From Sartre to Levinas, continental philosophers have looked to the example of the Jew as the paradigmatic object of and model for ethical inquiry. Levinas, for example, powerfully dedicates his 1974 book Otherwise than Being to the victims of the Holocaust, and turns attention to the state of philosophy after Auschwitz. Such an ethics radically challenges prior notions of autonomy and comprehension-two key ideas for traditional ethical theory and, more generally, the Greek tradition. It seeks to respect the (...) opacity of the other and avoid the dangers of hermeneutic violence. But how does such an ethics of the other translate into real, everyday life? What is at stake in thinking the other as Jew? Is the alterity of the Jew simply a counter to Greek universalism? Is a rhetoric of exceptionalism, with its unavoidable ontological residue, at odds with shifting political realities? Within this paradigm, what then becomes of the Arab or Muslim, the other of the Jew, the other of the other, so to speak? This line of ethical thought-in its desire to bear witness to past suffering and come to terms with subjectivity after Auschwitz-arguably brackets from analysis present operations of power. Would, then, a more sensitive historical approach expose the Palestinian as the other of the Israeli? Here, Zahi Zalloua offers a challenging intervention into how we configure the contemporary. (shrink)

What makes philosophy on the continent of Europe so different and exciting? And why does it have such a reputation for being 'difficult'? Continental philosophy was initiated amid the revolutionary ferment of the 18th century, philosophers such as Kant and Hegel confronting the extremism of the time with theories that challenged the very formation of individual and social consciousness. Covering the great philosophers of the modern and postmodern eras – from Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze right to (...) up Agamben and Žižek – and philosophical movements from German idealism to deconstruction and feminism – Christopher Kul-Want and Piero brilliantly elucidate some of the most thrilling and powerful ideas ever to have been discussed. (shrink)

The key objective of this volume is to allow philosophy students and early-stage researchers to become practicing philosophers in technoscientific settings. Zwart focuses on the methodological issue of how to practice continental philosophy of technoscience today. This text draws upon continental authors such as Hegel, Engels, Heidegger, Bachelard and Lacan in developing a coherent message around the technicity of science or rather, “technoscience”. Within technoscience, the focus will be on recent developments in life sciences research, such (...) as genomics, post-genomics, synthetic biology and global ecology. This book uniquely presents continental perspectives that tend to be underrepresented in mainstream philosophy of science, yet entail crucial insights for coming to terms with technoscience as it is evolving on a global scale today. This is an open access book. (shrink)

The first collection of its kind, The Continental Philosophy of Film Reader is the essential anthology of writings by continental philosophers on cinema, representing the last century of film-making and thinking about film, as well as all of the major schools of Continental thought: phenomenology and existentialism, Marxism and critical theory, semiotics and hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, and postmodernism. Included here are not only the classic texts in continental philosophy of film, from Benjamin's “The Work of (...) Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” to extracts of Deleuze's Cinema and Barthes's Mythologies, but also the earliest works of Continental philosophy of film, from thinkers such as Georg Lukács, and little-read gems by philosophical giants such as Sartre and Beauvoir. The book demonstrates both the philosophical significance of these thinkers' ideas about film, as well their influence on filmmakers in Europe and across the globe. In addition, however, this wide-ranging collection also teaches us how important film is to the last century of European philosophical thought. Almost every major continental European thinker of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has had something to say-sometimes, quite a lot to say-about cinema: as an art form, as a social or political phenomenon, as a linguistic device and conveyor of information, as a projection of our fears and desires, as a site for oppression and resistance, or as a model on the basis of which some of us, at least, learn how to live. Purpose built for classroom use, with pedagogical features introducing and contextualizing the extracts, this reader is an indispensable tool for students and researchers in philosophy of film, film studies and the history of cinema. (shrink)

_The Continental Philosophy Reader_ is the first complete anthology of classic writings from the major figures in European thought and provides a powerful introduction to one of the 20th century's most influential intellectual movements.

