The final work of the late philosopher Gilles Deleuze includes essays on such diverse literary figures as Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, D.H. Lawrence, Lewis Carroll, and others, along with philosophers Plato, Spinoza, Kant, and others. Taken together, these 18 essays--all newly revised or published here for the first time--present a profoundly new approach to literature.

In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche expounds on the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. He declares it to be the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche critiques the complacent rationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture (...) and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner. A wide ranging discussion of the nature of art, science, and religion, The Birth of Tragedy's argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which are still valid today. (shrink)

One of the cornerstone books of Western philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's seminal treatise, where he seeks to define the nature of reason itself and builds his own unique system of philosophical thought with an approach known as transcendental idealism. He argues that human knowledge is limited by the capacity for perception and attempts a logical designation of two varieties of knowledge: a posteriori, the knowledge acquired through experience; and a priori, knowledge not derived through experience. This accurate (...) translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn offers a simple and direct rendering of Kant's work that is suitable for readers at all levels. (shrink)

Harold Rosenberg was undoubtedly the most important American art critic of the twentieth century. It was he who first coined the term ”Action Painters” to refer to the American Abstract Expressionists such as Pollock, Kline, and de Kooning. Rosenberg's seminal writings on this movement, as well as on other artists such as Newman and Rothko, appear in The Tradition of the New (1959), his first and most influential book; its effects on subsequent art criticism, and the practice of art itself, (...) are still felt today. The essays in this book are not limited to the art world, however: He also discusses poetry, political and cultural theory, and popular culture. As wide-ranging, independent, and deeply probing as the essays of Walter Benjamin, Harold Rosenberg's The Tradition of the New is a true classic of twentieth-century criticism. (shrink)

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) is one of the truly great philosophers of the modernist period, and there is currently a major renaissance of interest in his unduly neglected texts and ideas amongst philosophers, literary theorists, and social theorists. Creative Evolution (1907) is the text that made Bergson world-famous in his own lifetime; in it Bergson responds to the challenge presented to our habits of thought by modern evolutionary theory, and attempts to show that the theory of knowledge must have its basis (...) in a theory of life. (shrink)

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) is one of the truly great philosophers of the modernist period, and there is currently a major renaissance of interest in his unduly neglected texts and ideas amongst philosophers, literary theorists, and social theorists. Creative Evolution (1907) is the text that made Bergson world-famous in his own lifetime; in it Bergson responds to the challenge presented to our habits of thought by modern evolutionary theory, and attempts to show that the theory of knowledge must have its basis (...) in a theory of life. (shrink)

At last available in paperback, this book anticipates and explains the post-structuralist turn to empiricism. Presenting a challenging reading of David Hume's philosophy, the work is invaluable for understanding the progress of Deleuze's thought.

Throughout his career, Deleuze developed a series of original philosophies of time and applied them successfully to many different fields. Now James Williams presents Deleuze's philosophy of time as the central concept that connects his philosophy as a whole. Through this conceptual approach, the book covers all the main periods of Deleuze's philosophy: the early studies of Hume, Nietzsche, Kant, Bergson and Spinoza, the two great philosophical works, Difference and Repetition and Logic of Sense, the Capitalism and Schizophrenia works with (...) Guattari, and the late influential studies of literature, film and painting.The result is an important reading of Deleuze and the first full interpretation of his philosophy of time. (shrink)

A reprint of the Routledge edition of 1935.

After Leibniz's death in 1716, Clarke published an edition of their philosophical correspondence--a wide-ranging discussion of the nature of God, human souls, free will and indifference of choice, space and time, the vacuum, miracles, and matter and force. Clarke included his own letters, his translations of Leibniz's letters, and some translated passages from Leibniz's French and Latin works that helped to illuminate their exchanges.

In his Aesthetics Hegel gives full expression to his seminal theory of art. He surveys the history of art from ancient India, Egypt, and Greece through to the Romantic movement of his own time, criticizes major works, and probes their meaning and significance; his rich array of examples gives broad scope for his judgement and makes vivid his exposition of his theory. The substantial Introduction is Hegel's best exposition of his general philosophy of art, and provides the ideal way into (...) his Aesthetics. In Part I he considers the general nature of art: he distinguishes art, as a spiritual experience, from religion and philosophy; he discusses the beauty of art and differentiates it from the beauty of nature; and he examines artistic genius and originality. Part II provides a sort of history of art, divded into three periods called Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic. Part III deals individually with architecture, scuplture, painting, music, and literature. (shrink)

One of the cornerstone books of Western philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's seminal treatise, where he seeks to define the nature of reason itself and builds his own unique system of philosophical thought with an approach known as transcendental idealism. He argues that human knowledge is limited by the capacity for perception and attempts a logical designation of two varieties of knowledge: a posteriori, the knowledge acquired through experience; and a priori, knowledge not derived through experience. This accurate (...) translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn offers a simple and direct rendering of Kant's work that is suitable for readers at all levels. (shrink)

A new translation and edition of one of the seminal philosophical works of the modern period.

The three syntheses of time are Deleuze’s response to Kant’s belief that time is synthesized by the unity o the “I think.” Deleuze believes that there is a prior synthesis of time in the unconscious. He calls this a “passive” synthesis of time. My thesis will seek to clarify Deleuze’s theory of the three syntheses of time by providing the background from which he derived his concepts. In chapter one I argue that the system of “signs” presented in Proust and (...) Signs is the precursor to Deleuze’s three syntheses of time. I conclude that Worldy Signs correspond to synthesis of habit, Signs of Love correspond to the synthesis of memory, and Signs of Art correspond to the synthesis of the future. In chapter two I argue that the system of “series” presented in the second half of The Logic of Sense illustrates Deleuze’s conceptions of “resonance” and “forced movement” that are critical to understanding the three syntheses of time. I conclude that Deleuze’s conception of connective, conjunctive and disjunctive series are derived from Freud’s reading of libidinal stages in his Three Essays on The Theory of Sexuality. In chapter three I argue that chapter two of Difference and Repetition is based upon concepts derived from Freud’s Project for a Scientific Psychology. I conclude that the concepts of the Id, Ego and Superego each correspond to a synthesis of time and that these agencies are primarily based upon neurological processes. In chapter four I argue that the static repetitions are the means by which the three syntheses of time manifest themselves in our actions. I conclude that the Superego presents and forbids actions that constitute a “pure event” and that the psyche reacts by repetitive behaviours that correspond to the three static dimensions of time: the before, the during, and the after. (shrink)