Misanthropy in the Age of Reason

Misanthropy in the Age of Reason PDF

Author: Joseph Harris

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-11-24

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0192867571

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Ever since Timon of Athens shunned his fellow-countrymen and went to live out in the wilderness, the misanthrope has proved to be a fascinating but troubling figure for writers and thinkers. This comparative study brings together a range of material from various genres, periods, and countries to explore the developing status of misanthropy in the European literary and intellectual imagination from the late Renaissance to the dawn of Romanticism. During this period, the term 'misanthropy' shifts from being an obscure Greek calque to being almost banal in its ubiquity. In order to trace the contours of the period's evolving attitudes towards misanthropy, this study takes a combined thematic and historical approach. After two chapters offering close readings of the period's key icons of misanthropy--Shakespeare's Timon of Athens and Molière's Alceste--the remaining six chapters each explore different thematic issues of misanthropy as they surface across the period. Drawing on works by Shakespeare, Molière, Hobbes, Pascal, Rochester, Swift, Rousseau, Kotzebue, Schiller, Wollstonecraft, and Leopardi, as well as countless less canonical writers, this study demonstrates that the misanthrope is not a fixed, stable figure in early modern literature. Rather, he--or very occasionally she--emerges in many guises, from philosopher to comic grouch, from tragic hero to moral censor, from cynical villain to disappointed idealist, from quasi-bestial outsider to worldly satirist. As both critic of humanity and object of critical scrutiny, the misanthrope challenges straightforward oppositions between individual and society, virtue and vice, reason and folly, human and animal.

Misanthropy in the Age of Reason

Misanthropy in the Age of Reason PDF

Author: Joseph Harris

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-11-10

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 019269328X

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Ever since Timon of Athens shunned his fellow-countrymen and went to live out in the wilderness, the misanthrope has proved to be a fascinating but troubling figure for writers and thinkers. This comparative study brings together a range of material from various genres, periods, and countries to explore the developing status of misanthropy in the European literary and intellectual imagination from the late Renaissance to the dawn of Romanticism. During this period, the term 'misanthropy' shifts from being an obscure Greek calque to being almost banal in its ubiquity. In order to trace the contours of the period's evolving attitudes towards misanthropy, this study takes a combined thematic and historical approach. After two chapters offering close readings of the period's key icons of misanthropy—Shakespeare's Timon of Athens and Molière's Alceste—the remaining six chapters each explore different thematic issues of misanthropy as they surface across the period. Drawing on works by Shakespeare, Molière, Hobbes, Pascal, Rochester, Swift, Rousseau, Kotzebue, Schiller, Wollstonecraft, and Leopardi, as well as countless less canonical writers, this study demonstrates that the misanthrope is not a fixed, stable figure in early modern literature. Rather, he—or very occasionally she—emerges in many guises, from philosopher to comic grouch, from tragic hero to moral censor, from cynical villain to disappointed idealist, from quasi-bestial outsider to worldly satirist. As both critic of humanity and object of critical scrutiny, the misanthrope challenges straightforward oppositions between individual and society, virtue and vice, reason and folly, human and animal.

Misanthropy

Misanthropy PDF

Author: Andrew Gibson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-06-15

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1474293182

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This book is the first major study of the theme of misanthropy, its history, arguments both for and against it, and its significance for us today. Misanthropy is not strictly a philosophy. It is an inconsistent thought, and so has often been mocked. But from Timon of Athens to Motörhead it has had a very long life, vast historical purchase and is seemingly indomitable and unignorable. Human beings have always nursed a profound distrust of who and what they are. This book does not seek to rationalize that distrust, but asks how far misanthropy might have a reason on its side, if a confused reason. There are obvious arguments against misanthropy. It is often born of a hatred of physical being. It can be historically explained. It particularly appears in undemocratic cultures. But what of the misanthropy of terminally defeated and disempowered peoples? Or born of progressivisms? Or the misanthropy that quarrels with specious or easy positivities (from Pelagius to Leibniz to the corporate cheer of contemporary `total capital`)? From the Greek Cynics to Roman satire, St Augustine to Jacobean drama, the misanthropy of the French Ancien Regime to Swift, Smollett and Johnson, Hobbes, Schopenhauer and Rousseau, from the Irish and American misanthropic traditions to modern women`s misanthropy, the book explores such questions. It ends with a debate about contemporary culture that ranges from the `dark radicalisms`, queer misanthropy, posthumanism and eco-misanthropy to Houellebecq, punk rock and gangsta rap.

