James D. Reid – författare

Despite his short life, Friedrich von Hardenberg (otherwise known as Novalis, 1772-1801) was one of the most original and polymathic figures of the early Romantic movement in Germany. Novalis: Philosophical, Literary, and Poetic Writings assembles, for the first time in English, translations of Novalis's published philosophical works, a large share of his surviving philosophical notes and fragments, his two unfinished novels (The Disciples at Saïs and Heinrich von Ofterdingen), and the Hymns to the Night. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Novalis not only theorized about art and its place in both the world of everyday human life and the universe of philosophical discourse but was himself a consummate artist in his own right. This unique edition of Novalis's writings in English allows readers to track issues and themes throughout his short but productive career as a budding philosopher in the post-Kantian tradition, as a philosophical novelist, and as a poet of the first rank. Readers interested in Novalis's views on philosophy, art, morality, politics, and religion, and how positions in each of these areas might be unified in single, overarching vision of reality, will find the present translation an essential guide.

Despite his short life, Friedrich von Hardenberg (otherwise known as Novalis, 1772-1801) was one of the most original and polymathic figures of the early Romantic movement in Germany. Novalis: Philosophical, Literary, and Poetic Writings assembles, for the first time in English, translations of Novalis''s published philosophical works, a large share of his surviving philosophical notes and fragments, his two unfinished novels (The Disciples at Sa?s and Heinrich von Ofterdingen), and the Hymns to the Night. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Novalis not only theorized about art and its place in both the world of everyday human life and the universe of philosophical discourse but was himself a consummate artist in his own right. This unique edition of Novalis''s writings in English allows readers to track issues and themes throughout his short but productive career as a budding philosopher in the post-Kantian tradition, as a philosophical novelist, and as a poet of the first rank. Readers interested in Novalis''s views on philosophy, art, morality, politics, and religion, and how positions in each of these areas might be unified in single, overarching vision of reality, will find the present translation an essential guide.

Despite his short life, Friedrich von Hardenberg (otherwise known as Novalis, 1772-1801) was one of the most original and polymathic figures of the early Romantic movement in Germany. Novalis: Philosophical, Literary, and Poetic Writings assembles, for the first time in English, translations of Novalis''s published philosophical works, a large share of his surviving philosophical notes and fragments, his two unfinished novels (The Disciples at Sa?s and Heinrich von Ofterdingen), and the Hymns to the Night. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Novalis not only theorized about art and its place in both the world of everyday human life and the universe of philosophical discourse but was himself a consummate artist in his own right. This unique edition of Novalis''s writings in English allows readers to track issues and themes throughout his short but productive career as a budding philosopher in the post-Kantian tradition, as a philosophical novelist, and as a poet of the first rank. Readers interested in Novalis''s views on philosophy, art, morality, politics, and religion, and how positions in each of these areas might be unified in single, overarching vision of reality, will find the present translation an essential guide.

Drawing from a wide array of philosophical, literary, scientific, and poetic writings by the German philosophical poet and member of the early Romantic movement, Friedrich von Hardenberg (otherwise known by his nom de plume Novalis), Novalis's Philosophical Fictions is the first volume in English to offer a sustained philosophical interpretation of Novalis's work as a whole. The volume begins with the extensive notebooks on Fichte (compiled in 1795/6) and culminates in the late lyric work of his final productive years, the Hymns to the Night (1800). Along the way, James D. Reid provides detailed expositions of Novalis's engagements with Kant, his writings on nature and natural science, his reflections on politics, and his two unfinished philosophical novels (The Disciples at Saïs and Heinrich von Ofterdingen). Against readings that view the literary and poetic texts, especially the Hymns, as evidence of a defection from philosophy, occasioned, so the story goes, by the death of Novalis's young fiancée in the spring of 1797, Reid argues for a continuous line of philosophical development from 1795-1800 and provides a novel interpretation of Novalis's own emerging philosophy, which he calls 'magical idealism,' as a compelling theory of the relationship between human life and the natural and social worlds. In connection with the exegetical work, the volume develops a conception of philosophy as a form of imaginative activity, argues for the importance of literary and poetic modes of writing in the execution of philosophy's tasks, and defends the power of poetically informed philosophy to give voice to deep and abiding human concerns, at once moral, political, scientific, and religious.

