The volume develops the concepts of the self and its reflexive nature as they are linked to modern thought from Hegel to Luhmann. The moderns are reflexive in a double sense: they create themselves by self-reflexivity and make their world – society – in their own image. That the social world is reflexive means that it is made up of non-subjective (or supra-subjective) communication. The vol…
How are artificial intelligence (AI) and the strong claims made by their philosophical representatives to be understood and evaluated from a Kantian perspective? Conversely, what can we learn from AI and its functions about Kantian philosophy’s claims to validity? This volume focuses on various aspects, such as the self, the spirit, self-consciousness, ethics, law, and aesthetics to answer th…
This book contributes to the foundations of a critical theory of communication as shaped by the forces of digital capitalism. One of the world's leading theorists of digital media Professor Christian Fuchs explores how the thought of some of the Frankfurt School’s key thinkers can be deployed for critically understanding media in the age of the Internet. Five essays that form the heart of thi…
Helmuth Plessner (1892-1985) was one of the founders of philosophical anthropology, and his book The Stages of the Organic and Man, first published in 1928, has inspired generations of philosophers, biologists, social scientists, and humanities scholars. This volume offers the first substantial introduction to Plessner’s philosophical anthropology in English, not only setting it in context wi…
[Given, If, Then] attempts to conceive a possibility of reading, through a set of readings: reading being understood as the relation to an Other that occurs prior to any semantic or formal identification, and, therefore, prior to any attempt at assimilating, or appropriating, what is being read to the one who reads. As such, it is an encounter with an indeterminable Other, an Other who is other…
What is a problem? What’s asked in that question, and how does one even begin to take its measure? How else could one begin, except as one does with any other problem—by way of its impulsion. Of Learned Ignorance: Idea of a Treatise in Philosophy is about philosophy because philosophy is about problems: philosophy, in a word, is where problems become a problem. After Anti-Oedipus, in the Ka…
To begin with a thinker who remained always attuned to the du-plicitous nature of beginning requires candor. There is a thetic dimension to every beginning, and we will do well not to deny it here. Rather, let us begin by attending to the things Reiner Schürmann himself said about beginning: “A starting point,” he wrote, “that neither abandons ordinary experience nor t…
The claim “what we know is what exists” appears, at first glance, to be quite an obvious statement – we know dogs and horses and so it seems obvious that dogs and horses exist. However, upon further reflection, it rather seems that what is most properly the object of our knowledge is not these particular dogs and horses themselves, but something that is universal – what Plato called a …
My dad had high hopes for me to become a profession-al golfer. In my early teens, I could out-drive his golfing buddies, who would gape at my easy swing and hand–eye–body precision. This would pump up my father’s de-termination to groom my natural ability. He entered me in summer tournaments throughout the Pacific North-west. But I lacked the cutthroat drive…
We are all familiar with the many reasons why we should fight poverty. Poor people do not have enough money to meet their basic needs, are excluded from society, are often not given proper respect, or can become easy prey at the hands of others who want to dominate them. In the domains of both material and immaterial goods, there is a widespread understanding about what it means w…
The scene of fasciation in the novel, as such, spreads beyond its most compelling and tragic evocation, illustrating Wildeve’s orientation towards Eustacia and vice versa. The subsection titled ‘Fascination’ begins with the ‘system’ of Clym’s face and figure, moving through a series of encounters and settings in which the phenomenon takes hold or e…
When a victor asks you to pray for him, it means that he of-fers you his victory. “Can you do anything with this victory?” he seems to say. It is true, not anyone can triumph over his own vic-tory and feel as deep as brother Alexander that he has nothing to do with it. At his own level, however, a common man offers various victories on the market, victories that he cannot alway…
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 D…