Levinas and Camus

Levinas and Camus PDF Author: Tal Sessler
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441195734
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
This important new book compares the respective oeuvre of two seminal thinkers of the 20th century, Emmanuel Levinas and Albert Camus. Tal Sessler compares their lasting legacies within the specific context of intellectual resistance to totalitarianism and political violence, with particular focus on their respective approaches to the Holocaust and genocide in the 20th century and, correspondingly, the question of theodicy and religious faith. Levinas and Camus explores each thinker's congruent and complimentary metaphysical and political rationale in opposing tyranny. Sessler emphasises the religious component in Levinas's depiction of Hitlerism as paganism (a perception that Camus shares), and the correlation between liberalism and monotheism. The book explores Levinas and Camus's reflections on the Holocaust and the question of theodicy and deals with their corresponding critiques of Stalinism and Hegelian philosophy of history. Sessler goes on to consider how Levinas and Camus would have contended with the central political issue of our own era, religious fundamentalism, and explicates the dualist nature of Israel and Algeria in the writings of Levinas and Camus.

Levinas and Camus

Levinas and Camus PDF Author: Tal Sessler
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441195734
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 125

Get Book

Book Description
This important new book compares the respective oeuvre of two seminal thinkers of the 20th century, Emmanuel Levinas and Albert Camus. Tal Sessler compares their lasting legacies within the specific context of intellectual resistance to totalitarianism and political violence, with particular focus on their respective approaches to the Holocaust and genocide in the 20th century and, correspondingly, the question of theodicy and religious faith. Levinas and Camus explores each thinker's congruent and complimentary metaphysical and political rationale in opposing tyranny. Sessler emphasises the religious component in Levinas's depiction of Hitlerism as paganism (a perception that Camus shares), and the correlation between liberalism and monotheism. The book explores Levinas and Camus's reflections on the Holocaust and the question of theodicy and deals with their corresponding critiques of Stalinism and Hegelian philosophy of history. Sessler goes on to consider how Levinas and Camus would have contended with the central political issue of our own era, religious fundamentalism, and explicates the dualist nature of Israel and Algeria in the writings of Levinas and Camus.

Education, Ethics and Existence

Education, Ethics and Existence PDF Author: Peter Roberts
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317527224
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Best known today for his novels, plays and short stories, but also an accomplished essayist, editor and journalist, Albert Camus was one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century. He has gained widespread recognition for works such as The Stranger, Caligula, The Plague and Exile and the Kingdom. In 1957 Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1960 he was killed in a car accident, aged just 46. Since Camus’ untimely death, his work has been engaged by scholars in literature, politics, philosophy and many other fields. This volume is one of the first book-length studies of Camus with a specifically educational focus. Camus’ writings raise and address ethical and political questions that resonate strongly with current concerns and debates in educational theory, and the difficulties and dilemmas faced by his characters mirror those encountered by many teachers in school classrooms. This book will appeal to all who wish to consider the connections between education, ethics and the problem of human existence. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy & Theory.

Camus, Philosophe

Camus, Philosophe PDF Author: Matthew Sharpe
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004302344
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 463

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Book Description
Camus, Philosophe: To Return to our Beginnings is the first book on Camus to read Camus in light of, and critical dialogue with, subsequent French and European philosophy. It argues that, while not an academic philosopher, Albert Camus was a philosophe in more profound senses looking back to classical precedents, and the engaged French lumières of the 18th century. Aiming his essays and literary writings at the wider reading public, Camus’ criticism of the forms of ‘political theology’ enshrined in fascist and Stalinist regimes singles him out markedly from more recent theological and messianic turns in French thought. His defense of classical thought, turning around the notions of natural beauty, a limit, and mesure makes him a singularly relevant figure given today’s continuing debates about climate change, as well as the way forward for the post-Marxian Left.

