Krzysztof Skonieczny

It is a recent tendency to read certain pre- and early-modern thinkers as “anticipatory critics” of modernity; the name of Michel de Montaigne often comes up in this context. Most of the critical approaches treat Montaigne like a pre-Rousseau proto-romantic which is indeed is an important part of Montaigne’s thinking. However, as I show in this paper, his Essays also allow for a different interpretation. Namely, I demonstrate that 1) Montaigne’s appraisal of Nature is far from a romantic-idyllic one; 2) his understanding of the interspecies division is more subtle than it is often thought; 3) his thought thus interpreted includes an ethics of becoming-animal that is based on a radically anti-Platonic body-mind economy

The text traces the development of the notion of catatonia in the work of Gilles Deleuze across three spheres – the individual, social and literary. The need for an analysis is based on the author’s perception that Deleuze thought on catatonia and slowness has been undervalued in many interpretations ; the recognition, in works of sociologists such as Hartmut Rosa, of the adverse effects of social acceleration. In the individual sphere, catatonia is the effect of a radical withdrawal into anti-production or the body without organs. In the social sphere, catatonia is also linked to anti-production, but since in capitalism most anti-production is included in the sphere of production, catatonia represents a special case of resistance to this tendency. Deleuze shows how these two spheres intertwine in his analyses of Herman Melville’s works, especially Billy Budd and Bartleby; the title characters of these two texts are interpreted as embodiments of the catatonic as a political-revolutionary figure.

This book reexamines the concept of the animal on the plane of immanence, as opposed to the traditional viewpoint founded on the plane of transcendence. Following Deleuze and Guattari’s notion that philosophy is a discipline of creating concepts, this book traces how the concept of the animal was created in the history of philosophy through re-reading the works of Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Derrida and Levinas. Their theories show that the concept of the animal was constructed on the "plane of transcendence" as subservient to the self-serving human, who represents the animal as a negative entity devoid of reason, ethics, the ability to enter into political alliances or even die. With this perspective and a range of theories from thinkers such as Spinoza, Nancy, Haraway and Braidotti as the groundwork, a new positive concept of the animal, operating on the plane of immanence, is sketched out, compelling a reappraisal of the relationships between body and thought, ethics and politics, or life and death. With comprehensive interpretations of the views of several key philosophers, from Kant and Heidegger to Deleuze, Derrida and Agamben, this book will be valuable for scholars of theoretical animal studies and continental philosophy interested in the philosophical significance of the animal question.

In The Inoperative Community Jean-Luc Nancy suggests that his conception of speech as the cornerstone of community can be likened to the image of two Inuit women engaging in traditional vocal games (katajjaq). This article (1) elucidates this connection through the analysis of ethnographic and ethnomusicological data on katajjaq; (2) shows how the similarity of this image to that of two resonating lyres present in the works of the Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino can be used to understand Nancy’s political philosophy as a discussion with the (neo)platonic tradition of harmony, to which Nancy opposes his own concept of resonance.

"Regimes of Capital in the Post-digital Age provides a view of the current state of capitalism, through the interrogation of key diagnoses offered by philosophers and social theorists. With attention to questions about the manner in which the advent of the information age has shaped capitalism, the implications of the post-digital age for social capital, and the possible forms of resistance to the problematic aspects of capitalism, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, philosophy and social theory with interests in critical theory, capitalist society and digital culture"--

Książka Ateizm. Próba dokończenia projektu rozwija swego rodzaju;narrację” o pojęciu ateizmu, jego filozoficznym życiorysie, miejscu w kulturze zachodniej, apogeum w okresie rewolucji francuskiej, powrocie w XX-wiecznym „nowym ateizmie” i – w tym szerokim kontekście – jego niewielkiej kulturowo roli w Polsce. Jej wagę filozoficzną i intelektualną podkreśla aktualność ze względu na obecną polityczną, kulturową i religijną sytuację nie tylko w Polsce, która wręcz prosi o tego typu dyskusję, a nawet się jej domaga. Książka Ateizm. Próba dokończenia projektu jest pracą filozoficznie zwartą i prowokującą do głębokiej refleksji pojęciowej, kulturowej i politycznej. Można w niej znaleźć przemyślenia dla zaawansowanych umysłów filozoficznych, dla intelektualistów obeznanych z tematem bądź szukających wprowadzenia do dyskusji wokół ateizmu, jak też i dla;zwykłych; czytelników. Atutem książki jest jej przejrzystość i dostępność, przy zachowaniu kompleksowości i pojęciowego rygoru. Prof. Krzysztof Ziarek (Department of Comparative Literature at SUNY-Buffalo)