In these two essays, two of the most important French thinkers of our time reflect on each other's work. In so doing, novelist/essayist Maurice Blanchot and philosopher Michel Foucault develop a new perspective on the relationship between subjectivity, fiction, and the will to truth. The two texts present reflections on writing, language, and representation which question the status of the author/subject and explore the notion of a "neutral" voice that arises from the realm of the "outside." This book is crucial not only to an understanding of these two thinkers, but also to any overview of recent French thought.

In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote "Illness as Metaphor," a classic work described by "Newsweek" as "one of the most liberating books of its time." A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag shows cancer for what it is--just a disease. Cancer, she argues, is not a curse, not a punishment, certainly not an embarrassment and, it is highly curable, if good treatment is followed. Almost a decade later, with the outbreak of a new, stigmatized disease replete with mystifications and punitive metaphors, Sontag wrote a sequel to "Illness" "as Metaphor," extending the argument of the earlier book to the AIDS pandemic. These two essays now published together, "Illness" "as Metaphor "and "AIDS and Its Metaphors," have been translated into many languages and continue to have an enormous influence on the thinking of medical professionals and, above all, on the lives of many thousands of patients and caregivers.

本书主要讨论齐美尔、克拉考尔和本雅明的现代性思想及其方法。作者认为，与哈贝马斯、韦伯等诸多学者试图建构无所不包的抽象的现代性理论不同，三位学者的现代性研究是从破译现代性碎片的奥秘入手的：齐美尔《货币哲学》中透显的“现实的偶像性碎片”，克拉考尔《大众装饰》、《白领雇员》中表述的“无关宏旨的表面现象”，以及本雅明《拱廊街计划》中的“辨证意象”或“单子论”的阐述，都在日常生活世界的层面上救赎了最为细微的现代性痕迹。全书内容新颖，文字细腻，是一部从审美的，政治的或历史的方式解读现代性的佳作。

-编辑推荐- ★阿甘本50年学术生涯的总结之作 ★在海德格尔、德勒兹之后，阿甘本重新拾起“什么是哲学”这一问题，并给出了截然不同的阐释。 ★如果你期待本书会直接回答“什么是哲学”这一问题，那么你会大失所望。 ★哲学只能在它被创造的时刻出现，同时，也在这一个时刻消亡。对于只存在于我们的语言之中的哲学而言，一旦我们停止了我们的创造活动，它就会随之消亡。 ★最终，阿甘本在本书中想要展现给我们的，不仅仅是一个哲学的问题。 -内容简介- 在《幼年与历史》的序言中，阿甘本提到，他一直有一本未完成的著作，甚至他到那时为止的所有著作，都只能算是他这本未完成著作的序言。而在某种意义上，《什么是哲学？》就是阿甘本口中的那本著作。本书由以下五篇文章组成： （1）《语音实验》。本文在某种程度上可以被视为对德里达《论文字学》的一种回应。在阿甘本看来，我们不能将字母等同于与它对应的发音体系；相反，我们可以找到一种原初的语音，一种不能被还原为文字的语音。 （2）《论需要的概念》。不同于伦理学对“需要”的阐释，本文将“需要”视作一个本体论范畴，而非道德范畴。在此基础上，本文对必要性、可能性、现实等范畴提出了新的理解。 （3）《论可说之物与观念》。本文从柏拉图的《书简七》出发，借用斯多葛学派的“可说之物”，重新阐释了柏拉图的“观念”。正如阿甘本所说：“哲学不再通过观念在语言中追问自身，也就失去了它与可感世界之间的必然关联。” （4）《论写序》。本文同样受到了《书简七》的启发，在对柏拉图作品的重读中，阿甘本向我们展示了哲学的序言性、间接性、非教条特征。毫无疑问，这也是阿甘本自身哲学所具有的特征。 （5）《至上的音乐。音乐与政治》。乍看起来，这篇讨论音乐的附录在本书中显得有些另类。其实不然。通过阿甘本对音乐史的独特解读，我们得到了一种全新的音乐概念。而在某种意义上，我们恰恰可以将这视为本书标题所提问题的答案。

