- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press; 1 edition (April 18 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0816632219
- ISBN-13: 978-0816632213
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 12.9 x 1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 159 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #197,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
At once an introduction to Hegel and a radically new vision of his thought, this remarkable work penetrates the entirety of the Hegelian field with brevity and precision, while compromising neither rigor nor depth. One of the most original interpreters of Hegel, Jean-Luc Nancy offers a portrait as startlingly unconventional as it is persuasive, and at the same time demonstrates its relevance to a very contemporary understanding of the political. Here Hegel appears not as the quintessential dispassionate synthesizer and totalizer, but as the inaugural thinker of the contemporary world-one whose thought is inseparable from anxiety and desire, as well as the concrete, the inconclusive, the singular.
Under Nancy's scrutiny, no facet of Hegel's work remains untouched or unrevised: problems of aesthetics, affect, and history, as well as the implications of freedom, politics, and being-in-common. Engaging eleven judiciously chosen points essential to Hegel's sprawling system of thought-restlessness, becoming, penetration, logic, present, manifestation, trembling, sense, desire, freedom, and "we"-Nancy develops precise arguments for their philosophical importance for us today.
Under Nancy's scrutiny, no facet of Hegel's work remains untouched or unrevised: problems of aesthetics, affect, and history, as well as the implications of freedom, politics, and being-in-common. Engaging eleven judiciously chosen points essential to Hegel's sprawling system of thought-restlessness, becoming, penetration, logic, present, manifestation, trembling, sense, desire, freedom, and "we"-Nancy develops precise arguments for their philosophical importance for us today.
Nancy's Hegel is the thinker who foregrounds the original, irrepressible, and joyous embrace of the inevitable will to philosophize; he is the philosophical guide who negotiates between the two extremes of stupidity and madness along the path to meaning. In the face of the horror of history and despite the temptation of past-based solutions, this Hegel's uncompromising foothold in the real makes him our contemporary, a thinker for our time.
Jean-Luc Nancy is professor of philosophy at the University of Strasbourg. Among his many books are The Inoperative Community (1991), and The Sense of the World (1998), both published by the University of Minnesota Press.
Jason Smith and Steven Miller are doctoral candidates in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest living philosopher,
By
This review is from: Hegel: The Restlessness Of The Negative (Paperback)
After the death of both Deleuze and Levinas in 1995, the mantle of "greatest living philosopher" presumably went to Jacques Derrida for a while. But Derrida has always refused to be a philosopher other than in the sense of not being a philosopher (which is also being a philosopher). So his cohort and quasi-follower Jean-Luc Nancy had to take the real philosophy from Derrida back to the question underlying all post-modern thought, namely how to deal with the empty space left behind by Heidegger's deconstruction of the tradition. With this little book, Nancy himself has become "the greatest living philosopher" - that is to say he has done to Hegel what Heidegger did to Nietzsche in the 1930s and 1940s: presented him as the key thinker of the break of modernity, and, unnoticeably perhaps, stepped beyond him. This book is indeed a marvel - one gets slightly dizzy reading it. Its intensity is at times (no: always) well-nigh unbearable. Nancy, like Heidegger with Nietzsche, takes a drill to the concepts of Hegel and allows them to shine in ways hitherto unthought(see the editorial review above, no need to repeat the details). In the end, this is the overturning of the boring old French Hegel of Kojeve and Hyppolite and the most exciting discovery in philosophical reading of another in sixty some years. I had always thought of Hegel as the great synthesizer. But Nancy's Hegel "returns" Hegel to pre-Socratic instability and shaky difference, where the restless thought-in-process constitutes the sense of the world, and philosophy is as alive as it ever was. A friend of mine says that Nancy reminds him of the color of the LED on alarm clocks: well, he's right, 'cause Jean-Luc Nancy is very much a phenomenon of a new morning. The owl is disoriented but it is all a marvel. Yes, I guess that is what you could say.