Originally published as the Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy, this book offers the definitive guide to contemporary Continental thought. It covers all the most pressing and important themes and categories in the field - areas that have continued to attract interest historically as well as topics that have emerged more recently as active areas of research. Twelve specially commissioned essays from an international team of experts reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, (...) valuably, how the various topics intersect. Featuring a series of indispensable research tools, including an A to Z of key terms and concepts, a chronology, and a guide to practical research in the field, this is the essential reference tool for anyone working in and studying Continental Philosophy. (shrink)

_Continental Philosophy: __A Critical Approach_ is a lucid and wide-ranging introduction to the key figures and philosophical movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Includes chapters on Hegel; Marx and Western Marxism; Schopenhauer, Freud, and Bergson; Nietzsche; hermeneutics; phenomenology; existentialism; structuralism,; poststructuralism; French feminism; and postmodernism. Provides an ideal text or background resource for many different introductory and advanced courses on modern European philosophy.

Continental Philosophy of Social Science demonstrates the unique and autonomous nature of the continental approach to social science and contrasts it with the Anglo-American tradition. Yvonne Sherratt argues for the importance of an historical understanding of the Continental tradition in order to appreciate its individual, humanist character. Examining the key traditions of hermeneutic, genealogy, and critical theory, and the texts of major thinkers such as Gadamer, Ricoeur, Derrida, Nietzsche, Foucault, the Early Frankfurt School and Habermas, she (...) also contextualizes contemporary developments within strands of thought stemming back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Sherratt shows how these modes of thinking developed through medieval Christian thought into the Enlightenment and Romantic eras, before becoming mainstays of twentieth-century disciplines. Continental Philosophy of Social Science will serve as the essential textbook for courses in philosophy or social sciences. (shrink)

From Immanuel Kant to Postmodernism, this volume provides an unparalleled student resource: a wide-ranging collection of the essential works of more than 50 seminal thinkers in modern European philosophy. Areas covered include Kant and German Idealism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Marxism and the Frankfurt School, Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Deconstruction, and Postmodernism. Each section begins with a concise and helpful introduction, and all the texts have been selected for accessibility as well as significance, making the volume ideal for introductory and advanced (...) levels in philosophy, cultural studies, literary theory, and the history of modern thought. (shrink)

Born 80 years ago, Continental Philosophy is on its last legs. Its extraordinary career has been helped along by an almost total absence of interest on the part of analytic or other exact philosophers in what the Australian philosopher David Stove calls "the nosology of philosophy" 1, the exploration of the manifold forms taken by bad philosophy. Stove points out that such an enterprise involves doing history. A nosology of Continental Philosophy is, at least (...) in the first instance, inseparable from the history of this strand in twentieth century philosophy, a history which would make clear the relations, philosophical and historical, between it and exact philosophy. Rorty is quite right to point to the absence of such a historical perspective. (shrink)

In this enlightening new Very Short Introduction, Simon Critchley shows us that Continental philosophy encompasses a distinct set of philosophical traditions and practices, with a compelling range of problems all too often ignored by the analytic tradition. He discusses the ideas and approaches of philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Habermas, Foucault, and Derrida. He also introduces key concepts such as existentialism, nihilism, and phenomology, by explaining their place in the Continental tradition. The perfect (...) guide for anyone interested in the great philosophers, this volume explains in lucid, straightforward language the split between Continental and Anglo-American philosophy and the importance of acknowledging Continental philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I debate a range of unnoticed presuppositions which are used by a selection of influential thinkers in organisation studies to adapt a theory of the irreal to the social realm. I first examine a selection of ‘Postmodern’ authors and focus on the ‘Process Metaphysics’ theories (especially those influenced by Bergson) present in excerpts of contemporary OS ‘Postmodernism’. I argue that ‘Process-Metaphysics’ is the theoretical movement which underpins these aspects of Postmodernism in organisation studies. This is evinced in (...) the writings of Chia, and Cooper which adopt a dualist view of language deployment and link this with both an anti-rationalist and anti-individualist perspective. I also examine this Postmodern thesis of Process Metaphysics in relation to its adoption of the device of the Identity Metaphor, which fastens its theories to the ‘real.’. (shrink)

