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GENERAL INTEREST NEW Also a History of Philosophy Volume 2: The Occidental Constellation of Faith and Knowledge JÜRGEN HABERMAS Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt Translated by Ciaran Cronin In this second volume of his groundbreaking new work on the history of philosophy, Jürgen Habermas traces the development of Western thought from the reception of Platonism by early Christian thought, through the revolution in medieval philosophy and theology triggered by the rediscovery of Aristotle’s works, up to the decoupling of philosophical and theological thought in nominalism and the Reformation that ushered in the postmetaphysical thinking of the modern age. Far from raising claims to exclusivity, completeness or closure, Habermas’s history of philosophy, published in English in three volumes, opens up new lines of research and reflection that will influence the humanities and social sciences for decades to come. 229 x 152mm • 552 pages • UK September 2024, US December 2024 HB • 978-1-5095-4517-9 • £35.00 / $45.00 / €42.90 ebook available NEW Also a History of Philosophy Volume 1: The Project of a Genealogy of Postmetaphysical Thinking JÜRGEN HABERMAS Translated by Ciaran Cronin ‘A wonderful English translation of Jürgen Habermas’s magnum opus tracing 1,300 years of philosophy in the West. This volume is at once a reconstruction of the encounter between faith and reason, so defining of the Western philosophical legacy, and a reflection on philosophy’s role in shaping who we are and how we relate to the world around us. Brilliant, breath-taking in scope, and profound in its assessment of the modern self-understanding, this magnificent work is a vital contribution to contemporary philosophy.’ Simone Chambers, University of California, Irvine 229 x 152mm • 448 pages • UK September 2023, US November 2023 HB • 978-1-5095-4389-2 • £35.00 / $45.00 / €42.90 ebook available NEW A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics JÜRGEN HABERMAS Translated by Ciaran Cronin The central concern of this new book is new media and their platform structure, which are increasingly relegating traditional mass media – significant drivers of the ‘old’ structural transformation – to the background. 190 x 124mm • 128 pages • UK October 2023, US January 2024 HB • 978-1-5095-5893-3 • £40.00 / $64.95 / €48.90 PB • 978-1-5095-5894-0 • £9.99 / $12.95 / €12.90 ebook available NEW The Noumenal Republic Critical Constructivism After Kant RAINER FORST Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt ‘Rainer Forst never ceases to astound. His new book deploys a “constructivist“ perspective to illuminate a stunning range of concepts and figures, from alienation and autonomy to human rights and structural injustice, from Rousseau and Kant to Rawls and Habermas.’ Charles Larmore, Brown University ‘Rainer Forst’s idea of the right to justification demands that people not be subjected to a normative order that cannot be adequately justified to them. This book builds on that idea to provide a powerful interpretation of the democratic idea that laws must be self-imposed. Through careful engagements with a remarkable range of historical and contemporary writers, Forst illuminates not only what justice demands, but also both why anyone who is subject to a norm must able be its author, and how such self-imposition is possible.’ Arthur Ripstein, University of Toronto 229 x 152mm • 320 pages • UK April 2024, US July 2024 HB • 978-1-5095-6225-1 • £55.00 / $69.95 / €67.90 PB • 978-1-5095-6226-8 • £18.99 / $26.95 / €22.90 ebook available NEW The Working Sovereign Labour and Democratic Citizenship AXEL HONNETH Columbia University Translated by Daniel Steuer ‘The now copious literature on the crisis of democracy is very attentive to the political processes of deliberation and largely inattentive to the relationship between the growth of poverty and the shift from stable employment to the normalization of precarious labor relations. ... Bringing labor back to the center of democracy is the valuable contribution of this illuminating book by Axel Honneth, which reminds us that democratic citizens are workers and that there is a mutual dependence between democratic participation and sufficiently good working conditions.’ Nadia Urbinati, Columbia University 229 x 152mm • 212 pages • UK September 2024, US November 2024 HB • 978-1-5095-6128-5 • £25.00 / $35.00 / €30.90 ebook available The Poverty of Our Freedom Essays 2012-2019 AXEL HONNETH With translations by Gabriel Borrud, Mitch Cohen, Blake Emerson, Alex Englander, Felix Koch, Arvi Särkelä, and Daniel Steuer ‘These powerful and incisive essays are a major contribution to the contemporary struggle against fetishized conceptions of individual freedom. Their relevance in a world trying desperately to escape the impasse of neoliberalism is clear.’ Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge 229 x 152mm • 304 pages • 2023 HB • 978-1-5095-5632-8 • £60.00 / $74.95 / €73.90 PB • 978-1-5095-5633-5 • £18.99 / $26.95 / €22.90 ebook available WWW.POLITYBOOKS.COM 4
page 7
