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
| 9 | |
| 17 | |
Ordinary Language and its Enigmatic Ground | 29 |
13 | 35 |
Indication and the Awakening of Subjectivity | 43 |
The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas | 53 |
The Narrative Basis of SelfDevelopment | 61 |
Historical Narrative and the Abstract Subject | 77 |
Two Walks | 157 |
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 |
Narrative Identity in Ricoeurs Oneself as Another | 85 |
Introduction | 99 |
Genealogical Methods | 127 |
Technologies of the Self | 139 |
Looking Up the Adolescent in Freuds Index | 147 |
Defoe and the Psychotic Subject | 245 |
Bibliography | 253 |
| 271 | |
| 277 | |
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abstraction adolescent analysis Anna Freud aphonia Aquinas becomes bodily body boundary Byron Cartesian character characterised cinema cogito concept consciousness constituted Crusoe Crusoe's depicted Derrida Descartes 1985 described desire discourse Dora Dora's Emmanuel Levinas Erotic Olympics Essays ethical example existence experience feminine feminist fictional figure film folk psychology Foucault Freud Gay Science gaze gender genre Heidegger horror horror film human Husserl idea identify identity interpretation jouissance knowledge Kristeva Lacan Lacanian language Levinas linguistic Lucy Lucy's means metaphor mind mirror stage moral narrative nature Nietzsche Nietzsche 1966 Nietzsche's object ontological passive phallus phenomenology philosophy Plato Plotinus poem poetic pornography position psychic psychoanalysis psychological question reality relation representation Ricoeur sense sexual signifier simulation soul speaking spectator split subject stanza Stevens story structure suggest symbolic theory theory-theory things thought trans understanding University Press Villette visual Wittgenstein words
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Page 23 - I should have to include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc., this being a method of isolating the subject, or rather of showing that in an important sense there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in that book
Page 18 - 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