Antonio Calcagno

A critical, philosophical engagement of the psychological structures that propagate the continued oppression of women. In this book, the Italian feminist thinker Lea Melandri argues that systemic violence against women has deep psychoanalytic roots. Drawing inspiration from the work of Freud and the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Elvio Fachinelli, along with feminist practices of consciousness-raising, Melandri demonstrates how male dominance and female subservience are established by society through a binary and oppositional understanding of sex and gender. This understanding—and the oppression and violence against women that results—is inscribed in the psyches of both men and women, and is replicated anew from generation to generation. Melandri analyzes women in media, politics, philosophy, and literature to show how this plays out, and calls for awareness of these deep psychic structures and expectations formed within the dynamics of society and primary family relations. Lea Melandri is one of Italy’s best-known feminist thinkers and activists. She is the author of many books and continues to write and advocate for women’s rights. In 2012, she was awarded by the city of Milan the Ambrogino d’oro, one of the city’s highest honors. Antonio Calcagno is Professor of Philosophy at King’s University College at Western University, Canada. He the editor of Contemporary Italian Political Philosophy and the coeditor (with Inna Viriasova) of Roberto Esposito: Biopolitics and Philosophy, both also published by SUNY Press.

Badiou and Hegel: Infinity, Dialectics, Subjectivity offers critical appraisals of two of the dominant figures of the Continental tradition of philosophy, Alain Badiou and G.W.F. Hegel. Jim Vernon and Antonio Calcagno bring together established and emerging authors in Continental philosophy to discuss the relationship between the thinkers, creating a multifarious collection of essays by Hegelians, Badiouans, and those sympathetic to both. The text privileges neither thinker, nor any particular topic shared between them; rather, this book lays a broad and sound foundation for future scholarship on arguably two of the greatest thinkers of infinity, universality, subjectivity, and the enduring value of philosophy in the modern Western canon. Assuredly overdue, this volume will attract Hegel and Badiou scholars, as well as those interested in post-structuralism, political philosophy, cultural studies, ontology, philosophy of mathematics, and psychoanalysis.

_John Dewey and Continental Philosophy_ provides a rich sampling of exchanges that could have taken place long ago between the traditions of American pragmatism and continental philosophy had the lines of communication been more open between Dewey and his European contemporaries. Since they were not, Paul Fairfield and thirteen of his colleagues seek to remedy the situation by bringing the philosophy of Dewey into conversation with several currents in continental philosophical thought, from post-Kantian idealism and the work of Friedrich Nietzsche to twentieth-century phenomenology, hermeneutics, and poststructuralism. This unique volume includes discussions comparing and contrasting Dewey with the German philosophers G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer on such topics as phenomenology, naturalism, organicism, contextualism, and poetry. Others investigate a series of connections between Dewey and contemporary French philosophy, including the notions of subjectivity, education, and the critique of modernity in Michel Foucault; language and politics in Jacques Derrida; and the concept of experience in Gilles Deleuze. Also discussed is the question of whether we can identify traces of _Bildung_ in Dewey’s writings on education, and pragmatism’s complex relation to twentieth-century phenomenology and hermeneutics, including the problematic question of whether Heidegger was a pragmatist in any meaningful sense. Presented in intriguing pairings, these thirteen essays offer different approaches to the material that will leave readers with much to deliberate. _ John Dewey and Continental Philosophy_ demonstrates some of the many connections and opportunities for cross-traditional thinking that have long existed between Dewey and continental thought, but have been under-explored. The intersection presented here between Dewey’s pragmatism and the European traditions makes a significant contribution to continental and American philosophy and will spur new and important developments in the American philosophical debate.

Edith Stein came to phenomenology after beginning her university studies in psychology. She struggled with the inability of psychology to justify and delineate its founding principles. She found in Edmund Husserl, though his sustained criticisms of psychologism, the possibility of a phenomenological ground for psychology. This article demonstrates how Stein, drawing from but also distancing herself from Husserl, justifies the possibility of a phenomenological psychology framed within a personalist structure of subjectivity and sociality.

