Critiques of everyday life

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Giorgio Manfré

Le idee raccolta in questo saggio si muovono nell'ambito di un'area interdisciplinare di indagine, verso cui vengono fatti convergere orientamenti conoscitivi e di ricerca fra loro alquanto eterogenei: costruttivismo e teoria della società, storia sociale, antropologia, psicoanalisi. E la sfida consiste in questo: tornare, attraverso una ricognizione su alcune opere di tre protagonisti della cultura moderna - Niklas Luhmann, Karl Marx e Sigmund Freud - a interrogare le radici stesse della modernità, e ciò chiedendosi, andando in controtendenza, se la crisi della modernità (qui intesa come crisi del rapporto individuo-società) è un fatto irreversibile oppure, al contrario, superabile.

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Jean-Paul Sartre

First published in 1940, Sartre's The Imaginary is a cornerstone of his philosophy. Sartre had become acquainted with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl in Berlin and was fascinated by his idea of the "intentionality of consciousness" as a key to the puzzle of existence. Against this background, The Imaginary crystallized Sartre's worldview and artistic vision. Here he presented the first extended examination of the concepts of nothingness and freedom, both of which are derived from the ability of consciousness to imagine objects both as they are and as they are not. These ideas would drive Sartre's existentialism and his entire theory of human freedom, laying the foundation for his masterwork Being and Nothingness three years later. This new translation by Jonathan Webber rectifies flaws in the terminology of the first translation and recaptures the essence of Sartre's phenomenology. Webber's perceptive new introduction helps to decipher this challenging, seminal work, placing it in the context of the author's work and the history of philosophy.

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José Medina

This book explores the epistemic side of oppression, focusing on racial and sexual oppression and their interconnections. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from interacting epistemically in fruitful ways--from listening to each other, learning from each other, and mutually enriching each other's perspectives. Medina's epistemology of resistance offers a contextualist theory of our complicity with epistemic injustices and a social connection model of shared responsibility for improving epistemic conditions of participation in social practices. Through the articulation of a new interactionism and polyphonic contextualism, the book develops a sustained argument about the role of the imagination in mediating social perceptions and interactions. It concludes that only through the cultivation of practices of resistance can we develop a social imagination that can help us become sensitive to the suffering of excluded and stigmatized subjects. Drawing on Feminist Standpoint Theory and Critical Race Theory, this book makes contributions to social epistemology and to recent discussions of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, epistemic responsibility, counter-performativity, and solidarity in the fight against racism and sexism.

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Paul Ricœur

"Trois visées philosophiques traversent cette suite d'études. Selon la première, est cherché pour le soi un statut qui échappe aux alternances d'exaltation et de déchéance qui affectent les philosophies du sujet en première personne : dire soi n'est pas dire je. Tenu pour le réfléchi de toutes les personnes grammaticales comme dans l'expression : le souci de soi, le soi requiert le détour d'analyses qui amènent à articuler diversement la question qui? Qui est le locuteur de discours? Qui est l'agent ou le patient de l'action? Qui est le personnage du récit? A qui est imputée l'action placée sous les prédicats du bon ou de l'obligatoire? Enquêtes pour l'essentiel empruntées à la philosophie dite analytique, avec laquelle l'herméneutique du soi entre dans un débat serré. Deuxième visée : l'identité que suggère le terme même est à décomposer entre deux significations majeures : l'identité-idem de choses qui persistent inchangées à travers le temps, et l'identité-idem de celui qui ne se maintient qu'à la manière d'une promesse tenue. Enfin c'est l'antique dialectique du Même et de l'Autre qui doit être renouvelée si l'autre que soi-même se dit de multiples façons ; le comme de l'expression soi-même comme un autre peut dès lors signifier un lien plus étroit que toute comparaison : soi-même en tant qu'autre. Autant de fragments stratifiés d'une philosophie pratique, qui a renoncé à toute ambition de fondation ultime, et qui pourtant ne manque ni de l'assurance ni de la confiance qu'engendre l'attestation de soi-même comme un autre." P. [4] of cover.