Paul Ricoeur was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. In this short and accessible book, he turns to a topic at the heart of much of his work: What is translation and why is it so important? Reminding us that The Bible, the Koran, the Torah and the works of the great philosophers are often only ever read in translation, Ricoeur reminds us that translation not only spreads knowledge but can change its very meaning. In spite of these risk, he argues that in a climate of ethnic and religious conflict, the art and ethics of translation are invaluable. Drawing on interesting examples such as the translation of early Greek philosophy during the Renaissance, the poetry of Paul Celan and the work of Hannah Arendt, he reflects not only on the challenges of translating one language into another but how one community speaks to another. Throughout, Ricoeur shows how to move through life is to navigate a world that requires translation itself. Paul Ricoeur died in 2005. He was one of the great contemporary French philosophers and a leading figure in hermeneutics, psychoanalytic thought, literary theory and religion.

Strangers, Gods and Monsters is a fascinating look at how human identity is shaped by three powerful but enigmatic forces. Often overlooked in accounts of how we think about ourselves and others, Richard Kearney skilfully shows, with the help of vivid examples and illustrations, how the human outlook on the world is formed by the mysterious triumvirate of strangers, gods and monsters.
Throughout, Richard Kearney shows how strangers, gods and monsters do not merely reside in myths or fantasies but constitute a central part of our cultural unconscious. Above all, he argues that until we understand better that the Other resides deep within ourselves, we can have little hope of understanding how our most basic fears and desires manifest themselves in the external world and how we can learn to live with them.

Paul Ricoeur is described in the "Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy "as "one of the leading French philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century." This little book collects his thoughts on the subject of translation, and is vintage Ricoeur. He uses the topic to reflect on some of the perennial problems posed by translation, including the transmission of early Greek philosophy to the Renaissance, interpretations of the Bible amongst diverse religious traditions (no small issue at the moment), and the way translations of the same text reflect important cultural dynamics at work across different periods, leading to quite different meanings springing from the same book. There are also discussions of some contemporary figures, such as Umberto Eco, and the whole underscored by Ricoeur's point that there is a paradox at the hear of translation: impossible in theory but effective in practice.

Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.

Paul Ricoeur is one of the giants of contemporary continental philosophy and one of the most enduring and wide-ranging thinkers in the twentieth century, publishing major works ranging from existentialism and phenomenology to psychoanalysis, politics, religion and the theory of language. Richard Kearney offers a critical engagement with the work of Ricoeur, beginning with a general introduction to his hermeneutic philosophy. Part one explores some of the main themes in Ricouer's thought under six headings: phenomenology and hermeneutics; language and imagination; myth and tradition; ideology and utopia; evil and alterity; poetics and ethics. The second part comprises five dialogical exchanges which Kearney has conducted with Ricoeur over the last three decades (1977-2003), charting and explaining his intellectual itinerary. This book is aimed at a broad student readership as well as the general intelligent reader interested in knowing more about one of the most enduring major figures in contemporary continental philosophy.

Verhalen bieden ons bijzonder veelzijdige en duurzame inzichten in de menselijke conditie en hebben al sinds Aristoteles de aandacht van de filosofie getrokken. Het leidmotief van Vertellingen is dat dit digitale en naar verluidt 'postmoderne' tijdperk niet de ondergang van het verhaal aankondigt, maar juist zelf een bron van nieuwe verhalen vormt. Richard Kearney, filosoof en schrijver, ontrafelt in een heldere en meeslepende stijl waarom verhalen deze uitwerking op ons hebben en betoogt dat het onvertelde leven niet waard is om geleefd te worden. Vertellingen is onmisbaar, voor iedereen die helder wil nadenken over de rol van verhalen in ons leven en onze cultuur.

Verhalen bieden ons bijzonder veelzijdige en duurzame inzichten in de menselijke conditie en hebben al sinds Aristoteles de aandacht van de filosofie getrokken.Het leidmotief van Vertellingen is dat dit digitale en naar verluidt 'postmoderne' tijdperk niet de ondergang van het verhaal aankondigt, maar juist zelf een bron van nieuwe verhalen vormt.Richard Kearney, filosoof en schrijver, ontrafelt in een heldere en meeslepende stijl waarom verhalen deze uitwerking op ons hebben en betoogt dat het onvertelde leven niet waard is om geleefd te worden.Vertellingen is onmisbaar, voor iedereen die helder wil nadenken over de rol van verhalen in ons leven en onze cultuur.

