Philosophy In The Present

Two controversial thinkers discuss a timeless but nonetheless urgent question: should philosophy interfere in the world? Nothing less than philosophy is at stake because, according to Badiou, philosophy is nothing but interference and commitment and will not be restrained by academic discipline. Philosophy is strange and new, and yet speaks in the name of all - as Badiou shows with his theory of universality. Similarly, Zizek believes that the philosopher must intervene, contrary to all expectations, in the key issues of the time. He can offer no direction, but this only shows that the question has been posed incorrectly: it is valid to change the terms of the debate and settle on philosophy as abnormality and excess. At once an invitation to philosophy and an introduction to the thinking of two of the most topical and controversial philosophers writing today, this concise volume will be of great interest to students and general readers alike.

This volume features original essays on the philosophy of love. The essays are organized thematically around the past, present, and future of philosophical thinking about love. In Part I, the contributors explore what we can learn from the history of philosophical thinking about love. The chapters cover Ancient Greek thinkers, namely Plato and Aristotle, as well as Kierkegaard’s critique of preferential love and Erich Fromm’s mystic interpretation of sexual relations. Part II covers current conceptions and practices of love. These chapters explore how love changes over time, the process of falling in love, the erotic dimension of romantic love, and a new interpretation of grand-parental love. Finally, Part III looks at the future of love. These chapters address technological developments related to love, such as algorithm-driven dating apps and robotic companions, as well as the potential of polyamory as a future romantic ideal. This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in moral philosophy and social and political philosophy who are working on issues related to the philosophy of love.

Presents the history of modern philosophy and includes profiles of notable philosophers, discussing the writings of the Renaissance, Rationalism, Enlightenment, and Empiricism.

Presentism is the view that only the present exists. Eternalism, by contrast, is the view that present, past and future objects and times exist. Philosophers have been divided for centuries regarding whether reality is an ever changing present consisting of objects and events coming into and out of existence, or whether reality is composed of all that did, does, and will exist. On the one hand, presentism and the associated dynamical view of time look closer to common sense and to the way we ordinarily think and talk about past and future objects; on the other hand, there are aspects of common sense talk that are more easily accommodated by eternalism, and, arguably, eternalism is a better fit with contemporary science. In the last two decades in analytic philosophy both positions have been defended and the literature flourishes with arguments for and against each of them, along with a huge family of alternative proposals.

A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture: Past, Present, Future examines the impact of Chinese philosophy on China’s historic structures, as well as on modern Chinese urban aesthetics and architectural forms. For architecture in China moving forward, author David Wang posits a theory, the New Virtualism, which links current trends in computational design with long-standing Chinese philosophical themes. The book also assesses twentieth-century Chinese architecture through the lenses of positivism, consciousness (phenomenology), and linguistics (structuralism and poststructuralism). Illustrated with over 70 black-and-white images, this book establishes philosophical baselines for assessing architectural developments in China, past, present and future.

A volume in the "Compact Knowledge Series," this title provides a well-illustrated survey of philosophy. Beginning in Classical Antiquity (the Greeks and Romans), the survey moves through the Middles Ages (the emergence of Scholasticism), The Renaissance, Rationalism and Empiricism in the Seventeenth Century, The Enlightenment, German Idealism, Positivism and Pragmatism in the 19th Century and on into the Present. Includes a Glossary and Index of Persons. Also available in this series: The Story of Architecture (978-1-56649-354-3) and The Story of World Religions (978-1-56649-353-6).

An understanding of what we mean by the present is one of the key issues in literature, philosophy, and culture today, but also one of the most neglected and misunderstood. Present Hope develops a fascinating philosophical understanding of the present, approaching this question via discussions of the nature of historical time, the philosophy of history, memory, and the role of tragedy. Andrew Benjamin shows how we misleadingly view the present as simply a product of chronological time, ignoring the role of history and memory. Accordingly, discussion of what is meant by the present disappears from philosophical concern. To draw attention to this absence, Andrew Benjamin introduces the notion of hope and asks what this concept can tell us about the present. At the heart of the outstanding work is an emphasis on the relation between hope and the Jewish tradition. Through discussions of philosophical responses to the Holocaust, the work of Walter Benjamin, Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, and the poetry of Paul Celan, Present Hope shows how we must look beyond the purely philosophical horizon to understand the present we live in.

Contributing specialists survey Hispanic literature of New Mexico and its influence. No index. The prevailing view in the history of philosophy has been that time is not basically real but has a derivative status. In contrast, Lieb (philosophy, U. of Southern California) establishes the thesis that time is a fundamental reality: it is individuals."