With a new translation of the Duino Elegies“Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’/orders?” Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies opens with one of the most powerful poetic expressions of the search for meaning in the modern world. Published in 1923, the Elegies would influence important philosophers on the Continent, including Heidegger. But with a few exceptions, Rilke’s poetry has not had an impact on philosophy in the Anglo-American world. In Being Here Is Glorious, James D. Reid offers a fresh translation of the Elegies, which hews to the form of the original and provides his own meditation on the place of poetry in philosophy. Reid makes a convincing case that poetry and philosophy can address the problem of finding things significant and worth affirming in light of various reasons to doubt the value of the world in which we find ourselves cast.

With a new translation of the Duino Elegies“Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’/orders?” Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies opens with one of the most powerful poetic expressions of the search for meaning in the modern world. Published in 1923, the Elegies would influence important philosophers on the Continent, including Heidegger. But with a few exceptions, Rilke’s poetry has not had an impact on philosophy in the Anglo-American world. In Being Here Is Glorious, James D. Reid offers a fresh translation of the Elegies, which hews to the form of the original and provides his own meditation on the place of poetry in philosophy. Reid makes a convincing case that poetry and philosophy can address the problem of finding things significant and worth affirming in light of various reasons to doubt the value of the world in which we find ourselves cast.

The philosophical significance of Henry David Thoreau's life and writings is far from settled. Although his best-known book, Walden, is admired as a classic work of American literature, it has not yet been widely recognized as an important philosophical text. In fact, many members of the academic philosophical community in America would be reluctant to classify Thoreau as a philosopher at all. The purpose of this volume is to remedy this neglect, to explain Thoreau's philosophical significance, and to argue that we can still learn from his polemical conception of philosophy.Thoreau sought to establish philosophy as a way of life, and to root our philosophical, conceptual affairs in more practical or existential concerns. His work provides us with a sustained meditation on the appropriate conduct of life and the importance of leading our lives with integrity, avoiding what he calls "quiet desperation." The contributors to this volume approach Thoreau's writings from different angles, collectively bringing to light what, in his own distinctive and idiosyncratic way, this major American thinker has meant to multiple areas of philosophical inquiry, and why he is still relevant. They show how the imagination, according to Thoreau, might be related to the disclosure of truth; they illuminate the nuances of embodied consciousness and explore the links between moral character and scientific knowledge. They clarify Thoreau's project by locating it in relation to earlier philosophical authors and traditions, noting the ways in which he either anticipated or influenced a host of later thinkers. They explore his aesthetic views, his naturalism, his theory of self, his ethical principles, and his political stances. Most importantly, they show how Thoreau returns philosophy to its roots as the love of wisdom.

Heidegger's Moral Ontology offers the first comprehensive account of the ethical issues that underwrite Heidegger's efforts to develop a novel account of human existence. Drawing from a wide array of source materials from the period leading up to the publication of Being and Time (1919-1927), and in conversation with ancient, modern, and contemporary contributions to moral philosophy, James D. Reid brings Heidegger's early philosophy into fruitful dialogue with the history of ethics, and sheds fresh light on such familiar topics as Heidegger's critique of Husserl, his engagement with Aristotle, his account of mortality, the role played by Kant in the genesis of Being and Time, and Heidegger's early reflections on philosophical language and concepts. This lively book will appeal to all who are interested in Heidegger's early phenomenology and in his thought more generally, as well as to those interested in the nature, scope, and foundations of ethical life.

Heidegger's Moral Ontology offers the first comprehensive account of the ethical issues that underwrite Heidegger's efforts to develop a novel account of human existence. Drawing from a wide array of source materials from the period leading up to the publication of Being and Time (1919-1927), and in conversation with ancient, modern, and contemporary contributions to moral philosophy, James D. Reid brings Heidegger's early philosophy into fruitful dialogue with the history of ethics, and sheds fresh light on such familiar topics as Heidegger's critique of Husserl, his engagement with Aristotle, his account of mortality, the role played by Kant in the genesis of Being and Time, and Heidegger's early reflections on philosophical language and concepts. This lively book will appeal to all who are interested in Heidegger's early phenomenology and in his thought more generally, as well as to those interested in the nature, scope, and foundations of ethical life.