Continental Philosophy of Social Science demonstrates the unique and autonomous nature of the continental approach to social science and contrasts it with the Anglo-American tradition. Yvonne Sherratt argues for the importance of an historical understanding of the Continental tradition in order to appreciate its individual, humanist character. Examining the key traditions of hermeneutic, genealogy, and critical theory, and the texts of major thinkers such as Gadamer, Ricoeur, Derrida, Nietzsche, Foucault, the Early Frankfurt School and Habermas, she (...) also contextualizes contemporary developments within strands of thought stemming back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Sherratt shows how these modes of thinking developed through medieval Christian thought into the Enlightenment and Romantic eras, before becoming mainstays of twentieth-century disciplines. Continental Philosophy of Social Science will serve as the essential textbook for courses in philosophy or social sciences. (shrink)

Contemporary continental philosophy is a widely used but in many ways problematic term, and its exact frame of reference is not always clear. In French manifestations in particular, it continues to arouse considerable controversy and create bitter divisions, with especially hostile reactions to the work of Derrida and others. Much work in the recent continental tradition can be fitted into a longer-running philosophical tradition of scepticism and scepticism has always had the power to provoke and unsettle the (...) philosophical establishment. (shrink)

The flowering of creative and speculative philosophy that emerged in modern Europe--particularly in Germany--is a thrilling adventure story as well as an essential chapter in the history of philosophy. In this integrative narrative, Solomon provides an accessible introduction to the major authors and movements of modern European philosophy, including the Enlightenment and Romanticism, Rousseau, German Idealism, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and the Romantics, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Max Brentano, Meinong, Frege, Dilthey, Bergson, Nietzsche, Husserl, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, hermeneutics, (...) Sartre, Postmodernism, Structuralism, Foucault, and Derrida. (shrink)

There is much within contemporary continental philosophy that might give the indication that it is really just disguised Christian theology. However, in line with Hent de Vries and in contrast to Dominique Janicaud, I contend that there are reasons for taking continental God-talk seriously on purely philosophical grounds. On this basis, I then go on to advocate a specific form of God-talk-that dealing with kenosis-as being deeply relevant to contemporary politics because of the way in which it (...) provides an argument for democracy as the political system best opened to the critical function of charity. (shrink)

Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.

Over the past decade there has been a burgeoning of work in philosophy of religion that has drawn upon and been oriented by “continental” sources in philosophy—associated with figures such as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Gilles Deleuze, and others. This is a significant development and one that should be welcomed by the community of Christian philosophers. However, in this dialogue piece I take stock of the field of “continental philosophy of religion” (...) and suggest that the field is developing some un-healthy patterns and habits. The burden of the paper is to suggest a prescription for the future health of this important field by articulating six key practices that should characterize further scholarship in continental philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.

Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.

This 11-volume set reissues a host of classic titles on Continental Philosophy. Written by leading scholars in the field, they form an essential reference resource that tackles philosophers and subjects such as Deleuze, Derrida, hermeneutics and phenomenology.