Rethinking the Politics of Absurdity

Rethinking the Politics of Absurdity PDF Author: Matthew H. Bowker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317975111
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
What does it mean to describe something or someone as absurd? Why did absurd philosophy and literature become so popular amidst the violent conflicts and terrors of the mid- to late-twentieth century? Is it possible to understand absurdity not as a feature of events, but as a psychological posture or stance? If so, what are the objectives, dynamics, and repercussions of the absurd stance? And in what ways has the absurd stance continued to shape postmodern thought and contemporary culture? In Rethinking the Politics of Absurdity, Matthew H. Bowker offers a surprising account of absurdity as a widespread endeavor to make parts of our experience meaningless. In the last century, he argues, fears about subjects’ destructive desires have combined with fears about rationality in a way that has made the absurd stance seem attractive. Drawing upon diverse sources from philosophy, literature, politics, psychoanalysis, theology, and contemporary culture, Bowker identifies the absurd effort to make aspects of our histories, our selves, and our public projects meaningless with postmodern revolts against reason and subjectivity. Weaving together analyses of the work of Albert Camus, Georges Bataille, Judith Butler, Emmanuel Levinas, and others with interview data and popular narratives of apocalypse and survival, Bowker shows that the absurd stance and the postmodern revolt invite a kind of bargain, in which meaning is sacrificed in exchange for the survival of innocence. Bowker asks us to consider that the very premise of this bargain is false: that ethical subjects and healthy communities cannot be created in absurdity. Instead, we must make meaningful even the most shocking losses, terrors, and destructive powers with which we live. Bowker's book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in the fields of political science, philosophy, literature, psychoanalysis, sociology, and cultural studies.

The Problem with Levinas

The Problem with Levinas PDF Author: Simon Critchley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198738765
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Levinas's idea of ethics as a relation of responsibility to others has become highly influential. Simon Critchley proposes a dramatic new way of reading Levinas's work, and provides a less familiar, more troubling, account of it. He argues that Levinas's fundamental problem was the attempt to escape the tragic fatality of Heidegger's philosophy.

Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Levinas PDF Author: Abi Doukhan
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441195769
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
A comprehensive and original approach to Levinas's philosophy, his ethics, politics, aesthetics, epistemology and metaphysics, in the context of his conception of exile.

Welcoming the Other

Welcoming the Other PDF Author: N. Susan Laehn
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793631212
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
The modern turn in political philosophy established the ontological primacy of the ego, reducing the community to a mere assemblage of individuals, and led to the repudiation of natural duties in favor of inherent individual rights. The modern project culminated in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose emphasis on radical individuation left human beings both liberated and exiled. Individuals were free to create (and to recreate) themselves anew, but they were simultaneously uprooted from any larger community. Indeed, the very possibility of shared meaning, let alone shared political life, was called into question. This volume consists of essays addressing the efforts of philosophers, artists, caretakers, and—perhaps most importantly—teachers to reestablish a foundation for political life in postmodernity. The origins of these efforts are diverse, and their modes are varied. Individuals seek communion with the divine, either with or through others; they pursue friendship among strangers; and they search for meaningful relationships in both the classroom and the public square. Reflecting the various means by which individuals seek communion with others and with the transcendent, divine Other, the essays contained in this volume explore the modes through which individuals forge relationships with others in an age of isolation.

Albert Camus's Philosophy of Communication

Albert Camus's Philosophy of Communication PDF Author:
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1621969878
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description


Brill's Companion to Camus

Brill's Companion to Camus PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004419241
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
This book is the first English-language collection of essays by leading Camus scholars around the world to focus on Albert Camus’ place and status as a philosopher amongst philosophers, engaging with leading Western thinkers, and considering themes of enduring interest.

Theory, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Francophone World

Theory, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Francophone World PDF Author: Rajeshwari S. Vallury
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498570399
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Theory, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Francophone World: Filiations Past and Future offers a critical reflection on some of the leading figures of twentieth-century French and Francophone literature, cinema, and philosophy. Specialists re-evaluate the historical, political, and artistic legacies of twentieth-century France and the French-speaking world, proposing new formulations of the relationships between fiction, aesthetics, and politics. This collection combines interdisciplinary scholarship, nuanced theoretical reflection, and contextualized analyses of literary, cinematic, and philosophical practices to suggest alternative critical paradigms for the twenty-first century. The contributors’ reappraisals of key writers, filmmakers, and intellectuals trace an alternative narrative of their historical, cultural, or intellectual legacy, casting a contemporary light on the aesthetic, theoretical, and political questions raised by their works. Taken as a whole, the essays generate a series of fresh perspectives on French and Francophone literary and cultural studies.