Philosophy

Hegel and Objective Spirit

Jean-Francois Kervégan

“With this new book by JeanFrançois Kervégan . . . we finally have what was needed—a clearly written, well-argued, and farseeing reconstruction of what Hegel intended when understanding societal life as objectified spirit. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in finding out why Hegel is of importance for current debates within social, legal, and political philosophy.”—Axel Honneth, Columbia University

2018 416 p. 6 x 9 170 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-02380-9 $59.00

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After the Beautiful

Hegel and the Philosophy of Pictorial Modernism

Robert B. Pippin

“Pippin uses the work of Manet and Cezanne (the grandfather and father of modernism) to embark on a kind of philosophical time travel with Hegel. Pippin persuasively argues that Hegel’s thought remains relevant for helping one understand the achievements of modernist painting as philosophical achievements. . . . The theoretical and historical sweep of Pippin’s study is impressive and delightfully illuminating. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

2015 176 p. 6 x 9 7 color plates, 36 halftones 171 Paper ISBN: 978-0-226-32558-3 $23.00

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Biopower

Foucault and Beyond

Edited by Vernon W. Cisney and Nicolae Morar

“Cisney and Morar have assembled a stellar collection of essays. . . . Topics as diverse as the life sciences, the birth of statistics, contemporary medicine, HIV prevention, race, gender, and the Arab uprisings are all examined from the viewpoint of the concepts of biopower and biopolitics, demonstrating their continuing relevance.” —Daniel W. Smith, Purdue University

2015 400 p. 6 x 9 12 halftones 172 Paper ISBN: 978-0-226-22662-0 $38.00

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The Moral Meaning of Nature

Nietzsche’s Darwinian Religion and Its Critics

Peter J. Woodford

“Woodford does an excellent job of showing how the concept of ‘life’ connects many strands of Nietzsche’s thought while also engaging a constellation of authors and their approaches, such as Overbeck and the study of religion, Simmel and the study of sociology, and Rickert and the neo-Kantian approach to values.” —John H. Smith, University of California, Irvine Writings on the Arts of the Visible

Jacques Derrida

“Who other than Jacques Derrida could have demonstrated with this degree of insight and lucidity the essential relationship between the visual arts and invisibility, nonappearance, absence, the night, blindness, even death? This superb collection of essays on painting, drawing, photography, video, cinema, and theater will forever transform both the way we understand Derrida and the way we look at the visual arts.”—Michael Naas, DePaul University

2021 328 p. 6 x 9 7 halftones 174 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-14061-2 $45.00

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Two Thumbs Up

How Critics Aid Appreciation

Stephanie Ross

“Two Thumbs Up offers a persuasive argument that experienced critics can importantly aid our appreciation of works of art. Ross defends Hume’s famous view of the development of taste, addressing a host of philosophical questions regarding the subjectivity of aesthetic preferences. Her sophisticated solution is convincingly presented in an enjoyable, readable style.” —Carolyn Korsmeyer, author of Savoring Disgust: The Foul and the Fair in Aesthetics

2020 256 p. 6 x 9 175 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-06428-4 $45.00

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Creatively Undecided

Toward a History and Philosophy of Scientific Agency

Menachem Fisch

“[Fisch] has something crucially important to say about one of the most pressing issues in our globalized and politically-torn world: how to self-criticize ‘from within’ our normative frameworks when challenged by competing cultures who confront us ‘from without.’” —Niccolò Guicciardini, University of Bergamo

2017 304 p. 6 x 9 176 Paper ISBN: 978-0-226-51451-2 $40.00

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The Ashtray

(Or the Man Who Denied Reality)

Errol Morris

“The documentarian Errol Morris gives us The Ashtray, a semi-autobiographical tale of the supremely influential The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn. A spellbinding intellectual adventure into the limits, fragility, and infirmity of human reason. Morris’s tale is picaresque. Anecdotes, cameos, interviews, historical digressions, sly side notes, and striking illustrations hang off a central spine that recounts critical episodes in the history of analytic philosophy.” —Boston Review

2018 192 p. 8 x 10 49 color plates, 39 halftones 177 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-92268-3 $30.00

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A Fragile Life

Accepting Our Vulnerability

Todd May

“With an astonishing capacity to travel across philosophical traditions and with his usual grace in rendering deep philosophical issues through an accessible language, May tackles here one of the most pressing existential questions of our time: are we vulnerable, and, if so, why? This is a must read for anybody who has ever asked herself ‘What am I doing here?’” —Chiara Bottici, author of Imaginal Politics

2017 232 p. 51/2 x 81/2 178 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-43995-2 $25.00

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Action versus Contemplation

Why an Ancient Debate Still Matters

Jennifer Summit and Blakey Vermeule

“Summit and Vermeule taught a course at Stanford on this dichotomy between the cultivation of wisdom and the demonstration of skills. Action Versus Contemplation begins with an appeal for balance rather than conflict when these two realms are juxtaposed. . . . Trained as literary critics, [the authors] aim this brief book towards those who seek to recover a wise balance while never dismissing the life of the mind.”—PopMatters

2018 256 p. 51/2 x 81/2 7 halftones 179 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-03223-8 $25.00

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Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering

What Philosophy Can Tell Us about the Hardest Mystery of All

Scott Samuelson

“In this eminently readable but subtle book, Samuelson opens up new ways of thinking about suffering. Weaving together philosophical reflections with compelling stories of his time teaching in prison, Samuelson shows us the various roles undeserved suffering plays our lives, and indeed in life itself. This book is a necessary read for those of us who want to reflect on the place of pain in human existence.”—Todd May, author of A Decent Life