Confronted with rising citizen discontent, the Reinventing Government movement, and new technological challenges, public organizations everywhere are seeking means of improving their performance. Their quest is not new, rather, the concern with improving the performance of government organizations has existed since the Scientific Management Movement. "Public Sector Performance" brings together in a single volume the classic, enduring principles and processes that have defined the field of public sector performance, as written in the words of leading practitioners and scholars. Taken as a whole, this volume provides a performance compass for today's public managers, helping them to reconstruct the public's confidence in, and support of, government.Defined here as managing public organizations for outcomes, performance is examined in all its varied dimensions: organizing work, managing workers, measuring performance, and overcoming resistance to performance-enhancing innovations. The selected articles are interesting, thought provoking, and instructive. They are classics in that they have been widely cited in the scholarly literature and have enduring value to public managers who seek to understand the many dimensions of performance. The book is organized into three sections: Performance Foundations, Performance Strategies, and Performance Measurement. Excerpts from additional selected articles feature special topics and wisdom from performance experts.

Contents:
Contents, Introduction, Part I: Hermenuetics Part II: Deconstruction Part III: Critical Theory Part IV: Psychoanalysis PartV: Applications.

Challenges to received ideas of the nation-state and sovereignty are forcing us to `rethink' Ireland. The issue of sovereignty, which has bedevilled Irish-British relations, is trapped between the competing forces of globalisation and demands for greater regional democracy.
Richard Kearney proposes the overcoming of this `sovereignty neurosis', requiring not only a recasting of the political identity of Ireland, but also a re-imagining of the cultural, literary and philosophical heritage. Only then can the inherited political notions of nationalism, national identity and republicanism be unravelled.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203429001

Challenges to received ideas of the nation-state and sovereignty are forcing us to `rethink' Ireland. The issue of sovereignty, which has bedevilled Irish-British relations, is trapped between the competing forces of globalization and demands for greater regional democracy.
Richard Kearney proposes the overcoming of this `sovereignty neurosis', requiring not only a recasting of the political identity of Ireland, but also a re-imagining of the cultural, literary and philosophical heritage. Only then can the inherited political notions of nationalism, national identity and republicanism be unravelled.

"The Continental Philosophy Reader" is the first comprehensive anthology of key writings from the major figures in European thought. The anthology is organised in three sections which map out the broad territory covered in "The Continental Philosophy Reader: " from Phenomenology to Hermeneutics, from Marxism to Critical Theory and from Structualism to Deconstruction. Within each section classic thinkers and writings of these movements are presented. The selections have been carefully chosen to be representative of the thinkers, and each piece of writing is introduced and placed in their historical and philosophical context by the editors. There is also a helpful chronology that allows the tradition to be seen in light of twentieth century thought and culture.
The thinkers and writing covered in "The Continental" "Philosophy Reader" include: Husserl on Phenomenology, Heidegger from "Being and Time," Jaspers from the "Philosophy of Existence," Sartre on Existentialism, Merleau-Ponty from "Phenomenology of Perception," de Beauvoir from "The Second Sex," Gadamer on Hermenuetics, Levinas on Ethics, Ricoeur on Interpretation, Luxemborg on Marxism, Lukacs from "History and Class Consciousness," Gramsci on Intellectuals, Adorno & Horkhiemer from the "Dialectic of the Enlightenment," Benjamin on History, Marcuse from "Eros and Civilisation," Habermas on Philosophy, Althusser from "Reading Marx," Arendt from "Between Past and Future," de Saussure on Signs, Levi-Strauss on Myth, Lacan on the Mirror Stage, Foucault on Power, Barthes on Semiology, Kristeva on Women's Time, Deleuze on Philosophy, Irigaray on the Feminine, Lyotard on the Postmodern

