Simon Critchley Knihy

Keď vyslovíme slovo „samovražda“, na rozbehnutú debatu padne mrazivý tieň. Nepatrí sa o nej ani hovoriť. Telo samovraha predsa patrí k cintorínskemu múru a pochovaný má byť bez obradu. Podľa WHO ročne spácha samovraždu asi 800 000 ľudí, čo znamená, že každých 40 sekúnd sa niekto rozhodne dobrovoľne ukončiť svoj život. Preto je absolútne nezmyselné o samovražde mlčať a tváriť sa, že je to tabu. Britský spisovateľ a esejista Simon Critchley sa rozhodol túto krehkú tému spracovať a necúvnuť pritom pred žiadnymi vžitými stereotypmi. O fenoméne samovraždy uvažuje v historických kontextoch i na základe vlastných úvah. A hoci to znie paradoxne – robí to s istou ľahkosťou i gráciou. „Samovražde sa musíme dlho a sústredene zadívať do tváre, zistiť, aké má znaky, profil, aké zdedené črty a vrásky na nej spozorujeme,“ hovorí Simon Critchley vo svojej eseji Poznámky k samovražde. Presne to vo svojej knihe urobil za nás všetkých.

Simon Critchley's first book, The Ethics of Deconstruction, was originally published to great acclaim in 1992. This edition contains three new appendices and a new preface where Critchley reflects upon the origins, motivation and reception of The Ethics of Deconstruction.

Focusing on Heidegger's seminal work, this book presents a profound exploration by two distinguished philosophers, offering insights into "Being and Time." It serves as both an in-depth analysis and a guide for understanding this philosophical classic. Additionally, it marks the inaugural publication of Reiner Schürmann's acclaimed lectures on Heidegger, enriching the discourse surrounding his influential ideas and interpretations.

Exploring themes of finitude and modernity, this book offers fresh insights into the nature of imagination. It challenges conventional perspectives and encourages readers to rethink their understanding of existence and creativity. Through its compelling narrative, it invites contemplation on the limits of human experience and thought.

Exploring the intersections of ethics, politics, and subjectivity, Simon Critchley examines ethical experience and its implications for the self and political engagement. Engaging with influential thinkers like Lacan, Nancy, Rorty, and notably Levinas and Derrida, he articulates a nuanced "ethics of finitude." The book re-evaluates concepts such as democracy, economics, friendship, and technology, offering fresh insights into the relevance of contemporary French philosophy and the political potential inherent in deconstruction.

The figure of Hamlet haunts our culture like the Ghost haunts him. Arguably, no literary work, not even the Bible, is more familiar to us than Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Everyone knows at least six words from the play; often people know many more. Yet the play—Shakespeare’s longest—is more than “passing strange” and becomes deeply unfamiliar when considered closely. Reading Hamlet alongside other writers, philosophers, and psychoanalysts—Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Freud, Lacan, Nietzsche, Melville, and Joyce—Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster consider the political context and stakes of Shakespeare’s play, its relation to religion, the movement of desire, and the incapacity to love.

From the moderator of The New York Times philosophy blog "The Stone," a book that argues that if we want to understand ourselves we have to go back to theater, to the stage of our lives Tragedy presents a world of conflict and troubling emotion, a world where private and public lives collide and collapse. A world where morality is ambiguous and the powerful humiliate and destroy the powerless. A world where justice always seems to be on both sides of a conflict and sugarcoated words serve as cover for clandestine operations of violence. A world rather like our own. The ancient Greeks hold a mirror up to us in which we see all the desolation and delusion of our lives but also the terrifying beauty and intensity of existence. This is not a time for consolation prizes and the fatuous banalities of the self-help industry and pop philosophy. Tragedy allows us to glimpse, in its harsh and unforgiving glare, the burning core of our aliveness. If we give ourselves the chance to look at tragedy, we might see further and more clearly.

The book explores the tension between Derridean deconstruction and Rortian pragmatism, addressing criticisms that they threaten concepts of truth and reason. It argues that, despite these accusations, both philosophies contribute to the democratic project by challenging the traditional connections between universalism, rationalism, and modern democracy. The authors aim to clarify the intellectual and political implications of these ideas, suggesting that they can foster a more nuanced understanding of democracy rather than leading to chaos.

How does one write an experimental ABC, an impossible theory that would deal with a series of phenomena, concepts, places, sensations, persons, and moods? A para-philosophy? Returning to a once-abandoned project of fragmented thoughts where the author's voice moves from the serious to the pathetic, to the absurd, to the cynical, Simon Critchley's

The return to religion has arguably become the dominant theme of contemporary culture. Somehow, the secular age seems to have been replaced by a new era where political action flows directly from theological, indeed cosmic, conflict. The Faith of the Faithless lays out the philosophical and political framework of this idea and seeks to find a way beyond it. Should we defend a version of secularism or quietly accept the slide into theism? Or is there another way?