Thinking the Event (Studies in Continental Thought) - Softcover

Raffoul, François

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253045363 ISBN 13: 9780253045362

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2020

Synopsis

What happens when something happens? In Thinking the Event, senior continental philosophy scholar François Raffoul undertakes a philosophical inquiry into what constitutes an event as event, its very eventfulness: not what happens or why it happens, but that it happens, and what "happening" means. If, as Leibniz posited, it is true that nothing happens without a reason, does this principle of reason have a reason? For Raffoul, the event always breaks the demands of rational thought. Bringing together philosophical insights from Heidegger, Derrida, Nancy, and Marion, Raffoul shows how the event, in its disruptive unpredictability, always exceeds causality, subjectivity, and reason. It is that "pure event," each time happening outside or without reason, which remains to be thought, and which is the focus of this work. In the final movement of the book, Raffoul takes on questions about the inappropriability of the event and the implications this carries for ethical and political considerations when thinking the event. In the wake of the exhaustion of traditional metaphysics, the notion of the event comes to the fore in an unprecedented way, with key implications for philosophy, ontology, ethics, and theories of selfhood.

About this title

About the Author

François Raffoul is Professor of Philosophy and French Studies at Louisiana State University. He is author of The Origins of Responsibility and translator (with David Pettigrew) of Dominique Janicaud's Heidegger in France.

Edition details

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0253045363
• ISBN 13: 9780253045362
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 378