This book sheds light on the most philosophically interesting of contemporary objects: the cell phone. "Where are you?"--a question asked over cell phones myriad times each day--is arguably the most philosophical question of our age, given the transformation of presence the cell phone has wrought in contemporary social life and public space.

Throughout all public spaces, cell phones are now a ubiquitous prosthesis of what Descartes and Hegel once considered the absolute tool: the hand. Their power comes in part from their ability to move about with us--they are like a computer, but we can...

This book sheds light on the most philosophically interesting of contemporary objects: the cell phone. "Where are you?"--a question asked over cell phones myriad times each day--is arguably the most philosophical question of our age, given the transformation of presence the cell phone has wrought in contemporary social life and public space. Throughout all public spaces, cell phones are now a ubiquitous prosthesis of what Descartes and Hegel once considered the absolute tool: the hand. Their power comes in part from their ability to move about with us--they are like a computer, but we can...

Philosophical realism has taken a number of different forms, each applied to different topics and set against different forms of idealism and subjectivism. Maurizio Ferraris's Manifesto of New Realism takes aim at postmodernism and hermeneutics, arguing against their emphasis on reality as constructed and interpreted. While acknowledging the value of these criticisms of traditional, dogmatic realism, Ferraris insists that the insights of postmodernism have reached a dead end. Calling for the discipline to turn its focus back to truth and the external world, Ferraris's manifesto--which...