Gerda Walther[aut] Walther, Gerda has no developed account of empathyEmpathy; rather, she draws from the writings of early phenomenologists and psychologists on empathy. Generally, for Walther[aut]Walther, Gerda, empathy is an act of mind that permits the understanding of another’s consciousnessConsciousness and experienceExperience. Edith Stein[aut]Edith Stein, in many respects, lays the ground for a phenomenological account of empathy. Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s treatment of intersubjectivityIntersubjectivity and the nature of intersubjective acts such as empathy draws greatly from Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund. There exist three primary sources for Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s analysis of empathy, all of which were written while Stein[aut]Stein, Edith was still in direct contact with Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund either as his student, assistant or as a private researcher attempting to habilitate. The primary and better known source is Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s doctoral dissertation published originally in 1917, titled On the Problem of Empathy\”On the Problem of Empathy”, by Stein, Edith. The text, which is the only extant portion of her doctoral dissertation, sets the stage for Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s later work on the subject. Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund was pleased by Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s selection of the topic, but he wanted her to give more of a historical overview, with special reference to Lipps[aut]Lipps, Hans’ work. Hence, the text is replete with discussions of notable philosophers like Scheler[aut]Scheler, Max, Dilthey[aut]Dilthey, Wilhelm, and Lipps[aut]Lipps, Hans. The second major work that addresses empathy is to be found in Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities\”Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities”, by Stein, Edith. This work was published in Volume V of Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund’s Jahrbuch and consists of two principal texts: PsychicCausalityCausalityPsychic and Individual and Community. This text comes from Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s period during and after her assistantship with Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund. The text is largely, but not exclusively, based on her work on Husserl[aut]Husserl, Edmund’s Ideen II. The last source is Stein[aut]Stein, Edith’s research manuscript titled, Einführung in die Philosophie.

The phenomenologist Gerda Walther posits the possibility of a new social act, which she terms telepathy. It is marked by an intimate in-terpersonal union in which ego and alter ego become capable of sharing in the identical lived experience, though distant from one another. Here, there is no fusion or collective identi????ication; rather, in-dividuals, though they live the experience and mind of the other, never lose or transcend their own individuation. Unlike the act of empathy, there is no analogical transfer. This article defends the possibility of a restricted sense telepathy. The author argues that four conditions must be ful????illed for telepathy to occur: recognition of a social drive; a partially willed act of mind that results in the assump-tion of a certain stance, but it also comes upon us as an experience; constitution of subjects as persons marked by a “fundamental es-sence”; and I-splitting.

This volume explores the work and thought of Edith Stein (1891-1942). It discusses in detail, and from new perspectives, the traditional areas of her thinking, including her ideas about women/feminism, theology, and metaphysics. In addition, it introduces readers to new and/or understudied areas of her thought, including her views on history, and her social and political philosophy. The guiding thread that connects all the essays in this book is the emphasis on new approaches and novel applications of her philosophy. The contributions both extend the interdisciplinary implications of Stein's thinking for our contemporary world and apply her insights to questions of theatre, public history and biographical representation, education, politics, autism, theological debates, feminism, sexuality studies and literature. The volume brings together for the first time leading scholars in five language-groups, including English, German, Italian, French and Spanish-speaking authors, thereby reflecting an international and cosmopolitan approach to Stein studies.

This article seeks to advance a way of being in the world of the hu-man person that encompasses both the truest sense of freedom of choice and its result, namely, happiness. Starting from the proposal of a relational ethics in Stein I intend to show how, in the authentic relationship through Einfühlung, it is possible to arrive at the “revelation” of what is deeper in ourselves, i.e., the personal core that characterizes us as unique and unrepeatable entities. The growth and development of our personalities occurs coherently with who we are. But the “choice” to adhere to the authenticity of a deep self is a choice of freedom that also leads one to harmony, to the acceptance of one’s finitude and weaknesses, and thus to living well with who one “really” is. This result coincides with being happy.

This paper explores the question of the meaning of life, not only from the perspective of its temporal unfolding from birth to death but also from the perspective of its own particular meaning and its final cause, to use Aristotelian categories. In order to discuss this argument I refer myself to Edith Stein to show how crucial moments of her own life give rise to important and de?ining philosophical positions that touch upon questions of personal identity, social and communal relations, and a relationship with God.