Writing the Politics of Difference (Select Stud Phenom Exis (Dis))

This book addresses various phases of continental philosophy, both in the context of its multiple traditions and in relation to the alternatives that mark the understanding of its present and future. Divided into two parts, the authors first focus on the diversity of traditions in continental philosophy in connection with the texts of Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and De Beauvoir. Second, they explore the reality of social, political, sexual, and philosophical differences, in connection with the writings of Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Habermas, Heidegger, Foucault, Irigaray, Kristeva, Derrida, and Vattimo. They also stress the various theoretical foundations that manifest these differences.

Issues surrounding the role of philosophical systems, language, ethical choice, relations with others, the gendered body, socialization, and the status of philosophy today constitute the fabric of this book. The authors place these ideas in the context of current thought and current debates in continental philosophy and evaluate their significance for the future.

Hugh J. Silverman is Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the coeditor of Descriptions; Hermeneutics and Deconstruction; Critical and Dialectical Phenomenology; Postmodernism and Continental Philosophy; and The Textual Sublime: Deconstruction and Its Differences, all published by SUNY Press.