|
Showing 1 - 2 of
2 matches in All Departments
Imposture is an abuse of power. It is the act of lying for one's
own benefit, of disguising the truth in order to mislead. For
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, however, imposture is first and foremost
power itself. In On Imposture, French philosopher Serge Margel
explores imposture within Rousseau's Discourses, Confessions, and
Emile. For Rousseau, taking power, using it, or abusing it are
ultimately one and the same act. Once there's power, and someone
grants themselves the means, the right, and the authority to force
another's beliefs or actions, there is imposture. According to
Rousseau, imposture can be found through human history, society,
and culture. Using a deconstructionist method in the classic manner
of Derrida, On Imposture explores Rousseau's thought concerning
imposture and offers a unique analysis of its implications for
politics, civil society, literature, and existentialist thought.
A far-reaching reinterpretation of Plato's Timaeus and its
engagement with time, eternity, body, and soul that in its original
French edition profoundly influenced Derrida The Tomb of the
Artisan God provides a radical rereading of Timaeus, Plato's
metaphysical text on time, eternity, and the relationship between
soul and body. First published in French in 1995, the original
edition of Serge Margel's book included an extensive introductory
essay by Jacques Derrida, who drew on Margel's insights in
developing his own concepts of time, the promise, the world, and
khora. Now available in English with a new preface by Margel, this
engagement with Platonic thought proceeds from two questions that
span the history of philosophy: What is time? What is the body?
Margel's twinned interrogation centers around Plato's concept of
the demiurge (divine artisan or craftsman): its body, its
anthropomorphic attributes, its productive capacities and
regulatory functions in the ordering/organization/assembling of the
world. He posits that this paradoxical figure is not merely a
cosmological metaphor for the living body but also the site of its
destruction, dissolution, and disappearance. Torn between the
finite and the infinite, being and becoming, the concept of
demiurge also poses metaphysical questions about time, time before
time, and the end of time. The ontological status of the demiurge's
body, Margel argues, would become increasingly decisive in the
history of philosophy, particularly in Christianity and the dogma
of incarnation.
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|