Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers: From Structuralism to Post-Humanism (Key Guides)

460 Pages·2007·2.62 MB·English

by  John Lechte

FIFTY KEY CONTEMPORARY
THINKERS
Now in its second edition our best selling Key Guide surveys the
most influential thinkers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
with new entries including:
(cid:1) Agamben
(cid:1) Bergson
(cid:1) Butler
(cid:1) Haraway
(cid:1) Heidegger
(cid:1) Husserl
With a new introduction by the author as well as two new sections
on Phenomenology and the Post-Human, full cross referencing and
up-to-date guides to major primary and secondary texts, this is an
essential read for anyone interested in the thinking that drives today’s
world. Students and general readers alike will be pleased to find such
an accessible guide to some of the most hard-to-grasp ideas around.
John Lechte is Professor in Sociology and teaches social theory at
Macquarie University, Australia. He has taught and published widely
on many aspects of modern thought and culture.
RELATED TITLES
Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers, 1st edition
John Lechte
1994
FIFTY KEY
CONTEMPORARY
THINKERS
From Structuralism To Post-Humanism
Second Edition
John Lechte
Firstpublished2008
byRoutledge
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ISBN 0-203-39057-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN978-0-415-32693-3(hbk)
ISBN978-0-415-32694-0(pbk)
ISBN978-0-203-39057-3(ebk)
For Peetra and Simon with all my love

CONTENTS
Preface To First Edition ix
Preface To Second Edition xii
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction xv
Early Structuralism 3
Bachelard 3
Bakhtin 11
Mauss 18
Phenomenology 25
Heidegger 26
Husserl 36
Levinas 44
Merleau-Ponty 51
Structuralism 58
Benveniste 59
Bourdieu 65
Chomsky 72
Dume´zil 80
Genette 87
Jakobson 94
Lacan 102
Le´vi-Strauss 111
Metz 120
Post-Structuralist Thought 128
Derrida 129
Foucault 137
Semiotics 146
Barthes 146
Eco 156
Hjelmslev 163
Peirce 170
vii
CONTENTS
Saussure 176
Second-Generation Feminism 184
Butler 184
Irigaray 191
Le Doeuff 199
Post-Marxism 206
Agamben 207
Adorno 216
Arendt 225
Badiou 233
Habermas 241
Zˇizˇek 250
Modernity 260
Benjamin 260
Blanchot 269
Nietzsche 277
Joyce 285
Sollers 292
Post-modernity 299
Baudrillard 300
Duras 308
Kafka 315
Lyotard 322
The Post-Human 332
Haraway 333
Maturana 339
Serres 345
Virilio 354
Vitalist-Inspired Thought 364
Bataille 364
Bergson 372
Deleuze 378
Freud 387
Kristeva 395
Index 405
viii
PREFACE TO THE FIRST
EDITION
This book follows the very admirable model provided by Diane´
Collinson’s Fifty Major Philosophers (1987). Thus I offer the reader
both an overview of each thinker’s work together with biographical
information. Like Ms Collinson, I also aim to introduce, sometimes
in a fairly detailed way, one or more aspects of the oeuvre in question,
and particularly as this relates to that aspect of thought inspired by
structuralism. And I often engage with that thought – differ with it,
or appreciate its insights. My hope is that the reader will get a real
sense of the flavour, style, and, in many cases, the truly innovative
character of the thought in question.
My task, however, was both easier and more difficult than Diane´
Collinson’s, for while I did not have to treat the entire history of the
Western canon of philosophy in writing my entries, I had to choose
fifty contemporary thinkers. And although, of course, one can debate
aboutwhoshouldbeinthephilosophycanon,thereislessdoubtabout
the fact that a canon has been extraordinarily influential, even to the
point where people are speaking Plato, Hobbes or Sartre without
knowing it.Tosomeextent,then,Diane´ Collinson’staskwastomake
explicit forms of thought which have already formed us. My task, by
contrast,hasbeentodistilkeyelementsintheworkofthinkerswho are
sometimes not yet widely known, but who are becoming so. Most
people will at least have heard of Plato; but will they have heard of
Saussure? Most will know that idealism is located somewhere in
Plato’s philosophy; but do they know that ‘difference’ is a key notion
in Saussure? Clearly, I believe that the answer is ‘no’ in both cases.
It is not only the general reader’s knowledge that I am actually
alluding to here, but also my own. For the contrast that I am trying
to bringout is thatbetweena relativelystablecanon with which Iam
familiar, if not in detail, and a series of thinkers whose thought is
often still evolving, both because many are still writing and thus have
ix