What if self-questioning could provoke an extreme attentiveness to a rich inner life? In pursuit of this question, a mixed group of highly fallible thinkers gather together in the north of England. Will they be able to respond to the actual events of their lives, and reinvent philosophy as a collective spiritual exercise?

This book challenges the dominant agenda in the discipline of philosophy of religion by exploring issues of difference that have hitherto been obscured.

Both accessible and definitive, Deleuze and Guattari provides a critical examination of the writing of two notoriously difficult thinkers. This important introduction is divided into three sections--knowledge, power, and desire--and provides a systematic account of the intellectual context as well as an exhaustive analysis of the key themes informing Deleuze and Guattari's work. Providing a framework for reading the important and influential study Capitalism and Schizophrenia, this volume is attentive to the needs of the student by providing a lexicon of (...) the difficult ideas used in Deleuze and Guattari's discussion of philosophy, art, and politics. Deleuze and Guattari is an important addition to the critical literature on some of the most challenging work in recent social theory. It will be the standard introduction to Deleuze and Guattari for students of philosophy and social theory. (shrink)

Our global ecological crisis demands that we question the rationality of the culture that has caused it: western modernity's free market capitalism. Philip Goodchild develops arguments from Nietzsche, Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marx, to suggest that our love of Western modernity is an expression of a piety in which capitalism becomes a global religion, in practice, if not always in belief. This book presents a philosophical alternative that demands attention from philosophers, critical theorists, philosophers of religion, theologians, and those (...) in ecological politics. (shrink)

"In this book, author Philip Goodchild tries to uncover the image of thought used by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. He does so by focusing on the question, "What is philosophy?" posed implicitly throughout Deleuze's publications. Goodchild traces the development of a highly sophisticated, coherent, and rigorous practice of thought that underlies Deleuze's apparently flamboyant and anarchic discourse." "This question of philosophy is posed in the context of an awareness of the historical, social, and cultural conditioning of (...) a plurality of rationalities that bring into question the value of the philosophical enterprise as a whole. Deleuze meets this problem by identifying something "unthought" and "unthinkable" that conditions the way in which people do in fact think, and by directing philosophy toward this as its transcendental field. Philosophy is no longer seen as an attempt to ascertain, evaluate, criticize, or interpret knowledge or meaning, but is seen as an exercise in creating concepts for use in the practical problems of life." "Ultimately, Deleuze's philosophy constructs an affirmative and interactive kind of social relation, which was embodied in his own intellectional relationship with Felix Guattari and which can form the basis for the organization of a new kind of society." "In conclusion, this book examines Deleuze's deepest metaphysical presuppositions and finds that, while a certain kind of materialism pervades Deleuze's thought, the practice of that thought also presupposes a kind of metaphysics of creative awareness, where planes, lines, and crystals are folded onto each other into a "fractal of philosophy." By rethinking the question of philosophy in Deleuze's thought, one can be led to open up a new meaning of life in terms of the "Transcendence" of this awareness to that which it conditions. The result is an escape from the dead ends of postmodern thought."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

These original essays reconceive the place of religion for critical thought following the recent ‘turn to religion’ in Continental philosophy, framing new issues for exploration, including questions of justice, anxiety, and evil; the sublime, and of the soul haunting genetics; how reason may be reshaped by new religious movements and by ritual and experience. Contributors: Pamela Sue Anderson, Gary Banham, Bettina Bergo, John Caputo, Clayton Crockett, Jonathan Ellsworth, Philip Goodchild, Matthew Halteman, Wayne Hudson, Grace Jantzen, Donna Jowett, Greg (...) Sadler, Graham Ward, and Edith Wyschogrod. (shrink)

Philip Goodchild on money, trust, and self-interest.

Goodchild offers a philosophical analysis of the contemporary economy in terms of the way it structures credit and faith.