This book is a continuation of Giorgio Agamben's investigation of political theory, which began with the highly influential volume Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Having already traced the roots of the idea of sovereignty, sacredness, and economy, he now turns to a perhaps unlikely topic: the concept of the oath. Following the Italian scholar Paolo Prodi, Agamben sees the oath as foundational for Western politics and undertakes an exploration of the roots of the phenomenon of the oath in human experience. He rejects the common idea that the oath finds its origin in religion, arguing instead that the oath points toward a particular response to the experience of language, a response that gave birth to both religion and law as we now know them. This book is important not only for readers of Agamben or of continental philosophy more broadly, but for anyone interested in questions relating to the relationships among religion, law, and language.

This book collects fifteen major philosophical essays written over a period of more than twenty years by acclaimed Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. The volume opens with an introduction in which the editor situates Agamben's work with respect to both the history of philosophy and contemporary European thought. The essays that follow articulate a series of theoretical confrontations with privileged figures in the history of philosophy, politics, and criticism, from Plato to Spinoza, Aristotle to Deleuze, Carl Schmitt to Benjamin, Hegel to Aby Warburg, and Heidegger to Derrida. Three fundamental concepts organize the collection as a whole: language, in the sense not of particular statements but rather the very taking place of speech, the pure fact of language's existence; history, as it appears from a perspective in which tradition, transmission, and memory reach their messianic fulfillment; and potentiality, understood as a fundamental problem of metaphysics, ethics, and the philosophy of language. All these topics converge in the final part of the book, in which Agamben offers an extensive reading of Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" as a work that puts potentiality and actuality, possibility and reality, in an altogether new light.

◆继福柯和德勒兹之后最引人注目的思想家之一雅克·朗西埃重新思考民主的颠覆性力量 ◆一部深刻、尖锐的民主观念简史 ◆特邀同济大学哲学系陆兴华教授撰写导读 【内容简介】 从柏拉图时代到法国大革命，再到20世纪的诸多理论家，雅克·朗西埃在《对民主之恨》中简述了民主观念史。在此 基础上，朗西埃为我们指出了民主的实质：民主不同于政治，它不是一种制度类型，也不是一种社会形式，而是那些既无权统治也无权服从的人们所特有的权力，其目的在于支持善的统治。他进而指出，民主通过全面打击一切建立在精英特权之上的权力形式来进行治理，由此对民主的恐惧乃至憎恨就植根于新的统治阶级之中。 【编辑推荐】 1、本书属于“左翼前沿思想译丛”，该译丛收录了巴迪欧、阿甘本、齐泽克等一批卓越的欧陆思想家在过去二十年间的经典著作，具有极高的理论价值。 2、作者雅克·朗西埃是当今最有影响力的欧陆思想家之一。有评论将之誉为继米歇尔·福柯和吉尔·德勒兹之后最引人瞩目的思想家之一。 3、在本书中，朗西埃以精炼的语言阐述了民主的观念史，不乏深刻、尖锐的观点以及对当下热门政治事件和政治生活的观照。本书从柏拉图时代谈起，一直延伸到20世纪的诸多理论家关于民主的思想和理念。 【学者及媒体推荐】 米歇尔·福柯和吉尔·德勒兹之后最引人注目的思想家与作者之一。 ——汤姆·康尼（Tom Conley），哈佛大学 朗西埃在本书中批评了一种对人民做决定、为人民做决定，而非让人民做决定的政治形态；批评了一种为了维持自身的某种政治秩序而存在的政治，群体中的每一个部分都被安排在了“恰当”的位置上。 ——卢卡·阿尔森加克（Luka Arsenjuk），马里兰大学 政治理论家们期待了十年甚至更长的时间，从雅克·朗西埃的著作这儿索求/提取关于政治的更为直接的理论；而现在，轮到西方的电影理论家、文学理论家、艺术史学家和美学家们了。 ——奥利弗·戴维斯（Oliver Davis），华威大学 在这个左派失去了方向的时代，朗西埃的著作给我们提供了一系列少见的持续不断的关于如何继续抗争的概念。 ——斯拉沃热·齐泽克 雅克·朗西埃将是我们当代中国理论知识分子们的一味苦药。朗老师是我们时代里一面活着的传统，对我们中国大陆师生，他是一面巨大的回音壁，还没怎么用过，用处可能就都留在今后了。如果有“毛泽东主义”者，有一个从1968年来不弯腰、不折的思想家，一个真正的不让步的选择派，他就是朗老师。理解他的困难，不在他的写作上的史诗式的横贯和修辞及辩证之精致稠密，而在于他的这种哲学、政治上的犟劲儿。 ——陆兴华 这本机智而具讽刺性的论著有几分像是一场贯穿了政治哲学史的学术冲刺，又有几分像是对其思想上的竞争对手挥出的一连串极精彩的组合拳。 ——《卫报》 朗西埃批评了西方国家对国内大众抗议与流行文化的蔑视姿态，以及用武力在世界范围内推行民主的做法。……但朗西埃为了显示我们政治话语中的含混性而避开了争论。他挑战了在他看来是普遍持有的观点，即民主生活与“冷漠消费者的非政治生活”是一对同义词。 ——《新政治家》 一篇关于“民主”概念的定义与重定义的激动人心的文章……正在伊拉克发生的大灾难为朗西埃大胆的假设提供了十分明晰的证据，他认为在以“自由”的名义进行更多战争之前我们需要重新思考民主与权力之间的关系。 ——《泰晤士报高等教育增刊》

