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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy
This collection brings together two of Schopenhauer's most
respected works, wherein the philosopher shares his views on life
and what he believes to be follies of human behavior. Writing with
incisive poise and a great sense of humor, Schopenhauer introduces
the various ideas present in his pessimistic philosophy. Holding
the usual goals of life - money, position, material and sexual
pleasures - in low regard, he explains how the cultivation of one's
individuality and mind are far better pursuits, albeit those that
most people neglect. Rather than simply criticize the state of
humanity, Schopenhauer uses wit and lively argument to convince the
reader of the value in his outlook. The practice of an ordinary
life and career is thereby demonstrated as spiritually draining, in
contrast to concentration upon a wise mind and strong body, plus a
moderated or even ascetic approach to material things.
Politics of the Many draws inspiration from Percy Bysshe Shelley's
celebrated call to arms: 'Ye are many - they are few!' This idea of
the Many, as a general form of emancipatory subjectivity that
cannot be erased for the sake of the One, is the philosophical and
political assumption shared by contributors to this book. They
raise questions of collective agency, and its crisis in
contemporary capitalism, via new engagements with Marxist
philosophy, psychoanalysis, theories of social reproduction and
value-form, and post-colonial critiques, and drawing on activist
thought and strategies. This book interrogates both established and
emergent formations of the Many (the people, classes, publics,
crowds, masses, multitudes), tracing their genealogies, their
recent failures and victories, and their potentials to change the
world. The book proposes and explores an intense and provoking
series of new or reinvented concepts, figures, and theoretical
constellations, including dividuality, the centaur, unintentional
vanguard, insomnia at work, always-on capitalism, multitude (from
its 'voiding' to a '(non)emergence'), crowds, necropolitics, and
the link between political subjectivity and value-form. The
contributors to Politics of the Many are both acclaimed and
emergent thinkers including Carina Brand, Rebecca Carson, Luhuna
Carvalho, Lorenzo Chiesa, Jodi Dean, Dario Gentili, Benjamin
Halligan, Marc James Leger, Paul Mazzocchi, Alexei Penzin, Stefano
Pippa, Gerald Raunig, and Stevphen Shukaitis.
How can the stories of the Hebrew Bible be read for their ethical
value? Eryl W. Davies uses the narratives of King David in order to
explore this, basing his argument on Martha Nussbaum's notion that
a sensitive and informed commentary can unpack the complexity of
fictional accounts. Davies discusses David and Michal in 1 Sam.
19:11-17; David and Jonathan in 1 Sam. 20; David and Bathsheba in 2
Sam. 11; Nathan's parable in 2 Sam. 12; and the rape of Tamar in 2
Sam. 13. By examining these narratives, Davies shows that a
fruitful and constructive dialogue is possible between biblical
ethics and modern philosophy. He also emphasizes the ethical
accountability of biblical scholars and their responsibility to
evaluate the moral teaching that the biblical narratives have to
offer.
Smart Technologies and Fundamental Rights covers a broad range of
vital topics that highlight the ethical, socio-political, and legal
challenges as well as technical issues of Artificial Intelligence
with respect to fundamental rights. Either humanity will greatly
profit from the use of AI in almost all domains in human life,
which may eventually lead to a much better and more humane society,
or it could be the case that people may misuse AI for idiosyncratic
purposes and intelligent machines may turn against human beings.
Therefore, we should be extremely cautious with respect to the
technological development of AI because we might not be able to
control the machines once they reached a certain level of
sophistication.
When Michael Walzer's Spheres of Justice was published ten years
ago, the front page of The New York Times Book Review hailed the
work as "an imaginative alternative to the current debate over
distributive justice". Now in Thick and Thin, Walzer revises and
extends his arguments in Spheres of Justice, framing his ideas
about justice, social criticism, and national identity in light of
the new political world that has arisen in the past decade. Walzer
focuses on two different but interrelated kinds of moral argument:
maximalist and minimalist, thick and thin, local and universal.
According to Walzer the first, thick type of moral argument is
culturally connected, referentially entangled, detailed, and
specific; the second, or thin type, is abstract, ad hoc, detached,
and general. Thick arguments play the larger role in determining
our views about domestic justice and in shaping our criticism of
local arrangements. Thin arguments shape our views about justice in
foreign places and in international society. The book begins with
an account of minimalist argument, then examines two uses of
maximalist arguments, focusing on distributive justice and social
criticism. Walzer then discusses minimalism with a qualified
defense of self-determination in international society, and
concludes with a discussion of the (divided) self capable of this
differentiated moral engagement. Walzer's highly literate and
fascinating blend of philosophy and historical analysis will appeal
not only to those interested in the polemics surrounding Spheres of
justice but also to intelligent readers who are more concerned with
getting the arguments right.
