Böcker i Studies in Continental Thought-serien

* Interprets Plato's Republic in light of the political and cultural history of Greece. * Identifies money as a distinctive and decisive theme in the Republic. * Reveals how the image of the divided line in the Republic is a compelling account of knowledge as existential transformation. * Demonstrates how and way democracy and its problems are inescapable features of political life.

Kerby delineates a convincing narrative model of the self and offers a valuable overview of contemporary philosophical issues surrounding the place and role of narrative in human experience.

First published in 1988 as volume 63 of his Collected Works, Ontology-The Hermeneutics of Facticity is the text of Heidegger's lecture course at the University of Freiburg during the summer of 1923. In these lectures, Heidegger reviews and makes critical appropriations of the hermeneutic tradition from Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine to Schleiermacher and Dilthey in order to reformulate the question of being on the basis of facticity and the everyday world. Specific themes deal with the history of ontology, the development of phenomenology and its relation to Hegelian dialectic, traditional theological and philosophical concepts of man, the present situation of philosophy, and the influences of Aristotle, Luther, Kierkegaard, and Husserl on Heidegger's thinking. Students of Heidegger will find initial breakthroughs in his unique elaboration of the meaning of human experience and the "e;question of being,"e; which received mature expression in Being and Time.

Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy presents a lecture course given by Martin Heidegger in 1926 at the University of Marburg. First published in German as volume 22 of the collected works, the book provides Heidegger's most systematic history of Ancient philosophy beginning with Thales and ending with Aristotle. In this lecture, which coincides with the completion of his most important work, Being and Time, Heidegger is working out a way to sharply differentiate between beings and Being. Richard Rojcewicz's clear and accurate translation offers English-speaking readers valuable insight into Heidegger's views on Ancient thought and concepts such as principle, cause, nature, unity, multiplicity, Logos, truth, science, soul, category, and motion.

First published in German in 1984 as volume 45 of Martin Heidegger's collected works, this book is the first English translation of a lecture course he presented at the University of Freiburg in 1937-1938. Heidegger's task here is to reassert the question of the essence of truth, not as a "e;problem"e; or as a matter of "e;logic,"e; but precisely as a genuine philosophical question, in fact the one basic question of philosophy. Thus, this course is about the essence of truth and the essence of philosophy. On both sides Heidegger draws extensively upon the ancient Greeks, on their understanding of truth as aletheia and their determination of the beginning of philosophy as the disposition of wonder. In addition, these lectures were presented at the time that Heidegger was composing his second magnum opus, Beitrage zur Philosophie, and provide the single best introduction to that complex and crucial text.

Volume 35 of Heidegger's Complete Works comprises a lecture course given at the University of Freiburg in 1932, five years after the publication of Being and Time. During this period, Heidegger was at the height of his creative powers, which are on full display in this clear and imaginative text. In it, Heidegger leads his students in a close reading of two of the earliest philosophical source documents, fragments by Greek thinkers Anaximander and Parmenides. Heidegger develops their common theme of Being and non-being and shows that the question of Being is indeed the origin of Western philosophy. His engagement with these Greek texts is as much of a return to beginnings as it is a potential reawakening of philosophical wonder and inquiry in the present.

Observing that humans often deal with the past in problematic ways, Jerome Veith looks to philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer and his hermeneutics to clarify these conceptions of history and to present ways to come to terms with them. Veith fully engages Truth and Method as well as Gadamer's entire work and relationships with other German philosophers, especially Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger in this endeavor. Veith considers questions about language, ethics, cosmopolitanism, patriotism, self-identity, and the status of the humanities in the academy in this very readable application of Gadamer's philosophical practice.

"e;Like Foucault and Levinas before him, though in very different ways, Scott makes an oblique incision into phenomenology . . . [it is] the kind of book to which people dazed by the specters of nihilism will be referred by those in the know."e; -David Wood"e;. . . refreshing and original."e; -Edward S. CaseyIn The Lives of Things, Charles E. Scott reconsiders our relationships with ordinary, everyday things and our capacity to engage them in their particularity. He takes up the Greek notion of phusis, or physicality, as a way to point out limitations in refined and commonplace views of nature and the body as well as a device to highlight the often overlooked lives of things that people encounter. Scott explores questions of unity, purpose, coherence, universality, and experiences of wonder and astonishment in connection with scientific fact and knowledge. He develops these themes with lightness and wit, ultimately articulating a new interpretation of the appearances of things that are beyond the reach of language and thought.

A brilliant and witty postmodern critique of ethics, framed as a contemporary restaging of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling.John D. Caputo undertakes a passionate, poetic, and satiric search for the basis of an ethics in the postmodern situation. Restaging Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, Caputo defends the notion of obligation without ethics, of responsibility without the support of ethical foundations. Retelling the story of Abraham and Isaac, he strikes the pose of a postmodern-day Johannes de Silentio, accompanied by communications from such startling figures as Johanna de Silentio, Felix Sineculpa, and Magdalena de la Cruz. In dialogue with the thought of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Derrida, and Lyotard, Caputo forges a challenging, original account of what is possible and what is not possible for a continentalist ethics today."e;Against Ethics is a bold work. . . . A counterethics whose multiple voices will be heard long after the trivializing arguments of many analytic ethicists have vanished and the arcane formulations of many postmoderns have been jettisoned."e; -Edith Wyschogrod"e;Caputo provides a brilliant new analysis of the limits of ethics. . . . Essential reading for anyone concerned with the philosophical issues raised in postmodernity."e; -Drucilla Cornell"e;One of the most important works on philosophical ethics written in recent years. . . . Caputo speaks with a passion and concern that are rare in academic philosophy."e; -Mark C. Taylor"e;Against Ethics is beautifully written, clever, learned, thought-provoking, and even inspiring."e; -Theological Studies"e;Writing in the form of his ideas, Caputo offers the reader a truly exquisite reading experience. . . . His iconic style mirrors a truly refreshing honesty that draws the reader in to play."e; -Quarterly Journal of Speech

Imposture is an abuse of power. It is the act of lying for one's own benefit, of disguising the truth in order to mislead. For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, however, imposture is first and foremost power itself. In On Imposture, French philosopher Serge Margel explores imposture within Rousseau's Discourses, Confessions, and Emile. For Rousseau, taking power, using it, or abusing it are ultimately one and the same act. Once there's power, and someone grants themselves the means, the right, and the authority to force another's beliefs or actions, there is imposture. According to Rousseau, imposture can be found through human history, society, and culture. Using a deconstructionist method in the classic manner of Derrida, On Imposture explores Rousseau's thought concerning imposture and offers a unique analysis of its implications for politics, civil society, literature, and existentialist thought.

"Volume 27 of Heidegger's Complete Works offers a translation of the lecture course Einleitung in die Philosophie, which Martin Heidegger delivered in the winter semester of 1928-29 at the University of Freiburg. This course represents an important bridge between the last course Heidegger offered at Marburg in summer semester 1928, The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, and the seminal winter semester 1929-30 course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. The two major themes treated in the course are the relation between philosophy and science and that between philosophy and Weltanschauung. It will come as no surprise to those familiar with Heidegger's work and teaching that the course is anything but a schematic introduction to an academic discipline labeled Philosophy. It is designed instead as a veritable initiation into philosophical thinking, with the stated aim of "getting philosophizing underway.""--