Contemporary Continental Philosophy steps back from current debates comparing Continental and analytic philosophy and carefully, yet critically outlines the tradition’s main philosophical views on epistemology and ontology. Forgoing obscure paraphrases, D’Amico provides a detailed, clear account and assessment of the tradition from its founding by Husserl and Heidegger to its challenge by Derrida and Foucault. Though intended as a survey of this tradition throughout the twentieth century, this study’s focus is on the philosophical problems which gave (...) it birth and even now continue to shape it.The book reexamines Husserl as an early critic of epistemological naturalism whose grasp of the philosophical importance of the theory of meaning was largely ignored. Heidegger’s contrasting effort to revive ontology is examined in terms of his distinction between ontic and ontological questions. In contrast with many earlier studies, the author outlines confusions engendered by the misappropriation of the distinct philosophical agendas of Husserl and Heidegger by such famous figures as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. The book is also original in its emphasis on how social externalism in epistemology, inspired by Karl Mannheim, influenced this tradition’s structuralist and Marxist phases. The philosophical defenses of a theory of interpretation by Gadamer and Habermas are closely examined and assessed and the study concludes with a a probing yet balanced account of Foucault and Derrida as critics of philosophical autonomy. The book concludes by reassessing this century-long divide between the analytic and Continental traditions and its implication for the future of philosophy. (shrink)

This book provides a clear, concise and readable introduction to philosophy in the continental tradition. It is a wide-ranging and reliable guide to the work of such major figures as Habermas, Foucault, Derrida, Heidegger, Sartre and Nietzsche. At the same time, it situates their thought within a coherent overall account of the development of continental philosophy since the Enlightenment. Individual chapters consider the character of modernity, the Enlightenment and its continental critics; the ideas of Marxism, (...) the Frankfurt School and Habermas; hermeneutics and phenomenology; existentialism; structuralism and post-structuralism; and postmodernism. In addition to the thinkers already mentioned, there is extended discussion of the ideas of Kant, Hegel, Dilthey, Husserl, Gadamer, Kierkegaard, De Beauvoir and Lyotard. An Introduction to Continental Philosophy is an invaluable introductory text for courses on continental philosophy as well as courses dealing with major figures or influential approaches within that tradition. It will also be most helpful to students and academics from the many disciplines which have been significantly influenced by continental philosophy in recent years, including politics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, theology, literature and cultural studies. (shrink)

This book is a fully updated and expanded new edition of _An Introduction to Continental Philosophy_, first published in 1996. It provides a clear, concise and readable introduction to philosophy in the continental tradition. It is a wide-ranging and reliable guide to the work of such major figures as Nietzsche, Habermas, Heidegger, Arendt, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida and Žižek. At the same time, it situates their thought within a coherent overall account of the development of continental (...) class='Hi'>philosophy since the Enlightenment. Individual chapters consider the character of modernity, the Enlightenment and its continental critics; the ideas of Marxism, the Frankfurt School and Habermas; hermeneutics and phenomenology; existentialism; structuralism, post-structuralism and postmodernism. In addition to the thinkers already mentioned, there is extended discussion of the ideas of Kant, Hegel, Dilthey, Husserl, Gadamer, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir and Lyotard. The new edition includes an additional, full-length chapter on continental philosophy in the twenty-first century focusing on Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek. _Continental Philosophy: An Introduction_ is an invaluable introductory text for courses on continental philosophy as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences dealing with major figures or influential approaches within that tradition. (shrink)

Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction surveys the main trends of European philosophy from Kant to the present. It is clearly written and accessible to students. In a novel approach, Andrew Cutrofello looks at continental philosophy through the lens of four questions that derive from Kant: -How is truth disclosed aesthetically? -To what does the feeling of respect attest? -Must we despair, or may we still hope? -What is the meaning of philosophical humanism? Cutrofello shows how (...) these questions have been taken up by (1) phenomenologists, (2) continental ethicists, (3) hermeneuticians and critical theorists, and (4) existentialists and their critics. In the introduction and conclusion, he explains how the questions raised by continental philosophers differ from their analogues in the analytic tradition. With its frequent references to Shakespeare, Cutrofello's style is lively and engaging. His remarkably comprehensive book will be of interest not only to students but to anyone seeking a reliable overview of the continental tradition. (shrink)

