Towards A Relational Ontology: Philosophy's Other Possibility (suny Series In Contemporary Continental Philosophy)

In this original work of philosophy, Andrew Benjamin calls for a new understanding of relationality, one inaugurating a philosophical mode of thought that takes relations among people and events as primary, over and above conceptions of simple particularity or abstraction. Drawing on the work of Descartes, Kant Fichte, Hegel, and Heidegger, Benjamin shows that a relational ontology has always been at work within the history of philosophy even though philosophy has been reluctant to affirm its presence. Arguing for what he calls anoriginal relationality, he demonstrates that the already present status of a relational ontology is philosophy's other possibility. Touching on a range of topics including community, human-animal relations, and intimacy, Benjamin's thoughtful and penetrating distillation of ancient, modern, and twentieth-century philosophical ideas, and his judicious attention to art and literature make This book a model for original philosophical thinking and writing. Book jacket Contents 6 1. Being-in-Relation 8 1. 8 2. 13 3. 20 4. 28 5. 33 6. 40 2. Recovering Relationality: Contra Heidegger’s Descartes 42 1. 42 2. 46 3. 54 4. 64 3. Relationality and the Affective Structure of Subjectivity: Kant’s “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” 68 1. 70 2. 81 3. 85 4. 89 4. Democracy, Relationality, and the University: Fichte’s “Some Lectures concerning the Scholar’s Vocation” 96 1. 96 2. 106 3. 110 4. 115 5. Justice, Love, and Relationality: The Figure of Niobe in Hegel’s Lectures on Fine Art 120 1. 120 2. 125 3. 132 4. 141 6. Anonymity and Fear: The Refusal of Relationality in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 146 1. 146 2. 152 3. 159 7. Animal Relations: Modes of Presence in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason 166 1. 166 2. 172 3. 180 4. 185 8. Obdurate Love: Intimate Relations: Toward a Metaphysics of Intimacy 192 1. 192 2. 204 3. 215 Conclusion: Opening Relations 224 Bibliography 228 Index 236