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The Livable and the Unlivable
The unlivable is the most extreme point of human suffering and injustice. But what is it exactly? How do we define the unlivable? And what can we do to prevent and repair it? These are the intriguing questions Judith Butler and Frédéric Worms discuss in a captivating dialogue situated at the crossroads of contemporary life and politics. Here, Judith Butler criticizes the norms that make life precarious and unlivable, while Frédéric Worms appeals to a “critical vitalism” as a way of allowing the hardship of the unlivable to reveal what is vital for us. For both Butler and Worms, the difference between the livable and the unlivable forms the critical foundation for a contemporary pract...
The Physicist and the Philosopher
The explosive debate that transformed our views about time and scientific truth On April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. Einstein considered Bergson's theory of time to be a soft, psychological notion, irreconcilable with the quantitative realities of physics. Bergson, who gained fame as a philosopher by arguing that time should not be understood exclusively through the lens of science, criticized Einstein's theory of time for being a metaphysics grafted on to science, one that ignored the intuitive aspects of time. The Physicist and the Philosopher tells the remarkable story of how this explosive debate transformed our understanding ...
Thinking in Time
"Under the aegis of time Suzanne Guerlac displaces matter, intuition, memory, and vitalism of the early twentieth century into the wake of poststructuralism and the dilemmas of nature and culture here and now. This book is a landmark for anyone working in the currents of philosophy, science, and literature. The force and vision of the work will enthuse and inspire every one of its readers." ―Tom Conley, Harvard University "In recent years, we have grown accustomed to philosophical language that is intensely self-conscious and rhetorically thick, often tragic in tone. It is enlivening to read Bergson, who exerts so little rhetorical pressure while exacting such a substantial effort of thoug...
The New Bergson
At the threshold of the twentieth century, Bergson reset the agenda for philosophy and its relationship with science, art and even life itself. Concerned with both examining and extolling the phenomena of time, change, and difference, he was at one point held as both "the greatest thinker in the world" and "the most dangerous man in the world." Yet the impact of his ideas was so all-pervasive among artists, philosophers and politicians alike, that by the end of the First World War it had become impossibly diffuse. In a manner imitating his own cult of change, the Bergsonian school departed from the scene almost as quickly as it had arrived. As part of a current resurgence of interest in Bergson, both in Europe and in North America, this collection of essays addresses the significance of his philosophical legacy for contemporary thought.
Creative Evolution
First published in French in 1907, Henri Bergson’s L’évolution créatrice is a scintillating and radical work by one of the great French philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This outstanding new translation, the first for over a hundred years, brings one of Bergson’s most important and ambitious works to a new generation of readers. A sympathetic though critical reader of Darwin, Bergson argues in Creative Evolution against a mechanistic, reductionist view of evolution. For Bergson, all life emerges from a creative, shared impulse, which he famously terms élan vital and which passes like a current through different organisms and generations over time. Whilst this i...
Cosmological and Psychological Time
This book examines the many faces of philosophy of time, including the metaphysical aspects, natural science issues, and the consciousness of time. It brings together the different methodologies of investigating the philosophy of time. It does so to counter the growing fragmentation of the field with regard to discussions, and the existing cleavage between analytic and continental traditions in philosophy. The book’s multidirectional approach to the notion of time contributes to a better understanding of time's metaphysical, physical and phenomenological aspects. It helps clarify the presuppositions underpinning the analytic and continental traditions in the philosophy of time and offers ways in which the differences between them can be bridged.
Kierkegaard's International Reception
Tome I covers the reception of Kierkegaard in Northern and Western Europe. The articles on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland can be said to trace Kierkegaard's influence in its more or less native Nordic Protestant context. Since the authors in these countries (with the exception of Finland) were not dependent on translations or other intermediaries, this represents the earliest tradition of Kierkegaard reception. The early German translations of his works opened the door for the next phase of the reception which expanded beyond the borders of the Nordic countries. The articles in the section on Western Europe trace his influence in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Flanders, Germany and Austria, and France. All of these countries and linguistic groups have their own extensive tradition of Kierkegaard reception.
Strategies of Difference in Modern Poetry
This volume consists of a collection of essays, mostly by European scholars, on the ways modern poets have dealt with the crucial concept of "difference" in their practice of poetic composition. What is examined here through the works of Stevens, Roethke, Yeats, Pound, Ammons, Graham, Laviera, Reznikoff, and Kinsella is the range of strategies used in poetry to convey a sense of disruption, estrangement, disturbance, indeterminacy. The aim is to track down the many kinds of "difference" that these poets' works illustrate and the challenges they pose to the critic.
Ricœur at the Limits of Philosophy
Can finite humans grasp universal truth? Is it possible to think beyond the limits of reason? Are we doomed to failure because of our finitude? In this clear and accessible book, Barnabas Aspray presents Ricœur's response to these perennial philosophical questions through an analysis of human finitude at the intersection of philosophy and theology. Using unpublished and previously untranslated archival sources, he shows how Ricœur's groundbreaking concept of symbols leads to a view of creation, not as a theological doctrine, but as a mystery beyond the limits of thought that gives rise to philosophical insight. If finitude is created, then it can be distinguished from both the Creator and evil, leading to a view of human existence that, instead of the 'anguish of no' proclaims the 'joy of yes.'
Democracy - A Work in Progress
"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those that have been tried before." - Winston Churchill. So how should mankind organise itself to ensure a civilised society? In this personal, and sometimes challenging, work the author argues that an idealised form of political government has been the goal of mankind since Plato himself. But political thinking has overwhelmingly been a theoretical exercise detached from reality. Little consideration was given to the fact that it is humans - who do not behave as rationally as political theories are bound to assume - who must implement these theories. Flawed humans who are driven by the forces of prejudice, feelings, emotions, etc. These immutable and distinctive characteristics of the imperfect human ensure that democracy has been impossible to achieve. Democracy will never be perfect. One can only hope for small, incremental improvements. Any attempt to force radical changes is doomed to failure.