Carefully considering the difference in the philosophical potential of page poetry and performance poetry, Karen Simecek argues that it is only by considering them side by side that the unique cognitive value of each can be realised.Focusing on spoken word poetry reveals the importance of voice and embodied words to the differing epistemic rewards of engaging with contemporary works of poetry in both private reading and live performance. This concept of embodied voice progresses a new line of thinking in the cognitivism debate and unlocks the philosophical value of engaging with poetry. Simecek’s discussion of performed poetry also advances discussions of affect and experience in contemporary analytic aesthetics which raise new insights and connections within the field.The moral significance of the differing effects of poetry finds comprehensive articulation through a rich philosophical analysis of the thoughts and affects which arise in particular contexts. Simecek concludes that when page poetry is treated as paradigmatic, this enables reflection in the singular, whereas taking poetry in live performance as paradigmatic enables reflection on what is shared and shareable with others.

Carefully considering the difference in the philosophical potential of page poetry and performance poetry, Karen Simecek argues that it is only by considering them side by side that the unique cognitive value of each can be realised.Focusing on spoken word poetry reveals the importance of voice and embodied words to the differing epistemic rewards of engaging with contemporary works of poetry in both private reading and live performance. This concept of embodied voice progresses a new line of thinking in the cognitivism debate and unlocks the philosophical value of engaging with poetry. Simecek’s discussion of performed poetry also advances discussions of affect and experience in contemporary analytic aesthetics which raise new insights and connections within the field.The moral significance of the differing effects of poetry finds comprehensive articulation through a rich philosophical analysis of the thoughts and affects which arise in particular contexts. Simecek concludes that when page poetry is treated as paradigmatic, this enables reflection in the singular, whereas taking poetry in live performance as paradigmatic enables reflection on what is shared and shareable with others.

Winner of the 2026 Hugh J. Silverman Book PrizeModern literature is often described in terms of its impersonality. What is the significance of this fact? In Skepticism and Impersonality, V. Joshua Adams follows the history of impersonality in modern poetry from Mallarmé and Eliot through to the present, engaging with work by major poets and critics, but also contemporary philosophers. Rather than seeing impersonality exclusively as a literary historical phenomenon, Adams argues that we should understand it as an attempt to address skeptical problems arising from the limitations of first-person experience. Defending impersonality as a response to skeptical problems, including doubts about the publicity of our experiences, our knowledge of other minds, the capacity of our language to describe the world, the relationship between mind and body, and the fictionality and continuity of our sense of self, Adams analyzes what he calls “experiments in impersonality” as means of working through skeptical doubt. The writers discussed transform this doubt into art, whilst also ironizing it as corrosive and self-defeating. Ultimately this leads Adams to reinterpret literary impersonality as a therapeutic philosophical project.Skepticism and Impersonality promises a new theoretical justification for our practical interest in literary texts, to renovate our conception of how those texts might do philosophical work, and to expand our sense of what a philosophical poem can be.

Winner of the 2026 Hugh J. Silverman Book PrizeModern literature is often described in terms of its impersonality. What is the significance of this fact? In Skepticism and Impersonality, V. Joshua Adams follows the history of impersonality in modern poetry from Mallarmé and Eliot through to the present, engaging with work by major poets and critics, but also contemporary philosophers. Rather than seeing impersonality exclusively as a literary historical phenomenon, Adams argues that we should understand it as an attempt to address skeptical problems arising from the limitations of first-person experience. Defending impersonality as a response to skeptical problems, including doubts about the publicity of our experiences, our knowledge of other minds, the capacity of our language to describe the world, the relationship between mind and body, and the fictionality and continuity of our sense of self, Adams analyzes what he calls “experiments in impersonality” as means of working through skeptical doubt. The writers discussed transform this doubt into art, whilst also ironizing it as corrosive and self-defeating. Ultimately this leads Adams to reinterpret literary impersonality as a therapeutic philosophical project.Skepticism and Impersonality promises a new theoretical justification for our practical interest in literary texts, to renovate our conception of how those texts might do philosophical work, and to expand our sense of what a philosophical poem can be.