Contents:
1. The beginnings of phenomenology: Husserl and his predecessors
Richard Cobb-Stevens, Boston College
2. Philosophy of existence 1: Heidegger
Jacques Taminiaux, University of Louvain, Belgium
3. Philosophy of existence 2: Sartre
Thomas Flynn, Emory University
4. Philosophy of existence 3: Merleau-Ponty
Bernard Cullen, Queen's University, Belfast
5. Philosophies of religion: Jaspers, Marcel, Levinas
William Desmond, Loyola College
6. Philosophies of science: Mach, Duhem, Bachelard
Babette Babich, Fordham University
7. Philosophies of Marxism: Gramsci, Lukacs, Benjamin, Althusser
Michael Kelly, University of Southampton
8. Critical theory: from Adorno to Habermas
David Rasmussen, Boston College
9. Hermeneutics: Gadamer, Ricoeur
Gary Madison, McMaster University
10. Italian idealism and after: Croce, Gentile, Vattimo
Giacomo Rinaldi, University of Urbino, Italy
11. French structuralism and after: Barthes, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Foucault
Hugh Silverman, State University of New York at Stony Brook
12. French feminism and after: de Beauvoir, Kristeva, Irigaray, Cixious
Alison Ainley, Oxford Brookes University
13. Deconstruction
Simon Critchley, Essex University
14. Derrida
Timothy Mooney, Essex University
15. Postmodernist theory: Lyotard, Baudrillard
Thomas Docherty, Trinity College, Dublin

With his remarkable range of vision, the author takes us on a voyage of discovery that leads from Eden to Fellini, from paradise to parody - plotting the various models of the imagination as: Hebraic, Greek, medieval, Romantic, existential and post-modern.

How do we give a future to the past? How do we perform acts of double remembrance which honor both sides of the story-- spoken and unspoken, acknowledged and forgotten? One hundred years after the Easter Rising, Twinsome Minds explores the complexities of commemoration against the backdrops of the famine and 1916. Using word and image artist Sheila Gallagher and philosopher Richard Kearney retrieve some neglected micro-narratives of Irish historical trauma to illustrate how memory occurs at the cross section of story and history. In an inventive combination of archival imagery, historical records and narrative imagination, they mine the past for potential futures in a process of healing and recovery. Ireland's Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University publishes Famine Folios, a unique resource for students, scholars and researchers, as well as general readers, covering many aspects of the Famine in Ireland from 1845-1852 - the worst demographic catastrophe of nineteenth-century Europe. The essays are interdisciplinary in nature, and make available new research in Famine studies by internationally established scholars in history, art history, cultural theory, philosophy, media history, political economy, literature and music.

Radical Hospitality addresses a timely and challenging subject for contemporary philosophy: the ethical responsibility of opening borders, psychic and physical, to the stranger. Kearney and Fitzpatrick show how radical hospitality happens by opening oneself in narrative exchange to someone or something other than ourselves-by crossing borders, whether literal or figurative. Against the fears, dogmas, and demands for certainty and security that push us toward hostility, we also desire to wager with the unknown, leap into the unanticipated, and celebrate the new, a desire this book seeks to recognize and cultivate. The book contends that hospitality means chancing one's hand, one's arm, one's very self, thereby opening a vital space for new voices to be heard, shedding old skins, and welcoming new understandings. Radical Hospitality engages with urgent moral conversations concerning identity, nationality, immigration, commemoration, and justice, moving between theory and praxis and on to the formative life of the classroom. Building on key critical debates on the question of hospitality ranging from phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction to neo-Kantian moral critique and Anglo-American virtue ethics, the book explores novel possibilities for an ethics of hospitality in our contemporary world of border anxiety, refugee crises, and ecological catastrophe.

Our existence is increasingly lived at a distance. As we move from flesh to image, we are in danger of losing touch with each other and ourselves. How can we combine the physical with the virtual, our embodied experience with our global connectivity? How can we come back to our senses? Richard Kearney offers a timely call for the cultivation of the basic human need to touch and be touched. He argues that touch is our most primordial sense, foundational to our individual and common selves. Kearney explores the role of touch, from ancient wisdom traditions to modern therapies. He demonstrates that a fundamental aspect of touch is interdependence, its inherently reciprocal nature, which offers a crucial corrective to our fixation with control. Making the case for the complementarity of touch and technology, this book is a passionate plea to recover a tangible sense of community and the joys of life with others.