This paper was written for a forthcoming Cambridge University Press anthology titled "On Philosophy in American Law" that commemorates the 75th anniversary of Karl Llewellyn's essay of the same name. Karl Llewellyn was a founder of the Legal Realist movement in American jurisprudence, and his essay is most obviously read as a brief for that movement, in which he argues that a Realist focus on underlying social needs better explains the course of American legal history than do the competing (...) natural law, positivist and formalist schools. Without contesting the merits of this conventional reading, I argue that Llewellyn's essay also makes an implicit case for another, quite different point: the need for Continental philosophical approaches to law in contemporary American jurisprudence. In particular, I argue that the conception of philosophy upon which Llewellyn relies is, with one exception, deeply Hegelian. The one exception lies in Llewellyn's residual belief that, at least to a limited extent, philosophy can change the world as well interpret it. This belief places him squarely in the camp of post-Hegelian thinkers, the camp that also includes contemporary Continental political and legal philosophers. I conclude by suggesting how the post-Hegelian tradition responds to some of the deepest conundrums of contemporary American jurisprudence, using the problem of affirmative action as an example. (shrink)

This paper critically engages with Simon Glendinning’s The Idea of Continental Philosophy. Glendinning purports to show that there can be no coherent philosophical understanding of continental philosophy as comprising any sort of distinct or unified tradition. In this paper, however, I raise some questions about the largely unilateral direction in which his account of the motives for the divide is pursued: analytic philosophy is envisaged as pathologically projecting the internal and unavoidable threat of philosophical failure (...) upon an external ‘continental’ other. I also contend that Glendinning’s claims regarding the lack of thematic and methodological continuity at work in continental philosophy are overstated. Without denying that there is less of a normative consensus undergirding this polyvocal tradition than is evinced in the analytic tradition, in the second half of the paper I will argue for a ‘quasi-unity’ that revolves around the co-imbrication of methodological considerations and what I characterise as continental philosophy’s ‘temporal turn’. (shrink)

Kierkegaard and Modern Continental Philosophy provides a radical alternative to modern continental critiques of traditional philosophy. Michael Weston examines the possibility of an ethical critique of philosophy and questions the jurisdiction of philosophy over both ethics and religion. He explores Kierkegaard's writings in light of the modern continental thinking that has sought to "overcome" or "end" philosophy. Nietzsche and later thinkers such as Heidegger and Derrida challenged the metaphysical tradition in philosophy (...) and undermined the credibility of ethics and religion. Kierkegaard's work, while acknowledged as a precursor to these developments, has been criticized for its continuing dependence on metaphysical assumptions. Weston offers a major re-assessment of Kierkegaard's philosophy and argues that its radical nature has been overlooked. He identifies the comic and ironic tone infusing Kierkegaard's work and examines the philosopher's practice of publishing under bizarre pseudonyms. Weston argues that Kierkegaard's writings engage in an ethical critique of philosophy; they identify ethics as the non-philosophical site from which philosophy can be criticized. The book demonstrates how this ethical critique applies not only to metaphysics but also to modern continental thought. (shrink)

This major work of reference is an indispensable resource for anyone conducting research or teaching in philosophy. An international team of over 100 leading scholars has been brought together under the general editorship of Alan Schrift and the volume editors to provide authoritative analyses of the continental tradition of philosophy from Kant to the present day. Divided, chronologically, into eight volumes, "The History of Continental Philosophy" is designed to be accessible to a wide range of (...) readers, from the scholar looking for original insight and the latest thinking to the student wishing for a masterly encapsulation of a particular thinker's views. By placing continental philosophy within a historical context, "The History of Continental Philosophy" helps define what the continental tradition has been and where it is moving. It will become a landmark publication in its field. Volume 1 covers the period from 1780 until 1848, focusing primarily on the main philosophical figures and developments in Germany during that period, but also including a description of economic and social theories in France that set the stage for the philosophical and social movements that predominated in Germany and France during the second half of the nineteenth century. Volume 2 examines what is often referred to as the 'Age of Revolution' as various responses to Hegel, while also attending to developments in science, mathematics, sociology and aesthetics during the second half of the nineteenth century that would set the stage for the twentieth century. Volume 3 examines the earliest developments in the twentieth century: while attending to a number of key thinkers, it also discusses the emergence of French sociology in the Durkheim school, developments in modern science, the philosophical response to evolution, and the schools of phenomenology and neo-Kantianism. Volume 4, as the title indicates, charts the various responses to phenomenology that appeared in the years following Husserl, with particular attention to the emergence of existentialism and existential theology, as well as its relations with philosophy of science, aesthetics and ethics. Volume 5 surveys some of the main continental movements and philosophers associated with social and political philosophy and philosophy of the human sciences during the period from 1940 through to 1968. Volume 6 looks at the major figures associated with the two dominant movements that emerge in the 1960s - poststructuralism and critical theory - while also attending to the emergence of philosophical feminism and some influential figures in those years not easily situated in the "standard" histories of the period. Volume 7 examines the developments in Continental philosophy in the years, roughly, 1980-95, the period immediately after the hegemony of poststructuralism in France and of Habermas in Germany. Volume 8 attempts to situate the present scene in continental philosophy in terms of various new developments that are framed as attempts to rethink some of the classic themes with which the history of continental philosophy has been more or less consistently engaged. (shrink)

