This original contribution to the ethical and political significance of philosophy addresses a number of major themes—identity, violence, the erotic, freedom, responsibility, religious belief, globalization—and critically engages with the work of Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Derrida, and Levinas. It promotes a unique blend of deconstructive critique and a certain English skepticism, leading to the affirmation of a negative capability—a patience and vigilance in the face of both human folly and philosophy’s own homegrown pathologies. The author argues for the extension of our sense of openness and responsibility to animal life, and indeed life in general, and not just to the human.
Table of Content
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION: Towards a Negative Capability
PART I: Philosophy and Violence
1. Identity and Violence
2. The Philosophy of Violence: The Violence of Philosophy
3. Where Levinas Went Wrong
PART II: Singular Encounters
4. The First Kiss: Tales of Innocence and Experience
5. Thinking God in the Wake of Kierkegaard
6. Dionysus in America
PART III: Ethics and Politics after Deconstruction
7. Notes toward a Deconstructive Phenomenology
8. Responsibility Reinscribed (and How)
9. What Is Ecophenomenology?
10. Globalization and Freedom
POSTSCRIPT: Philosophy: The Antioxidant of Higher Education
NOTES
INDEX
About the author
David Wood is Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. His many books include
Thinking After Heidegger.
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