Seeing Things Hidden Apocalypse, Vision and Totality

by Bull, Malcolm

• ISBN13: 9781859842638
• ISBN10: 1859842631
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-17
• Publisher: VERSO

Summary

The multiplicity of the self and the inaccessibility of truth are commonplaces of contemporary thought. But in Seeing Things Hidden they become key features of a philosophy of history that reunites emancipatory political theory with the apocalyptic tradition. Exploiting affinities between the work of Lukacs and recent American philosophers like Rorty and Cavell, Bull argues that the central dynamic of late modernity is the coming into hiding of the contradictory identities generated through political and social emancipation. Drawing on analytic and Continental philosophy he articulates the most ambitious philosophy of history since Francis Fukuyama's The End of History, presenting fresh interpretations of such icons of modernity as Hegel's master-slave dialectic, Benjamin's angel of history, Du Bois's concept of double consciousness, and Rawls's veil of ignorance.

Author Biography

Malcolm Bull teaches at Oxford

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Hiddenness	1	(46)
Part One Apocalypse and Totality
Apocalypse	47	(53)
Hegel: From Apocalypse to Totality	100	(36)
The End: Watts, Kant, Benjamin	136	(29)
Part Two Vision and Totality
The World in Hiding: Anti-Visual Holism	165	(34)
Coming into Hiding: The Master-Slave Dialectic	199	(57)
Living in Hiding: The Multiple Self	256	(35)
Epilogue	291	(4)
Notes	295	(40)
Index	335