Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy, No. 13: Special Issue on Affect (2011)

“This special issue of Parrhesia has developed from the 2010 Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy’s Conference at the University of Queensland on the theme of the philosophy of affect. [..]

The issue contributes to the “affective turn” by engaging in studies of affect grounded in non-dualist ontologies and by considering affect in relation to the work of art. The collection also works against the narrowly defined “turn” by providing nuanced readings of philosophers understood by the “turn” only in clichéd terms, as ultra-rationalist or anaffective.” (from the Introduction)

With contributions by Antonio Calcagno, Sara Heinämaa, Paul Redding, Bernard Stiegler, Geoff Boucher, Max Deutscher, Paul Formosa, Stuart Grant, Jane Lymer, Matthew Sharpe, Marie Christine Tams, Magdalena Zolkos, and Robert Sinnerbrink.

Edited by Marguerite La Caze and Henry Martyn Lloyd
Publisher Open Humanities Press
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
ISSN 1834-3287
210 pages

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Peter Sloterdijk: The Art of Philosophy: Wisdom as a Practice (2010/2012)

In his best-selling book You Must Change Your Life, Peter Sloterdijk argued exercise and practice were crucial to the human condition. In The Art of Philosophy, he extends this critique to academic science and scholarship, casting the training processes of academic study as key to the production of sophisticated thought. Infused with humor and provocative insight, The Art of Philosophy further integrates philosophy and human existence, richly detailing the foundations of this relationship and its transformative role in making the postmodern self.

Sloterdijk begins with Plato’s description of Socrates, whose internal monologues were so absorbing they often rooted the philosopher in place. The original academy, Sloterdijk argues, taught scholars to lose themselves in thought, and today’s universities continue this tradition by offering scope for Plato’s “accommodations for absences.” By training scholars to practice thinking as an occupation transcending daily time and space, universities create the environment in which thought makes wisdom possible. Traversing the history of asceticism, the concept of suspended animation, and the theory of the neutral observer, Sloterdijk traces the evolution of philosophical practice from ancient times to today, showing how scholars can remain true to the tradition of “the examined life” even when the temporal dimension no longer corresponds to the eternal. Building on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Arendt, and other practitioners of the life of theory, Sloterdijk launches a posthumanist defense of philosophical inquiry and its everyday, therapeutic value.

Originally published as Scheintod im Denken, Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin, 2010
Translated by Karen Margolis
Publisher Columbia University Press, New York, 2012
ISBN 0231158718, 9780231158718
107 pages

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Gary Peters: The Philosophy of Improvisation (2009)

Improvisation is usually either lionized as an ecstatic experience of being in the moment or disparaged as the thoughtless recycling of clichés. Eschewing both of these orthodoxies, The Philosophy of Improvisation ranges across the arts—from music to theater, dance to comedy—and considers the improvised dimension of philosophy itself in order to elaborate an innovative concept of improvisation.

Gary Peters turns to many of the major thinkers within continental philosophy—including Heidegger, Nietzsche, Adorno, Kant, Benjamin, and Deleuze—offering readings of their reflections on improvisation and exploring improvisational elements within their thinking. Peters’s wry, humorous style offers an antidote to the frequently overheated celebration of freedom and community that characterizes most writing on the subject. Expanding the field of what counts as improvisation, The Philosophy of Improvisation will be welcomed by anyone striving to comprehend the creative process.

Publisher University of Chicago Press, 2009
ISBN 0226662780, 9780226662787
198 pages

review (Andy Hamilton, The Wire)
review (Martin Lussier, Critical Studies in Improvisation)

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