Continental philosophy is one of the twentieth century's most important and challenging philosophical movements. This major volume includes fourteen chapters on its major representatives and schools, including phenomenology, existentialism and postmodernism.

_Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction_ is ideal for students coming to the topic for the first time. It introduces the origins and development of the tradition, tracing it from Kant to the present day. Taking a clear thematic approach, Andrew Cutrofello introduces and assesses continental philosophy’s relation to fundamental questions in philosophy, such as ethics, humanism, phenomenology, politics and metaphysics, centring the book around the following questions: What is knowledge? What is moral obligation? For what should (...) we hope? What is ‘man’? What is critique? Andrew Cutrofello’s style is lively and engaging. He also introduces the major as well as the lesser-known thinkers of the continental tradition: from Kant, Mill and Nietzsche and Husserl to Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre Levinas, Bataille and Kristeva. (shrink)

This book, steeped in the traditions of both postcolonial theory and Continental philosophy, addresses fundamental questions about God and theology in the postcolonial world. Namely, Y.T. Vinayaraj asks whether Continental philosophies of God and the 'other' can attend to the struggles that entail human pain and suffering in the postcolonial context. The volume offers a constructive proposal for a Dalit theology of immanent God or de-othering God as it emerges out of the Lokayata, the Indian materialist epistemology. (...) Engaging with the post-Continental philosophers of immanence such as Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, Catherine Malabou, and Jean-Luc Nancy, Vinayaraj explores the idea of a Dalit theology of God and body in the post-Continental context. The book investigates how there can be a Dalit theology of God without any Christian philosophical baggage of transcendentalism. The study ends with a clarion call for Indian Christian Theology to take a turn toward an immanence that is political and polydoxical in content. Y.T. Vinayaraj teaches Theology at the Dharma Jyoti Vidya Peeth and Nav Jyoti Post-Graduate Research Centre (NJPGRC), New Delhi, India. He holds a PhD from Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, USA, and is an ordained minister of the Mar Thoma Church. His research areas are Continental philosophy, cultural hermeneutics, and Dalit theology. (shrink)

Introduction : Picturing technology -- A sense of the transcendental -- The blank page -- Embodiment conditions -- Three exceptional technologies -- Which way to turn? -- Conclusion : Exceptional technologies, not technological exceptionalism.

