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The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism

2012-03-19 History
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Release : 2012-03-19
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 646/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism by : Sharon A. Stanley

Download or read book The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism written by Sharon A. Stanley. This book was released on 2012-03-19. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sharon A. Stanley chronicles the emergence of a recognizably modern form of cynicism during the French Enlightenment, by discussing the work of philosophers such as Denis Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. While recent scholarly and popular commentary has depicted cynicism as a novel, contemporary phenomenon that threatens healthy democratic functioning, this book shows that cynicism has much earlier roots and may contribute to the health of democracies.

The Cynic Enlightenment

2010 History
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Release : 2010
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 852/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Cynic Enlightenment by : Louisa Shea

Download or read book The Cynic Enlightenment written by Louisa Shea. This book was released on 2010. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals the importance of ancient Cynicism in defining the Enlightenment and its legacy. This book explores modernity's debt to Cynicism by examining the works of thinkers who turned to the ancient Cynics and dared to imagine an alliance between a socially engaged Enlightenment and the least respectable of early Greek philosophies.

Enlightenment and Cynicism

2010
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Release : 2010
Genre :
Kind : eBook
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Book Synopsis Enlightenment and Cynicism by : Nicholas Smaligo

Download or read book Enlightenment and Cynicism written by Nicholas Smaligo. This book was released on 2010. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Enlightenment was funded by a utopian hope that increased knowledge of nature as a mechanism could create the conditions for lasting peace and widespread happiness. The twentieth century, however, has been marked by catastrophes hitherto beyond imagination. This thesis examines two critiques of enlightenment that suggest this development is not accidental either to the concept of enlightenment or to the course it has taken in modern Western societies. The development in question follows from tendencies within enlightenment itself. I provide an exegetical account of Horkheimer and Adorno's analysis, in their collaborative work Dialectic of Enlightenment, of the regressive moment in enlightenment, which, for them, is owed to the entanglement of rationality and domination. Next, I examine Peter Sloterdijk's analysis, in Critique of Cynical Reason, of the ambivalent social reception of enlightenment that results in the phenomenon of modern cynicism, which must be contrasted with its ancient namesake that I render, following the translation of Sloterdijk, as "kynicism". In each of these works the way forward for enlightenment hinges upon cultivating a relationship between nature and the subject that is not based on dominating opposition: nature as a mechanism for human purposes or as the suppressed inner nature of the subject. Horkheimer and Adorno's solution is the recovery of reflection on nature within the subject. I show that this is insufficient to meet the challenges posed by modern cynicism that Sloterdijk reveals to be a late development of enlightenment. It is for this reason that Sloterdijk asks us to recall the legacy of Diogenes of Sinope. Sloterdijk finds in Diogenes a critical consciousness that resists the "melancholic stagnation" of cynical society and retains the utopian spirit of enlightenment.

The French Enlightenment

1972 History
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Release : 1972
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The French Enlightenment by : J. H. Brumfitt

Download or read book The French Enlightenment written by J. H. Brumfitt. This book was released on 1972. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are three significant questions which may be asked about the Enlightenment, as about any similar phenomenon: what? whence? and whither? This is a short general survey of this important movement in the history of ideas, which would combine some account of the historical and social background with a closer look at the thought of the more outstanding individuals.

Obstruction

2016-03-11 Literary Criticism
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Release : 2016-03-11
Genre : Literary Criticism
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 471/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Obstruction by : Nick Salvato

Download or read book Obstruction written by Nick Salvato. This book was released on 2016-03-11. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a bout of laziness or a digressive spell actually open up paths to creativity and unexpected insights? In Obstruction Nick Salvato suggests that for those engaged in scholarly pursuits laziness, digressiveness, and related experiences can be paradoxically generative. Rather than being dismissed as hindrances, these obstructions are to be embraced, clung to, and reoriented. Analyzing an eclectic range of texts and figures, from the Greek Cynics and Denis Diderot to Dean Martin and the Web series Drunk History, Salvato finds value in five obstructions: embarrassment, laziness, slowness, cynicism, and digressiveness. Whether listening to Tori Amos's music as a way to think about embarrassment, linking the MTV series Daria to using cynicism to negotiate higher education's corporatized climate, or examining the affect of slowness in Kelly Reichardt's films, Salvato expands our conceptions of each obstruction and shows ways to transform them into useful provocations. With a unique, literary, and self-reflexive voice, Salvato demonstrates the importance of these debased obstructions and shows how they may support alternative modes of intellectual activity. In doing so, he impels us to rethink the very meanings of thinking, work, and value.

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