Philosophy Of Finitude

Examining the legacies of Heidegger, along with Derrida, Levinas and Nietzsche, Rafael Winkler argues that it is not the search for truth or even contradictions that stimulates philosophical thought. Instead, it is our exposure to the unthinkable or the impossible – to thought's own limits. An experience of the unthinkable is possible in our encounter with the uniqueness of death, the singularity of being, and of the self and the other. This 'thinking of finitude' also has political implications, as it provides us with a way to talk about, and evaluate, absolute strangeness and, by implication, the absolute stranger or foreigner. Illuminating Heidegger's writings on the question of ontology, ethics and history, Winkler proves that this encounter with thought's limits is one of the mainstays of the philosophies of difference of Heidegger, Levinas, and Nietzsche.

Examining the legacies of Heidegger, along with Derrida, Levinas and Nietzsche, Rafael Winkler argues that it is not the search for truth or even contradictions that stimulates philosophical thought. Instead, it is our exposure to the unthinkable or the impossible – to thought's own limits. An experience of the unthinkable is possible in our encounter with the uniqueness of death, the singularity of being, and of the self and the other. This 'thinking of finitude' also has political implications, as it provides us with a way to talk about, and evaluate, absolute strangeness and, by implication, the absolute stranger or foreigner. Illuminating Heidegger's writings on the question of ontology, ethics and history, Winkler proves that this encounter with thought's limits is one of the mainstays of the philosophies of difference of Heidegger, Levinas, and Nietzsche.

"Examining the legacies of Heidegger, along with Derrida, Levinas and Nietzsche, Rafael Winkler argues that it is not the search for truth or even contradictions that stimulates philosophical thought. Instead, it is our exposure to the unthinkable or the impossible - to thought's own limits. An experience of the unthinkable is possible in our encounter with the uniqueness of death, the singularity of being, and of the self and the other. This 'thinking of finitude' also has political implications, as it provides us with a way to talk about, and evaluate, absolute strangeness and, by implication, the absolute stranger or foreigner. Illuminating Heidegger's writings on the question of ontology, ethics and history, Winkler proves that this encounter with thought's limits is one of the mainstays of the philosophies of difference of Heidegger, Levinas, and Nietzsche."--Bloomsbury Publishing

How radical thought has internalized the experience of defeat A rising star of contemporary critical theory offers an expansive critique on a prominent tradition of thought, 'the jargon of finitude.' Associated with Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, over the past few decades this tradition has been able to bolster its credentials as an indispensable contribution in the rethinking of the Left. However, rather than constituting a radical leftist opening in contemporary political thought, these are in many ways philosophies of defeat. Bosteels exmines the paradoxes inherent in materialist thinking and argues against time as the primordial mode of access to a thinking of finitude that today has become the dominant form of a new idealism, parading in the guise of a radical, post-metaphysical, anti-dialectical and hyper-ethical form of materialism.

A bold philosophical investigation into technology and the limits of the human A daring, original work of philosophical speculation, Neurotechnology and the End of Finitude mounts a sustained investigation into the possibility that human beings may technologically overcome the transcendental limits of possible experience and envisages what such a transition would look like. Focusing on emergent neurotechnologies, which establish a direct channel of communication between brain and machine, Michael Haworth argues that such technologies intervene at the border between interiority and exteriority, offering the promise of immediacy and the possibility of the mind directly affecting the outside world or even other minds. Through detailed, targeted readings of Kant, Freud, Heidegger, Croce, Jung, and Derrida, Haworth explores the effect of this transformation on human creativity and our relationships with others. He pursues these questions across four distinct but interrelated spheres: the act of artistic creation and the potential for a technologically enabled coincidence of idea and object; the possibility of humanity achieving the infinite creativity that Kant attributed only to God; the relationship between the psyche and the external world in Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian analytical psychology; and the viability and impact of techno-telepathic communication. Addressing readers interested in contemporary continental philosophy and philosophy of technology, media and communications, and science and technology studies, Neurotechnology and the End of Finitude critically envisions a plausible posthuman future.

From the preface by Alain Badiou: It is no exaggeration to say that Quentin Meillassoux has opened up a new path in the history of philosophy, understood here as the history of what it is to know ... This remarkable "critique of critique" is introduced here without embellishment, cutting straight to the heart of the matter in a particularly clear and logical manner. It allows the destiny of thought to be the absolute once more. "This work is one of the most important to appear in continental philosophy in recent years and deserves a wide readership at the earliest possible date ... Après la finitude is an important book of philosophy by an authnted emerging voices in continental thought. Quentin Meillassoux deserves our close attention in the years to come and his book deserves rapid translation and widespread discussion in the English-speaking world. There is nothing like it." -Graham Harman in Philosophy Today Quentin Meillassoux's remarkable debut makes a strikingly original contribution to contemporary French philosophy and is set to have a significant impact on the future of continental philosophy. Written in a style that marries great clarity of expression with argumentative rigour, After Finitude provides bold readings of the history of philosophy and sets out a devastating critique of the unavowed fideism at the heart of post-Kantian philosophy. The exceptional lucidity and the centrality of argument in Meillassoux's writing should appeal to analytic as well as continental philosophers, while his critique of fideism will be of interest to anyone preoccupied by the relation between philosophy, theology and religion. Meillassoux introduces a startlingly novel philosophical alternative to the forced choice between dogmatism and critique. After Finitude proposes a new alliance between philosophy and science and calls for an unequivocal halt to the creeping return of religiosity in contemporary philosophical discourse.

Philosophers are accustomed to thinking about human existence as finite and deathbound. Anne O'Byrne focuses instead on birth as a way to make sense of being alive. Building on the work of Heidegger, Dilthey, Arendt, and Nancy, O'Byrne discusses how the world becomes ours and how meaning emerges from our relations to generations past and to come. Themes such as creation, time, inheritance, birth and action, embodiment, biological determinism, and cloning anchor this sensitive and powerful analysis. O'Byrne's thinking advances and deepens important discussions at the intersections of feminism, continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, and social and political thought.