Hi Sudip,
On the subject, I've been reading a book by Caroline Williams, _Contemporary French Philosophy: Modernity and the Persistence of the Subject_. It might be a good text for you or your students (depending on their level); it is not a text for those who do not have some substantial background in philosophy by any means, but it is an introduction to French philosophy for philosophers and provides a thought-provoking analysis of the problem of the subject within it. I seem to have an earlier (2001) edition, there is a new (2005) edition out with more pages, but I don't know if that contains any additional material, it might just be a formating change - I'll have to ask the author. To give some idea of the content, the chapter headings in my copy are as follows:
1. Inheriting Problems and Paradoxes: Subjectivity and Modern Philosophy. (sections on Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel)
2. Marxism and Subjectivity: From Lukacs to Althusser.
3. Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity and the _Vita Lingua_.
4. Derrida, Subjectivity and the Politics of _Differance_. (includes discussion of Lacan & Althusser as well as Derrida)
5. The Discursive Construction of the Subject. (Foucault, archaeologies and genealogies of the subject)
The discussions of Descartes, Spinoza and Hegel in the first chapter explore them in terms of French readings, e.g. Kojeve and Hyppolite on Hegel. There is no real discussion of Sartre, who is mentioned only in a couple of places, but certainly it is good on French philosophy outside of existentialism and phenomenology. I found the discussion of the trhee forms of knowledge in Spinoza and how these relate to Hegel's reading of Spinoza very worthwhile, and I'm just starting chapter 2. She has a forthcoming book in the works on Spinoza and Althusser, due out in 2007: _Spinoza and Political Critique: Thinking the Political in the Wake of Althusser_ (University of Wales Press, Political Philosophy Now series)
Have fun with the course
David
http://www.continuumbooks.com/(2mzwk345kzdufw55bit15o55)/ BookDetail.aspx?BookID=12433
Contemporary French Philosophy: Modernity and the Persistence of the Subject
Caroline Williams
March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0826479227
paperback
272 Pages
6 x 9 | 234 x 156
£12.99
SERIES: Continuum Collection
SUBJECT: Philosophy
IMPRINT: Continuum
Description
"Caroline Williams marks what is distinctive about 20th Century French philosophy's interrogation of the subject and demonstrates its historical continuity in a lucid, balanced and utterly convincing way."
David Wood, Vanderbilt University
French philosophy and cultural theory continue to hold a prestigious and influential position in European thought. One of the central themes of contemporary French philosophy is its concern with the theoretical and political status of the subject, a question which has been broached by structuralists and poststructuralists through an analysis of the construction of the subject in and by language, discourse, power and ideology.
Contemporary French Philosophy outlines the construction of the subject in modern philosophy, focusing in particular on the seminal work of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida and Foucault. The book interrogates some of the most influential perspectives on the question of the subject to contest those postmodern voices which announce its disappearance or death. It argues instead that the question of the subject persists, even in those perspectives which seek to abandon it altogether.
Providing a broad introduction to the field and an original analysis of some of the most influential theorists of the 20th century, the book will be of great interest to political and literary theorists, cultural historians, as well as to philosophers.
On 19/08/2005, at 12:35 PM, Sudip Minhas wrote:
On the subject, I've been reading a book by Caroline Williams, _Contemporary French Philosophy: Modernity and the Persistence of the Subject_. It might be a good text for you or your students (depending on their level); it is not a text for those who do not have some substantial background in philosophy by any means, but it is an introduction to French philosophy for philosophers and provides a thought-provoking analysis of the problem of the subject within it. I seem to have an earlier (2001) edition, there is a new (2005) edition out with more pages, but I don't know if that contains any additional material, it might just be a formating change - I'll have to ask the author. To give some idea of the content, the chapter headings in my copy are as follows:
1. Inheriting Problems and Paradoxes: Subjectivity and Modern Philosophy. (sections on Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel)
2. Marxism and Subjectivity: From Lukacs to Althusser.
3. Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity and the _Vita Lingua_.
