Being Singular PluralThis book, by one of the most innovative and challenging contemporary thinkers, consists of an extensive essay from which the book takes its title and five shorter essays that are internally related to Being Singular Plural. One of the strongest strands in Nancy's philosophy is his attempt to rethink community and the very idea of the social in a way that does not ground these ideas in some individual subject or subjectivity. The fundamental argument of the book is that being is always being with, that I is not prior to we, that existence is essentially co-existence. Nancy thinks of this being-with not as a comfortable enclosure in a pre-existing group, but as a mutual abandonment and exposure to each other, one that would preserve the I and its freedom in a mode of imagining community as neither a society of spectacle nor via some form of authenticity. The five shorter essays impressively translate the philosophical insight of Being Singular Plural into sophisticated discussions of national sovereignty, war and technology, identity politics, the Gulf War, and the tragic plight of Sarajevo. The essay Eulogy for the Mêlée, in particular, is a brilliant discussion of identity and hybridism that resonates with many contemporary social concerns. As Nancy moves through the exposition of his central concern, being-with, he engages a number of other important issues, including current notions of the other and self that are relevant to psychoanalytic, political, and multicultural concepts. He also offers astonishingly original reinterpretations of major philosophical positions, such as Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence, Descartes's cogito, and the nature of language and meaning. |
Contents
S War Right SovereigntyTechně ΙΟΙ | 145 |
S The Surprise of the Event | 159 |
S Human Excess | 177 |
Cosmos Baselius | 185 |
Notes | 193 |
Other editions - View all
Being Singular Plural Jean-Luc Nancy,Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Jean-Luc Nancy No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
absolute according affirmation Alain Badiou already appears appropriation aseity being-in-common being-social being-together being-with being-with-one-another co-appearance coexistence comes conatus concept constitutes creation critique Dasein death Descartes dis-position discourse ecotechnics empty place essence essential event exactly existence exposes exposition exteriority fact figure finishing French Friedrich Nietzsche G. W. F. Hegel Geschehen Giorgio Agamben global happens Hegel Heidegger humanity identify identity infinite insofar ipseity Jean-Luc Nancy justice language leap logic logos longer Martin Heidegger Marx matter meaning measure mélange mêlée mimesis mode monotheism necessary negativity never ontology origin originary philosophy play political posed precisely present presupposition proper pure question relation representation Sarajevo sense sharing signifies simple simultaneity singular plural Situationism social society sort sover sovereign sovereignty space speaking spectacle surprise symbolic takes place techně thing thinking tion trans translation truth understand understood word