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The Prince (Penguin Classics)

The Prince shocked Europe on publication with its ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional morality. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) came to be regarded as some by an agent of the Devil and his name taken for the intriguer 'Machevill' of Jacobean tragedy. For his treatise on statecraft Machiavelli drew upon his own experience of office under the turbulent Florentine republic, rejecting traditional values of political theory and recognizing the complicated, transient nature of political life. Concerned not with lofty ideals, but with a regime that would last, The Prince has become the Bible of realpolitik, and still retains its power to alarm and to instruct.

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The Republic (Penguin Classics)

Plato's Republic is widely acknowledged as the cornerstone of Western philosophy. Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, it is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation other questions are raised: what is goodness; what is reality; what is knowledge? The Republic also addresses the purpose of education and the role of both women and men as 'guardians' of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by 'philosopher kings'.

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On the Heights of Despair

This work shows E.M. Cioran's first grappling with themes he would return to in his mature works: despair and decay, absurdity and alienation, futility and the irrationality of existence. It also presents Cioran as a connoisseur of apocalypse, a theoretician of despair, for whom writing and philosophy both share the "lyrical virtues" that alone lead to a metaphysical revelation.

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The Politics of Aesthetics

The Politics of Aesthetics rethinks the relation between art and politics, reclaiming aesthetics from its current narrow confines to reveal its significance for contemporary experience. Here, Jacques Ranciere develops a critical aesthetic that goes far beyond the paradigms of modernism and modernity and their 'posts' which still haunt us. Presented as a set of inter-linked interviews, The Politics of Aesthetics ranges across art and politics, the uses and abuses of modernity, the role of visual technologies, the relationship between history and fiction, utopias, the avant-garde and the three aesthetic regimes, which constitute the 'partitions of the sensible.' Already translated into five languages, this English edition of "The Politics of Aesthetics" includes a new afterword by Slavoj Zizek and a new interview with Ranciere in which he situates his writing within the context of the work of, amongst others, Foucault, Barthes, Ricoeur, Kristeva, Derrida, Badiou, Balibar and Zizek.

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Being and Event

Being and Event is the centrepiece of Alain Badiou's oeuvre; it is the work that grounds his reputation as one of France's most original philosophers. Long-awaited in translation, Being and Event makes available to an English-speaking readership Badiou's groundbreaking work on set theory - the cornerstone of his whole philosophy. This book makes the scope and aim of Badiou's whole philosophical project clear, enabling full comprehension of Badiou's significance for contemporary philosophy. In Being and Event, Badiou anchors this project by recasting the European philosophical tradition from Plato onwards, via a series of analyses of such key figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Rousseau, and Lacan. He thus develops the basis for a history of philosophy rivalling those of Heidegger and Deleuze in its depth. This wide-ranging book is organised in a precise and novel manner, reflecting the philosophical rigour of Badiou's thought. Unlike many contemporary Continental philosophers, Badiou - who is also a novelist and dramatist - writes lucidly and cogently, making his work accessible and engaging. This English language edition includes a new preface, written especially for this translation. Being and Event is essential reading for Badiou's considerable following and anyone interested in contemporary Continental philosophy.

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In Defense of Lost Causes

'The era of grand explanations is over; we should no longer aim at all-explaining systems and global emancipatory projects; the violent imposition of grand solutions should leave room for forms of specific resistance and intervention. ... If the reader feels a minimum of sympathy with these lines, she should stop reading and cast aside this volume. This book is unashamedly committed to the Messianic standpoint of the struggle for universal emancipation.' - Slavoj Zizek . . . . . . . . . . . Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of an earlier age? In fear of the horrors of totalitarianism should we submit ourselves to the reactionary third way of economic liberalism and government-as-administration? In this combative major new work, philosophical sharpshooter Slavoj Zizek takes on the reigning ideology with a plea that we should re-appropriate several lost causes, and looks for the kernel of truth in the totalitarian politics of the past. Examining Heidegger s seduction by fascism and Foucault s flirtation with the Iranian Revolution, he suggests that these were the right steps in the wrong direction. Highlighting the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, Mao and the Bolsheviks, i ek argues that while these struggles ended in historic failure and monstrosity, this is not the entire story. There was, in fact, a redemptive moment that gets lost in the outright liberal-democratic rejection of revolutionary authoritarianism and the valorization of soft, consensual, decentralized politics. Zizek claims that, particularly in the light of the forthcoming ecological crisis, we should reinvent revolutionary terror and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the struggle for universal emancipation. We need to courageously accept the return to this Cause even if we court the risk of a catastrophic disaster. In the words of Samuel Beckett: 'Try again. Fail again. Fail better.'

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Critique of Pure Reason (Penguin Modern Classics)

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is the central text of modern philosophy. It brings together the two opposing schools of philosophy: rationalism, which grounds all our knowledge in reason, and empiricism, which traces all our knowledge to experience. The Critique is a profound and challenging investigation into the nature of human reason, establishing its truth and its falsities, its illusions and its reality. Reason, argues Kant, is the seat of all concepts, including God, freedom and immortality and must therefore precede and surpass human experience.

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Madness and Civilization (Routledge Classics)

In this classic account of madness, Michel Foucault shows once and for all why he is one of the most distinguished European philosophers since the end of World War II.

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Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (Routledge Classics)

The central work by one of the world's most influential thinkers, this classic altered the course of western philosophy. It is without doubt one of the most significant books of the twentieth century.

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History of Western Philosophy (Routledge Classics)

First published in 1946 and a best-seller ever since, this book provides a sophisticated overview of the ideas that have perplexed people from time immemorial, and remains unchallenged to this day as the ultimate introduction to Western philosophy. It is ‘long on wit, intelligence and curmudgeonly scepticism’, as The New York Times noted, and it is this, coupled with the sheer brilliance of its scholarship, that has made Russell’s History Of Western Philosophy one of the most important and dazzlingly ambitious philosophical works of all time.