GENERAL INTEREST NEW First Philosophy Last Philosophy Western Knowledge Between Metaphysics and the Sciences GIORGIO AGAMBEN University of Venice Translated by Zakiya Hanafi What is at stake in that form of inquiry which the Western philosophical tradition has called first philosophy or metaphysics? Is this an abstract, now outmoded branch of philosophy, or does it address a problem that is still of great interest – namely, the unity of Western knowledge? In fact, metaphysics is ‘first’ only in relation to the other two sciences that Aristotle called theoretical: physics and mathematics. It is the strategic sense of this ‘primacy’ that needs to be examined because what is at issue here is nothing less than the relationship of domination or subservience, conflict or harmony, between philosophy and science. The hypothesis of this book is that philosophy’s attempt to use metaphysics as a way of securing its primacy among the sciences has resulted instead in its subservience: philosophy, once handmaiden to theology (ancilla theologiae), has now become more or less consciously handmaiden to the sciences (ancilla scientiarum). So it is all the more urgent to explore the nature and limits of this primacy and subservience, as this book does through an archaeological investigation of metaphysics. This important re-reading of the Western philosophical tradition by a leading thinker will be of interest to students and scholars in philosophy, critical theory and the humanities more generally, and to anyone interested in contemporary philosophy and European thought. 216 x 138mm • 132 pages • UK April 2024, US July 2024 HB • 978-1-5095-6051-6 • £40.00 / $49.95 / €48.90 PB • 978-1-5095-6052-3 • £12.99 / $14.95 / €15.90 ebook available NEW IN PAPERBACK Correspondence 1930-1940 GRETEL ADORNO & WALTER BENJAMIN Translated by Wieland Hoban ‘The correspondence between Gretel Karplus Adorno and Walter Benjamin documents a remarkable friendship.’ Michael Jennings, Princeton University 229 x 152mm • 320 pages • HB 2007, PB January 2024 HB • 978-0-7456-3669-6 • £60.00 / $74.95 / €73.90 PB • 978-0-7456-9008-7 • £14.99 / $19.95 / €18.90 ebook available Philosophy and Sociology 1960 THEODOR W. ADORNO Edited by Dirk Braunstein Translated by Nicholas Walker ‘...Adorno juxtaposes the claims of philosophy and sociology without forcing their reconciliation. In so doing, he casts new light on the perennial conflict between the contextual genesis of ideas and their claims to transcendent validity.’ Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley 229 x 152mm • 352 pages • 2021 HB • 978-0-7456-7941-9 • £60.00 / $79.95 / €73.90 PB • 978-0-7456-7942-6 • £18.99 / $28.95 / €22.90 ebook available NEW Lectures 1949-1968 Volume 1: Music, Literature, and the Arts THEODOR W. ADORNO Translated by Nicholas Walker When Theodor W. Adorno returned to Germany from his exile in the United States, he was appointed as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Frankfurt and immediately made a name for himself as a leading public intellectual. Adorno’s widespread influence on the postwar debates was due in part to the public lectures he gave outside of the university in which he analysed and commented on social, cultural and political developments at the time. This first volume brings together Adorno’s lectures given between 1949 and 1968 on music, literature and the arts. With an engaging and improvisational style, Adorno spoke with compelling enthusiasm on subjects as diverse as Marcel Proust’s prose, Richard Strauss’s composition technique and Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire. Germany, restoring its social and intellectual institutions, needed to embrace the new music and writers who had been neglected, particularly with regards to Proust. To rebuild was taken to mean rediscovery, but Adorno also nurtured a vision of tradition which – far from being unthinkingly conservative – would attest to society’s honestly-appraised relationship to the past while it underwent the process of modernization. The volume illustrates Adorno’s deep commitment to holding contemporary music and culture to standards commensurate with the aspirations of a modern world emerging from the horrors of war. 229 x 152mm • 270 pages • UK December 2024, US March 2025 HB • 978-1-5095-5238-2 • £55.00 / $69.95 / €67.90 PB • 978-1-5095-5239-9 • £18.99 / $26.95 / €22.90 ebook available NEW Lectures 1949-1968 Volume 2: Social Theory and Politics THEODOR W. ADORNO Translated by Nicholas Walker When Theodor W. Adorno returned to Germany from his exile in the United States, he was appointed as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Frankfurt and he immediately made a name for himself as a leading public intellectual. Adorno’s widespread influence on the postwar debates was due in part to the public lectures he gave outside of the university in which he analysed and commented on social, cultural and political developments at the time. This second volume brings together Adorno’s lectures given between 1949 and 1968 on social and political themes. With an engaging and improvisational style, Adorno spoke with infectious vigour about architecture and city planning, the relationship between the individual and society, the authoritarian personality and far-right extremism, political education and the current state of sociology, among other subjects. After Auschwitz, it was incumbent on Germany to undertake intensive memory work and to confront the reality of its own moral destruction, while rebuilding its political and economic systems. To rebuild was taken to mean rediscovery and looking outward, but Adorno also nurtured a vision of tradition which – far from being unthinkingly conservative – would attest to society’s honestly-appraised relationship to the past while it underwent the process of modernization. The volume illustrates Adorno’s deep commitment to holding society to standards commensurate with the aspirations of a modern world emerging from the horrors of war. 229 x 152mm • 274 pages • UK December 2024, US March 2025 HB • 978-1-5095-5241-2 • £55.00 / $69.95 / €67.90 PB • 978-1-5095-5242-9 • £18.99 / $26.95 / €22.90 ebook available WWW.POLITYBOOKS.COM 5