4. Derrida, Subjectivity and the Politics of _Differance_. (includes discussion of Lacan & Althusser as well as Derrida)
5. The Discursive Construction of the Subject. (Foucault, archaeologies and genealogies of the subject)
The discussions of Descartes, Spinoza and Hegel in the first chapter explore them in terms of French readings, e.g. Kojeve and Hyppolite on Hegel. There is no real discussion of Sartre, who is mentioned only in a couple of places, but certainly it is good on French philosophy outside of existentialism and phenomenology. I found the discussion of the trhee forms of knowledge in Spinoza and how these relate to Hegel's reading of Spinoza very worthwhile, and I'm just starting chapter 2. She has a forthcoming book in the works on Spinoza and Althusser, due out in 2007: _Spinoza and Political Critique: Thinking the Political in the Wake of Althusser_ (University of Wales Press, Political Philosophy Now series)
Have fun with the course
David
http://www.continuumbooks.com/(2mzwk345kzdufw55bit15o55)/ BookDetail.aspx?BookID=12433
Contemporary French Philosophy: Modernity and the Persistence of the Subject
Caroline Williams
March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0826479227
paperback
272 Pages
6 x 9 | 234 x 156
£12.99
SERIES: Continuum Collection
SUBJECT: Philosophy
IMPRINT: Continuum
Description
"Caroline Williams marks what is distinctive about 20th Century French philosophy's interrogation of the subject and demonstrates its historical continuity in a lucid, balanced and utterly convincing way."
David Wood, Vanderbilt University
French philosophy and cultural theory continue to hold a prestigious and influential position in European thought. One of the central themes of contemporary French philosophy is its concern with the theoretical and political status of the subject, a question which has been broached by structuralists and poststructuralists through an analysis of the construction of the subject in and by language, discourse, power and ideology.
Contemporary French Philosophy outlines the construction of the subject in modern philosophy, focusing in particular on the seminal work of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida and Foucault. The book interrogates some of the most influential perspectives on the question of the subject to contest those postmodern voices which announce its disappearance or death. It argues instead that the question of the subject persists, even in those perspectives which seek to abandon it altogether.
Providing a broad introduction to the field and an original analysis of some of the most influential theorists of the 20th century, the book will be of great interest to political and literary theorists, cultural historians, as well as to philosophers.
On 19/08/2005, at 12:35 PM, Sudip Minhas wrote:
Thank you all for such a wonderful and simple analysis of the "subject" and with special reference to Sartre. I am teaching a class the basics of Post-Structuralism and this interaction has enriched me with another argument about the subject and its shifting positions. Esp the missing subject (like the God) within the syntagmatic structures also.
Sudip
On 8/18/05, michael bibby <shmickeyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks for that Brad, the selection you forwarded onto
me contains many of the elements which I have been
studying in isolation (its a logical concomitant to
Luther, Calvin, Perkins etc.). I also was going to
send this reply privately but I, like you, struck upon
something, in this connection, so richly poingant that
I simply had to publish it (it cannot but interest
those who take interest in Foucaults theme of 'the
gaze').
Shame, for Sarte, is the experience- which always
catches up the subject it compromises by surprise- of
an "internal hemorage": "the appearance of the Other
in the world corresponds... to a fixed sliding of the
whole universe." Sarte, in this connection, deploys
the narrative of the man spying through the keyhole
who suddenly becomes aware of himself as on
object-in-the-world-for-others (an awareness enjoined
with a guilt responce). A kind of copernican
revolution: from a subject-centred universe to an
object-centred universe. He summerises the situation
thusly: "Shame before God; that is, the recognition of
my being-an-object before a subject which can never be
an object."
I wont even attempt to draw out the implicate
connections established here with Foucaults theme of
'recognition in a mirror' as laid out in his chapter
on the birth of the asylum in Madness and
Civilization, they should be obvious enough for those
who are interested in establishing them.
--- bradley nitins <b.nitins@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
> I know Michael personally, and i know that he has
> been reading lately John
> Bunyan's _Pilgram's Progress_ so i was going to send
> this message
> privately, but the following is such a great quote
> from that book that i
> thought i should share it with you all.
>
> "...we have right thoughts of God, when we think
> that he knows us better
> than we know ourselves, and can see sin in us when
> and where we can see
> none in ourselves; when we think he knows our inmost
> thoughts, and that our
> heart, with all its depths is always upon unto his
> eyes; also when we think
> that all our righteousness stinks in his nostrils,
> and that therefore he
> cannot abide to see us stand before him in any
> confidence, even of all our
> best performances"
>
> best
> bradley
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>
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