The Moment: Time and Rupture in Modern Thought: 4 (Studies in Social and Political Thought) - Softcover

9780853239666: The Moment: Time and Rupture in Modern Thought: 4 (Studies in Social and Political Thought)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0853239665 ISBN 13: 9780853239666

Publisher: Liverpool University Press, 2001

Modern philosophical thought has a manifold tradition of emphasising ‘the moment’. ‘The moment’ demands questioning all-too-common notions of time, of past, present and future, uniqueness and repetition, rupture and continuity. This collection addresses the key questions posed by ‘the moment’, considering writers such as Nietzsche, Husserl, Benjamin and Badiou, and elucidates the connections between social theory, philosophy, literary theory and history that are opened up by this notion.

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Synopsis

Constructions of time in social theory have tended to emphasize structure, continuity, and eternity not least with a view to detect ontological stability and regularity in social life. "Modern" philosophical thought, in contrast, has a tradition of emphasizing "the moment", a notion which reaches from Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche to Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin and beyond. "The moment" demands questioning all-too-common notions of time, uniqueness and repetition, suddeness and duration, rupture and continuity. Addressing "the moment" - its inaccessibility and unattainability - entails engagement with issues of perception, cogitation, and memory. In its complexity, "the moment" places demands not just upon the thinking of presence and representation, of temporality and historicity but can open up the questions of the relation of action and decision, of event and duration, of the closure or incompleteness of history. This volume addresses from differnet perspectives the key questions posed by "the moment" and thereby elucidates the connections between social theory, philosophy, literary theory and history that are opened by "the moment".

About the Author

Heidrun Friese has published widely on social theory and time, the anthropology of the sciences, and social imagination. She is currently at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the European University Institute, Florence.

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