Being Singular Plural (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Robert Richardson (Translator), Anne O'Byrne (Translator) "It is often said today that we have lost meaning, that we lack it and, as a result, are in need of and waiting for..." (more)
Key Phrases: being singular plural, sovereign war, global humanity, Human Excess, Cosmos Baselius, Gulf War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“[An] imporatant and timely book.”—Philosophy in Review

“Nancy is indeed one of the most interesting thinkers in France today.”—Common Knowledge

Product Description

This book, by one of the most innovative and challenging contemporary thinkers, consists of an extensive essay from which the book takes its title and five shorter essays that are internally related to “Being Singular Plural.”

One of the strongest strands in Nancy’s philosophy is his attempt to rethink community and the very idea of the social in a way that does not ground these ideas in some individual subject or subjectivity. The fundamental argument of the book is that being is always “being with,” that “I” is not prior to “we,” that existence is essentially co-existence. Nancy thinks of this “being-with” not as a comfortable enclosure in a pre-existing group, but as a mutual abandonment and exposure to each other, one that would preserve the “I” and its freedom in a mode of imagining community as neither a “society of spectacle” nor via some form of authenticity.

The five shorter essays impressively translate the philosophical insight of “Being Singular Plural” into sophisticated discussions of national sovereignty, war and technology, identity politics, the Gulf War, and the tragic plight of Sarajevo. The essay “Eulogy for the Mêlée,” in particular, is a brilliant discussion of identity and hybridism that resonates with many contemporary social concerns.

As Nancy moves through the exposition of his central concern, being-with, he engages a number of other important issues, including current notions of the “other” and “self” that are relevant to psychoanalytic, political, and multicultural concepts. He also offers astonishingly original reinterpretations of major philosophical positions, such as Nietzsche’s doctrine of “eternal recurrence,” Descartes’s “cogito,” and the nature of language and meaning.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (November 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804739757
• ISBN-13: 978-0804739757
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #287,030 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Meaning of Being, Singular, Plural, June 29, 2009

By	Tony See "New Thinker" (Singapore, Switzerland, Shanghai) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a must read for some of Jean-Luc Nancy's deepest insights into the nature of "being-with" (German: Mitsein) and the associated questions of war, technology and event. Nowhere does Nancy provide such a clear and profound account of his insight into the nature of being in terms of "being-with" which is none other than a Copernican revolution in terms of the traditional metaphysical understanding of being. This is significant as it can be read in relation to Heidegger's thinking on being and Levinas's critique of Western Metaphysics and his turn to a non-metaphysical understanding of being.

Nancy's insight is especially profound here as he moves from a meditation on the nature of being itself into questions of sovereignty, war and technology. This text is as such important for political theorists and political scientists working to rethink the notion of sovereignty itself in the age of global terror.