Theory of the Solitary Sailor

Theory of the Solitary Sailor
Author: Gilles Grelet
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 62
Release: 2022-09-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1913029166

Grelet's solitary sailor is a radical theoretical figure, herald angel of an existential rebellion against the world and against philosophy's world-thought. Over a decade ago, Gilles Grelet left the city to live permanently on the sea, in silence and solitude, with no plans to return to land, rarely leaving his boat Théorème. An act of radical refusal, a process of undoing one by one the ties that attach humans to the world, for Grelet this departure was also inseparable from an ongoing campaign of anti-philosophy. Like François Laruelle's "ordinary man" or Rousseau's "solitary walker," Grelet's solitary sailor is a radical theoretical figure, herald angel of an existential rebellion against the world and against philosophy's world-thought, point zero of an anti-philosophy as rigorous gnosis, and apprentice in the herethics of navigation. More than a set of scattered reflections, less than a system of thought, Theory of the Solitary Sailor is a gnostic device. It answers the supposed necessity of realizing the world-thought that is philosophy (or whatever takes its place) with a steadfast and melancholeric refusal. As indifferently serene and implacably violent as the ocean itself, devastating for the sufficiency of the world and the reign of semblance, this is a lived anti-philosophy, a perpetual assault waged from the waters off the coast of Brittany, amid sea and wind.

Dictionary of Non-Philosophy

Dictionary of Non-Philosophy
Author: François Laruelle
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2016-03-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1937561348

In The Dictionary of Non-Philosophy, the French thinker François Laruelle does something unprecedented for philosophers: he provides an enormous dictionary with a theoretical introduction, carefully crafting his thoughts to explain the numerous terms and neologisms that he deems necessary for the project of non-philosophy. With a collective of thinkers also interested in the project, Laruelle has taken up the difficult task of creating an essential guide for entering into his non-standard, non-philosophical terrain. And for Laruelle, even the idea of a dictionary and what a dictionary is become material for his non-philosophical inquiries. As his opening note begins, “Thus on the surface and within the philosophical folds of the dictionary, identity and its effect upon meaning are what is at stake.”

Social Dissonance

Social Dissonance
Author: Mattin
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 92
Release: 2022-05-31
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1913029867

An argument that by amplifying alienation in performance, we can shift the emphasis from the sonic to the social. Work in sound studies continues to seek out sound "itself"--but, today, when the aesthetic can claim no autonomy and the agency of both artist and audience is socially constituted, why not explore the social mediation already present within our experience of the sonorous? In this work, artist, musician, performer, and theorist Mattin sets out an understanding of alienation as a constitutive part of subjectivity and as an enabling condition for exploring social dissonance--the discrepancy between our individual narcissism and our social capacity. Mattin's theoretical investigation is intertwined with documentation of a concrete experiment in the form of an instructional score (performed at documenta 14, 2017, in Athens and Kassel) which explores these conceptual connotations in practice, as players use members of the audience as instruments, who then hear themselves and reflect on their own conception and self-presentation. Social Dissonance claims that, by amplifying alienation in performance and participation in order to understand how we are constructed through various forms of mediation, we can shift the emphasis from the sonic to the social, and in doing so, discover for ourselves that social dissonance is the territory within which we already find ourselves, the condition we inhabit.

Critical Resistance

Critical Resistance
Author: David Couzens Hoy
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2005-08-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262582635

This book serves as both an introduction to the concept of resistance in poststructuralist thought and an original contribution to the continuing philosophical discussion of this topic. How can a body of thought that mistrusts universal principles explain the possibility of critical resistance? Without appeals to abstract norms, how can emancipatory resistance be distinguished from domination? Can there be a poststructuralist ethics? David Hoy explores these crucial questions through lucid readings of Nietzsche, Foucault, Bourdieu, Derrida, and others. He traces the genealogy of resistance from Nietzsche's break with the Cartesian concept of consciousness to Foucault's and Bourdieu's theories of how subjects are formed through embodied social practices. He also considers Levinas, Heidegger, and Derrida on the sources of ethical resistance. Finally, in light of current social theory from Judith Butler to Slavoj Zizek, he challenges "poststructuralism" as a category and suggests the term "post-critique" as a more accurate description of contemporary Continental philosophy. Hoy is a leading American scholar of poststructuralism. Critical Resistance is the only book in English that deals substantively with the topical concept of resistance in relation to poststructuralist thought, discussions of which have dominated Continental social thought for many years.