Continental philosophy underwent a 'return to religion' or a 'theological turn' in the late 20th century. And yet any conversation between continental philosophy and theology must begin by addressing the perceived distance between them: that one is concerned with destroying all normative, metaphysical order (continental philosophy's task) and the other with preserving religious identity and community in the face of an increasingly secular society (theology's task). Colby Dickinson argues in Continental Philosophy and (...) Theology rather that perhaps such a tension is constitutive of the nature of order, thinking and representation which typically take dualistic forms and which might be rethought, though not necessarily abolished. Such a shift in perspective even allows one to contemplate this distance as not opting for one side over the other or by striking a middle ground, but as calling for a nondualistic theology that measures the complexity and inherently comparative nature of theological inquiry in order to realign theology's relationship to continental philosophy entirely. (shrink)

This important book brings together in one volume a collection of illuminating encounters with some of the most important philosophers of our age-by one of its most incisive and innovative critics.For more than twenty years, Richard Kearney has been in conversation with leading philosophers, literary theorists, anthropologists, and religious scholars. His gift is eliciting memorably clear statements about their work from thinkers whose writings can often be challenging in their complexity. Here, he brings together twenty-one originally published extraordinary conversations-his 1984 (...) collection Dialogues: The Phenomenological Heritage, his 1992 Visions of Europe: Conversations on the Legacy and Future of Europe, and his 1995 States of Mind: Dialogues with Contemporary Thinkers. Featured interviewees include Stanislas Breton, Umberto Eco, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Herbert Marcus, George Steiner, Julia Kristeva, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. To this classic core, he adds recent interviews, previously unpublished, with Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc Marion, Jacques Derrida, and George Dumezil, as well as six colloquies about his own work.Wide-ranging and accessible, these interviews provide a fascinating guide to the ideas, concerns, and personalities of thinkers who have shaped modern intellectual life. This book will be an essential point of entry for students, teachers, scholars, and anyone seeking to understand contemporary culture. Contents: Preface. Part One: Recent Debates. Jacques Derrida: Terror, Religion, and the New Politics. Jean-Luc Marion: The Hermeneutics of RevelationPaul Ricoeur: (a) On Life Stories (b) On The Crisis of Authority (c) The Power of the Possible (d) Imagination, Testimony, and Trust. Georges Dumezil: Myth, Ideology, Sovereignty. Part Two: From Dialogues: The Phenomenological Heritage, 1984. Emmanuel Levinas: Ethics of the Infinite. Herbert Marcuse: The Philosophy of Art and PoliticsPaul Ricoeur: (a) The Creativity of Language (b) Myth as the Bearer of Possible Worlds. Stanislas Breton: Being, God, and the Poetics of Relation. Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction and the Other. Part Three: From States of Mind, 1995. Julia Kristeva: Strangers to Ourselves: The Hope of the Singular. Hans Georg Gadamer: Text Matters. Jean-Francois Lyotard: What Is Just? George Steiner: Culture-The Price You Pay. Paul Ricoeur: Universality and the Power of Difference. Umberto Eco: Chaosmos: The Return to the Middle Ages. Part Four: Colloquies with Richard Kearney. Villanova Colloquy: Against Omnipotence. Athens Colloquy: Between Selves and Others. Halifax Colloquy: Between Being and God Stony Brook Colloquy: Confronting Imagination. Boston Colloquy: Theorizing the Gift. Dublin Colloquy: Thinking Is Dangerous. Appendix: Philosophy as Dialogue. (shrink)

A systematic study of testimony rooted in contemporary continental philosophy and drawing on literary case studies. From analytic epistemology to gender theory, testimony is a major topic in philosophy today. Yet, one distinctive approach to testimony has not been fully appreciated: the recent history of contemporary continental philosophy offers a rich source for another approach to testimony. In this book, Gert-Jan van der Heiden argues that a continental philosophy of testimony can be developed (...) that is guided by those forms of bearing witness that attest to limit experiences of human existence, in which the human is rendered mute, speechless, or robbed of a common understanding. In the first part, Van der Heiden explores this sense of testimony in a reading of several literary texts, ranging from Plato’s literary inventions to those of Kierkegaard, Melville, Soucy, and Mortier. In the second part, based on the orientation offered by the literary experiments, Van der Heiden offers a more systematic account of testimony in which he distinguishes and analyzes four basic elements of testimony. In the third part, he shows what this analysis implies for the question of the truth and the truthfulness of testimony. In his discussion with philosophers such as Heidegger, Derrida, Lyotard, Agamben, Foucault, Ricoeur, and Badiou, Van der Heiden also provides an overview of how the problem of testimony emerges in a number of thinkers pivotal to twentieth- and twenty-first-century thought. “The Voice of Misery is a special book. Van der Heiden has presented an argument that is poised to challenge discourse in analytic philosophy, reshape approaches in continental philosophy, and give new orientation to interdisciplinary research in continental philosophy and literary theory. The book will find a large readership across the discipline of philosophy and in several areas of the humanities.” — Theodore George, author of Tragedies of Spirit: Tracing Finitude in Hegel’s Phenomenology. (shrink)

