "libidinal" writings, "the feeling of
the differend" in The Differend, "affect" and "infantia" in his
later writings. Across the span of his work, Lyotard insisted on
the intractability of affect, on what he would later call the
"differend" between affect and articulation. The singular awakening
of sensibility, affect both traverses and escapes articulation,
discourse, and representation. Lyotard devoted much of his
attention to the analysis of this traversal of affect in and
through articulation, its transpositions, translations, and
transfers. This volume explores Lyotard's account of affect as it
traverses the different fields encompassed by his writings
(philosophy, the visual arts, the performing arts, literature,
music, politics, psychoanalysis as well as technology and
post-human studies).
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