Love without risk is an impossibility, like war without death. Caught between consumerism and casual sexual encounters devoid of passion, love today - without the key ingredient of chance - is in mortal danger. Alain Badiou proposes a vision of love as an adventure of the individual. Liberal and libertine reductions of love to instant pleasure and non-commitment bite the dust as Badiou invokes a supporting cast of thinkers from Plato to Lacan via Karl Marx to create a new narrative of romance, relationships and sex - one that does not fear love.

约翰•穆勒的《论自由》一直是政治哲学乃至人文思想领域内享誉至高的作品，虽然篇幅不大，却是一部划时代的思想巨著，它深化了启蒙运动以来关于个人自由和政治自由的论述，集古典自由主义理论体系之大成，成为历久不衰的经典之作。 本书清晰地阐明了自由主义的核心思想：个人只要在不伤害他人的范围内，就应该拥有完全的思想自由、言论自由和个性自由（行动自由），而这一原则的实施，有赖于对政府及社会权力的界定和限制，这也正是本书最早的中译者严复先生将其译为“群己权界”的渊源所在，这种思考对每一个迈向现代社会的国家来说，仍然至关重要。 以赛亚•伯林 对于那些渴望一个开放与宽容社会的人，穆勒仍然是他们的立场的最清晰、最诚实与最有说服力的表达者。关于人类那些最基本的特征与志向，穆勒说出了某些真实而重要的东西。 萨拜因 自由本身的价值激起他内心一股热流和激情，这是穆勒其他著作里没有见过的。这使《论自由》与弥尔顿的《雅典最高法院法官》并成为捍卫自由的经典著作。 哈罗德•拉斯基 很少人像他那样精力充沛地坚持着道德标准！没有人像他那样热忱地追求着正义！与卢梭相比，他的情感之火似乎烧得苍白无力；但是卢梭的感染力深入人心之处，也正是穆勒提高人们思想境界的地方。和任何人一样，他高举着理性之灯，这盏灯由于他的存在而发出更加璀璨之光！ 李 强 穆勒在自由主义发展史上的重要性在于，他第一次赋予自由主义完整而全面的理论形式，从心理学、认识论、历史观、伦理观等角度为当时已经达到黄金时期的自由主义提供了哲学基础，并以充沛的激情与清晰的逻辑对个人自由的理想作出强有力的辩护。

