Overview

Life-philosophy, central to 19th-century philosophical thought, is concerned with the meaning, value and purpose of life. This much-needed study returns to the central philosophical questions of Lebensphilosophie and reveals the ascendency of ‘life’ in contemporary philosophical thinking. Scholars from the disciplines of political theory, aesthetics, bioethics and ontology examine how the notion of life has made its way into contemporary philosophical discussions. They explore three main themes: the shift toward biological and technological views of life; the political implications of our conceptions of life; and the re-emergence of the idea of life in recent philosophical discussions about, for example, care of the self, scepticism, tragedy, desire, the emotions, and history. Anticipating new directions of philosophical thinking, this study restores a vital school of thought to crucial considerations about the dangers of contemporary politics and the threat of new technologies.

Full Product Details

Author:   Dr Scott Campbell ,  Paul W. Bruno
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.431kg
ISBN:  

9781472591586

ISBN 10:   1472591585
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   20 November 2014
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

"Notes of Contributors \ Acknowledgements \ Editors’ Introduction Scott M. Campbell and Paul W. Bruno \ Part I: Life-Contexts in Dilthey, Nietzsche, and Bergson \ 1. Dilthey as a Philosopher of Life Rudolf A. Makkreel \ 2. Biological and Historical Life: Heidegger between Levinas and Dilthey Eric Nelson \ 3. Your Money or Your Life: Using Nietzsche's Critique of Mechanism and Platonism to Defend the Biosphere Ronnie Hawkins \ 4. The Comprehensive Meaning of Life in Bergson Florence Caeymaex \ Part II: Converging Technologies \ 5. Information, Self-Reference, and the Magical Realism of ""Life"" H. Peter Steeves \ 6. The Artificialization of Life: Designing Self-Organization Jean-Pierre Dupuy \ 7. eLife: From Biology to Technology and Back Again Jos de Mul \ 8. Philosophy of Life in the Age of Information: Seinsgeschichte and the Task of ""An Ontology of Ourselves"" Charles Bonner \ Part III: Life, Power, Politics \ 9. “Without Inside or Outside”: Nietzsche, Pluralism and the Problem of the Unity of Experience Michael J. O’Neill \ 10. Anachronism and Powerlessness: An Essay on Postmodernism Leonard Lawlor \ 11. Taking Hold of Life: Liberal Eugenics, Autonomy, and Biopower Serena Parekh \ Part IV: Philosophies of Life \ 12. The Care of the Self and The Gift of Death: Foucault and Derrida on Learning How to Live Edward McGushin \ 13. The Tragic Sense of Life in Heidegger's Readings of Antigone Scott M. Campbell \ 14. Living the Pyrrhonian Way Stephen Clark \ 15. Intuition as the Business of Philosophy: Wittgenstein and Philosophy’s Turn to Life Neil Turnbull \ 16. On Life and Desire: Kant, Lewontin, and Girard Paul Bruno \ 17. The Wisdom of Emotions Jason Howard \ 18. History in the Service of Life: Nietzsche’s Genealogy Allison Merrick \ Index"

Reviews

This book should be in every library and in many personal collections. Campbell and Bruno have assembled essays from an international selection of today's leading thinkers on philosophy of life, offering new directions to this ongoing branch of thought. -- Bernard Freydberg, Scholar in Residence, Duquesne University, USA This collection provides a highly original synthesis of conceptions of life that bring philosophy, especially the life-philosophy initiated by Nietzsche, Dilthey and Bergson, into dialogue with contemporary life sciences. Accessible and eminently readable, the essays in this volume give a broad, comprehensive account of the many complications that we face today, with increased impact of technology and life sciences on life itself. Key issues concerning the right to life and artificial reproduction of life, the ontology and politics of genomics and the good life, are productively brought to light by first-class philosophical analysis engaging post-existentialist thought in Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Arendt, Foucault, Jonas, Lyotard and Derrida. -- Emilia Angelova, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Trent University, Canada In a world where we encounter new technologies and new forms of life every day, this volume is a clarion call to think about what life means now. Each author uncovers fresh resources in the western philosophical tradition for thinking deeply about life and meaning by reaching behind debates over biotechnology and biopower and beyond the dominant figures of Foucault and Deleuze. They tap into strands of thought running from Bergson back through Nietzsche and Dilthey, and from Foucault all the way back to Pyrrho and the Ancient Sceptics. This is a valuable volume that belongs on the bookshelf of everyone who believes in keeping the life in the examined life. -- Anne O'Byrne, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Stony Brook University, USA

Author Information

Scott M. Campbell is Professor of Philosophy at Nazareth College, Rochester, New York, USA. Paul W. Bruno is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Framingham State University, Massachusetts, USA.

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