Addressing Merleau-Ponty's work Phenomenology of Perception, in
dialogue with The Visible and the Invisible, his lectures at the
College de France, and his reading of Proust, this book argues that
at play in his thought is a philosophy of "ontological lateness".
This describes the manner in which philosophical reflection is
fated to lag behind its objects; therefore an absolute grasp on
being remains beyond its reach. Merleau-Ponty articulates this
philosophy against the backdrop of what he calls "cruel thought", a
style of reflecting that seeks resolution by limiting,
circumscribing, and arresting its object. By contrast, the
philosophy of ontological lateness seeks no such finality-no
apocalypsis or unveiling-but is characterized by its ability to
accept the veiling of being and its own constitutive lack of
punctuality. To this extent, his thinking inaugurates a new
relation to the becoming of sense that overcomes cruel thought.
Merleau-Ponty's work gives voice to a wisdom of dispossession that
allows for the withdrawal of being. Never before has anyone engaged
with the theme of Merleau-Ponty's own understanding of philosophy
in such a sustained way as Whitmoyer does in this volume.
Marx's early work is well known and widely available, but it
usually interpreted as at best a kind of stepping-stone to the Marx
of Capital. This book offers something completely different; it
reconstructs, from his first writings spanning from 1835 to 1846, a
coherent and well-rounded political philosophy. The influence of
Engels upon the development of that philosophy is discussed. This,
it is argued, was a philosophy that Marx could have presented had
he put the ideas together, as he hinted was his eventual intention.
Had he done so, this first Marx would have made an even greater
contribution to social and political philosophy than is generally
acknowledged today. Arguments regarding revolutionary change,
contradiction and other topics such as production, alienation and
emancipation contribute to a powerful analysis in the early works
of Marx, one which is worthy of discussion on its own merits. This
analysis is distributed among a range of books, papers, letters and
other writings, and is gathered here for the first time. Marx's
work of the period was driven by his commitment to emancipation.
Moreover, as is discussed in the conclusion to this book, his
emancipatory philosophy continues to have resonance today. This new
book presents Marx in a unique, new light and will be indispensable
reading for all studying and following his work.
Metaphysics of Children's Literature is the first sustained study
of ways in which children's literature confronts metaphysical
questions about reality and the nature of what there is in the
world. In its exploration of something and nothing, this book
identifies a number of metaphysical structures in texts for young
people-such as the ontological exchange or nowhere in
extremis-demonstrating that their entanglement with the workings of
reality is unique to the conditions of children's literature.
Drawing on contemporary children's literature discourse and
metaphysicians from Heidegger and Levinas, to Bachelard, Sartre and
Haraway, Lisa Sainsbury reveals the metaphysical groundwork of
children's literature. Authors and illustrators covered include:
Allan and Janet Ahlberg, Mac Barnett, Ron Brooks, Peter Brown,
Lewis Carroll, Eoin Colfer, Gary Crew, Roald Dahl, Roddy Doyle,
Imme Dros, Sarah Ellis, Mem Fox, Zana Fraillon, Libby Gleeson,
Kenneth Grahame, Armin Greder, Sonya Hartnett, Tana Hoban, Judy
Horacek, Tove Jansson, Oliver Jeffers, Jon Klassen, Elaine
Konigsburg, Norman Lindsay, Geraldine McCaughrean, Robert
Macfarlane, Jackie Morris, Edith Nesbit, Mary Norton, Jill Paton
Walsh, Philippa Pearce, Ivan Southall, William Steig, Shaun Tan,
Tarjei Vesaas, David Wiesner, Margaret Wild, Jacqueline Woodson and
many others.
In a bold new argument, Ulrika Carlsson grasps hold of the figure
of Eros that haunts Soren Kierkegaard's The Concept of Irony, and
for the first time, uses it as key to interpret that text and his
second book, Either/Or. According to Carlsson, Kierkegaard adopts
Plato's idea of Eros as the fundamental force that drives humans in
all their pursuits. For him, every existential stance-every way of
living and relating to the outside world-is at heart a way of
loving. By intensely examining Kierkegaard's erotic language, she
also challenges the theory that the philosopher's first two books
have little common ground and reveals that they are in fact
intimately connected by the central and explicit topic of love. In
this text suitable for both students and the Kierkegaard
specialist, Carlsson claims that despite long-held beliefs about
the disparity of his early work, his first two books both relate to
love and Part I of Either/Or should be treated as the sequel to The
Concept of Irony.
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Symposium
(Hardcover)
Plato; Translated by Benjamin Jowett
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R583
Discovery Miles 5 830
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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