Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance - Hardcover

Simon Critchley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1844671216 ISBN 13: 9781844671212

Publisher: Verso Books, 2007

Synopsis

This work talks about a new political ethics that confronts and faces down the injustices of the present. "Infinitely Demanding" is the clearest, boldest and most systematic statement of Simon Critchley's influential views on philosophy, ethics and politics. Part diagnosis of the times, part theoretical analysis of the impasses and possibilities of ethics and politics, part manifesto, "Infinitely Demanding" identifies a massive political disappointment at the heart of liberal democracy and argues that what is called for is an ethics of commitment that can inform a radical politics. Exploring the problem of ethics in Kant, Levinas, Badiou and Lacan that leads to a conception of subjectivity based on the infinite responsibility of an ethical demand, Critchley considers the possibility of political subjectivity and action after Marx and Marxism. "Infinitely Demanding" culminates in an argument for anarchism as an ethical practice and a re-motivating means of political organization.

About this title

Review:

"Simon Critchley is the most powerful and provocative philosopher now writing about the complex relations of ethical subjectivity and reinvigorated democracy. His subtle readings of Badiou, Logstrup and Levinas as well as Marx, Gramsci and Laclau are a gem. And his humour-inflected notions of commitment and resistance are refreshing in our nihilistic times." - Cornel West, Princeton University"

About the Author:

Simon Critchley is Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research at the University of Essex, Colchester, UK. He is the author of many books, including Ethics-Politics-Subjectivity from Verso (1999), and, most recently, Things Merely Are (2005).

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1844671216
• ISBN 13: 9781844671212
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224