9781844673513-frontcover

Ethics-Politics-Subjectivity: Essays on Derrida, Levinas & Contemporary French Thought

Powerful and provocative, explores the relation of ethical experience to politics.
In Ethics – Politics – Subjectivity, Simon Critchley takes up three questions at the centre of contemporary theoretical debate: What is ethical experience? What can be said of the subject who has this experience? What, if any, is the relation of ethical experience to politics? Through spirited confrontations with major thinkers, such as Lacan, Nancy, Rorty, and, in particular, Levinas and Derrida, Critchley finds answers in a nuanced “ethics of finitude” and defends the political possibilities of deconstruction. Democracy, economics, friendship, and technology are all considered anew in Critchley’s bold excursions on the meaning and value of recent French philosophy.

Paperback, 302 pages

ISBN: 9781844673513

June 2009

$12.95 / £6.99

Reviews

  • Simon Critchley is the most powerful and provocative philosopher now writing about the complex relations of ethical subjectivity and reinvigorated democracy.

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Humiliation and Hope: Alfredo Jaar and Simon Critchley in Conversation

In a recent feature for Mute, David Morris puts artist Alfredo Jaar, with whom Verso collaborated for his Marx Lounge at the Liverpool Biennial and the cover of The Emancipated Spectator, and author of Infinitely Demanding, Simon Critchley in dialogue. They discuss art, philosophy, and their responses to the recent spectacles of violence, destruction and hope, in particular the revolts of the Arab world and the naturo-nuclear disaster in Japan. The conversation will be on-going.

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Radical Thinkers: Judith Butler, Simon Critchley and Jacques Rancière

To celebrate publication of the fifth set of books in Verso's acclaimed Radical Thinkers series, you're invited to listen to some audio from an October 2009 event entitled "Radical Thinkers: Judith Butler, Simon Critchley and Jacques Rancière on the importance of critical theory to social movements today." The event took place at the New School in New York City where angry masses had to be turned away due to over-capacity. 

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