Description
Genealogies of Difference combines critical engagements with modern and postmodern theories of identity, difference, contingency, and time with strategic forays into ancient, early Christian, and medieval philosophy. Without losing sight of complex contributions from the past, Nathan Widder provides the philosophical underpinnings for a politics and ethics of difference crucial to our present day. Lucid and distinctive, this volume is an important, in-depth contribution to contemporary debates on pluralism, multiplicity, and community.
This deft study establishes the failure of Hegelian dialectics to adequately come to terms with the problem of difference. Drawing from the works of Nietzsche, Lyotard, Deleuze, Foucault, and Blanchot, Widder demonstrates the need to rethink the nature of difference and the categories of thought that have dominated Western philosophy. He then provides a keen exploration of major and marginal figures and schools in the history of Western thought--including Aristotle, Epicureanism, Augustine, Gnosticism, and medieval Scholasticism--to illustrate the relevance and relation of these perspectives to contemporary issues and thought.
Widder addresses the substantial body of theoretical discourse on difference without neglecting the history of political thought or the contemporary criticisms of the tradition. His genealogical endeavor develops a concept of difference indispensable to a
postmodern world of blurred boundaries and hybrid forms that exceed our traditional categories of understanding.
Combines critical engagements with modern and postmodern theories of identity, difference, contingency, and time with strategic forays into ancient, early Christian, and medieval philosophy
Reviews
"[Widder] seeks to show that the rejection of metaphysical foundations lead neither to a postmodern ironism or skepticism nor to a negative theology... A pertinent and instructive contribution to contemporary thinking in the area of philosophy and political theory." Keith Ansell-Pearson, author of Germinal Life: The Difference and Repetition of Deleuze "Have you heard that the philosophy of difference is a modern or, even, postmodern event? Nathan Widder puts that story to bed. This is genealogy in the most productive sense of the word: a disaggregation of nostalgic narratives that render the modern world fragmented and lost in order to spur the return to a time that never was." William E. Connolly, author of Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed
Book Information
ISBN 9780252027079
Author Nathan Widder
Format Hardback
Page Count 208
Imprint University of Illinois Press
Publisher University of Illinois Press
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 25mm
This deft study establishes the failure of Hegelian dialectics to adequately come to terms with the problem of difference. Drawing from the works of Nietzsche, Lyotard, Deleuze, Foucault, and Blanchot, Widder demonstrates the need to rethink the nature of difference and the categories of thought that have dominated Western philosophy. He then provides a keen exploration of major and marginal figures and schools in the history of Western thought--including Aristotle, Epicureanism, Augustine, Gnosticism, and medieval Scholasticism--to illustrate the relevance and relation of these perspectives to contemporary issues and thought.
Widder addresses the substantial body of theoretical discourse on difference without neglecting the history of political thought or the contemporary criticisms of the tradition. His genealogical endeavor develops a concept of difference indispensable to a
postmodern world of blurred boundaries and hybrid forms that exceed our traditional categories of understanding.
Combines critical engagements with modern and postmodern theories of identity, difference, contingency, and time with strategic forays into ancient, early Christian, and medieval philosophy
Reviews
"[Widder] seeks to show that the rejection of metaphysical foundations lead neither to a postmodern ironism or skepticism nor to a negative theology... A pertinent and instructive contribution to contemporary thinking in the area of philosophy and political theory." Keith Ansell-Pearson, author of Germinal Life: The Difference and Repetition of Deleuze "Have you heard that the philosophy of difference is a modern or, even, postmodern event? Nathan Widder puts that story to bed. This is genealogy in the most productive sense of the word: a disaggregation of nostalgic narratives that render the modern world fragmented and lost in order to spur the return to a time that never was." William E. Connolly, author of Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed
Book Information
ISBN 9780252027079
Author Nathan Widder
Format Hardback
Page Count 208
Imprint University of Illinois Press
Publisher University of Illinois Press
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 25mm
