This accessible and wide-ranging introduction to critical theory provides a comprehensive overview of the practice, role and importance of theory across the humanities and social sciences. It not only maps a notoriously complex area, but it also enables the reader to take the arguments and apply them in practice. starting with an explanation of how theory relies on implicit assumptions that inform interpretations, the book moves on to depict the long-term philosophical problems that have fed into much 20th century thinking and also more recent debates. The philosophical grounds of contemporary thought are traced from Plato through Descartes to the work of Heidegger and Freud and on to recent developments instructuralism and deconstruction that critically revise many of the previous terms of debate. The individual section treat key concepts in detail and may be read independently. Attention is paid to ensuring clarity throughout the book and the critical theory described is demonstrated via readings of verbal and visual texts.
This accessible and wide-ranging introduction to critical theory provides a comprehensive overview of the practice, role and importance of theory across the humanities and social sciences. It not only maps a notoriously complex area, but it also enables the reader to take the arguments and apply them in practice. starting with an explanation of how theory relies on implicit assumptions that inform interpretations, the book moves on to depict the long-term philosophical problems that have fed into much 20th century thinking and also more recent debates. The philosophical grounds of contemporary thought are traced from Plato through Descartes to the work of Heidegger and Freud and on to recent developments instructuralism and deconstruction that critically revise many of the previous terms of debate. The individual section treat key concepts in detail and may be read independently. Attention is paid to ensuring clarity throughout the book and the critical theory described is demonstrated via readings of verbal and visual texts.
How to Use This Book Part I: Introduction to Critical Theory 1. Critical Critical, Metaphysics, Man, Crisis, Critique, Critical Theory, Postmodernism and Critical theory 2. Representations Books and Life, Truth, In between, To be, "Is" and "Ing" 3. Theory The Empirical and the Transcendental, What theory is and why it is necessary, Object and Concept, Analogy, Economy, Objects, Summary Part II: Philosophical Impossibilities 1. The Ancients Philosophy, Deception, Socratic Dialogue, Plato's Theatre, Nous (Mind), Allegory, Contingency, Plato's Cave, Ideal Objects, Technology, The Visible and the Invisible, Analogy, The Divided Line, The Empirical and the Transcendental 2. Greek/Jew: Closure and Opening Greek, Binary Oppositions, Empirical/Transcendental Difference, Jew, The Law, Dogmatism and Criticism, Singularity and Plurality, Opening and Closure 3. Modernity Empiricism, Rationality, Freedom, Progress, Centrism, Ethnocentrism, Androcentrism, Phonocentrism, Logocentrism, Descartes' Judgement, Otherness, infinity and difference, How to not define the other Summary Cogito Ergo Sum, Frontiers, The Subject in Crisis, Authority and Enlightenment, Architectural Metaphors, Responsibility Part III: The Political 1. Being Rhetoric, The Being of Things, Being and Beings 2. The Political 3. False Consciousness False Consciousness, Figurative Language, Graven Images, Fetish, Logocentrism, Nomos, Access to the Transcendental Part IV: Structuralism 1. Saussure What is Structuralism? Where does structuralism come from? The Course in General Linguistics, Why "general", The Sign Signifier/Signified System and Utterance Difference' "To a Certain Extent", System and Difference, Developments in Structuralism, How Structuralism Works, An Exercise in Structuralism, Synchrony/Diachrony, System/Process, Paradigm/Syntagm 2. Levi-Strauss Structural Linguistics and Anthropology, Necessary Laws, Kinship Relations, Second Order First, The Elementary Unit of Kinship, Uncles with Attitude, The Incest Taboo-woman as symbol of exchange, The Structural Analysis of Myth, The Algorithm of Myth 3. Jakobson Two Types of Aphasia, The Similarity Disorder, The Contiguity Disorder, Metaphor and Metonymy, The Map on the Wall Part V: Derrida and Deconstruction 1. The Text "Text", Derrida's work, Presence and Absence, The Way We Think, Structure, Play, The way of the text, Bricoleur and Engineer, Supplementarity, Radical Empiricism, "Something Missing" 2. Difference The Same, Différance, Difference a priori, A commentary on "Differance", What to Look for 3. Exemplification Deconstruction, Repetition and Writing, Superfluity and Writing, Alterity and Transcendence, Writing and Interpretation, Transcendental Contraband, Exemplification Part VI: Psychoanalysis 1. Freud and The Dreamwork Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory, The Unconscious since Freud, Dreams, Interpretation, The Dream Work, Condensation, Displacement, Overdetermination, Considerations of Representability, Kettle Logic 2. Lacan, Freud and Sexuality Lacan and Language, The Unconscious is the Discourse of the Other, The Unconscious is structured like a Language, Metaphor and Metonymy, Sexuality and Sexual Difference, Deferred Action, Sexuality, Oedipus, Sexual Difference, Cinema: Pleasure and Drive, The Ring 3. The Return to Melanie Klein Acquiring Knowledge, The Ruined World, Kleinian Scientificity, Armageddon, Soldier, Problems, The Knowledge Concluding Remarks
This is an accessible and wide-ranging introduction to critical theory, providing a comprehensive overview of the practice, role and importance of theory across the humanities and social sciences. Key concepts and terms are explained and presented with examples and references.
John Phillips is a senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore.
The great advantage of Contested Knowledge is that it is a
genuinely critical guide to critical theory. Phillips explores
theory since Kant, and is himself prepared to be appropriately
critical of it. Yet he neither excludes those with no knowledge of
theory or alienates those already familiar with its fundamentals.
Contested Knowledge is thus a text which deserves to be strongly
recommended.
*Macdonald Daly, University of Nottingham*
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