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).

This book offers a conceptual map of Habermas' philosophy and a systematic introduction to his work. It does so by systematically examining six defining themes-modernity, discourse ethics, truth and justice, public law and constitutional democracy, cosmopolitanism, and toleration-of Habermas' philosophy as well as their inner logic. The text distinguishes itself in content and perspective by offering a very clear conceptual map and by providing a new interpretation of Habermas' views in light of his overarching system. In terms of scope, the book touches upon Habermas' broad range of works. As for method, the text illustrates key concepts in his philosophy making it a useful reference aid. It appeals to students and scholars in the field looking for a current introductory text or supplementary reading on Habermas.

For centuries, philosophers have addressed the ontological question of whether God exists. Most recently, philosophers have begun to explore the axiological question of what value impact, if any, God's existence has (or would have) on our world. This book brings together four prestigious philosophers, Michael Almeida, Travis Dumsday, Perry Hendricks and Graham Oppy, to present different views on the axiological question about God. Each contributor expresses a position on axiology, which is then met with responses from the remaining contributors. This structure makes for genuine discussion and developed exploration of the key issues at stake, and shows that the axiological question is more complicated than it first appears. Chapters explore a range of relevant issues, including the relationship between Judeo-Christian theism and non-naturalist alternatives such as pantheism, polytheism, and animism/panpsychism. Further chapters consider the attitudes and emotions of atheists within the theism conversation, and develop and evaluate the best arguments for doxastic pro-theism and doxastic anti-theism. Of interest to those working on philosophy of religion, theism and ethics, this book presents lively accounts of an important topic in an exciting and collaborative way, offered by renowned experts in this area.

While large bodies of scholarship exist on the plays of Shakespeare and the philosophy of Heidegger, this book is the first to read these two influential figures alongside one another, and to reveal how they can help us develop a creative and contemplative sense of ethics, or an 'ethical imagination'. Following the increased interest in reading Shakespeare philosophically, it seems only fitting that an encounter take place between the English language's most prominent poet and the philosopher widely considered to be central to continental philosophy. Interpreting the plays of Shakespeare through the writings of Heidegger and vice versa, each chapter pairs a select play with a select work of philosophy. In these pairings the themes, events, and arguments of each work are first carefully unpacked, and then key passages and concepts are taken up and read against and through one another. As these hermeneutic engagements and cross-readings unfold we find that the words and deeds of Shakespeare's characters uniquely illuminate, and are uniquely illuminated by, Heidegger's phenomenological analyses of being, language, and art.

Most human action has a technical dimension. This book examines four components of this technical dimension. First, in all actions, various individual, organizational or institutional agents combine actional capabilities with tools, institutions, infrastructure and other elements by means of which they act. Second, the deployment of capabilities and means is permeated by ethical aspirations and hesitancies. Third, all domains of action are affected by these ethical dilemmas. Fourth, the dimensions of the technicity of action are typical of human life in general, and not just a regional or culturally specific phenomenon. In this study, an interdisciplinary approach is adopted to encompass the broad anthropological scope of this study and combine this bigger picture with detailed attention to the socio-historical particularities of action as it plays out in different contexts. Hermeneutics (the philosophical inquiry into the human phenomena of meaning, understanding and interpretation) and social science (as the study of all human affairs) are the two main disciplinary orientations of this book. This study clarifies the technical dimension of the entire spectrum of human action ranging from daily routine to the extreme of violent protest.

In Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Peter Mahon goes beyond recent theoretical approaches to 'the posthuman' to argue for a concrete posthumanism, which arises as humans, animals and technology become entangled, in science, society and culture. Concrete posthumanism is rooted in cutting-edge advances in techno-science, and this book offers readers an exciting, fresh and innovative exploration of this undulating, and often unstable, terrain. With wide-ranging coverage, of cybernetics, information theory, medicine, genetics, machine learning, politics, science fiction, philosophy and futurology, Mahon examines how posthumanism played-and continues to play-a crucial role in shaping how we understand our world. This analysis of posthumanism centers on human interactions with tools and technology, the centrality of science, as well as an understanding of techno-science as a pharmakon-an ancient Greek word for a substance that is both poison and cure. Mahon argues that posthumanism must be approached with an interdisciplinary attitude: a concrete posthumanism is only graspable through knowledge derived from science and the humanities. He concludes by sketching a 'post-humanities' to help us meet the challenges of posthumanism, challenges to which we all must rise. Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed provides a concise, detailed and coherent exploration of posthumanism, introducing key approaches, concepts and themes. It is ideal for readers of all stripes who are interested in a concrete posthumanism and require more than just a simple introduction.

This is the first study to compare the philosophical systems of secular scientific philosopher Mario Bunge (1919-2020), and Moroccan Islamic philosopher Taha Abd al-Rahman (b.1945). In their efforts to establish the philosophical underpinnings of an ideal modernity these two great thinkers speak to the same elements of the human condition, despite their opposing secular and religious worldviews. While the differences between Bunge's critical-realist epistemology and materialist ontology on the one hand, and Taha's spiritualist ontology and revelational-mystical epistemology on the other, are fundamental, there is remarkable common ground between their scientific and Islamic versions of humanism. Both call for an ethics of prosperity combined with social justice, and both criticize postmodernism and religious conservatism. The aspiration of this book is to serve as a model for future dialogue between holders of Western and Islamic worldviews, in mutual pursuit of modernity's best-case scenario.

This book attempts to open up a path towards a phenomenological theory of values (more technically, a phenomenological axiology). By drawing on everyday experience, and dissociating the notion of value from that of tradition, it shows how emotional sensibility can be integrated to practical reason. This project was prompted by the persuasion that the fragility of democracy, and the current public irrelevance of the ideal principles which support it, largely depend on the inability of modern philosophy to overcome the well-entrenched skepticism about the power of practical reason. The book begins with a phenomenology of cynical consciousness, continues with a survey of still influential theories of value rooted in 20th century philosophy, and finally offers an outline of a bottom-up axiology that revives the anti-skeptical legacy of phenomenology, without ignoring the standards set by contemporary metaethics.

What is Philosophy? is the last instalment of a remarkable twenty-year collaboration between the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Felix Guattari. This hugely important text attempts to explain the terms of their collaboration and to define the activity of philosophy in which they have been engaged. A major contribution to contemporary Continental philosophy, it nevertheless remains distinctly challenging for readers faced for the first time with Deleuze and Guattari's unusual and somewhat allusive style. Deleuze and Guattari's 'What is Philosophy?': A Reader's Guide offers a concise and accessible introduction to this hugely important and yet challenging work. Written specifically to meet the needs of students coming to Deleuze and Guattari for the first time, the book offers guidance on: - Philosophical and historical context - Key themes - Reading the text - Reception and influence - Further reading