_Germinal Life_ is the sequel to the highly successful _Viroid Life_. Where _Viroid Life_ provided a compelling reading of Nietzsche's philosophy of the human, _Germinal Life_ is an original and groundbreaking analysis of little known and difficult theoretical aspects of the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. In particular, Keith Ansell Pearson provides fresh and insightful readings of Deleuze's work on Bergson and Deleuze's most famous texts _Difference and Repetition_ and _A Thousand Plateaus_. _Germinal Life _also provides new insights into (...) Deleuze's relation to some of the most original thinkers of modernity, from Darwin to Freud and Nietzsche, and explores the connections between Deleuze and more recent thinkers such as Adorno and Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

With the development of new technologies and the Internet, the notion of the virtual has grown increasingly important. In this lucid collection of essays, Pearson bridges the continental-analytic divide in philosophy, bringing the virtual to centre stage and arguing its importance for re-thinking such central philosophical questions as time and life. Drawing on philosophers from Bergson, Kant and Nietzsche to Proust, Russell, Dennett and Badiou, Pearson examines the limits of continuity, explores relativity, and offers a concept of creative evolution.

The work of Gilles Deleuze has had an impact far beyond philosophy. He is among Foucault and Derrida as one of the most cited of all contemporary French thinkers. Never a student 'of' philosophy, Deleuze was always philosophical and many influential poststructuralist and postmodernist texts can be traced to his celebrated resurrection of Nietzsche against Hegel in his Nietzsche and Philosophy , from which this collection draws its title. This searching new collection considers Deleuze's relation to the philosophical tradition and (...) beyond to the future of philosophy, science and technology. In addition to considering Deleuze's imaginative readings of classic figures such as Spinoza and Kant, the essays also point to the meaning of Deleuze on 'monstrous' and machinic thinking, on philosophy and engineering, on philosophy and biology, on modern painting and literature. Deleuze and Philosophy continues the spirit of experimentation and invention that features in Deleuze's work and will appeal to those studying across philosophy, social theory, literature and cultural studies who themselves are seeking new paradigms of thought. (shrink)

In this astonishingly rich volume, experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship on what is arguably Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. A lengthy introduction, annotated (...) bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research. (shrink)

We begin by treating the antinaturalism of Edmund Husserl's phenomenology, and follow that by considering the recent project of “naturalizing phenomenology.” As a transitional figure, we treat Hans Jonas and the weakly emergent status he allows organismic life. In a section on “affirmative naturalism,” we treat Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, and Gilles Deleuze, emphasizing their relation to Spinoza's ethics of joy. We conclude by considering the antinaturalism of continental philosophy positions in critical race theory (Linda Alcoff), gender theory (Judith Butler), (...) and disability studies (Shelley Tremain). (shrink)

The status of life in nature is the modern problem of philosophy and of science. A.N. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 1938.

This chapter seeks to make a contribution to the growing interest in Nietzsche's relation to traditions of therapy in philosophy that has emerged in recent years. It is in the texts of his middle period that Nietzsche's writing comes closest to being an exercise in philosophical therapeutics, and in this chapter I focus on Dawn from 1881 as a way of exploring this. Dawn is a text that has been admired in recent years for its ethical naturalism and for its (...) anticipation of phenomenology. My interest in the text in this chapter is in the way it revitalises for a modern age ancient philosophical concerns, notably a teaching for mortal souls who wish to be liberated from the fear and anguish of existence, as well as from God, the ‘metaphysical need’, and romantic music, and are able to affirm their mortal conditions of existence. As a general point of inspiration I have adopted Pierre Hadot's insight into the therapeutic ambitions of ancient philosophy which was, he claims, ‘intended to cure mankind's anguish’. This is evident in the teaching of Epicurus which sought to demonstrate the mortality of the soul and whose aim was, ‘to free humans from “the fears of the mind”.’ Similarly, Nietzsche's teaching in Dawn is for mortal souls. In the face of the loss of the dream of the soul's immortality, philosophy for Nietzsche, I shall show, has new consolations to offer in the form of new sublimities. Indeed, for Nietzsche it is by reflecting, with the aid of psychological observation, on what is ‘human, all too human’, that ‘we can lighten the burden of life’. Nietzsche's thinking in Dawn contains a number of proposals and recommendations of tremendous value to philosophical therapeia, including a call for a new honesty about the human ego and human relations, including relations of self and other and love, so as to free us from certain delusions; the search for an authentic mode of existence which appreciates the value of solitude and independence; the importance of having a rich and mature taste in order to eschew the fanatical. After an introduction to Nietzsche's text the chapter is divided into two main parts. In the first main part I explore various aspects of his conception of philosophical therapy, including purification of the higher feelings and liberation from the destructive effects of ‘morality’ and Christianity. In the second main part I explore his conception of ‘the passion of knowledge’, which is the passion that guides modern free spirits as they seek to overcome the need of religion and constraints of ‘morality’, and to access the new sublimities of philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Early Life and Thought The Middle Period The Final Period and Late Writings.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Weightiest Knowledge Truth and its Incorporation Knowledge and Self‐Knowledge.

El presente trabajo propone al lector una interpretación acerca del problema de la «Idea» y del «tiempo» de la muerte en la obra de Proust En busca del tiempo perdido. Abordaré la cuestión analizando dos de sus episodios clave: el encuentro con «un poco de tiempo en estado puro» y el de la muerte de la «abuela». Mi trabajo tiene su fuente de inspiración en la constante reivindicación de Deleuze de que la memoria no desempeña en el arte más que (...) un papel secundario, lo cual constituye un modo de ver que Deleuze nunca abandonará en sus sucesivas lecturas de Proust. En qué radica la importancia de la figura de «Tanatos» en una interpretación de Proust es, fundamentalmente, a lo que mi trabajo tratará de dar respuesta al seguir la línea deleuzeana de pensamiento de acuerdo con la cual incluso en lo virtual y en el recuerdo involuntario existe el fuerte remanente, que ha de ser superado y conquistado, de una inversión erótica en la memoria. Se hace visible lo mucho que a la obra proustiana le va en el encuentro con eros y tanatos allí donde contrapongo las interpretaciones que sobre Proust han ofrecido Deleuze y Kristeva, al final de mi artículo. Éste procura dilucidar la naturaleza y función de lo «virtual» en Deleuze y arrojar un poco de luz sobre la manera en que la «pulsión de muerte» opera en el pensamiento deleuzeano, en especial por lo que se refiere a cómo esa noción articula la de «movimiento forzado», que tan importante lugar ocupa en su interpretación de Proust y en su demostración de las diferentes síntesis del tiempo. (shrink)

In this essay I contest the view that evolution can be conceived as a cosmic entity working out a plan of increasing negentropic complexification. The problems associated with this view, characteristic of a great deal of contemporary speculation, are outlined in section I. In section II I go on to further problematise current constructions of technics and machines and provide an alternative ‘machinic’ model of the play of entropy and evolution. In section III I examine the aesthetic praxis of Stelarc (...) as a site in which the ‘meaning’ of post‐human evolution can be productively contested and illuminated. (shrink)