Kategoria BISAC: Philosophy >> Criticism

Is there life after theory? If the death of the Author has now been followed by the death of the Theorist, what's left? Indeed, who's left? To explore such riddles Life. After.Theory brings together new interviews with four theorists who are left, each a major figure in their own right: Jacques Derrida, Frank Kermode, Toril Moi, and Christopher Norris.

Framed and introduced by Michael Payne and John Schad, the interviews pursue a whole range of topics, both familiar and unfamiliar. Among other things, Derrida, Kermode, Moi and Norris discuss being an outsider, taking responsibility,...

The book focuses on how Wittgenstein and Gadamer treat language in their accounts of language as game and their major writings on the subject - Philosophical Investigations and Truth and Method, respectively. Chris Lawn goes on to offer a critique of Wittgenstein's account of linguistic rules, drawing upon Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, particularly his emphasis upon tradition, temporality, historicality and novelty. The text demonstrates how paying attention to such elements - excluded by Wittgenstein's conception of rules - in fact strengthens Wittgenstein's position from a...

The Ideas of Socrates offers a unique interpretation of the ideas (forms, eide) in Plato's writings. In this concise and accessible study, Matthew S. Linck makes four major claims. Firstly, the ideas as Socrates discusses them in the Phaedo, Parmenides, and Symposium are shown to be integral to the person of Socrates as presented in Plato's dialogues. Secondly, Linck argues that if we take Plato's dialogues as an integrated set of writings, then we must acknowledge that the mature Socrates is perfectly aware of the difficulties entailed in the positing of...

This anthology of new essays by an international group of preeminent scholars explores the ground-breaking work of Hayden White, whose thought, beginning with his seminal Metahistory (1973), has revolutionized the way we think about the philosophy of history, historiography, narrative, and the relation between history and literature. Representing a variety of disciplines and approaches, the contributions to this volume testify to the far-reaching effects and significance of White's philosophy of history. Individual essays relate White's ideas to contemporary art, cognitive studies,...

In The Unity of Content and Form in Philosophical Writing, Jon Stewart argues that there is a close relation between content and form in philosophical writing. While this might seem obvious at first glance, it is overlooked in the current climate of Anglophone academic philosophy, which, Stewart contends, accepts only a single genre as proper for philosophical expression. Stewart demonstrates the uniformity of today's philosophical writing by contrasting it with that of the past.

Taking specific texts from the history of philosophy and literature as case studies, Stewart...

Introduction to Kant's Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View Michel Foucaulttranslated and with an introduction by Arianna BoveThis introduction and commentary to Kant's least discussed work, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, is the dissertation that Michel Foucault presented in 1961 as his doctoral thesis. It has remained unpublished, in any language, until now. In his exegesis and critical interpretation of Kant's Anthropology, Foucault raises the question of the relation between psychology and anthropology, and how they are affected by time. Though a Kantian -critique...

Indeed, a great amount of the young Marx must remain unintelligible without reference to certain basic Feuerbachian texts. These selections, most of them previously untranslated, establish the thought of Feuerbach in an independent role. They explain his fundamental criticisms of the 'old philosophy' of Hegel, and advance his own humanistic thought, which finds its...

Gilles Deleuze was one of the most influential French philosophers of the last century.This book aims to make sense of his fundamental project in the clearest possible terms, by engaging with the central idea that informs virtually all of his work: the equation of being and creativity. It explores the various ways in which, in order to affirm an unlimited creative power, Deleuze proceeds to dissolve whatever might restrict or mediate its expression, including the organisms, objects, representations, identities, and relations that this power generates along the way.

Rather than a...

Are your students baffled by Baudrillard? Dazed by Deleuze? Confused by Kristeva?

Other beginners' guides can feel as impenetrable as the original texts to students who ""think in images."" Contemporary Thinkers Reframed instead uses the language of the arts to explore the usefulness in practice of complex ideas.

Short, contemporary and accessible, these lively books utilize actual examples of artworks, films, television shows, works of architecture, fashion and even computer games to explain and explore the work of the most commonly taught thinkers. Conceived...

Are your students baffled by Baudrillard? Dazed by Deleuze? Confused by Kristeva?

Other beginners' guides can feel as impenetrable as the original texts to students who ""think in images."" Contemporary Thinkers Reframed instead uses the language of the arts to explore the usefulness in practice of complex ideas.

Short, contemporary and accessible, these lively books utilize actual examples of artworks, films, television shows, works of architecture, fashion and even computer games to explain and explore the work of the most commonly taught thinkers. Conceived specifically...

This highly sensitive and beautifully written book looks closely at the way contemporary Western artists negotiate death, both as personal experience and in the wider community. Townsend discusses, but moves beyond, the ""spectacle of death"" in work by artists such as Damien Hirst to see how mortality--in particular the experience of other people's death--brings us face to face with profound ethical and even political issues. He looks at personal responses to death in the work of artists as varied as Francis Bacon, Tracey Emin and Derek Jarman, whose film Blue is discussed here in...

This ""no-holds barred"" volume surveys the vast array of images of sex and sexuality in contemporary art, finding sex in some surprising places and drawing some fascinating conclusions. Working outwards from the individual to the world Gray Watson looks at the focus on the body in contemporary art and at the important contributions of the feminist and queer art movements, moving on to uncover sex in the city, sex in nature, sex in the sacred and even sex in cyberspace. The artworks discussed range from playful, even ""romantic"" work by artists such as Carolee Schneeman, Yayoi Kusama and...