TPM
In late 2004, I published a book by William Schroeder entitled Continental Philosophy: A Critical Approach. This was an exciting event for me, for a number of reasons. First, I knew the book was distinctive, being not only a major overview of the major themes and figures in continental philosophy, but a sympathetic yet critical engagement with these themes and figures. Continental philosophy, in its many facets (it is indeed difficult to refer to it as if it were one thing or tradition, but the alternatives are too long-winded), is often either vilified or exalted, but not so often approached with such a clear, well-informed, caring but careful eye. Second, I knew that this was a book a long time in the making, and one that bore the mark of Schroeder’s many years of teaching the philosophy discussed in the work. As a publisher, you come to learn that those who have taught courses on what they’re writing about tend to do a better job than those who haven’t, especially when it comes to books, like this one, intended for a wider audience. Finally, Schroeder (Bill, that is) was great to work with, receptive to constructive criticism from outside reviewers, willing to work to make the book meet the needs of its intended audience, ultimately exhausted by the effort that went into writing and revising the book, but of course at least as eager to see it published as I was.
Before being a publisher I was a philosopher by training, and most of what I studied, especially in graduate school, falls under the rubric of “analytic philosophy”, in contrast to the continental philosophy discussed in Schroeder’s book. While there are signs that the gulf between analytic and continental philosophy is narrowing (being filled in by people whose interests and methodologies have certain affinities with both), analytic philosophers tend to be hostile to continental philosophy, and the obverse often holds as well. That being said, I’ve always had an interest in Nietzsche, in phenomenology, in aspects of existentialism, and in a number of other figures and perspectives that would normally fall under the aegis of continental philosophy. I am thus to some extent unusual in having an interest in what are often warring camps.
I mention this because this is one of those rare books that has been praised by figures on both sides of the analytic/continental divide. More generally, the book has received high marks from those who have reviewed it, including several readers on Amazon (US). At the same time, it has not received the kind of attention I think it deserves. It is a magisterial journey through several hundred years of philosophy, accessible enough for beginners but with enough analysis and discussion to maintain interest for more seasoned philosophers. Much more than an overview, the book not only introduces but wrestles with figures such as Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Freud, Bergson, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, Gadamer, Foucault, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Derrida, Deleuze, Kristeva, and Irigaray, and philosophical perspectives ranging from phenomenology, existentialism, and structuralism, to French feminism and postmodernism. The book includes an introduction that traces the origins of various strands of continental philosophy in early modern philosophy (from Descartes through to Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, among others), and concludes with a final section on where things stand now, and where we are going (and should go). The chapters all include discussion and assessment of the core contributions of each figure and school of thought, and these alone are worth the price of admission; you get a sense of what are considered to be challenges to and weaknesses of the views discussed, but also what are considered to be contributions of lasting value.
For those looking for a knowledgeable introduction to and assessment of the figures and lines of thought in continental philosophy, this a great place to start.
Jeff Dean, Executive Editor, Wiley-Blackwell.
No doubt I am biased because the author is my friend, but I thought of The Retreat of Reason immediately when I was invited to suggest a well-kept secret. Ingmar Persson of Gothenburg is a widely admired philosopher, and the book has sold respectably, but nevertheless I think it qualifies because it has yet to attain the cult status which surely awaits.
The title has a double meaning. It is natural at first sight, I think, to take it as saying that reason is or should be in retreat. But in fact this represents just one possible response that Ingmar offers to the dilemma of how to live. For The Retreat of Reason is an attempt, perhaps the most original attempt of recent years, to answer Socrates’ famous question. Or perhaps the question should be restated more pessimistically: how can we make sense of life? Ingmar argues that we have to choose between rationality and fulfilment. The demands of rationality are in conflict with attitudes, emotions, and beliefs that seem to be close to the heart of what it is to be human – concerning self and identity, freedom and responsibility, in particular. Either reason must retreat, or we must enter “a retreat of reason, insulated from everyday attitudes.” The life of reason will not be the happiest or most fulfilling; but it may be nevertheless be the life we should lead. (It is hard to imagine a world where the challenge is widely taken up.)
Ingmar seems to me to look long and deep into the human condition in a way that most philosophers are embarrassed or (perhaps rightly) wary about doing. He takes questions of reason, identity, and the good more seriously than most of us ever would, too seriously for comfort perhaps. The book sails consciously in the wake of Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons, those two concepts being the keys to the way both of these long books draw together metaphysics and ethics. Persson’s will not have the influence on philosophical argument that Parfit’s has, but it does go beyond his in the coherent philosophical worldview that it offers – a startlingly gloomy one, but bracing and strangely invigorating.
The Retreat of Reason runs to almost 500 pages, but the introduction offers a good way in, giving a summary of the main ideas of the book. A variety of riches await. Readers interested particularly in practical reason can turn to chapters 8-10; in personal identity, to chapters 19-27; in free will and responsibility, to chapters 34-37.
Peter Momtchiloff, philosophy editor at Oxford University Press.
At the time of his death in 2001, Dominique Janicaud was one of France’s foremost philosophers, though admittedly not a household name in the UK. Granta published his Philosophy in Thirty Days in 2005, the same year Routledge published his think piece On the Human Condition in its Thinking in Action series.
Translated from the French by Eileen Brennan, the title of the original edition took the form of a question: L’homme va-t-il dépasser l’humain? (Will Man Overcome the Human?) That is a tricky title for the UK market, hence On the Human Condition, after Hannah Arendt’s classic work of the same title. A slim book at seventy pages, it includes a lively and informative introduction by Simon Critchley and acts as a nifty insight into some key themes in Janicaud’s thought.
In keeping with the spirit of Routledge’s Thinking in Action series, Janicaud broaches some big themes including humanism, biotechnology, scientific rationality and a fascinating section on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. His main point is, I think, a good one: that the human condition is a constant chafing between one’s animality on the one hand and a pull towards Nietzsche’s “overman” on the other. As Simon Critchley points out in his introduction, Janicaud is in some senses Pascal’s heir.
After a promising start the book didn’t sell well. Its rhetorical style may have put off some readers and its references are mostly to other French thinkers. In part it is Janicaud’s riposte to an intellectual debate that was not much reported in the UK but made news headlines in Germany, Peter Sloterdijk’s lecture “Rules for the Human Park”. It was adopted on one or two undergraduate courses in phenomenology, but even here it was probably always going to take second place on the reading list to the classic debates over humanism between Heidegger and Sartre. Perhaps too lofty for the general “trade” book market, it is at the same time perhaps too compressed for the academic market.
There were very few published reviews, so in the end it’s hard to tell why it didn’t take off. But read alongside Richard Norman’s On Humanism (reviewed in TPM a few years ago), it forms a terrific introduction to one of philosophy’s great debates, the ethics of humanism.
Tony Bruce, senior philosophy publisher at Routledge.