Addressing objective and subjective views of the self and the world in philosophy and poetry, this collection brings together a chronology of John Koethe’s thoughts on the connections between the two forms and makes a significant contribution to unsettling the oppositions that separate them. The essays traverse the philosophical conception of the self in modern poetry and locate connections between poets including William Wordsworth, Wallace Stevens, and John Ashbery alongside philosophers including Kant, Schopenhauer, and Wittgenstein. Koethe pays special attention to romantic poetry and notions of the sublime, which he maps onto subjective individual experience and the objective perspective on the natural world. Koethe further explores this theme in a new essay on romanticism and the sublime in relation to the mind-body problem. Using an associative and impressionistic style to write philosophically about poetry, Koethe defends his own approach that such writing cannot and should not aim for the rigor of philosophical argumentation.

Addressing objective and subjective views of the self and the world in philosophy and poetry, this collection brings together a chronology of John Koethe’s thoughts on the connections between the two forms and makes a significant contribution to unsettling the oppositions that separate them. The essays traverse the philosophical conception of the self in modern poetry and locate connections between poets including William Wordsworth, Wallace Stevens, and John Ashbery alongside philosophers including Kant, Schopenhauer, and Wittgenstein. Koethe pays special attention to romantic poetry and notions of the sublime, which he maps onto subjective individual experience and the objective perspective on the natural world. Koethe further explores this theme in a new essay on romanticism and the sublime in relation to the mind-body problem. Using an associative and impressionistic style to write philosophically about poetry, Koethe defends his own approach that such writing cannot and should not aim for the rigor of philosophical argumentation.

Locating poetry in a philosophy of the everyday, Brett Bourbon continues a tradition of attention to logic in everyday utterances through Wittgenstein, Austin, Quine, and Cavell, arguing that poems are events of form, not just collections of words, which shape everyone’s lives. Poems taught in class are formalizations of the everyday poems we live amidst, albeit unknowingly. Bourbon resurrects these poems to construct an anthropology of form that centers everyday poems as events or interruptions within our lives. Expanding our understanding of what a poem is, this book argues that poems be understood as events of form that may depend on words but are not fundamentally constituted by them. This line of thought delves into a poem’s linguistic particularity, to ask what a poem is and how we know.By reclaiming arenas previously ceded to essayists and literary writers, Bourbon reveals the care and attention necessary to uncovering the intimate relationship between poems, life, reading and living. A philosophical meditation on the nature of poetry, but also on the meaning of love and the claim of words upon us, Everyday Poetics situates the importance of everyday poems as events in our lives.

Locating poetry in a philosophy of the everyday, Brett Bourbon continues a tradition of attention to logic in everyday utterances through Wittgenstein, Austin, Quine, and Cavell, arguing that poems are events of form, not just collections of words, which shape everyone’s lives. Poems taught in class are formalizations of the everyday poems we live amidst, albeit unknowingly. Bourbon resurrects these poems to construct an anthropology of form that centers everyday poems as events or interruptions within our lives. Expanding our understanding of what a poem is, this book argues that poems be understood as events of form that may depend on words but are not fundamentally constituted by them. This line of thought delves into a poem’s linguistic particularity, to ask what a poem is and how we know.By reclaiming arenas previously ceded to essayists and literary writers, Bourbon reveals the care and attention necessary to uncovering the intimate relationship between poems, life, reading and living. A philosophical meditation on the nature of poetry, but also on the meaning of love and the claim of words upon us, Everyday Poetics situates the importance of everyday poems as events in our lives.

Innovatively combining philosophical inquiry and aphoristic writing, this study presents a bold new interpretation of philosophical poetics. Exploring fragments, both thematically and formally, Luke Fischer situates the form as uniquely positioned between philosophy and poetry.Like poetry, fragments condense insights into few words, employ striking metaphors that draw intuitive connections, and make space for creative interpretation. Contrasting with the logical linearity of much philosophy, fragments disclose rather than prove, intimate more than argue, suggest a whole without elaborating a system, and emphasize the intuitive act of thinking. Fischer readjusts our understanding of philosophical ideas as they originate in moments of illumination, and reveals the fragment as philosophy in process. In a collection of original fragments and an exploratory essay, Fischer sheds light on the relation between poetry and philosophy, aesthetics and society, art and the environment, and discusses seminal practitioners of the fragmentary form, including Novalis, F. Schlegel, Nietzsche and Heraclitus. Philosophical Fragments as the Poetry of Thinking makes an engaging, nonlinear case for the possibility and significance of a poetic transmutation of philosophy.