Fashion

A Philosophy

Lars Svendsen

“Svendsen sums up and renders obsolete many previous, famous explanations. . . . I like his lack of complicity with his subject.” —The Guardian

“Fashion is an elegant and relatively easily read tour de force along academic and literary roads into the notion of fashion.” —Weekend-Avisen, Copenhagen

Distributed for Reaktion Books

2006 188 p. 43/4 x 73/4 181 Paper ISBN: 978-1-86189-291-1 $24.95

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A Philosophy of Dirt

Olli Lagerspetz

“Lagerspetz traces the ideological links that have existed, at least since the Enlightenment, between cleanliness and self-discipline, and conversely between dirt and the surrender to animal instincts. . . . Cleanliness is not just contiguous to godliness, but in some deep-rooted way constitutive of it. You cannot be pure in spirit if you live in a pigsty.”—Boundless Magazine

Distributed for Reaktion Books

2018 256 p. 51/2 x 81/2 182 Cloth ISBN: 978-1-78023-918-7 $24.00

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Artistic License

The Philosophical Problems of Copyright and Appropriation

Darren Hudson Hick

“Hick examines a range of key concepts central to intellectual property law, including authorship, works, originality, and infringement. . . . [Addresses] an area of growing interest among not only philosophers, but also legal theorists and the art world.”—Julie C. Van Camp, California State University, Long Beach

2017 240 p. 6 x 9 183 Paper ISBN: 978-0-226-46024-6 $32.00

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Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict

Edited by David Johnston, Nadia Urbinati, and Camila Vergara

“Offers readers a series of invaluable essays that represent the most important trends in contemporary scholarship on Machiavelli.” —Filippo Del Lucchese, Brunel University London Strategies of Persuasion and Education

John T. Scott

“A remarkable book. Many have examined Rousseau’s literary style and rhetoric, as well as his efforts at what Rousseau himself is prone to call ‘persuasion,’ but Scott goes well beyond, focusing on the interaction between author and reader, and, specifically, the techniques Rousseau uses to educate his reader. Scott does all readers of Rousseau a great service in showing exactly how the arguments and what might be called the ‘literary action’ of Rousseau’s writings work together towards a common goal.”—Ryan Patrick Hanley, Boston College

2020 336 p. 6 x 9 9 halftones, 4 tables 185 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-68914-2 $35.00

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Nietzsche’s Journey to Sorrento

Genesis of the Philosophy of the Free Spirit

Paolo D’Iorio

“Although this account of Nietzsche’s travels is confined to the time he was in Sorrento, it is valuable for tracing the philosopher’s intellectual thought. . . . This is a pleasant, instructive read.”—Choice

2016 168 p. 6 x 9 34 halftones 186 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-16456-4 $38.00

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Critique of Freedom

The Central Problem of Modernity

Otfried Höffe

“Höffe’s comprehensive review of the modern ethical, legal, and political order offers a new emphasis on propositions more often foolishly denied than ignored: Freedom is real, and important; modernity, the fullest realization of freedom achieved by humanity so far, is still very far from reaching its goal, but it is also far from being a total failure. . . The lessons of this book should be taken to heart by all of us.”—Allen W. Wood, Indiana University

2020 336 p. 6 x 9 187 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-46590-6 $40.00

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The Government of Desire

A Genealogy of the Liberal Subject

Miguel de Beistegui

“Miguel de Beistegui contributes to what Foucault called a history of the present by pursuing the idea of desire across three categories: economic, sexual, and symbolic. By interweaving the historical and theoretical aspects of these together, he argues that desire is not a transcendental feature of subjectivity, but rather an ‘assemblage’ of knowledge and power. Bolstered by a remarkable amount of research, The Government of Desire is a compelling, persuasive, and original work of philosophy.” —Leonard Lawlor, Pennsylvania State University How Words Create Digital Institutions

Adam Hodgkin

“As we are all somehow aware, human reality is being changed as a result of the workings of social media. Philosophers have so far done little to come to terms with this fact. Hodgkin’s book is in this respect a true trailbreaker—and a pleasure to read.”—Barry Smith, University at Buffalo

2017 224 p. 6 x 9 1 halftone, 1 table 189 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-43821-4 $43.00

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Sovereignty, Inc.

Three Inquiries in Politics and Enjoyment

William Mazzarella, Eric L. Santner, and Aaron Schuster

“This superb trio of essays focuses on the mysterious third sphere that separates the governmental function from every living and breathing efficient cause. Conceived variously as a gap, the empty throne of power, the seat of the flesh or of surplus enjoyment, this sphere was formerly celebrated with pomp and circumstance. While these trappings have vanished from our modern, capitalist age, this sphere, filled now with a new form of emptiness, insists with implacable force. Posed polemically against the gray hues of contemporary critiques of capitalism and neoliberalism, these essays are dazzling standouts.”—Joan Copjec, Brown University

2019 224 p. 51/2 x 81/2 190 Paper ISBN: 978-0-226-66841-3 $22.00

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Interanimations

Receiving Modern German Philosophy

Robert B. Pippin

“In Interanimations, Pippin brings his interpretations of German philosophers into conversation with others’ interpretations. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice

“Pippin’s book aims to show us what it is to advance philosophy through engaging the great minds of the past—and through an ongoing conversation and argument with others doing the same. From this point of view, philosophizing historically is very much a futureoriented enterprise, addressing the foundational philosophical concerns of our culture. Every reader who cares about the problems and prospects of modernity will find stimulation, provocation, and remarkable inspiration in these pages.”—R. Lanier Anderson, Stanford University

2015 272 p. 6 x 9 191 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-226-25965-9 $38.00

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