Art and Abstract Objects presents a lively philosophical exchange between the philosophy of art and the core areas of philosophy. The standard way of thinking about non-repeatable (single-instance) artworks such as paintings, drawings, and non-cast sculpture is that they are concrete (i.e., material, causally efficacious, located in space and time). Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is currently located in Paris. Richard Serra's Tilted Arc is 73 tonnes of solid steel. Johannes Vermeer's The Concert was stolen in 1990 and remains missing. Michaelangelo's David was attacked with a hammer in 1991. By contrast, the standard way of thinking about repeatable (multiple-instance) artworks such as novels, poems, plays, operas, films, symphonies is that they must be abstract (i.e., immaterial, causally inert, outside space-time): consider the current location of Melville's Moby Dick, the weight of Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium", or how one might go about stealing Puccini's La Boheme or vandalizing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9. Although novels, poems, and symphonies may appear radically unlike stock abstract objects such as numbers, sets, and propositions, most philosophers of art think that for the basic intuitions, practices, and conventions surrounding such works to be preserved, repeatable artworks must be abstracta. This volume examines how philosophical enquiry into art might itself productively inform or be productively informed by enquiry into abstracta taking place within not just metaphysics but also the philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind and language. While the contributors chiefly focus on the relationship between philosophy of art and contemporary metaphysics with respect to the overlap issue of abstracta, they provide a methodological blueprint from which scholars working both within and beyond philosophy of art can begin building responsible, mutually informative, and productive relationships between their respective fields.

Modern history is haunted by the disasters of the century - world wars, concentration camps, Hiroshima, and the Holocaust - grief, anger, terror, and loss beyond words, but still close, still impending. How can we write or think about disaster when by its very nature it defies speech and compels silence, burns books and shatters meaning? "The Writing of the Disaster" reflects upon efforts to abide in disaster's infinite threat. First published in French in 1980, it takes up the most serious tasks of writing: to describe, explain, and redeem when possible, and to admit what is not possible. Neither offers consolation.Maurice Blanchot has been praised on both sides of the Atlantic for his fiction and criticism. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas once remarked that Blanchot's writing is a 'language of pure transcendence, without correlative.' Literary theorist and critic Geoffrey Hartman remarked that Blanchot's influence on contemporary writers 'cannot be overestimated.' Ann Smock is a professor of French at the University of California at Berkeley. She has translated Blanchot's "The Space of Literature", also available as a Bison Book. Jeffrey Mehlman, a professor of French at Boston University, is the author of many books and articles on twentieth-century France and French literature.

Being and Event is the greatest work of Alain Badiou, France's most important living philosopher. Long-awaited in translation, Being and Event makes available to an English-speaking readership Badiou's groundbreaking work on set theory - the cornerstone of his whole philosophy. The book makes the scope and aim of Badiou's whole philosophical project clear, enabling full comprehension of Badiou's significance for contemporary philosophy. Badiou draws upon and is fully engaged with the European philosophical tradition from Plato onwards; Being and Event deals with such key figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Rousseau, Heidegger and Lacan. This wide-ranging book is organised in a careful, precise and novel manner, reflecting the philosophical rigour of Badiou's thought. Unlike many contemporary Continental philosophers, Badiou - who is also a novelist and dramatist - writes lucidly and cogently, making his work far more accessible and engaging than much philosophy, and actually a pleasure to read. This English language edition includes a new preface, written by Badiou himself, especially for this translation. Being and Event is a must-have for Badiou's significant following and anyone interested in contemporary Continental philosophy.

