Laclau, Latour et al

current

Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics by Graham Harman This book is the first treatment of Bruno Latour specifically as a philosopher. Part One covers four key works in Latour’s career in metaphysics: Irreductions, Science in Action, We Have Never Been Modern, and Pandora’s Hope. In Part Two, the author identifies Latour’s key contributions to ontology, while criticizing his focus on the relational character of actors at the expense of their autonomous reality. Read more...

The Charmed Circle of Ideology: A Critique of Laclau and Mouffe, Butler and Zizek by Geoff Boucher Set against the collapse of social theory into a theory of ideological discourse, Geoff Boucher sets to work a rigorous mapping of the contemporary field, targeting the relativist implications of this new form of philosophical idealism. Offering a detailed and immanent critique Boucher concentrates his critical attention on the ‘postmarxism’ of Laclau and Mouffe, Butler and Žižek. Combining close reading and careful exposition with polemical intent, Boucher links the relativism exemplified in these contemporary theoretical trends to unresolved philosophical problems of modernity. In conclusion Boucher points to ‘intersubjectivity’ as an exit from postmarxist theory’s charmed circle of ideology. Read more... Reading Hegel: The Introductions by G.W.F. Hegel (edited and introduced by Aakash Singh and Rimina Mohapatra) Hegel’s brilliant Introductions, provided all together here, offer a panoramic overview of his grand system. The Introductions are the most accessible of Hegel’s writings, concisely and clearly laying out the Hegelian project. Although each Introduction deals with the distinct theme of the text which it introduces, ultimately they are all inextricably linked together: the natural result of Hegel’s systematic method. As the Editors’ Introduction demonstrates, Hegel’s thought comes across as a system where all particulars take their respective places along the ‘circle’ of knowledge. Thus, each chapter in the book presents an element of this edifice. Read more...