Religion and European Philosophy: Key Thinkers from Kant to Zizek draws together a diverse group of scholars in theology, religious studies, and philosophy to discuss the role that religion plays among key figures in the European philosophical tradition. Designed for accessibility, each of the thirty-four chapters includes background information on the key thinker, an overview of the main themes, concepts, and concerns that occupy his or her attention, and a discussion of the religious and theological elements present in his or (...) her thought, in light of contemporary issues. Given the scope of the volume, Religion and European Philosophy will be the go-to guide for understanding the religious and theological dimensions of European philosophy, for both students and established researchers alike. (shrink)

This article aims to develop transvaluation as a practice of metaphysical thinking. Jesus, Anselm, Nietzsche, and Deleuze have been selected and juxtaposed, for all their contrasts, as paradigmatic thinkers of transvaluation. Jesus offers the best paradigm for transvaluing what matters, what is sincere, and what is trustworthy: his response to a dispute among his disciples poses the problem that changes the signification, value, and binding force of thought. The metaphysical purport of Jesus's problem is clarified by Anselm's restatement of it, (...) set against the backdrop of the contemplative spirituality expressed in the first chapter of Anselm's Proslogion. Anselm leaves us with a pair of problems: what is that than which none greater can be conceived? What is that whose very thought involves existence? These problems provide a context for rethinking the paradigms of transvaluation presented in Nietzsche's writing. Yet it was Deleuze who first presented transvaluation as an explicit method in his interpretation of Nietzsche, describing a metaphysics arising in and through critique. His method may itself be given a transvalued significance oriented, in turn, by the problems presented by Jesus and Anselm. (shrink)

What have truth and utopia to do with each other? Should we not speak rather only of the truth of dystopia—even and especially in the context of the highest levels of prosperity and freedom ever achieved? For if dystopia is invisible to many, it is not, for all that, any less real, whether in the present or the immediate future. For once the Malthusian predicament of economic globalization is demonstrated in the clash between economic growth and ecological finitude, specifically in (...) the form of oil and natural gas depletion, then dystopia will soon be upon us all.1 In the brief…. (shrink)

The relation between truth and violence is explored through the logic of sacrifice presented in the Book of Job. Job, as an arbitrary sacrificial victim, learns the truth of the violence perpetrated against him. Such violence is also shown to be constitutive of Western reasoning, including its practices of the truth.

This book develops a metaphysics which is missing when trust is ordered around economic theories and institutions.

With modern rationalisation we subject life to quantification, generating evidence and models, and the more we subject life to codification, generating systems, regulations and procedures, the less we understand who we are and what we do. We plunge headlong into illusion, blinded by the clarity of our own newly-found rationality and the solidity of the evidence. We experience an eclipse of reason, no longer understanding what it is to formulate concepts and ideals, nor understanding what it is to offer our (...) lives, time and attention in an appropriate ratio or distribution. (shrink)

This essay review of Margaret Atwood's Payback shows how the book's accomplishment is to provide a Jungian analysis of the “shadow” of wealth: the primitive meanings attached to debt deriving from ancient cultural configurations of a proper balance in the order of things. Debt is conceived in terms of social obligations, of guilt and sin, of revenge, and as a plot that structures the narrative of human life. Instead of simply looking to the archaic meanings of debt for its shadow (...) side, this review attempts to take stock of what the recent credit crisis can teach us about the place of debt in our lives. It is a question of seeking out shadows that belong specifically to our global financial system, rather than belonging to ways of accounting order, honor, and revenge from a repressed past. If financial institutions, governments, businesses, and individuals were all exposed to high levels of debt, to whom was all this wealth owed? How does the shadow of debt affect economic behavior? Since debt forms the basis of further lending, debt increases through a multiplier effect without corresponding assets, which leads to an unstable system of virtuous or vicious cycles, and debt takes over some of the social, practical, and theoretical functions formerly held by God. (shrink)

In this work, the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit embarks on a massive undertaking to offers major new accounts of the foundations of the state and the nature of justice. In doing so Pettit builds a new theory of what the state is and what it ought to be, addresses the normative question of how justice serves as a measure of the success of a state, and the way it should operate in relation to its citizens and other people.