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GENERAL INTEREST

NEW

First Philosophy Last Philosophy Western Knowledge Between Metaphysics and the Sciences GIORGIO AGAMBEN University of Venice Translated by Zakiya Hanafi What is at stake in that form of inquiry which the Western philosophical tradition has called first philosophy or metaphysics? Is this an abstract, now outmoded branch of philosophy, or does it address a problem that is still of great interest – namely, the unity of Western knowledge? In fact, metaphysics is ‘first’ only in relation to the other two sciences that Aristotle called theoretical: physics and mathematics. It is the strategic sense of this ‘primacy’ that needs to be examined because what is at issue here is nothing less than the relationship of domination or subservience, conflict or harmony, between philosophy and science. The hypothesis of this book is that philosophy’s attempt to use metaphysics as a way of securing its primacy among the sciences has resulted instead in its subservience: philosophy, once handmaiden to theology (ancilla theologiae), has now become more or less consciously handmaiden to the sciences (ancilla scientiarum). So it is all the more urgent to explore the nature and limits of this primacy and subservience, as this book does through an archaeological investigation of metaphysics. This important re-reading of the Western philosophical tradition by a leading thinker will be of interest to students and scholars in philosophy, critical theory and the humanities more generally, and to anyone interested in contemporary philosophy and European thought. 216 x 138mm • 132 pages • UK April 2024, US July 2024 HB • 978-1-5095-6051-6 • £40.00 / $49.95 / €48.90 PB • 978-1-5095-6052-3 • £12.99 / $14.95 / €15.90 ebook available

