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In this short book Peter Sloterdijk offers a genealogy of the concept of freedom from Ancient Greece to the present day. This genealogy is part of a broader theory of the large political body, according to which Sloterdijk argues that political communities arise in response to a form of anxiety or stress. Through a highly original reading of Rousseau's late Reveries of a Solitary Walker, Sloterdijk shows that, for Rousseau, the modern subject emerges as a subject free of all stress, unburdened by the cares of the world. Most of modern philosophy, and above all German Idealism, is an attempt to reign back Rousseau's useless and anarchical subject and anchor it in the cares of the world, in the task of having to produce both the world and itself. In the light of this highly original account, Sloterdijk develops his own distinctive account of freedom, where freedom is conceptualized as the availability for the improbable. This important text, in which Sloterdijk develops his account of freedom and the modern subject, will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy and the humanities and to anyone interested in contemporary philosophy and critical theory.

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Does a global economy render the traditional nation-state obsolete? Does globalization threaten democratic life, or offer it new forms of expression? What are the implications of globalization for our understanding of politics and of national and cultural identities? In The Postnational Constellation, the leading German philosopher and social theorist J?rgen Habermas addresses these and other questions. He explores topics such as the historical and political origins of national identity, the catastrophes and achievements of «the long twentieth century,» the future of democracy in the wake of the era of the nation-state, the moral and political challenges facing the European Union, and the status of global human rights in the ongoing debate on the sources of cultural identity. In their scope, critical insight, and argumentative clarity, the essays in The Postnational Constellation present a powerful vision of the contemporary political scene and of the challenges and opportunities we face in the new millennium. Those unfamiliar with Habermas's theoretical work will find in this volume a lucid and engaging introduction to one of the world's most influential thinkers. For readers familiar with Habermas's writings, The Postnational Constellation provides an invaluable application of his social and political theories to current political realities.

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On 26 August 1974, Michel Foucault completed work on Discipline and Punish, and on that very same day began writing the first volume of The History of Sexuality. A little under ten years later, on 25 June 1984, shortly after the second and third volumes were published, he was dead. This decade is one of the most fascinating of his career. It begins with the initiation of the sexuality project, and ends with its enforced and premature closure. Yet in 1974 he had something very different in mind for The History of Sexuality than the way things were left in 1984. Foucault originally planned a thematically organised series of six volumes, but wrote little of what he promised and published none of them. Instead over the course of the next decade he took his work in very different directions, studying, lecturing and writing about historical periods stretching back to antiquity. This book offers a detailed intellectual history of both the abandoned thematic project and the more properly historical version left incomplete at his death. It draws on all Foucault’s writings in this period, his courses at the Collège de France and lectures elsewhere, as well as material archived in France and California to provide a comprehensive overview and synthetic account of Foucault’s last decade.

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In this new collection of recent essays, Habermas takes up and pursues the line of analysis begun in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. He begins by outlining the sources and central themes of twentieth-century philosophy, and the range of current debates. He then examines a number of key contributions to these debates, from the pragmatic philosophies of Mead, Perice and Rorty to the post-structuralism of Foucault. Like most contemporary thinkers, Habermas is critical of the Western metaphysical tradition and its exaggerated conception of reason. But he cautions against the temptation to relinquish this conception altogether. In opposition to the radical critics of Western philosophy, Habermas argues that postmetaphysical thinking can remain critical only if it preserves the idea of reason while stripping it of its metaphysical trappings. Habermas contributes to this task by developing further his distinctive approach to problems of meaning, rationality and subjectivity. This book will be of particular interest to students of philosophy, sociology and social and political theory, and it will be essential reading for anyone interested in the continuing development of Habermas's project.

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The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics is a definitive introduction to the core areas of metaphysics. It brings together sixteen internationally respected philosophers that demonstrate how metaphysics is done as they examine topics including causation, temporality, ontology, personal identity, idealism, and realism.