《自传性反思》可谓沃格林（1901-1985）的一幅思想地图。在这部由口述整理而成的著作里，沃格林回顾了自己的求学经历，描绘了自己各个时期的研究。从群星荟萃的维也纳大学，到美、英、法诸大学，沃格林在游学中不断拓展知识视野，期间的种种细节扣人心弦。 沃格林人生旅程的一个突出部分是他可察知的求索和逐步推进的发现——和他的涉及面之广——去何处寻找帮助和解救，尤其是身处制度性毁灭、知识分子的道德败坏和人格的堕落之时。在这种情况下，他是如何做的？这就是这本小书的实质。 ——桑多兹

Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion places philosophical approaches at the heart of contemporary fashion studies. Considering the mutual relationships between aesthetics, modern society and culture, fashion and the fine arts, and the way these relationships have influenced and shaped our views on identity and taste, this ground-breaking book also explores the various intellectual and cultural movements that inform how people dress. In the context of the most recent debates, the leading fashion and philosophy scholars contributing to this volume refer to and apply theories posed by key thinkers of the modern and contemporary age, from Darwin and Wittgenstein to Husserl and Goodman, in order to answer questions such as: what is the essence of fashion and the reasons behind its fascination? What is anti-fashion? What or who do we imitate when we follow fashion? What is fashion criticism and what should it be? Anyone studying or interested in fashion, philosophy or art will find this book a rich source of ideas, insight and information. Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion is a valuable contribution to contemporary fashion theory and aesthetics, one that revitalizes the way we look at the form, purpose and meaning of fashion and aesthetic experience.

In This Sex Which Is Not One, Luce Irigaray elaborates on some of the major themes of Speculum of the Other Woman, her landmark work on the status of woman in Western philosophical discourse and in psychoanalytic theory. In eleven acute and widely ranging essays, Irigaray reconsiders the question of female sexuality in a variety of contexts that are relevant to current discussion of feminist theory and practice. Among the topics she treats are the implications of the thought of Freud and Lacan for understanding womanhood and articulating a feminine discourse; classic views on the significance of the difference between male and female sex organs; and the experience of erotic pleasure in men and in women. She also takes up explicitly the question of economic exploitation of women; in an astute reading of Marx she shows that the subjection of woman has been institutionalized by her reduction to an object of economic exchange. Throughout Irigaray seeks to dispute and displace male-centered structures of language and thought through a challenging writing practice that takes a first step toward a woman's discourse, a discourse that would put an end to Western culture's enduring phallocentrism. Making more direct and accessible the subversive challenge of Speculum of the Other Woman, this volume―skillfully translated by Catherine Porter (with Carolyn Burke)―will be essential reading for anyone seriously concerned with contemporary feminist issues.

What is a self? Does it exist in reality or is it a mere social construct -- or is it perhaps a neurologically induced illusion? The legitimacy of the concept of the self has been questioned by both neuroscientists and philosophers in recent years. Countering this, in Subjectivity and Selfhood , Dan Zahavi argues that the notion of self is crucial for a proper understanding of consciousness. He investigates the interrelationships of experience, self-awareness, and selfhood, proposing that none of these three notions can be understood in isolation. Any investigation of the self, Zahavi argues, must take the first-person perspective seriously and focus on the experiential givenness of the self. Subjectivity and Selfhood explores a number of phenomenological analyses pertaining to the nature of consciousness, self, and self-experience in light of contemporary discussions in consciousness research. Philosophical phenomenology -- as developed by Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others -- not only addresses crucial issues often absent from current debates over consciousness but also provides a conceptual framework for understanding subjectivity. Zahavi fills the need -- given the recent upsurge in theoretical and empirical interest in subjectivity -- for an account of the subjective or phenomenal dimension of consciousness that is accessible to researchers and students from a variety of disciplines. His aim is to use phenomenological analyses to clarify issues of central importance to philosophy of mind, cognitive science, developmental psychology, and psychiatry. By engaging in a dialogue with other philosophical and empirical positions, says Zahavi, phenomenology can demonstrate its vitality and contemporary relevance.

A disturbing and radical examination of the status of women and the role of violence in contemporary culture and politics.