Stories offer us some of the richest and most enduring insights into the human condition and have preoccupied philosophy since Aristotle. On Stories presents in clear and compelling style just why narrative has this power over us and argues that the unnarrated life is not worth living. Drawing on the work of James Joyce, Sigmund Freud's patient 'Dora' and the case of Oscar Schindler, Richard Kearney skilfully illuminates how stories not only entertain us but can determine our lives and personal identities. He also considers nations as stories, including the story of Romulus and Remus in the founding of Rome. Throughout, On Stories stresses that, far from heralding the demise of narrative, the digital era merely opens up new stories.

Drawing on the work of James Joyce, the story of Sigmund Freud's 'Dora' and the case of Oscar Schindler, Richard Kearney skilfully illuminates how stories are deep at work in fictional writing, autobiography and psychoanalysis and above all, in attempts to talk of the "self". Throughout the text stresses that far from heralding the demise of the story, the digital and supposedly 'postmodern' era opens up powerful new ways of thinking about narrative. Imaginative and wide-ranging, On Stories is essential reading for anyone who wants to think clearly about the role of stories in our future.

What is Imagination? What is the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in a contemporary civilization dominated by the image? How can we reconcile the right to imagine with the right to justice? Are the claims of artistic creativity and moral responsibility compatible? With an extended foreword and an afterword chapter, and fascinating new material on the narrative imagination, Poetics of Imagining: Modern to Post-modern provides a critically developed and accessible account of the major theories of imagination in modern European thought. It analyses and assesses the decisive contributions made to our understanding of the imaginary life by phenomenology (Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Bachelard), hermeneutics (Heidegger, Ricoeur), and post-modernism (Vattima, Kristeva, Lyotard). Richard Kearney achieves this with a coherent and committed approach, which displays his own passionate concern for the claims of imagination in our post-modern world of fragmentation and fracture. This is essential reading for those interested in current leading debates on the role of imagining in continental philosophy, ethics, psychoanalysis, art theory and literary criticism.

Confronted with rising citizen discontent, the Reinventing Government movement, and new technological challenges, public organizations everywhere are seeking means of improving their performance. Their quest is not new, rather, the concern with improving the performance of government organizations has existed since the Scientific Management Movemen

'To thine own self be true.' From Polonius's words in Hamlet right up to Oprah, we are constantly urged to look within. Why is being authentic the ultimate aim in life for so many people, and why does it mean looking inside rather than out? Is it about finding the 'real' me, or something greater than me, even God? And should we welcome what we find?
Thought-provoking and with an astonishing range of references, On Being Authentic is a gripping journey into the self that begins with Socrates and Augustine. Charles Guignon asks why being authentic ceased to mean being part of some bigger, cosmic picture and with Rousseau, Wordsworth and the Romantic movement, took the strong inward turn alive in today's self-help culture.
He also plumbs the darker depths of authenticity, with the help of Freud, Joseph Conrad and Alice Miller and reflects on the future of being authentic in a postmodern, global age. He argues ultimately that if we are to rescue the ideal of being authentic, we have to see ourselves as fundamentally social creatures, embedded in relationships and communities, and that being authentic is not about what is owed to me but how I depend on others.

The Continental Philosophy Reader is the first complete anthology of classic writings from the major figures in European thought and provides a powerful introduction to one of the 20th century's most influential intellectual movements.

Strangers, Gods and Monsters is a fascinating look at how human identity is shaped by three powerful but enigmatic forces. Often overlooked in accounts of how we think about ourselves and others, Richard Kearney skilfully shows, with the help of vivid examples and illustrations, how the human outlook on the world is formed by the mysterious triumvirate of strangers, gods and monsters.
Throughout, Richard Kearney shows how Strangers, Gods and Monsters do not merely reside in myths or fantasies but constitute a central part of our cultural unconscious. Above all, he argues that until we understand better that the Other resides deep within ourselves, we can have little hope of understanding how our most basic fears and desires manifest themselves in the external world and how we can learn to live with them.