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What would happen if we could stroll through the revolutionary history of the 20th century and, without any fear of the possible responses, ask the main protagonists – from Lenin to Che Guevara, from Alexandra Kollontai to Ulrike Meinhof – seemingly naïve questions about love? Although all important political and social changes of the 20th century included heated debates on the role of love, it seems that in the 21st century of new technologies of the self (Grindr, Tinder, online dating, etc.) we are faced with a hyperinflation of sex, not love. By going back to the sexual revolution of the October Revolution and its subsequent repression, to Che's dilemma between love and revolutionary commitment and to the period of '68 (from communes to terrorism) and its commodification in late capitalism, the Croatian philosopher Srecko Horvat gives a possible answer to the question of why it is that the most radical revolutionaries like Lenin or Che were scared of the radicality of love. What is so radical about a seemingly conservative notion of love and why is it anything but conservative? This short book is a modest contribution to the current upheavals around the world – from Tahrir to Taksim, from Occupy Wall Street to Hong Kong, from Athens to Sarajevo – in which the question of love is curiously, surprisingly, absent.

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This Companion offers a state-of-the-art survey of the work of John Stuart Mill one which covers the historical influences on Mill, his theoretical, moral and social philosophy, as well as his relation to contemporary movements. Its contributors include both senior scholars with established expertise in Mill's thought and new emerging interpreters. Each essay acts as a «e;go-to»e; resource for those seeking to understand an aspect of Mill's thought or to familiarise themselves with the contours of a debate within the scholarship. The Companion is a key reference on Mill's theory of liberty and utilitarianism, but also provides a valuable resource on lesser-known aspects of his work, including his epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. The volume is divided into six sections. Part I covers Mill's life, his immediate posthumous reputation, and his own telling of his life-story. Part II brings together an accessible and comprehensive summary of the various influences on Mill's thought. Part III offers an account of the foundations of Mill s philosophy and his thought on key philosophic topics. Parts IV and V tackle issues from Mill's moral and social philosophy. Part VI concludes with a treatment of the broader aspects of Mill s thought, tracing his relation to major movements in philosophy.

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In the social sciences and in everyday speech we often talk about groups as if they behaved in the same way as individuals, thinking and acting as a singular being. We say for example that «Google intends to develop an automated car», «the U.S. Government believes that Syria has used chemical weapons on its people», or that «the NRA wants to protect the rights of gun owners». We also often ascribe legal and moral responsibility to groups. But could groups literally intend things? Is there such a thing as a collective mind? If so, should groups be held morally responsible? Such questions are of vital importance to our understanding of the social world. In this lively, engaging introduction Deborah Tollefsen offers a careful survey of contemporary philosophers? answers to these questions, and argues for the unorthodox view that certain groups should, indeed, be treated as agents and deserve to be held morally accountable. Tollefsen explores the nature of belief, action and intention, and shows the reader how a belief in group agency can be reconciled with our understanding of individual agency and accountability. Groups as Agents will be a vital resource for scholars as well as for students of philosophy and the social sciences encountering the topic for the first time.

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In this wide-ranging book, renowned philosopher and cultural theorist Peter Sloterdijk examines art in all its rich and varied forms: from music to architecture, light to movement, and design to typography. Moving between the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, his analyses span the centuries, from ancient civilizations to contemporary Hollywood. With great verve and insight he considers the key issues that have faced thinkers from Aristotle to Adorno, looking at art in its relation to ethics, metaphysics, society, politics, anthropology and the subject. Sloterdijk explores a variety of topics, from the Greco-Roman invention of postcards to the rise of the capitalist art market, from the black boxes and white cubes of modernism to the growth of museums and memorial culture. In doing so, he extends his characteristic method of defamiliarization to transform the way we look at works of art and artistic movements. His bold and original approach leads us away from the well-trodden paths of conventional art history to develop a theory of aesthetics which rejects strict categorization, emphasizing instead the crucial importance of individual subjectivity as a counter to the latent dangers of collective culture. This sustained reflection, at once playful, serious and provocative, goes to the very heart of Sloterdijk’s enduring philosophical preoccupation with the aesthetic. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy and aesthetics and will appeal to anyone interested in culture and the arts more generally.

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The concept of democratic freedom refers to more than the kind of freedom embodied by political institutions and procedures. Democratic freedom can only be properly understood if it is grasped as the expression of a culture of freedom that encompasses an entire form of life. Juliane Rebentisch’s systematic and historical approach demonstrates that we can learn a great deal about the democratic culture of freedom from its philosophical critics. From Plato to Carl Schmitt, the critique of democratic culture has always been articulated as a critique of its ãaestheticization“. Rebentisch defends various phenomena of aestheticization Ð from the irony typical of democratic citizens to the theatricality of the political Ð as constitutive elements of democratic culture and the notion of freedom at the heart of its ethical and political self-conception. This work will be of particular interest to students of Political Theory, Philosophy and Aesthetics.

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