Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction

by Cutrofello; Andrew

• ISBN13: 9780415242080
• ISBN10: 0415242088
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-29
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introductionsurveys the main trends of European philosophy from Kant to the present. It is clearly written and accessible to students. In a novel approach, Andrew Cutrofello looks at continental philosophy through the lens of four questions that derive from Kant: -How is truth disclosed aesthetically? -To what does the feeling of respect attest? -Must we despair, or may we still hope? -What is the meaning of philosophical humanism? Cutrofello shows how these questions have been taken up by (1) phenomenologists, (2) continental ethicists, (3) hermeneuticians and critical theorists, and (4) existentialists and their critics. In the introduction and conclusion, he explains how the questions raised by continental philosophers differ from their analogues in the analytic tradition. With its frequent references to Shakespeare, Cutrofello's style is lively and engaging. His remarkably comprehensive book will be of interest not only to students butto anyone seeking a reliable overview of the continental tradition.

Table of Contents

List of abbreviations	viii
Preface and acknowledgments	xiv
Introduction: what is continental philosophy?
I.1 The Wars of the Roses	1	(4)
I.2 Kant's attempt to secure perpetual philosophical peace	5	(9)
I.3 Rorty's attempt to restore the peace	14	(3)
I.4 Nietzsche's clue to the persistence of the analytic/continental division	17	(3)
I.5 Heidegger's confirmation of Nietzsche's clue	20	(3)
I.6 Kant's questions as taken up in the House of Continental	23	(6)
Notes	29	(1)
1 The problem of the relationship between receptivity and spontaneity: how is truth disclosed aesthetically?	30	(81)
1.1 Kant's vigilance against fanaticism	31	(1)
1.2 Nietzsche's commemoration of Dionysian intoxication	32	(2)
1.3 Bergson's intuition of duration	34	(6)
1.4 Husserl's intuition of ideal essences	40	(8)
1.5 Heidegger's openness to being	48	(10)
1.6 Bachelard's poetics of science	58	(6)
1.7 Sartre's nihilating cogito	64	(7)
1.8 Merleau-Ponty's return to primordial perception	71	(9)
1.9 Foucault's archaeology of imagination	80	(8)
1.10 Derrida's deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence	88	(10)
1.11 Deleuze's transcendental empiricism	98	(11)
Notes	109	(2)
2 The problem of the relationship between heteronomy and autonomy: to what does the feeling of respect attest?	111	(102)
2.1 Kant's fact of reason	112	(7)
2.2 Nietzsche's genealogy of the ascetic ideal	119	(3)
2.3 Freud's diagnosis of superegoic cruelty and his speculative anthropology	122	(12)
2.4 Lévi-Strauss's structural anthropology	134	(8)
2.5 Bataille's heterology and his transvaluation of sovereignty	142	(9)
2.6 Blanchot's art of discretion	151	(7)
2.7 Levinas's ethics of alterity	158	(9)
2.8 Lacan's detection of a secret alliance between Kant and Sade	167	(11)
2.9 Althusser's attempt to forge an alliance between Marx and Freud	178	(10)
2.10 Deleuze and Guattari's schizoanalysis	188	(8)
2.11 Kristeva's semanalysis	196	(6)
2.12 Derrida's hauntology	202	(9)
Notes	211	(2)
3 The problem of the relationship between immanence and transcendence: must we despair or may we still hope?	213	(122)
3.1 Kant's prophetic response to the French Revolution	214	(11)
3.2 Marx's prophecy of a proletarian revolution	225	(9)
3.3 Lukacs's conception of reification and his development of a Marxist aesthetics	234	(10)
3.4 Heidegger's dialogue with Nietzsche about great art	244	(4)
3.5 Benjamin's angel of history	248	(11)
3.6 Adorno's ambivalence about the possibility of poetry after Auschwitz	259	(9)
3.7 Marcuse's Great Refusal	268	(7)
3.8 Arendt's articulation of the democratic principles of the American revolution	275	(9)
3.9 Gadamer's fusion of horizons	284	(9)
3.10 Ricoeur's dialectic of rival hermeneutics	293	(10)
3.11 Habermas's defense of the project of modernity	303	(8)
3.12 Lyotard's assessment of postmodernity	311	(10)
3.13 2riek's fidelity to the messianic promise of the Russian Revolution	321	(11)
Notes	332	(3)
4 The problem of the relationship between the empirical and the transcendental: what is the meaning of philosophical humanism?	335	(61)
4.1 Kant's pragmatic anthropology	336	(8)
4.2 Nietzsche's overman	344	(6)
4.3 Sartre's resolve for man's freedom	350	(5)
4.4 Heidegger's reproach against man's hubris	355	(3)
4.5 Beauvoir's project of solidarity and her analysis of the lived experience of gender	358	(10)
4.6 Fanon's indictment of colonialism and his analysis of the lived experience of race	368	(7)
4.7 Levi-Strauss's repudiation of the category of man	375	(4)
4.8 Foucault's genealogy of power	379	(5)
4.9 Irigaray's sensible transcendental	384	(6)
4.10 Habermas's evasion of the dilemmas concerning man and his doubles	390	(3)
Notes	393	(3)
5 Conclusion: what is philosophy?	396	(23)
5.1 Kant's questions as taken up in the House of Analytic	396	(6)
5.2 The conflict of the philosophy faculty with itself	402	(15)
Notes	417	(2)
References	419	(14)
Index	433