NEW IN PAPERBACK

Correspondence 1930-1940 GRETEL ADORNO & WALTER BENJAMIN Translated by Wieland Hoban ‘The correspondence between Gretel Karplus Adorno and Walter Benjamin documents a remarkable friendship.’ Michael Jennings, Princeton University 229 x 152mm • 320 pages • HB 2007, PB January 2024 HB • 978-0-7456-3669-6 • £60.00 / $74.95 / €73.90 PB • 978-0-7456-9008-7 • £14.99 / $19.95 / €18.90 ebook available

Philosophy and Sociology 1960 THEODOR W. ADORNO Edited by Dirk Braunstein Translated by Nicholas Walker ‘...Adorno juxtaposes the claims of philosophy and sociology without forcing their reconciliation. In so doing, he casts new light on the perennial conflict between the contextual genesis of ideas and their claims to transcendent validity.’ Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley 229 x 152mm • 352 pages • 2021 HB • 978-0-7456-7941-9 • £60.00 / $79.95 / €73.90 PB • 978-0-7456-7942-6 • £18.99 / $28.95 / €22.90 ebook available

NEW

Lectures 1949-1968 Volume 1: Music, Literature, and the Arts THEODOR W. ADORNO Translated by Nicholas Walker When Theodor W. Adorno returned to Germany from his exile in the United States, he was appointed as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Frankfurt and immediately made a name for himself as a leading public intellectual. Adorno’s widespread influence on the postwar debates was due in part to the public lectures he gave outside of the university in which he analysed and commented on social, cultural and political developments at the time. This first volume brings together Adorno’s lectures given between 1949 and 1968 on music, literature and the arts. With an engaging and improvisational style, Adorno spoke with compelling enthusiasm on subjects as diverse as Marcel Proust’s prose, Richard Strauss’s composition technique and Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire. Germany, restoring its social and intellectual institutions, needed to embrace the new music and writers who had been neglected, particularly with regards to Proust. To rebuild was taken to mean rediscovery, but Adorno also nurtured a vision of tradition which – far from being unthinkingly conservative – would attest to society’s honestly-appraised relationship to the past while it underwent the process of modernization. The volume illustrates Adorno’s deep commitment to holding contemporary music and culture to standards commensurate with the aspirations of a modern world emerging from the horrors of war. 229 x 152mm • 270 pages • UK December 2024, US March 2025 HB • 978-1-5095-5238-2 • £55.00 / $69.95 / €67.90 PB • 978-1-5095-5239-9 • £18.99 / $26.95 / €22.90 ebook available

NEW

Lectures 1949-1968 Volume 2: Social Theory and Politics THEODOR W. ADORNO Translated by Nicholas Walker When Theodor W. Adorno returned to Germany from his exile in the United States, he was appointed as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Frankfurt and he immediately made a name for himself as a leading public intellectual. Adorno’s widespread influence on the postwar debates was due in part to the public lectures he gave outside of the university in which he analysed and commented on social, cultural and political developments at the time. This second volume brings together Adorno’s lectures given between 1949 and 1968 on social and political themes. With an engaging and improvisational style, Adorno spoke with infectious vigour about architecture and city planning, the relationship between the individual and society, the authoritarian personality and far-right extremism, political education and the current state of sociology, among other subjects. After Auschwitz, it was incumbent on Germany to undertake intensive memory work and to confront the reality of its own moral destruction, while rebuilding its political and economic systems. To rebuild was taken to mean rediscovery and looking outward, but Adorno also nurtured a vision of tradition which – far from being unthinkingly conservative – would attest to society’s honestly-appraised relationship to the past while it underwent the process of modernization. The volume illustrates Adorno’s deep commitment to holding society to standards commensurate with the aspirations of a modern world emerging from the horrors of war. 229 x 152mm • 274 pages • UK December 2024, US March 2025 HB • 978-1-5095-5241-2 • £55.00 / $69.95 / €67.90 PB • 978-1-5095-5242-9 • £18.99 / $26.95 / €22.90 ebook available

WWW.POLITYBOOKS.COM

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