Innovatively combining philosophical inquiry and aphoristic writing, this study presents a bold new interpretation of philosophical poetics. Exploring fragments, both thematically and formally, Luke Fischer situates the form as uniquely positioned between philosophy and poetry.Like poetry, fragments condense insights into few words, employ striking metaphors that draw intuitive connections, and make space for creative interpretation. Contrasting with the logical linearity of much philosophy, fragments disclose rather than prove, intimate more than argue, suggest a whole without elaborating a system, and emphasize the intuitive act of thinking. Fischer readjusts our understanding of philosophical ideas as they originate in moments of illumination, and reveals the fragment as philosophy in process. In a collection of original fragments and an exploratory essay, Fischer sheds light on the relation between poetry and philosophy, aesthetics and society, art and the environment, and discusses seminal practitioners of the fragmentary form, including Novalis, F. Schlegel, Nietzsche and Heraclitus. Philosophical Fragments as the Poetry of Thinking makes an engaging, nonlinear case for the possibility and significance of a poetic transmutation of philosophy.

Connecting poetry and philosophy of language, Philip Mills bridges the continental and analytical divide by bringing together the writings of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. Through an expressivist philosophy of poetry, he argues that we can understand some of the core questions in the philosophy of language.Mills highlights the continuity of poetic language with ordinary language, and positions Nietzsche and Wittgenstein’s thinking as the clearest way to expand the philosophy of poetry. By tracing the expressivist tradition of philosophy of language, this study locates its roots in German Romanticism right through to the work of contemporary expressivists such as Huw Price and Robert Brandom. Where poetry has been difficult to grasp with the traditional philosophical tools used by aestheticians, A Poetic Philosophy of Language operates at the crossroads between philosophy of art and language, proposing a new philosophy of poetry with wide-ranging potentialities.

Connecting poetry and philosophy of language, Philip Mills bridges the continental and analytical divide by bringing together the writings of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. Through an expressivist philosophy of poetry, he argues that we can understand some of the core questions in the philosophy of language.Mills highlights the continuity of poetic language with ordinary language, and positions Nietzsche and Wittgenstein’s thinking as the clearest way to expand the philosophy of poetry. By tracing the expressivist tradition of philosophy of language, this study locates its roots in German Romanticism right through to the work of contemporary expressivists such as Huw Price and Robert Brandom. Where poetry has been difficult to grasp with the traditional philosophical tools used by aestheticians, A Poetic Philosophy of Language operates at the crossroads between philosophy of art and language, proposing a new philosophy of poetry with wide-ranging potentialities.

Lyra Ekström Lindbäck revisits the crucial distinction between literature and philosophy in Iris Murdoch’s work to make a convincing case for understanding the particularity of literature and her insistence on the separation between the two.Iris Murdoch and the Ancient Quarrel makes a break with existing scholarship on Murdoch’s philosophy and literature that ultimately re-states the philosophical value of literature, alongside literary aspects of philosophy. This book differs by deepening Murdoch's insistence on the differences between the disciplines, providing a consistent and polemical argument for the distinction between literature and philosophy more generally. Engaging thinkers such as Plato, Kant, Hegel, Sartre, Weil, and Cavell, Iris Murdoch and the Ancient Quarrel delves into the aesthetic characteristics that distinguish philosophy and literature. Through a discussion of the illusion of sense, the role of conceptual thinking in literature, the clash between epistemology and fiction, the artifice of tragedy, and the ambiguous morality of artistic inspiration and experience, this study reveals literature as essentially other to philosophy.

