|
|
Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy
Almost 100 years have passed since Carl Schmitt gave his
controversial definition of the sovereign as the one who decides on
the exception in his by now classic Political Theology (1922).
Written at a time of crisis, the book sought to establish the
institution of sovereignty, not from within a well-functioning
governing machine of the state in a situation of normality, but
rather as the minimal condition of state order in the moment of
governmental breakdown. The book appeared anachronistic already at
its publication. Schmitt went against Max Weber's popular thesis
defining secularization as a disenchantment of the world
characterizing modern societies, and instead suggested that the
concepts of modern politics mirrored a metaphysics originating in
Christianity and the church. Nevertheless, the concept of political
theology has in recent years seen a revival as a field of research
in philosophy as well as political theory, as studies in the
theological sub-currents of politics, economics and sociality
proliferate.
Timbre is among the most important and the most elusive aspects of
music. Visceral and immediate in its sonic properties, yet also
considered sublime and ineffable, timbre finds itself caught up in
metaphors: tone "color", "wet" acoustics, or in Schoenberg's words,
"the illusory stuff of our dreams." This multi-disciplinary
approach to timbre assesses the acoustic, corporeal, performative,
and aesthetic dimensions of tone color in Western music practice
and philosophy. It develops a new theorization of timbre and its
crucial role in the epistemology of musical materialism through a
vital materialist aesthetics in which conventional binaries and
dualisms are superseded by a vibrant continuum. As the aesthetic
and epistemological questions foregrounded by timbre are not
restricted to isolated periods in music history or individual
genres, but have pervaded Western musical aesthetics since early
Modernity, the book discusses musical examples taken from both
"classical" and "popular" music. These range, in "classical" music,
from the Middle Ages through the Baroque, the belcanto opera and
electronic music to saturated music; and, in "popular" music, from
indie through soul and ballad to dark industrial.
This volume, edited by Lucilla Guidi and Thomas Rentsch,
establishes the first systematic connection between phenomenology
and performativity. On the one hand, it outlines the performativity
of phenomenology by exploring its enactment and the transformation
of attitude it effects; this exploration is conducted through a
number of parallels between phenomenology and the ancient
understanding of philosophy as an exercise and a way of life. On
the other hand, the volume examines different notions of
performativity from a phenomenological perspective, so as to show
that a phenomenological understanding of embodied experience
complements a linguistic account of performativity and can also
offer a ground for bodily practices of resistance, critique, and
self-transformation in our own day and age.
Awarded an Honorable Mention for the 2022 Society of Professors of
Education Outstanding Book Award Imagining Dewey features
productive (re)interpretations of 21st century experience using the
lens of John Dewey's Art as Experience, through the doubled task of
putting an array of international philosophers, educators, and
artists-researchers in transactional dialogue and on equal footing
in an academic text. This book is a pragmatic attempt to encourage
application of aesthetic learning and living, ekphrasic
interpretation, critical art, and agonist pluralism. There are two
foci: (a) Deweyan philosophy and educational themes with (b)
analysis and examples of how educators, artists, and researchers
envision and enact artful meaning making. This structure meets the
needs of university and high school audiences, who are accustomed
to learning about challenging ideas through multimedia and
aesthetic experience. Contributors are: James M. Albrecht, Adam I.
Attwood, John Baldacchino, Carolyn L. Berenato, M. Cristina Di
Gregori, Holly Fairbank, Jim Garrison, Amanda Gulla, Bethany
Henning, Jessica Heybach, David L. Hildebrand, Ellyn Lyle, Livio
Mattarollo, Christy McConnell Moroye, Maria-Isabel Moreno-Montoro,
Maria Martinez Morales, Stephen M. Noonan, Louise G. Phillips,
Scott L. Pratt, Joaquin Roldan, Leopoldo Rueda, Tadd Ruetenik,
Leisa Sasso, Bruce Uhrmacher, David Vessey, Ricardo Marin Viadel,
Sean Wiebe, Li Xu and Martha Patricia Espiritu Zavalza.
In his Treatise on the Virtues, Aquinas discusses the character and
function of habit; the essence, subject, cause, and meaning of
virtue; and the separate intellectual, moral, cardinal, and
theological virtues. His work constitutes one of the most thorough
and incisive accounts of virtue in the history of Christian
philosophy. John Oesterle's accurate and elegant translation makes
this enduring work readily accessible to the modern reader.
Gustav Landauer was an unconventional anarchist who aspired to a
return to a communal life. His antipolitical rejection of
authoritarian assumptions is based on a radical linguistic
scepticism that could be considered the theoretical premise of his
anarchism. The present volume aims to add to the existing
scholarship on Landauer by shedding new light on his work,
focussing on the two interrelated notions of skepsis and
antipolitics. In a time marked by a deep doubt concerning modern
politics, Landauer's alternative can help us to more seriously
address the struggle for a different articulation of our
communitarian and ecological needs.
What does it mean to be an expert? What sort of authority do
experts really have? And what role should they play in today's
society? Addressing why ever larger segments of society are
skeptical of what experts say, Expertise: A Philosophical
Introduction reviews contemporary philosophical debates and
introduces what an account of expertise needs to accomplish in
order to be believed. Drawing on research from philosophers and
sociologists, chapters explore widely held accounts of expertise
and uncover their limitations, outlining a set of conceptual
criteria a successful account of expertise should meet. By
providing suggestions for how a philosophy of expertise can inform
practical disciplines such as politics, religion, and applied
ethics, this timely introduction to a topic of pressing importance
reveals what philosophical thinking about expertise can contribute
to growing concerns about experts in the 21st century.
This study illuminates the complex interplay between Deleuze and
Guattari's philosophy and architecture. Presenting their
wide-ranging impact on late 20th- and 21st-century architecture,
each chapter focuses on a core Deleuzian/Guattarian philosophical
concept and one key work of architecture which evokes, contorts, or
extends it. Challenging the idea that a concept or theory defines
and then produces the physical work and not vice versa, Chris L.
Smith positions the relationship between Deleuze and Guattari's
philosophy and the field of architecture as one that is mutually
substantiating and constitutive. In this framework, modes of
architectural production and experimentation become inextricable
from the conceptual territories defined by these two key thinkers,
producing a rigorous discussion of theoretical, practical, and
experimental engagements with their ideas.
|
|