In the mid-eighteenth century metaphysics was broadly understood as the study of three areas of philosophical thought: theology, psychology and cosmology. This book examines the fortunes of the third of these formidable metaphysical concepts, the world. Sean Gaston provides a clear and concise account of the concept of world from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth century, exploring its possibilities and limitations and engaging with current issues in politics and ecology. He focuses on the work of five principal thinkers: Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger and Derrida, all of whom attempt to establish new grounds for seeing the world as a whole. Gaston presents a critique of the self-evident use of the concept of world in philosophy and asks whether one can move beyond the need for a world-like vantage point to maintain a concept of world. From Kant to the present day this concept has been a problem for philosophy and it remains to be seen if we need a new Copernican revolution when it comes to the concept of world.

Over the last few decades there has been a phenomenal growth of interest in metaphor as a device which extends or revises our perception of the world. Clive Cazeaux examines the relationship between metaphor, art and science, against the backdrop of modern European philosophy and, in particular, the work of Kant, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. He contextualizes recent theories of the cognitive potential of metaphor within modern European philosophy and explores the impact which the notion of cognitive metaphor has on key positions and concepts within aesthetics, epistemology and the philosophy of science.

"Jacques Derrida's career-long engagement with the philosophy of Emmanuel Kant has made possible a sea-change in both the understanding and methods of appraisal of Kant's work. Kant After Derrida is a collection of essays which reflects the breadth of this re-appraisal, assessing the principal points of contact and dissonance between the Derridean deconstructive approach and Kant's 'critical apparatus' ... While explicitly avoiding simple opposition, Derrida's work and its influence has intimately effected reconfigurations on familiar Kantian subjects such as beauty, nature, freedom, the transcendental, the categories, casting anew the ethical, aesthetic, physical and metaphysical systems with which Kant blazed his 'Copernican revolution'. The richness and diversity of these essays is evidence both of the strength and enduring power of Kant's achievement some two hundred years after his death, and tribute to the value of the very Derridean notion of 'reading with'." -- From back cover.

Combining conceptual rigour and clarity of prose with historical erudition, this book shows how one of the standard issues of analytic philosophy, realism and anti-realism, has also been at the heart of continental philosophy.

"Jacques Derrida's work on voice and tonality, particularly his reading of Plato to critique philosophy's reliance on the spoken word, is well-known to critics and students in the United States. But Derrida's work on Immanuel Kant in this area has been misunderstood - or ignored - because the relevant texts have been unavailable in English." "In Raising the Tone of Philosophy, Peter Fenves expands the context of Derrida's discussion by presenting the first English translations of two of Kant's important late essays, "On a Newly Arisen Superior Tone in Philosophy" and "Announcement of a Near Conclusion of a Treaty for Eternal Peace in Philosophy." The annotations that accompany the essays indicate the complex array of philosophical, political, and historical issues that Kant addresses. The book also includes a revised translation, by John Leavey, Jr., of Derrida's "On a Newly Arisen Apocalyptic Tone in Philosophy," which rewrites and reorients Kant's essays." "In his introduction to this collection, Fenves examines the emergence of tone as an explicit philosophical topic and explores the connections between the last writings of Kant and certain recent ones of Derrida. Observing that Derrida continues the speculation that Kant begins, Fenves proposes that these essays reveal tonality and the "end" of philosophy to be perennial compulsions. Raising the Tone of Philosophy promises to enhance and complicate the theoretical work that explores the connections between deconstruction and philosophy."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida's careful posing of such questions and rearticulations pioneers new modalities for systematic engagement with religion and philosophy alike.--Arthur Bradley "Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory"

"In this densely imbricated volume Derrida pursues his devoted, relentless dismantling of the philosophical tradition, the tradition of Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger—each dealt with in one or more of the essays. There are essays too on linguistics (Saussure, Benveniste, Austin) and on the nature of metaphor ("White Mythology"), the latter with important implications for literary theory. Derrida is fully in control of a dazzling stylistic register in this book—a source of true illumination for those prepared to follow his arduous path. Bass is a superb translator and annotator. His notes on the multilingual allusions and puns are a great service."—Alexander Gelley, Library Journal