The Haunted Present
Adorno, Sontag, Foucault, Feyerabend, and the Ends of Philosophy
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The Haunted Present
Narrated by:
Frits Zernike
Pre-order for $27.81
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Narrated by:
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Frits Zernike
Summary
It is the winter 1949: Theodor W. Adorno returns from the USA to Frankfurt, a city devastated by bombing; Paul K. Feyerabend arrives back in Vienna, disabled and suffering from chronic pain, having been shot in the final months of the war; the child prodigy Susan Sontag visits Thomas Mann in Los Angeles; and, a young Michel Foucault attempts suicide, again, in Paris. The aftermath of the Second World War calls for the world to be remade, and this quartet of wildly independent and original thinkers are seeking ways into a new philosophy. Over the coming decades, they will revolutionize how we think about society, culture, and science.
Eilenberger presents readers once again with a tour de force that, through the example of four courageous minds, testifies to the power of philosophy to escape the constraints of the present. Critical theory, aesthetic rebellion, scientific skepticism, and political disillusionment collided violently in the wake of the war to shape our fractious, hyper-mediated reality today. Have the ideals of the Enlightenment been lost forever? Do science, art, and democracy still hold any promise? Or, has the time come to say goodbye to the very idea of humanity?
Shifting and jumping mercurially from Frankfurt to Paris, London to Berkeley and New York to take in a kaleidoscopic world seething with change, Eilenberger's daring narrative unmasks the competing intellectual impulses that emerged to produce our era of crisis.
Critic Reviews
“An elegant history of the liberatory philosophies forged in the aftermath of World War II . . . As Eilenberger writes, the 'courage to despair' that the thinkers he highlights in his fluent book retains its power. Eilenberger’s subjects offer models of enlightened, morally engaged life, and his book is essential for seekers of the same.”—Kirkus (starred review)
“The striking third installment in philosopher Eilenberger’s series of biographies of 20th-century thinkers (after Time of the Magicians) is 'a testimony to liberation' . . . In Eilenberger’s fascinating, refractive narrative, which incorporates his subjects’ lives, desires, and thoughts, these thinkers’ viewpoints add up to a vision of a world in which 'present crises' are rooted in deep historical machinations. It’s a staggering achievement.”—Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"With this volume on the 'The Haunted Present,' Wolfram Eilenberger brings his trilogy of a unique history of philosophy to a magnificent conclusion. [...] He succeeds in creating compelling portraits that are brought together in surprising constellations. They are brilliantly narrated."—Rüdiger Safranski, Die Zeit
“The Haunted Present is probably Wolfram Eilenberger’s most personal book. It is a plea for philosophy, for autonomous thinking."—Dieter Kaltwasser, General-Anzeiger Bonn
"Eilenberger is concerned with the existential dimension of thought, with that moment when philosophers put their ideas, and thus themselves, at risk. The fact that this intellectual existence in universities now often exists only as a question of permanent positions makes The Haunted Present not only a great reading pleasure, but also a reminder of what philosophy once was and what it can perhaps only be today outside of academia: the attempt not to lose courage, even in times of intellectual immaturity."—Peter Neumann, Die Zeit
“The striking third installment in philosopher Eilenberger’s series of biographies of 20th-century thinkers (after Time of the Magicians) is 'a testimony to liberation' . . . In Eilenberger’s fascinating, refractive narrative, which incorporates his subjects’ lives, desires, and thoughts, these thinkers’ viewpoints add up to a vision of a world in which 'present crises' are rooted in deep historical machinations. It’s a staggering achievement.”—Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"With this volume on the 'The Haunted Present,' Wolfram Eilenberger brings his trilogy of a unique history of philosophy to a magnificent conclusion. [...] He succeeds in creating compelling portraits that are brought together in surprising constellations. They are brilliantly narrated."—Rüdiger Safranski, Die Zeit
“The Haunted Present is probably Wolfram Eilenberger’s most personal book. It is a plea for philosophy, for autonomous thinking."—Dieter Kaltwasser, General-Anzeiger Bonn
"Eilenberger is concerned with the existential dimension of thought, with that moment when philosophers put their ideas, and thus themselves, at risk. The fact that this intellectual existence in universities now often exists only as a question of permanent positions makes The Haunted Present not only a great reading pleasure, but also a reminder of what philosophy once was and what it can perhaps only be today outside of academia: the attempt not to lose courage, even in times of intellectual immaturity."—Peter Neumann, Die Zeit
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