Continental philosophies of science tend to exemplify holistic themes connecting order and contingency, questions and answers, writers and readers, speakers and hearers. Such philosophies of science also tend to feature a fundamental emphasis on the historical and cultural situatedness of discourse as significant; relevance of mutual attunement of speaker and hearer; necessity of pre-linguistic cognition based in human engagement with a common socio-cultural historical world; role of narrative and metaphor as explanatory; sustained emphasis on understanding questioning; truth seen as (...) horizonal, aletheic, or perspectival; and a tolerance for paradoxical and complex forms of expression. Continental philosophy of science is thus more comprehensive than philosophy of science in the analytic tradition, including (and as analytic philosophy of science does not tend to include) perspectives on the history of science as well as the social and practical dimensions of scientific discovery. Where analytic philosophy is about reducing or, indeed, eliminating the perennial problems of philosophy, Continental philosophy is all about thinking and that will mean, as both Heidegger and Nietzsche emphasize, making such problems more not less problematic. (shrink)

The Blackwell Guide to Continental Philosophy is an accessible but sophisticated introduction to the most important figures in Continental philosophy in the last 200 years. Presents a definitive introduction to the core figures and topics of continental philosophy. Contains newly commissioned essays, all of which are written by internationally distinguished scholars. Provides a solid foundation for further study. Subjects include Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx and Marxism, Nietzsche, Husserl and Phenomenology, Heidegger, Sartre, critical theory, Habermas, (...) Gadamer, Foucault, Derrida, postmodernism, and French feminism. (shrink)

Twentieth-century philosophy has often been pictured as divided into two camps, analytic and continental. This study challenges this depiction by examining encounters between some of the leading representatives of either side. Starting with Husserl and Frege's fin-de-siècle turn against psychologism, it turns to Carnap's 1931 attack on Heidegger's metaphysics (together with its background in the Cassirer-Heidegger dispute of 1929), moving on to Ayer's 1951 meeting with Bataille and Merleau-Ponty at a Parisian bar, followed by the 'dialogue of the (...) deaf' between Oxford linguistic philosophers and phenomenologists at the 1951 Royaumont colloquium, leading up to the Derrida-Searle controversy. Careful study shows that it is implausible to assume the existence of a century-old 'gulf' between two sides of philosophy. Vrahimis argues that miscommunication and ignorance over the exact content of the above encounters must to a large extent be held accountable for any perceived gap. (shrink)

The Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy offers the definitive guide to contemporary continental thought.

"We translate what American women write, they never translate our texts," wrote Helene Cixous almost two decades ago. Her complaint about the unavailability of French feminist writing in English has long since been rectified, but the situation for feminist writing by German-speaking philosophers remains today what it was then. This pioneering collection takes a giant step forward to overcoming this handicap, revealing the full richness and variety of feminist critique ongoing in this linguistic community. The essays offer fresh readings of (...) thinkers from the Enlightenment to the present, including those often discussed by feminists everywhere—such as Freud, Habermas, Hegel, Kant, and Rousseau—as well as some less subjected to feminist critique such as Benjamin and Weininger. In their Introduction the editors provide the context for understanding both how these essays fit into the larger picture of developing feminist theory and what makes their contribution in some ways distinctive. (shrink)