A New Philosophy of Literature

A New Philosophy of Literature PDF

Author: Nicholas Hagger

Publisher: John Hunt Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 1846949459

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The fundamental theme of world literature has conflicting metaphysical and secular aspects which the Universalist tradition in literature combines, offering a new direction in contemporary literature.

With Charity Toward None

With Charity Toward None PDF

Author: Florence King

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 1993-03-15

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0312094140

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The unreconstructed people-hater offers her piece de resistance: a guided tour of the misanthropic life, and an inspirational handbook for Americans grown tired of goo-goo humanitarianism and sensitivity that never sleeps. The only trouble with this book is that its covers are too close together.--The New York Times.

Fanaticism and the History of Philosophy

Fanaticism and the History of Philosophy PDF

Author: Paul Katsafanas

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-11-07

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1000990737

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Voltaire called fanaticism the "monster that pretends to be the child of religion". Philosophers, politicians, and cultural critics have decried fanaticism and attempted to define the distinctive qualities of the fanatic, whom Winston Churchill described as "someone who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject". Yet despite fanaticism’s role in the long history of social discord, human conflict, and political violence, it remains a relatively neglected topic in the history of philosophy. In this outstanding inquiry into the philosophical history of fanaticism, a team of international contributors examine the topic from antiquity to the present day. Organized into four sections, topics covered include: Fanaticism in ancient Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy; Fanaticism and superstition from Hobbes to Hume, including chapters on Locke and Montesquieu, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson; Kant, Germaine de Stael, Hegel, Nietzsche, William James, and Jorge Portilla on fanaticism; Fanaticism and terrorism; and extremism and gender, including the philosophy and morality of the "manosphere"; Closed-mindedness and political and epistemological fanaticism. Spanning themes from superstition, enthusiasm, and misanthropy to the emotions, purity, and the need for certainty, Fanaticism and the History of Philosophy is a landmark volume for anyone researching and teaching the history of philosophy, particularly ethics and moral philosophy. It is also a valuable resource for those studying fanaticism in related fields such as religion, the history of political thought, sociology, and the history of ideas.

The Unsettlers

The Unsettlers PDF

Author: Mark Sundeen

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017-01-10

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1101618051

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“An in-depth and compelling account of diverse Americans living off the grid.” —Los Angeles Times The radical search for the simple life in today’s America. On a frigid April night, a classically trained opera singer, five months pregnant, and her husband, a former marine biologist, disembark an Amtrak train in La Plata, Missouri, assemble two bikes, and pedal off into the night, bound for a homestead they've purchased, sight unseen. Meanwhile, a horticulturist, heir to the Great Migration that brought masses of African Americans to Detroit, and her husband, a product of the white flight from it, have turned to urban farming to revitalize the blighted city they both love. And near Missoula, Montana, a couple who have been at the forefront of organic farming for decades navigate what it means to live and raise a family ethically. A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of these new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for -- or create -- a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.

Animals and Misanthropy

Animals and Misanthropy PDF

Author: David E. Cooper

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-02-02

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1351583778

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This engaging volume explores and defends the claim that misanthropy is a justified attitude towards humankind in the light of how human beings both compare with and treat animals. Reflection on differences between humans and animals helps to confirm the misanthropic verdict, while reflection on the moral and other failings manifest in our treatment of animals illuminates what is wrong with this treatment. Human failings, it is argued, are too entrenched to permit optimism about the future of animals, but ways are proposed in which individual people may accommodate to the truth of misanthropy through cultivating mindful, humble and compassionate relationships to animals. Drawing on both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions David E. Cooper offers an original and challenging approach to the complex field of animal ethics.

The Conformist Rebellion

The Conformist Rebellion PDF

Author: Elena Louisa Lange

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-03-28

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1538160161

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With the rise of myriad forms of identity politics which corresponds to a new “Trinity Formula” of leftist analysis of capitalism (class, race, and gender), major currents in the contemporary radical left in the past decades have shifted their aim. This book addresses the ideological, theoretical, and practical dilemmas of the contemporary academic and activist left from a Marxist standpoint. Covering contemporary developments in Left thought and ideology and putting them into social and historical context, the chapters provide a theoretical confrontation with the myriad ways it has tended to accommodate itself to neoliberal ideology, rather than fundamentally opposing it. The contrast between the Marxian emancipatory project and what the progressive left has made of it has never been more glaring than now, a time in which capital no longer seems to confront a political barrier. It is this predicament that The Conformist Rebellion evaluates, for a renewed approach to emancipation from capital.

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