Lyra Ekström Lindbäck revisits the crucial distinction between literature and philosophy in Iris Murdoch’s work to make a convincing case for understanding the particularity of literature and her insistence on the separation between the two.Iris Murdoch and the Ancient Quarrel makes a break with existing scholarship on Murdoch’s philosophy and literature that ultimately re-states the philosophical value of literature, alongside literary aspects of philosophy. This book differs by deepening Murdoch's insistence on the differences between the disciplines, providing a consistent and polemical argument for the distinction between literature and philosophy more generally. Engaging thinkers such as Plato, Kant, Hegel, Sartre, Weil, and Cavell, Iris Murdoch and the Ancient Quarrel delves into the aesthetic characteristics that distinguish philosophy and literature. Through a discussion of the illusion of sense, the role of conceptual thinking in literature, the clash between epistemology and fiction, the artifice of tragedy, and the ambiguous morality of artistic inspiration and experience, this study reveals literature as essentially other to philosophy.

In this original study, Rachel Coventry expands Heidegger’s philosophy of art to include his ontological account of poetry and technology. Following Heidegger’s definition of technology as preventing authentic poetic language, alongside his argument that poetry can successfully confront technology, Coventry considers the possibility of great poetry in the digital age.This approach takes us beyond conventional literary criticism, using different case studies from contemporary poetry including eco-poetry, digital poetry and post-internet poetry. Heidegger and Poetry in the Digital Age asks provocative questions to progress the philosophical study of poetry, tracing new lines of thought in Heidegger studies and critical studies of contemporary poetry. Does the digital thwart the aim of eco-poetry? Do poetic movements that use modern technology provide us with a way to overcome the negative effects of technology? What are the ontological consequences of employing new formats for poetry? This book examines these tensions to provide a phenomenological account of digital poetry that grounds poetic metaphor in Heidegger’s metaphysics.

In this original study, Rachel Coventry expands Heidegger’s philosophy of art to include his ontological account of poetry and technology. Following Heidegger’s definition of technology as preventing authentic poetic language, alongside his argument that poetry can successfully confront technology, Coventry considers the possibility of great poetry in the digital age.This approach takes us beyond conventional literary criticism, using different case studies from contemporary poetry including eco-poetry, digital poetry and post-internet poetry. Heidegger and Poetry in the Digital Age asks provocative questions to progress the philosophical study of poetry, tracing new lines of thought in Heidegger studies and critical studies of contemporary poetry. Does the digital thwart the aim of eco-poetry? Do poetic movements that use modern technology provide us with a way to overcome the negative effects of technology? What are the ontological consequences of employing new formats for poetry? This book examines these tensions to provide a phenomenological account of digital poetry that grounds poetic metaphor in Heidegger’s metaphysics.

Blanchot and his writings on three major poets, Mallarmé, Hölderlin, and Char, provide a decisive new point of departure for English language criticism of his philosophical writings on narrative in this study by leading Blanchot scholar, Kevin Hart.Connecting his work to later leading figures of 20th-century French philosophy, including Emmanuel Levinas, Simone Weil, and Jacques Derrida, Hart highlights the importance of Jewish philosophy and political thought to his overall conception of literature. Chapters on community and negation reveal Blanchot’s emphasis on the relationship between narrative and politics over the more commonly connected narrative and aesthetics. By fully discussing Blanchot’s elusive concept of “the Outside” for the first time, this book progresses scholarly understandings of his entire oeuvre further. This central concept engages Franz Rosenzweig’s work on Abrahamic faiths, enabling a reckoning on the role of suffering and literature in the wake of the Shoah, with significant implications for Jewish studies more generally.

Blanchot and his writings on three major poets, Mallarmé, Hölderlin, and Char, provide a decisive new point of departure for English language criticism of his philosophical writings on narrative in this study by leading Blanchot scholar, Kevin Hart.Connecting his work to later leading figures of 20th-century French philosophy, including Emmanuel Levinas, Simone Weil, and Jacques Derrida, Hart highlights the importance of Jewish philosophy and political thought to his overall conception of literature. Chapters on community and negation reveal Blanchot’s emphasis on the relationship between narrative and politics over the more commonly connected narrative and aesthetics. By fully discussing Blanchot’s elusive concept of “the Outside” for the first time, this book progresses scholarly understandings of his entire oeuvre further. This central concept engages Franz Rosenzweig’s work on Abrahamic faiths, enabling a reckoning on the role of suffering and literature in the wake of the Shoah, with significant implications for Jewish studies more generally.