How radical thought has internalized the experience of defeat A rising star of contemporary critical theory offers an expansive critique on a prominent tradition of thought, 'the jargon of finitude.' Associated with Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, over the past few decades this tradition has been able to bolster its credentials as an indispensable contribution in the rethinking of the Left. However, rather than constituting a radical leftist opening in contemporary political thought, these are in many ways philosophies of defeat. Bosteels exmines the paradoxes inherent in materialist thinking and argues against time as the primordial mode of access to a thinking of finitude that today has become the dominant form of a new idealism, parading in the guise of a radical, post-metaphysical, anti-dialectical and hyper-ethical form of materialism.

A number of well-developed theories shed light on the question, under what circumstances our beliefs enjoy epistemic justification. Yet, comparatively little is known about epistemic defeat—when new information causes the loss of epistemic justification. This book proposes and defends a detailed account of epistemic defeaters. The main kinds of defeaters are analyzed in detail and integrated into a general framework that aims to explain how beliefs lose justification. It is argued that defeaters introduce incompatibilities into a noetic system and thereby prompt a structured re-evaluation process that makes a justified reinstatement of the defeated belief impossible. The account is then applied to the topic of disagreement, where it is used in an argument for conciliationism, as well as a new explanation for higher-order defeat. Throughout the book, the notion of defeat is the center of attention, while a number of new issues are discussed at the intersections of defeat and justification. Specifically, new problems are raised for broadly internalist accounts of defeat, a fully descriptive reliabilist account of defeat is provided, and the case for normative defeat is revisited.

An entertaining and insightful history of martial arts and the role of the warrior, drawing on pop culture, philosophy, mythology, religion, and spirituality The urge to forge one’s character by fighting, in daily life as well as on the mat, appeals to something deep within us. More than a collection of fighting techniques, martial arts constitute a path to developing body, spirit, and awareness. On the Warrior’s Path connects the martial arts with this larger perspective, merging subtle philosophies with no-holds-barred competition, Nietzsche with Bruce Lee, radical Taoism and Buddhism with the Star Wars Trilogy, traditional martial arts with basketball and American Indian culture. At the center of all these phenomena is the warrior. Though this archetype seems to manifest contradictory values, author Daniele Bolelli describes the heart of this tension: how the training of martial technique leads to a renunciation of violence, and how overcoming fear leads to a unique freedom. Aimed at students at any level or tradition of martial arts but also accessible to the armchair warrior, On the Warrior’s Path brings fresh insights to why martial arts remains an enduring and widespread art and discipline. Two new chapters in this second edition focus on spirituality in the martial arts and the author’s personal journey in the field.

A trenchant critique of established ideas in political philosophy and a provocative call for change Many contemporary political thinkers are gripped by the belief that their task is to develop an ideal theory of rights or justice for guiding and judging political actions. But in Philosophy and Real Politics, Raymond Geuss argues that philosophers should first try to understand why real political actors behave as they actually do. Far from being applied ethics, politics is a skill that allows people to survive and pursue their goals. To understand politics is to understand the powers, motives, and concepts that people have and that shape how they deal with the problems they face in their particular historical situations. Philosophy and Real Politics both outlines a historically oriented, realistic political philosophy and criticizes liberal political philosophies based on abstract conceptions of rights and justice.

The Defeat of the Mind examines the opposition to Enlightenment thought from the eighteenth century to the present. Finkielkraut asserts that the ostensibly progressive cast of third world anticolonial and anti-Western sentiment, paradoxically, has its antecedent in Eurocentric sources - chiefly the German romantic concept of the Volksgeist, or spirit of the people. Straightforward and succinct, Finkielkraut draws a line between the idea of culture as an expression of the life of the mind and culture as an expression of national spirit. He deplores the appropriation of the concept of the Volksgeist by ethnic nationalists, who employ the notion in justification of such horrors as the Final Solution in Nazi Germany and the current waves of "ethnic cleansing." Equally worrying, he claims, are the seemingly harmless infusions of the Volksgeist into campaigns for ethnic diversity espoused by some social scientists and third world intellectuals. The Defeat of the Mind questions notions of cultural relativism espoused by such intellectual and political leaders as Claude Levi-Strauss and Frantz Fanon. Finkielkraut points to the United Nations and UNESCO - founded to propagate the universalist ideals of Enlightenment Europe, these organizations have co-opted the notion of cultural relativism to a fault, now speaking on behalf of every ethnic prejudice. "The objective remained the same," Finkielkraut maintains of this shift in ideology, "but to achieve its goal, it was no longer a matter of opening others to reason, but of opening ourselves to the reason of others." Defending values that seem absent from many contemporary frames of reference, the book concludes with a chapter challenging post-modernist thought, for Finkielkraut claims that it equates the value of novels by Flaubert with television movies and lacks concern for the survival of culture and reason.

A new 2024 translation of Martin Heidegger's major work "Being and Time" (Sein und Zeit), originally published in 1927 in multiple publications. This edition contains a new afterword by the Translator, a timeline of Heidegger's life and works, a philosophic index of core Heideggerian concepts and a guide for terminology across 19th and 20th century Existentialists. This translation is designed for readability and accessibility to Heidegger's enigmatic and dense philosophy. Complex and specific philosophic terms are translated as literally as possible and academic footnotes have been removed to ensure easy reading. Being and Time presents a complex philosophical discourse on the nature of being (Sein) and time (Zeit), focusing in particular on the temporal-existentialist concept of Dasein, a term that combines the German words for "to be" (sein) and "there" (da). This classic philosophic work examines the traditional metaphysical understanding of being, arguing that this understanding, typically based on the idea of a constant presence, fails to account for the temporal and existential dimensions of being. Heidegger proposes that an understanding of being requires an analysis of Dasein, which is characterized not only by its existence, but also by its being in the world and its temporal existence. The concept of Dasein is central to the his argument, emphasizing that Dasein is always already situated in a world, and its understanding of being is shaped by its temporal existence. This perspective challenges traditional metaphysical notions of being as static and unchanging, proposing instead that being is fundamentally temporal and connected to human existence and understanding. As the title suggests, Heidegger sees the question of Being as indistinguishable from Time, arguing that Newtonian conceptions of time as a series of now-points are inadequate for understanding the being of Dasein. His Ontochronology argues that the existential and ontological analysis of Dasein reveals a more fundamental concept of time, one that is integral to the structure of Being itself. The text further elaborates on the idea of "thrownness" and several other existentialist themes. Thrownness is one of the three conditions that signifies Dasein's immersion in the world, where it finds itself already entangled in a web of relations and meanings. This "thrownness", combined with Dasein's inherent being-toward-death, underscores the existential condition of human beings, framing their existence as a continual engagement with their own finitude and the possibilities of their being. Heidegger posits that understanding the nature of being requires a fundamental rethinking of both being and time, dogmatically stating that the true nature of being can only be grasped through an understanding of the temporality that characterizes the existence of being.