Ethics and the SubjectKarl Simms This volume contains nineteen essays -- eighteen here presented for the first time -- exploring the question of subjectivity as seen from an ethical perspective. Part I concerns the phenomenological development of Cartesianism and the concept of narrative identity, with essays addressing Levinas' idea of the Other, Ricoeur's Christianisation of Levinas, and Dennet's concept of folk psychology. Part II concerns the experience of reading ethically, as mediated through genealogy and psychoanalysis. The essays address the discourses of philosophy, psychoanalysis, film and literature, and are informed by Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault and Lacan among others. The volume will interest philosophers and critical theorists. Karl Simms provides comprehensive introductions to each of the parts, making the book accessible to informed general readers with an interest in cultural studies. |
Contents
| 17 | |
| 29 | |
| 43 | |
The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas | 53 |
The Narrative Basis of SelfDevelopment | 61 |
Historical Narrative and the Abstract Subject | 77 |
Narrative Identity in Ricoeurs Oneself as Another | 85 |
Introduction | 99 |
vi | 165 |
Reflections on the SelfReflexive Signifying Chain | 173 |
Excessive Display of the Human Form in the Horror Film | 189 |
Paradigms of Desire in Pornography | 203 |
Versions of the Feminine Subject in Charlotte Brontës Villette | 217 |
The Embracing Language of Wallace Stevens | 227 |
To create and in creating live a being more intense | 237 |
Defoe and the Psychotic Subject | 245 |
Genealogical Methods | 127 |
Technologies of the Self | 139 |
Looking Up the Adolescent in Freuds Index | 147 |
Two Walks | 157 |
Bibliography | 253 |
Name Index | 271 |
Subject Index | 277 |
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Common terms and phrases
abstraction adolescent analysis Anna Freud aphonia Aquinas becomes bodily body boundary Byron canto Cartesian character characterised cinema cogito concept consciousness constituted construction Crusoe Crusoe's defined depicted Derrida Descartes 1985 described desire discourse Dora Dora's Erotic Olympics ethical example existence experience feminine feminist fictional figure folk psychology Foucault Freud function Gay Science gaze gender genre Heidegger horror film human Husserl idea identify identity imagination interpretation jouissance knowledge Kristeva Lacan Lacanian language Levinas linguistic Lucy Lucy's means metaphor mirror stage narration narrative nature Nietzsche Nietzsche 1966 Nietzsche's object ontological passive phallus phenomenology philosophy Plato Plato's Plotinus poem poetic pornography position possibility psychic psychoanalysis psychological question reading reality relation representation Ricoeur sense sexual signifier simulation soul speaking spectator split subject stanza Stevens story structure suggest symbolic theory theory-theory things thought understanding Villette visual Wittgenstein words writes
Popular passages
Page 239 - Tis to create, and in creating live A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now.
Page 228 - It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place. It has to face the men of the time and to meet The women of the time.
Page 107 - Again, how could it be denied that these hands or this whole body are mine? Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to madmen, whose brains are so damaged by the persistent vapours of melancholia that they firmly maintain they are kings when they are paupers, or say they are dressed in purple when they are naked, or that their heads are made of earthenware, or that they are pumpkins, or made of glass.
Page 228 - She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker.
Page 18 - Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture of the alien and external as possible...
Page 241 - Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom; The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb...
Page 123 - Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child ! ADA ! sole daughter of my house and heart ? When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, And then we parted, — not as now we part, But with a hope. — Awaking with a start, The waters heave around me ; and on high The winds lift up their voices : I depart, Whither I know not ; but the hour's gone by, When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.
Page 229 - Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know, Why, when the singing ended and we turned Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights, The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there, As the night descended, tilting in the air, Mastered the night and portioned out the sea, Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles, Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.
Page 74 - It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world, and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous living and go into exile to live with the swine...
Page 23 - The world as I found it", I should also have therein to report on my body and say which members obey my will and which do not, etc. This then would be a method of isolating the subject or rather of showing that in an important sense there is no subject: that is to say, of it alone in this book mention could not be made.