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Contemporary philosophy has adopted an increasingly tragic point of view. Tragedy, though, is only a partial truth of the human condition. Comedy is another partial truth. The nature of human existence is neither wholly the one nor the other, but tragi-comic. Philosophy must be attuned to both despair and laughter if it is to understand its own world. In Making Philosophy Laugh, the philosopher Dustin Peone makes an apology for the comic side of existence and its use in philosophy. He demonstrates the social and moral uses of humor and analyzes its significance for speculative thinking. Folly and irony are shown to be vital facets of dialectical philosophy. The reader is introduced to the comical side of Socrates and Homer, Descartes and Vico, Kant and Hegel, and many others. Finally, a doctrine of the tragi-comic sense of life is presented that does justice to all aspects of human existence and liberates the spirit from the grimness of serious thought.
In this book, now in its second edition, the philosopher Dustin Peone offers reflections on ten literary classics set during plague times.
Contemporary philosophy has adopted an increasingly tragic point of view. Tragedy, though, is only a partial truth of the human condition. Comedy is another partial truth. The nature of human existence is neither wholly the one nor the other, but tragi-comic. Philosophy must be attuned to both despair and laughter if it is to understand its own world. In Making Philosophy Laugh, the philosopher Dustin Peone makes an apology for the comic side of existence and its use in philosophy. He demonstrates the social and moral uses of humor and analyzes its significance for speculative thinking. Folly and irony are shown to be vital facets of dialectical philosophy. The reader is introduced to the comical side of Socrates and Homer, Descartes and Vico, Kant and Hegel, and many others. Finally, a doctrine of the tragi-comic sense of life is presented that does justice to all aspects of human existence and liberates the spirit from the grimness of serious thought.
In this book, Dustin Peone analyzes the role of shame and fame in the contemporary world, showing that these ideas have lost their roots in social virtue. He then criticizes the technological mentality, demonstrating its responsibility for changing the human condition.
In Shame, Fame, and the Technological Mentality, Dustin Peone interrogates the modern human condition. Peone argues that shame and fear are constitutive of social order, but that these affects have been undermined by contemporary ideology. This subversion has created a novel breed of shameless and fearless human beings, with myriad social consequences. Peone next demonstrates an associated change in the role of fame in society: where once the desire for fame was tied to immortality through civic virtue, this connection has eroded, and fame is no longer connected to excellence. Finally, Peone analyzes the hegemonic role of technological thinking and its responsibility in accelerating these processes, cautioning against the deification of technology. In response to the technological mentality for navigating the modern world, Peone argues instead for an ethics of prudence and a doctrine of humor.
The first comprehensive philosophical analysis of the 'Davos debate' between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger.
Allegory in Early Greek Philosophy examines the role that allegory plays in Greek thought, particularly in the transition from the mythic tradition of the archaic poets to the philosophical traditions of the Presocratics and Plato. It explores how a mode of speech that "says one thing, but means another" is integral to philosophy, which otherwise seeks to achieve clarity and precision in its discourse. By providing the early Greek thinkers with a way of defending and appropriating the poetic wisdom of their predecessors, allegory enables philosophy to locate and recover its own origins in the mythic tradition. Allegory allows philosophy simultaneously to move beyond mythos and express the whole in terms of logos, a rational account in which reality is represented in a more abstract and universal way than myth allows.
Philosophical Ideas: A Historical Study invites the reader to consider central ideas from Plato, Hegel, Vico, and Cassirer from points of view that have not been fully articulated in the most frequently encountered interpretations of their works. It is an examination of the ideas of poetics, dialectics, science, and symbol as they function in their works with focus on the problem of knowledge as present in each of them. The history of philosophy, approached in this way, is a treasure house of ideas that constitutes the subject matter of the contemplative life.
Vanessa Freerks analyzes how Baudrillard re-actualizes Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals, investigating how themes and approaches in Baudrillard’s Consumer Society, Simulacra and Simulations and Symbolic Exchange and Death resonate with Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. This book fills a gap in the limited literature available on the relation between Baudrillard’s thought to that of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Baudrillard with Nietzsche and Heidegger: A Contrastive Analysis is essential reading for students and scholars of continental philosophy, sociology, and cultural theory.
This new, complete translation of Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals provides the most accessible version of this challenging foundational work in moral philosophy. Calling on the insights of a team of noted scholar-teachers, The Annotated Kant rendersthe text as clearly as possible, supplementing it with an inviting introduction, clarifying running commentary, and a helpful glossary. Annotations are presented on facing pages to provide support for readers and room for their note-taking. Remaining true to the intricacies of the original German text, this presentation of Kant’s masterpiece enables all to appreciate the powerful vision it offers.