Ian James: The New French Philosophy (2012)
Filed under book | Tags: · materialism, non-philosophy, ontology, phenomenology, philosophy, subjectivity, technics
This book gives a critical assessment of key developments in contemporary French philosophy, highlighting the diverse ways in which recent French thought has moved beyond the philosophical positions and arguments which have been widely associated with the terms ‘post-structuralism’ and ‘postmodernism’. These developments are assessed through a close comparative reading of the work of seven contemporary thinkers: Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Luc Nancy, Bernard Stiegler, Catherine Malabou, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou and François Laruelle.
The book situates the writing of each philosopher in relation to earlier traditions of French thought. In differing ways, these philosophers decisively distance themselves from the linguistic paradigm which dominated so much twentieth-century thought in order to rethink philosophical conceptions of materiality, worldliness, shared embodied existence and human agency or subjectivity. They thereby open the way for a radical renewal of the claims, possibilities and transformative power of philosophical thinking itself.
This book will be an indispensable text for students of philosophy and for anyone interested in current developments in philosophy and social thought.
Publisher Polity, April 2012
ISBN 0745648053, 9780745648057
220 pages
review (Marjorie Gracieuse, review31)
review (Shelly Walia, Spectrum)
Gilles Deleuze: Bergsonism (1966-) [FR, ES, EN, PT, RU, CZ]
Filed under book | Tags: · duration, elan vital, intuition, memory, monism, ontology, philosophy, time
“What is needed for something new to appear? According to Gilles Deleuze, this question of ‘novelty’ is the major problem posed by Bergson’s work. In Bergsonism, Deleuze demonstrates both the development and the range of three fundamental Bergsonian concepts: duration, memory, and the élan vital.
A good companion book to Bergson’s Matter and Memory, Bergsonism is also of particular interest to students of Deleuze’s own work, influenced as it is by Bergson.”
French edition
Publisher Presses Universitaires de France, 1966
3rd edition, 2004
ISBN 2130545416
English edition
Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam
Publisher Zone Books, 1988
ISBN 094229906X, 9780942299069
131 pages
Publisher (EN)
Le bergsonisme (French, 1966/2004)
El bergsonismo (Spanish, trans. Luis Ferrero Carracedo, 1987, no OCR)
Bergsonism (English, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam, 1988, no OCR)
Bergsonismo (Portuguese, trans. Luiz B. L. Orlandi, 1999/2008)
Empirizm i subektivnost. Kriticheskaya filosofiya Kanta. Bergsonizm. Spinoza (Russian, trans. Я.И. Свирский, 2001)
Bergsonismus (Czech, trans. Josef Fulka, 2006, no OCR)
See also Mémoire et vie (1957-), Bergson’s texts selected by Deleuze.
Comment (0)Alexander R. Galloway: The Interface Effect (2012)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, computing, ideology, interface, media, media theory, mediation, ontology, philosophy, politics, software
“Interfaces are back, or perhaps they never left. The familiar Socratic conceit from the Phaedrus, of communication as the process of writing directly on the soul of the other, has returned to center stage in today’s discussions of culture and media. Indeed Western thought has long construed media as a grand choice between two kinds of interfaces. Following the optimistic path, media seamlessly interface self and other in a transparent and immediate connection. But, following the pessimistic path, media are the obstacles to direct communion, disintegrating self and other into misunderstanding and contradiction. In other words, media interfaces are either clear or complicated, either beautiful or deceptive, either already known or endlessly interpretable.
Recognizing the limits of either path, Galloway charts an alternative course by considering the interface as an autonomous zone of aesthetic activity, guided by its own logic and its own ends: the interface effect. Rather than praising user-friendly interfaces that work well, or castigating those that work poorly, this book considers the unworkable nature of all interfaces, from windows and doors to screens and keyboards. Considered allegorically, such thresholds do not so much tell the story of their own operations but beckon outward into the realm of social and political life, and in so doing ask a question to which the political interpretation of interfaces is the only coherent answer.
Grounded in philosophy and cultural theory and driven by close readings of video games, software, television, painting, and other images, Galloway seeks to explain the logic of digital culture through an analysis of its most emblematic and ubiquitous manifestation – the interface.”
Publisher Polity, 2012
ISBN 0745662528, 9780745662527
170 pages
Review: McKenzie Wark (Public Seminar, 2015).
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