Post Deconstructive Subjectivity And History

In Post-Deconstructive Subjectivity and History, Aniruddha Chowdhury argues that deconstruction is not only not a dissolution of subject, as it is often opined, but an affirmation of the singular (ethical) subject and singular history, singularity conceived as alterity, difference and non-identity. Part of the emphasis of the singular history is to conceive the historical relation as figural and as one of repletion with difference. One of the distinctive aspects of the book is that it not only focuses on the tradition of phenomenology, but also extends deconstruction to critical theory, and postcolonial theory. Through his intimate reading of the canonical texts of the Continental philosophical tradition (phenomenology and critical theory), and postcolonial thought Chowdhury illuminates pertinent issues in Continental thought, and postcolonial theory.

Explores the meanings of subjectivity in continental philosophy in the wake of post-structuralism and critical theory.

Although Wittgenstein is often held co-responsible for the so-called death of man as it was pronounced in the course of the previous century, no detailed description of his alternative to the traditional or Cartesian account of human being has so far been available. By consulting several parts of Wittgenstein's later oeuvre, Subjectivity after Wittgenstein aims to fill this gap. However, it also contributes to the debate about the Cartesian subject and its demise by discussing the criticism that the rethinking of subjectivity received, for it has been argued that the anti-Cartesian turn in continental philosophy has lead to a loss of a centre for both ethics and politics. By further exploring the implications of the Wittgensteinian account of human being, this book makes it clear that a non-Cartesian view on the subject is not necessarily ethically and politically inert. Moreover, it argues that ethical and political arguments should not automatically take precedence in a debate about the nature of man.

Explores the meanings of subjectivity in continental philosophy in the wake of post-structuralism and critical theory.

Postcolonial studies, and the rich body of theory that it applies in its analyses, has transformed and unsettled the ways in which, across a whole range of disciplines, we think about notions such as subjectivity, national identity, globalization, history, language, literature or international politics. Until recently, the emphasis of the groundbreaking work being carried out in these areas has been almost exclusively within an Anglophone context, but increasingly the focus of postcolonial studies is shifting to a more comparative approach. One of the most intriguing developments in this shift.

This book explores the political and philosophical underpinnings of exclusion and social injustice in India. It examines social movements, anti-caste uprisings, reformers like Ambedkar and Narayana Guru and writers like Foucault and Serres to establish a link between the political and social milieu of the idea of nationhood. Going beyond the legal framework of justice, the essays in the volume reassemble the social from popular perception and the margins, and challenge Rawlsian and Eurocentric paradigms which have dominated discourse on social injustice. The volume also draws on instances of history as well as contemporary issues, as well as locating them in the context of social and post-colonial theory. An intellectually stimulating yet subaltern engagement with the idea of justice, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of social theory, law, modern South Asian history and social exclusion and discrimination studies.

In Ethics–Politics–Subjectivity, Simon Critchley takes up three questions at the centre of contemporary theoretical debate: What is ethical experience? What can be said of the subject who has this experience? What, if any, is the relation of ethical experience to politics? These questions are approached by way of a critical confrontation with a number of major thinkers, including Lacan, Genet, Blanchot, Nancy, Rorty and, in particular, Levinas and Derrida. Critchley offers a critical reconstruction of Levinas's notion of ethical experience and, questioning the religious pietism and political conservatism of the dominant interpretation of Levinas's work, develops an ethics of finitude which, far from being tragic, opens on to an experience of humour and the comic. Using this reading of Levinas as a way of unlocking the rich ethical potential of Derrida's work, Critchley outlines and defends the political possibilities of deconstruction. On the basis of Derrida's recent work, Critchley attempts to rethink notions of friendship, democracy, economics and technology.

Modern thinkers have often declared the end, or even the “death,” of the subject and have been searching for new ways of “being a self.” Indeed, many contemporary scholars regard this search as one of the most significant effects of the general crisis of secularity. Post-Subjectivity is a contribution to that search, conducted with a renewed attention to the centrality of religion, in a pluralistic and global context. This volume of essays guides the reader through, but also beyond, the crises of modernity and postmodernity, toward an attempt to “resurrect” the subject in new forms. The volume resonates with voices from across the humanistic disciplines: the theological turn in recent phenomenology, new directions in Christian and Jewish theology, and reappraisals of figures in the history of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the study of sexuality—all are represented in an attempt to rethink, from the beginning, what it is to be a “self.”