Peter Dews - Böcker

Recent decades have seen a remarkable upsurge of interest in German Idealism in the English-speaking world. However, out of the three leading thinkers of the period directly after Kant--Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel--Schelling has received relatively little attention. In particular, the distinctive philosophical project of Schelling's late period, beginning in the 1820s, has been almost completely ignored. This omission has impaired the overall understanding of German Idealism. For it is during the late phase of his work that Schelling develops his influential critique of Hegel and his definitive response to the central problems post-Kantian thought as a whole. This book is the first in English to survey the whole of Schelling's late system, and to explore in detail the rationale for its division into a “negative philosophy” and a “positive philosophy.” It begins by tracing Schelling's intellectual development from his early work of the 1790s up to the threshold of his final phase. It then examines Schelling's mature conception of the scope of pure thinking, the basis of negative philosophy, and the nature of the transition to positive philosophy. In this second, historically oriented enterprise Schelling explores the deep structure of mythological worldviews and seeks to explain the epochal shift to the modern universe of “revelation.” Simultaneously, the book offers a sustained comparison of Hegel's and Schelling's treatment of a range of central topics in post-Kantian thought: the relation between a priori thinking and being; the role of religion in human existence; the inner dynamics of history; and the paradoxical structure of freedom.

Comprised of classic and newly-commissioned papers from leading theorists, this volume provides a wide-ranging critical introduction to the thought of Jürgen Habermas. Some contributions explore the relation between Habermas's philosophy and the thought of major predecessors, including Kant, Hegel, Marx and Heidegger. Others elucidate the political context of Habermas's thinking, while a final section presents the responses of leading German contemporaries to his work.The result is a more rounded picture of Habermas's oeuvre and achievement than has previously been available. Habermas emerges as a thinker whose outstanding powers of renewal and innovation are inseparable from his engagement with the major traditions of European thought, and his own intellectual and political context.

Explores the meanings of subjectivity in continental philosophy in the wake of post-structuralism and critical theory.

Explores the meanings of subjectivity in continental philosophy in the wake of post-structuralism and critical theory.

Jürgen Habermas must be accounted one of the foremost philosophers and social theorists of the present day. Over several decades he has developed an analysis of modernity which is rooted in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, but offers strikingly novel answers to longstanding questions of critical theory. In these illuminating and wideranging interviews, he recounts for the first time his own intellectual and political biography, and discusses his views on contemporary social theory and social movements. This new edition contains an extended introduction and an additional five interviews in which Habermas considers, among other things, the significance of the Frankfurt School, changing mentalities in postwar Germany, and the relations between ethics, morality and law.

This timely book by philosopher Peter Dews explores the idea of evil, one of the most problematic terms in the contemporary moral vocabulary. Surveys the intellectual debate on the nature of evil over the past two hundred yearsEngages with a broad range of discourses and thinkers, from Kant and the German Idealists, via Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to Levinas and AdornoSuggests that the concept of moral evil touches on a neuralgic point in western cultureArgues that, despite the widespread abuse and political manipulation of the term ‘evil’, we cannot do without itConcludes that if we use the concept of evil, we must acknowledge its religious dimension

This timely book by philosopher Peter Dews explores the idea of evil, one of the most problematic terms in the contemporary moral vocabulary. Surveys the intellectual debate on the nature of evil over the past two hundred yearsEngages with a broad range of discourses and thinkers, from Kant and the German Idealists, via Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to Levinas and AdornoSuggests that the concept of moral evil touches on a neuralgic point in western cultureArgues that, despite the widespread abuse and political manipulation of the term ‘evil’, we cannot do without itConcludes that if we use the concept of evil, we must acknowledge its religious dimension

Over the last two decades, contemporary French philosophy has exercised a powerful influence on intellectual life, across both Europe and America. Post-structuralist strategies and concepts have played an important role in many forms of social, cultural and aesthetic analysis, particularly on the Left. Despite the widespread reception, however, there has still been comparatively little analysis of the basic philosophical assumptions of post-structuralism, or of the compatibility of many of its central tenets with the progressive political orientations with which it is frequently associated.In this book, Peter Dews seeks to remedy this situation by setting post-structuralist thought in relation to another, more explicitly critical, tradition in the philosophical analysis of modernity - that of the Frankfurt School, from Adorno to Habermas. Logics of Disintegration will be of interest to readers across a wide range of disciplines, from literary criticism to social theory, which have felt the impact of post-structuralism - and to anyone who wishes to reach a balanced assessment of one of the most influential intellectual currents of our time.