David Appelbaum – författare

Drawing on clues from Aristotle, Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Jacobson, Condillac, and Diderot, Appelbaum investigates the vocalized, acoustical aspect of audible expression. He analyzes the tendency to equate voice with speaking, and speaking with writing, the result being that vocalizing is equivalent to thinking aloud. Appelbaum affirms the body's role in vocalizing expression by proposing a new and radical interpretation of the truth of voice: that it is true if it provides a disclosure of our human contradictions. Sound, or the acoustical properties of a person's voice, is able to bring about the revolutionary new set of conditions which reveal the truth of one's condition.The author provides a unique account of the subjugation of voice by thought, indicating means for reversing the authority of the sound and for freeing up the voice. He concludes with the argument that poetic voice reconciles the search for semantic meaning with the raw, acoustical effect that the free voice causes.

A spirited reading of Derrida's view of ethics as transcendental and performative.In Jacques Derrida's Ghost, David Appelbaum explores three of Derrida's favorite themes: the other, death, and the work of mourning. He shows how Derrida's unique philosophy, mindful of ghosts, proposes a respectful attitude toward otherness-whether the "other" be corporeal or indeed phantom. Taking up Derrida's concern with performative ethics, Appelbaum examines the possibility of such an ethics of subjectivity within the context of performance.

This text remains the only English translation of Bonhöffer’s classic, definitive examination of Epictetus’s ethics. Thorough, knowledgeable, perceptive, and accessible, the unity of this book and its thematic presentation make it an invaluable resource for both scholars and general readers eager to apply Stoic thinking in their daily lives. The translation is crisp, clear, consistent, and very readable. Careful attention to the details and nuances of the German as well as the Greek of Epictetus make this an excellent achievement. This new edition includes a useful biography of Bonhöffer, a new overview of the last twenty years of scholarship on Epictetus, and an extensive bibliography. It is essential reading for students taking courses on ancient Hellenistic or Roman philosophy, their instructors, and any non-academics who want to learn Stoicism.

This text remains the only English translation of Bonhöffer’s classic, definitive examination of Epictetus’s ethics. Thorough, knowledgeable, perceptive, and accessible, the unity of this book and its thematic presentation make it an invaluable resource for both scholars and general readers eager to apply Stoic thinking in their daily lives. The translation is crisp, clear, consistent, and very readable. Careful attention to the details and nuances of the German as well as the Greek of Epictetus make this an excellent achievement. This new edition includes a useful biography of Bonhöffer, a new overview of the last twenty years of scholarship on Epictetus, and an extensive bibliography. It is essential reading for students taking courses on ancient Hellenistic or Roman philosophy, their instructors, and any non-academics who want to learn Stoicism.

Rejects Levinas's argument for the preeminence of ethics in philosophy."Imagine listening at a keyhole to a conversation with the task of transcribing it, and the result may be a text similar to the present one." - from Part I: StageworkIn a series of meditations responding to writings by Emmanuel Levinas, David Appelbaum suggests that a flawed grammar warrants Levinas to speak of language at the service of ethics. It is the nature of performance that he mistakes. Appelbaum articulates this flaw by performing in writing the act of the philosophical mind at work. Incorporating the voices of other thinkers-in particular Levinas's contemporaries Jacques Derrida and Maurice Blanchot-sometimes clearly, sometimes indistinctly, Appelbaum creates on these pages a kind of soundstage upon which illustrations appear of what he terms "a rhetorical aesthetic," which would reestablish rhetoric, rules for giving voice-and not ethics-as the correct matrix for understanding the otherness and beyond-being that Levinas seeks in his work.

A creative study of Maurice Blanchot's theory of literary voice.In His Voice considers the idea of the neuter in Maurice Blanchot's work, and seeks to work out through an exercise of literary impersonation, or ventriloquism, how and why Blanchot relied on this form. Neither active nor passive, the neuter expresses a kind of third voice beyond the command of the author, one that speaks paradoxically of what lies outside of speaking but nonetheless exerts an irrepressible influence on thought. The neuter is exilic, messianic, and fragmentary. Since it cannot be directly accounted for, Blanchot uses a number of indirect approaches-notably, myth-to announce the key elements of his view. Orpheus, Odysseus, and principally Narcissus figure his conception and elaborate the operation of giving voice. Through a distillation of Blanchot's narrative and critical texts-focusing on the late works, The Step Not Beyond, and The Writing of the Disaster-and through an emphasis on performance, In His Voice enacts the event of writing in search of how author's inscriptive reality appears in the world.

This poetical study of water ranges from classical myth and literature to modern physics and microbiology. Because water exists in three forms or phases—liquid, solid, and gas—each needs its own constellation of ideas. Its subtle movement is the hidden source of question, questioner, and the phenomenon of life. Its power is transformation, the unspoken theme of the book.