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
restlessness indeed,
By Chris Dacus (Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hegel: The Restlessness Of The Negative (Paperback)
It is often said contemporary French philosophy mistakes obscurity for profundity. There is more than a kernel of truth to that statement when applied to Jean-Luc Nancy's writing on Hegel. As far as writing goes, Nancy's musings on Hegel are not altogether displeasing when taken as poetry but, philosophically, Nancy has not given us much. This is a shame because Nancy's work on Lacan, _The Title of the Letter_, (with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe) is a rather ingenious interpretation. This should not surprise us, however, considering the body of Nancy's work, taken as a whole, is not very philosophical but rather really an exercise in aesthetics. (Perhaps this is why American literature departments rave about various French posties while most actual philosophers view French "play" much like Bismark viewed Napolean III's statesmanship: erratic, ill-conceived, and ultimately without the substance necessary to sustain itself.) Hegel of course was (and still is) considered quite obscure by many, but taken to be philosophically formidable and rigorous. The French philosopher that initiated contemporary interest of Hegel in France, Kojeve, managed to put together a few positive concepts on Hegel's philosophy of negativity. Nancy does not. He is content to remain, despite his own best deconstructive efforts, in the world of Nietzsche's last man--endlessly searching in vain for an answer to the demise of the Enlightenment and taking the search itself to now be the best option available. Such nihilistic gamesmanship is appealing to disaffected lefties because they, like Nancy, will not move beyond the liberal naivetes no longer tenable in a post-Nietzschean world. They wish to promote a Kantian style ethical practice by invoking an unstated catergorical imperative of unconditional equality and toleration. The fact that there is no ground or reason for their political project is taken to be somehow supportive of "radical" equality; their hope being that by supporting epistemic skepticism they can institute a paralysis of the bildung that make the hierarchies of social systems possible. Of course what they have actually done is given themselves a way to advance an extreme version of the Enlightenment project of political emancipation while rhetorically denying the other positive claims of the Enlightenment. Hegel himself did his best to put a good face on the aporias exposed by Kant's reaction to Hume's skepticism but was not, in the end, successful. Herein lies the problem for Nancy and his ilk. They would be better served to strike a more truly Hegelian pose rather than languish in the death throws of a long since faded Enlightenment. Such political tactics are philosophically transparent. If you are looking for an actual philosophic treatment and explanation of Hegel's thought I would suggest Stanley Rosen's book on Hegel.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 24 of 34 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest living philosopher,
By Jan Patrick Oppermann - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hegel: The Restlessness Of The Negative (Paperback)
After the death of both Deleuze and Levinas in 1995, the mantle of "greatest living philosopher" presumably went to Jacques Derrida for a while. But Derrida has always refused to be a philosopher other than in the sense of not being a philosopher (which is also being a philosopher). So his cohort and quasi-follower Jean-Luc Nancy had to take the real philosophy from Derrida back to the question underlying all post-modern thought, namely how to deal with the empty space left behind by Heidegger's deconstruction of the tradition. With this little book, Nancy himself has become "the greatest living philosopher" - that is to say he has done to Hegel what Heidegger did to Nietzsche in the 1930s and 1940s: presented him as the key thinker of the break of modernity, and, unnoticeably perhaps, stepped beyond him. This book is indeed a marvel - one gets slightly dizzy reading it. Its intensity is at times (no: always) well-nigh unbearable. Nancy, like Heidegger with Nietzsche, takes a drill to the concepts of Hegel and allows them to shine in ways hitherto unthought(see the editorial review above, no need to repeat the details). In the end, this is the overturning of the boring old French Hegel of Kojeve and Hyppolite and the most exciting discovery in philosophical reading of another in sixty some years. I had always thought of Hegel as the great synthesizer. But Nancy's Hegel "returns" Hegel to pre-Socratic instability and shaky difference, where the restless thought-in-process constitutes the sense of the world, and philosophy is as alive as it ever was. A friend of mine says that Nancy reminds him of the color of the LED on alarm clocks: well, he's right, 'cause Jean-Luc Nancy is very much a phenomenon of a new morning. The owl is disoriented but it is all a marvel. Yes, I guess that is what you could say.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An intro to Hegel for the 21st century,
By Thomas A. Mcdonald - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hegel: The Restlessness Of The Negative (Paperback)
Kojeve's "Introduction to the Reading of Hegel" is a great work of philosophical interpretation and a great aid to understanding Hegel, but the rendering of Hegel Nancy expresses here may now supersede Kojeve (writing mid-century) for grasping Hegel's relevance (if any) for us living at the dawn of the 21st century.This volume not only illuminates the intellectual roots of continentals such as Heidegger, Derrida, and Deleuze in Hegel (rewardingly illuminating their own work in turn), but it provides a recapture of Hegel for the left from the neo-conservative right (who argued persuasively to power for the Iraq war on the basis of right-Hegelian thinking about Western history). Although the language can seem complex, steeped in the continental philosophical discourse as it is, the book can be a great aid to clarifying and bringing to life Hegel's speculative way of thinking (from the "we", even if a fragmented "we") for gaining social insights. For instance, in the chapter "Becoming", Nancy gives the simplest and yet most satisfying explanation of a particularly controversial moment in Hegel's thought -- the 'presupposition' of the absolute. The way Nancy explains this moment (with some aid from Heidegger it seems) helps greatly to understand how a misunderstanding of this philosophical move -- the 'naive' assumption that being here, "hic et nunc", is apiece of the absolute -- can lead to much confusion and difficulties in later moments of Hegel's argument.
5.0 out of 5 stars
yes you should read it,
By anonymous "sag44" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hegel: The Restlessness Of The Negative (Paperback)
Briefly, this book is Nancy at his best -- majestic and concise, operating across all registers. Over 75 pages, you'll find a summation of Nancy's own philosophy and ethics as much as an elucidation of what he finds in Hegel. (Turns out Hegel looks a lot like J-L.) The language is delicate but potent, transparent -- not the fancy footwork and disruptions of sense you get in some of his other stuff. The whole thing goes full blast, no holds barred. How things appear, how boundaries operate. How subjects come into contact with the world. The coordinates of philosophy. Freedom, truth, and finally community. A taught lyric in relation to the epics inspired by Hegelian thought (including the new Zizek, which comes to similar conclusions). Anyone interested in continental thought will find this a pleasure to read.
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