The Site of Our Lives: The Self and the Subject from Emerson to FoucaultState University of New York Press, 1995 M07 1 - 385 pages This book addresses the question of human uniqueness at a time when academic discourse has all but abandoned its long-held commitment to the value of individuality. Through an appraisal of the works of Emerson, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Foucault, the author establishes the ways in which the current critique of the self has grossly distorted the nature of the debate by reducing it to a simple choice between essential or constructed selves. Hans argues that the tradition that emerges from Emerson's work is based on a relational sense of the individual as much as it is devoted to the premise that we all have a specific form of integrity. Likewise, even though Nietzsche's critique of the fictional nature of the subject is the origin of contemporary visions of the fabricated self, Nietzsche is equally insistent that each of us is a productive uniqueness: we are all principles of selection whose links to the world embrace more than the social circumstances around us. Nietzsche's vision of our productive uniqueness is carried on in larger and smaller ways by Heidegger, Derrida, and Foucault, each of whom entertains a far more complex vision of the individual than those which currently dominate our ways of talking about what it means to be human. |
Contents
1 | |
Chapter One The Essential Self ? | 39 |
Chapter Two An Untimely Meditation | 101 |
Chapter Three The End of Humanism | 165 |
Chapter Four The Unnameable | 227 |
Chapter Five The Nightmare of SelfLoathing | 287 |
Invasion of the Body Snatchers | 353 |
Notes | 383 |
Other editions - View all
The Site of Our Lives: The Self and the Subject from Emerson to Foucault James S. Hans Limited preview - 1995 |
The Site of Our Lives: The Self and the Subject from Emerson to Foucault James S. Hans Limited preview - 1995 |
Common terms and phrases
activity aesthetic argue assert assessment assume awareness basis believe bodily body Bororo bricolage bricoleur capable commitment concept constructed construe context critique culture declare Derrida desire discourse disposition effects Emerson essence essential everything existence existential fact fate fiction flows forces Foucault Friedrich Nietzsche function fundamental genealogy Heidegger Heidegger's Heraclitus human idea imagine inclined individual inductive ethic inevitably insist instincts integrity interest interpretation intuition kind language least less lives manifestation metaphysics Michel Foucault midst mode nature of things ness Nietzsche Nietzsche's Nietzschean notion one's oneself orientation ourselves person perspectival perspective phenomena possible power relations precisely predicated problem productive uniqueness question R. J. Hollingdale rancor seeks self-interest sense of things simply social world society specific density structure T. S. Eliot techne tendency thinkers thought tion truth understand Untimely Meditations vidual vision Western word