Revolutionary Demonology

Revolutionary Demonology
Author: Gruppo di Nun
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2023-04-11
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1913029832

An anthology of occult resistance: unpredictable and fascinating, at times hallucinatory, sullying politics, philosophy, cybertheory, religion, and music. The End Times are here. The Digital Middle Ages approaches, the plague reaps its deadly harvest, climate apocalypse is around the corner, and fanaticism, fascism, and madness are rampant. The idea that we might gain the upper hand over the dark abyss into which the planet is tumbling is a form of magical thinking, laboring under the delusion that we can subdue eternity with relentless bloodlust, brutish exploitation, abuse of power, and violence. Revolutionary Demonology responds to this ritual of control, typical of what esoteric tradition calls the “Dogma of the Right Hand,” by reactivating the occult forces of a Left Hand Path that strives for the entropic disintegration of all creation, so as to make peace with the darkness and nourish the Great Beast that will finally break the seals of Cosmic Love. Unpredictable and fascinating, genuinely bizarre, at times hallucinatory, sullying politics, philosophy, cybertheory, religion, and music alike with its fevered touch, this “anthology of occult resistance” collects together the communiqués of an arcane group who are already being hailed as the first morbid blossoming of “Italian Weird Theory”: a rogue contingent of theorists, witches, and sorcerers who heretically remix gothic accelerationism with satanic occultism and insurrectional necromancy.

Fact and Value

Fact and Value
Author: Judith Jarvis Thomson
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2001
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780262024983

A diverse collection of essays, which reflect the breadth of Judith Jarvis Thomson's philosophical work. The diversity of topics discussed in this book reflects the breadth of Judith Jarvis Thomson's philosophical work. Throughout her long career at MIT, Thomson's straightforward approach and emphasis on problem-solving have shaped philosophy in significant ways. Some of the book's contributions discuss specific moral and political issues such as abortion, self-defense, the rights and obligations of prospective fathers, and political campaign finance. Other contributions concern the foundations of moral theory, focusing on hedonism, virtue ethics, the nature of nonconsequentialism, and the objectivity of moral claims. Finally, contributions in metaphysics and epistemology discuss the existence of sets, the structures reflected in conditional statements, and the commitments of testimony. Contributors Jonathan Bennett, Richard L. Cartwright, Joshua Cohen, N. Ann Davis, Catherine Z. Elgin, Gilbert Harman, Barbara Herman, Frances Myrna Kamm, Claudia Mills, T.M. Scanlon, Ernest Sosa

The Natural Method

The Natural Method
Author: Eddy Nahmias
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2020-08-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262358514

Prominent philosophers explore themes in the work of Owen Flanagan, focusing on debates about the nature of mind, the self, and morality. Owen Flanagan's work offers a model for how to be a naturalistic and scientifically informed philosopher who writes beautifully and deeply about topics as varied as consciousness and Buddhism, moral psychology and dreaming, identity and addiction, literature and neuroscience. In this volume, leading philosophers--Flanagan's friends, colleagues, and former students--explore themes in his work, focusing on debates over the nature of mind, the self, and morality. Some contributors address Flanagan's work directly; others are inspired by his work or methodology. Their essays are variously penetrating and synoptic, cautious and speculative.

Pleromatica, or Elsinore's Trance

Pleromatica, or Elsinore's Trance
Author: Gabriel Catren
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2021-02-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1913029921

A precise and poetic argument for the renewal of transcendental philosophy. The great poets and thinkers of modernity described a situation we still inhabit today: the catastrophic undermining of all foundations, the disorienting relativization of all reference points, the prospect of abandonment to chance and contingency alone--the shipwreck of Mallarmé's Coup de dés. In this precise and poetic work of philosophy, Gabriel Catren sketches out a new "phenoumenodelic" solution to this momentous ungrounding, defiantly refusing both unrestrained contingency and arbitrary refoundation. Mobilizing a formidable knowledge of the major currents of modern thought, deftly articulating Kantian transcendentalism and Spinozan immanentism, phenomenological reduction, and scientific realism, Catren argues that the projects oriented by the infinite ideas of reason (Truth, Beauty, Justice, Love) need not be abandoned in the face of the "exquisite crisis" of modernity. Instead, the "shipwreck" is to be understood as a suspension of finite subjectivity in the fullness of a "phenoumenodelic pleroma," an atonal milieu ringing with unheard-of possibilities. Announcing an ambitious program for the renewal of transcendental philosophy, in Pleromatica Catren recomposes the primary elements of modern thought into a startling new configuration, introducing a vivid constellation of new concepts with which to map out and navigate the vast space of this "worldless daydream."

Collapse, Volume 1

Collapse, Volume 1
Author: Robin Mackay
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2019-01-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0993045820

An investigation of the nature and philosophical uses of number. The first volume of Collapse investigates the nature and philosophical uses of number. The volume includes an interview with Alain Badiou on the relation between philosophy, mathematics, and science, an in-depth interview with mathematician Matthew Watkins on the strange connections between physics and the distribution of prime numbers, and contributions that demonstrate the many ways in which number intersects with philosophical thought—from the mathematics of intensity to terrorism, from occultism to information theory, and graphical works of multiplicity.