The Imperative

". . . a more compelling reading of Kant than any I have ever seen." —David Farrell Krell In this provocative book, Alphonso Lingis argues that not only our thought is governed by an imperative, as Kant had maintained, but, rather, our sensual, sensing, perceiving, and emotional life is continually regulated by imperatives that come to us from the world around us. Through a series of phenomenological sketches drawn from life experiences, Lingis shows that there are directives in the natural world and in our interactions with others that govern our thought and behavior.

Hans Jonas here rethinks the foundations of ethics in light of the awesome transformations wrought by modern technology: the threat of nuclear war, ecological ravage, genetic engineering, and the like. Though informed by a deep reverence for human life, Jonas's ethics is grounded not in religion but in metaphysics, in a secular doctrine that makes explicit man's duties toward himself, his posterity, and the environment. Jonas offers an assessment of practical goals under present circumstances, ending with a critique of modern utopianism.

In this reappraisal of public health and health promotion in contemporary societies, Deborah Lupton explores public health and health promotion using contemporary sociocultural and political theory, particularly that building on Foucault's writings on subjectivity, embodiment and power relations. The author examines the implications of the new social theories for the study of health promotion and health communication to analyze the symbolic nature of public health practices, and explores their underlying meanings and assumptions.

The author has championed the cause of ecological literacy in higher education, helping to establish and shape the field of ecological design, and working to raise awareness of the threats to future generations posed by humanity's current unsustainable trajectory.This volume brings together his most important works.

This volume contains ten articles exploring a wide range of issues in the analysis of the imperative clause from a generative perspective. The language data investigated in detail in the articles come from Dutch, English, German, (old) Scandinavian, Spanish, and South Slavic; there is further significant discussion of data from other Germanic and Romance languages. The phenomena addressed (in several cases in more than one article, leading to some lively debate about contentious issues) include the following: the nature and interpretation of imperative subjects; the properties of participial imperatives; clitic behavior; restrictions on topicalization; word order; null arguments; negative imperatives; and imperatives in embedded clauses. The volume has a substantial introduction, sketching the results of earlier generative work on the topic (most of it scattered across disparate outlets), the issues left open by this earlier work, and the contribution to further insight and understanding made by the book's articles.

In this reappraisal of public health and health promotion in contemporary societies, Deborah Lupton explores public health and health promotion using contemporary sociocultural and political theory, particularly that building on Foucault′s writings on subjectivity, embodiment and power relations. The author examines the implications of the new social theories for the study of health promotion and health communication to analyze the symbolic nature of public health practices, and explores their underlying meanings and assumptions.

This book aims to expand our sense of poetry's reach and potential impact. It is an effort at recouping the poetic imperative buried within the first taxonomic description of human being: "nosce te ipsum," or "know yourself." Johanna Skibsrud explores both poetry and human being not as fixed categories but as active processes of self-reflection and considers the way that human being is constantly activated within and through language and thinking. By examining a range of modern and contemporary poets including Wallace Stevens, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Anne Carson, all with an interest in playfully disrupting sense and logic and eliciting unexpected connections, The Poetic Imperative highlights the relationship between the practice of writing and reading and a broad tradition of speculative thought. It also seeks to demonstrate that the imperative "know yourself" functions not only as a command to speak and listen, but also as a call to action and feeling. The book argues that poetic modes of knowing - though central to poetry understood as a genre - are also at the root of any conscious effort to move beyond the subjective limits of language and selfhood in the hopes of touching upon the unknown. Engaging and erudite, The Poetic Imperative is an invitation to direct our attention simultaneously to the finite and embodied limits of selfhood, as well as to what those limits touch: the infinite, the Other, and truth itself.