A person presented with adequate but not conclusive evidence for a proposition is in a position voluntarily to acquire a belief in that proposition, or to suspend judgment about it. The availability of doxastic options in such cases grounds a moderate form of doxastic voluntarism not based on practical motives, and therefore distinct from pragmatism. In such cases, belief-acquisition or suspension of judgment meets standard conditions on willing: it can express stable character traits of the agent, it can be responsive (...) to reasons, and it is compatible with a subjective awareness of the available options. (shrink)

How Galileo created the problem of consciousness -- Is there a ghost in the machine? -- Can physical science explain consciousness? -- How to solve the problem of consciousness -- Consciousness and the meaning of life.

What's the Use of Philosophy? aims to answer the question posed in its title, whether the questioner intends to dismiss philosophy, or seeks a positive answer. The first three chapters explore the grounds for dismissal. Chapter 1 expresses skepticism about the value of much professional Anglophone philosophy, while recognizing virtues in work often viewed as peripheral. Chapter 2 studies a philosophical subfield, the philosophy of science, arguing that, while its condition may be better than the norm, it is far from (...) perfect. In Chapter 3, a more systematic critique is offered, in the form of a pathology report. Its diagnosis identifies six justifiable philosophical impulses that, when pursued obsessively, generate distortions and diseases: clarity becomes a fetish, formalism becomes obfuscation, "intuition" is given burdens it cannot bear, appeals to the a priori sprinkle fairy dust on controversial claims, ideas grabbed from other fields are used in cartoon forms, and questions no longer relevant are treated as if they were "timeless." Chapter 4 attempts to identify the legitimate goals of philosophy. It sees value in attempts to respond to questions arising from the difficulties of the age, in attempts to reform methods of inquiry, and, above all, in the construction of syntheses capable of helping people as they struggle to make sense of their lives. Philosophy is renewed when these traditional goals once again become central to its discussions. The final chapter responds to a frequently voiced worry in a letter to young philosophers who wonder how they can align their aspirations with the hyper-professionalism expected of them. (shrink)

Engineers are traditionally regarded as trustworthy professionals who meet exacting standards. In this chapter I begin by explicating our trust relationship towards engineers, arguing that it is a linear but indirect relationship in which engineers “stand behind” the artifacts and technological systems that we rely on directly. The chapter goes on to explain how this relationship has become more complex as engineers have taken on two additional aims: the aim of social engineering to create and steer trust between people, and (...) the aim of creating automated systems that take over human tasks and are meant to invite the trust of those who rely on and interact with them. (shrink)

This paper argues for a Husserlian account of phenomenal intentionality. Experience is intentional insofar as it presents a mind-independent, objective world. Its doing so is a matter of the way it hangs together, its having a certain structure. But in order for the intentionality in question to be properly understood as phenomenal intentionality, this structure must inhere in experience as a phenomenal feature. Husserl’s concept of horizon designates this intentionality-bestowing experiential structure, while his concept of motivation designates the unique phenomenal (...) character of this structure as it is experientially lived through. The way experience hangs together is itself a phenomenal feature of experience. (shrink)

An esteemed philosopher discusses his theory of universal freedom, describing how even those who are members of free societies may find their liberties curtailed and includes tests of freedom including the eyeball test and the tough-luck test.

This paper has two goals: (1) to defend a particular response to the problem of resultant moral luck and (2) to defend the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided. Cases of overdetermination threaten to undermine the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided. To deal with this issue, I will motivate a particular way of responding to the problem of resultant moral luck. I defend the view that one's degree (...) of responsibility is immune to moral luck but the scope of events for which one is responsible is subject to moral luck. I will then argue that this view allows us to explain away certain intuitions about responsibility and overdetermination (as well as similar intuitions regarding Frankfurt Cases). As a result, the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided becomes significantly more plausible. (shrink)