Transformation of being begins exactly where one is. This is, for most of us, at home. We are acted upon by objects familiar to us, influenced in unfelt ways, and moved toward a destiny proper to a responsible being. Dwelling is complemented by journeying. To live in a home is to journey on the path that leads through the home to a world beyond. A householder becomes a traveler. A traveler is a seeker after new impressions, fresh impressions of a reality that beckons. Opening to the commonplace-what stands in front of us on the daily round-we are open to the call to respond to our role as mediator between heaven and earth. Everyday Spirits is a book about self-perception.

Explores the turn toward consciousness by which we pass from ignorance to knowledge. The stop is the spark of initiation that arouses our habitual inattentiveness, motivating us toward a higherunderstanding.The central axis of The Stop is the secret turn of awareness by which we pass from ignorance to knowledge. The stop, then, is the spark of initiation, intense enough to arouse consciousness from its slumber and to motivate the difficult journey to a higher understanding. To stop is to begin a movement toward consciousness.

Explores the turn toward consciousness by which we pass from ignorance to knowledge. The stop is the spark of initiation that arouses our habitual inattentiveness, motivating us toward a higherunderstanding.The central axis of The Stop is the secret turn of awareness by which we pass from ignorance to knowledge. The stop, then, is the spark of initiation, intense enough to arouse consciousness from its slumber and to motivate the difficult journey to a higher understanding. To stop is to begin a movement toward consciousness.

This book is about the disruption of the intellect that awakens consciousness to its wholeness and purpose. When consciousness is fractured, its world-making powers are momentarily disrupted. In the gap, during which spatio-temporal categories of thought cease to apply, consciousness realigns with that which it is meant to serve. The moment of self-remembering-shocking, unique, and truthful-leaves a call to obedience in its wake. To refuse to respond is to cease to be human.

Explores themes of responsibility and initiation and offers an "initiatory ethics."The final installment in Appelbaum's three-volume exploration of the "intervening subject"-volumes one and two are The Stop and Disruption, also published by SUNY Press-The Delay of the Heart explores themes of responsibility and initiation and offers an "initiatory ethics." It intimates a secret of delay that is behind all traditional teachings and suggests ways that a sensitivity to a sacred obligation emerges from the heart of human experience.

A spirited reading of Derrida's view of ethics as transcendental and performative.In Jacques Derrida's Ghost, David Appelbaum explores three of Derrida's favorite themes: the other, death, and the work of mourning. He shows how Derrida's unique philosophy, mindful of ghosts, proposes a respectful attitude toward otherness-whether the "other" be corporeal or indeed phantom. Taking up Derrida's concern with performative ethics, Appelbaum examines the possibility of such an ethics of subjectivity within the context of performance.

Rejects Levinas's argument for the preeminence of ethics in philosophy."Imagine listening at a keyhole to a conversation with the task of transcribing it, and the result may be a text similar to the present one." - from Part I: StageworkIn a series of meditations responding to writings by Emmanuel Levinas, David Appelbaum suggests that a flawed grammar warrants Levinas to speak of language at the service of ethics. It is the nature of performance that he mistakes. Appelbaum articulates this flaw by performing in writing the act of the philosophical mind at work. Incorporating the voices of other thinkers-in particular Levinas's contemporaries Jacques Derrida and Maurice Blanchot-sometimes clearly, sometimes indistinctly, Appelbaum creates on these pages a kind of soundstage upon which illustrations appear of what he terms "a rhetorical aesthetic," which would reestablish rhetoric, rules for giving voice-and not ethics-as the correct matrix for understanding the otherness and beyond-being that Levinas seeks in his work.

A creative study of Maurice Blanchot's theory of literary voice.In His Voice considers the idea of the neuter in Maurice Blanchot's work, and seeks to work out through an exercise of literary impersonation, or ventriloquism, how and why Blanchot relied on this form. Neither active nor passive, the neuter expresses a kind of third voice beyond the command of the author, one that speaks paradoxically of what lies outside of speaking but nonetheless exerts an irrepressible influence on thought. The neuter is exilic, messianic, and fragmentary. Since it cannot be directly accounted for, Blanchot uses a number of indirect approaches-notably, myth-to announce the key elements of his view. Orpheus, Odysseus, and principally Narcissus figure his conception and elaborate the operation of giving voice. Through a distillation of Blanchot's narrative and critical texts-focusing on the late works, The Step Not Beyond, and The Writing of the Disaster-and through an emphasis on performance, In His Voice enacts the event of writing in search of how author's inscriptive reality appears in the world.