Get it for less! Order it used
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
The Open: Man and Animal (Meridian Crossing Aesthetics)
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book

The Open: Man and Animal (Meridian Crossing Aesthetics) (Hardcover)

by Giorgio Agamben (Translator) "In the Ambrosian Library in Milan there is a Hebrew Bible from the thirteenth century that contains precious miniatures ..." (more)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Currently unavailable.
We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.


Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Paperback £17.95 £16.63 23 used & new from £12.03

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
   The Animal Man opens new browser window
www.Ask.com  -  Find the Best Results for The Animal Man 
   Animal Crossing Fan Site opens new browser window
www.iloveanimalcrossing.com  -  Animal Crossing cheats, videos, walkthroughs, wallpapers, and more! 
  
 

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

by Giorgio Agamben
4.3 out of 5 stars (3)  £13.48
State of Exception

State of Exception

by G Agamben
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £7.97
Infancy and History: On the Destruction of Experience (Radical Thinkers)

Infancy and History: On the Destruction of Experience (Radical Thinkers)

by Giorgio Agamben
£4.98
The Coming Community (Theory Out of Bounds)

The Coming Community (Theory Out of Bounds)

by Giorgio Agamben
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £12.00
The Animal That Therefore I Am (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)

The Animal That Therefore I Am (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)

by Jacques Derrida
£14.42
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Hardcover: 120 pages
  • Publisher: Stanford University Press (31 Dec 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0804747377
  • ISBN-13: 978-0804747370
  • Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.5 x 1.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 2,927,073 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Review

"["The Open"] turns to perhaps the most basic distinction of existence: that between human beings and animals. The thin volume provides an impressive historical survey of the problem, offering a dizzying scope of debate over the nature of animality, including expositions of figures as diverse as Thomas Aquinas, Georges Bataille, Heidegger, Alexander Kojeve, Benjamin, and the German zoologist Jakob von Uexkull."--"Radical Philosophy Review"


Product Description

In "The Open", contemporary Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben considers the ways in which the "human" has been thought of as either a distinct and superior type of animal, or a kind of being that is essentially different from animal altogether.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
In the Ambrosian Library in Milan there is a Hebrew Bible from the thirteenth century that contains precious miniatures. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
neo-humanism

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Open: Man and Animal (Meridian Crossing Aesthetics)
71% buy the item featured on this page:
The Open: Man and Animal (Meridian Crossing Aesthetics) 4.0 out of 5 stars (1)
State of Exception
8% buy
State of Exception 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£7.97
Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal
7% buy
Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal
£11.99
The Animal That Therefore I Am (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
7% buy
The Animal That Therefore I Am (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
£14.42
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

1 Review
5 star:    (0)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Drew me in and left me wanting more, 3 Nov 2004
By David J. Smith "loupgarou" (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Open: Man and Animal (Crossing Aesthetics) (Paperback)
This work assumes a depth of reading - relying on a fluency with various European cultural or religious icons and motifs, and also assumes a fluidity of thinking that for me comes only from reading and practising existential phenomenology and poststructuralism; Heidegger, Derrida, etc. This is a text that calls into question, and reveals the process (underway) of overcoming, the human/animal structure, so in my thinking it deserves to be called, roughly, "poststructuralist".

In essence we are led towards considering that we are at the end of the history of humanity and stand in the possibility of being the human animal alongside other animals.

The author writes quite sparsely, each short chapter appearing out of nowhere, anouncing something that feels quite genuinely significant, and then dissapearing into the mist again. The text in this sense feels somewhat disconnected, evanescent and mysterious, like bubbles of dreamtime surfacing momentarily.

For example, in one chapter we find ourselves meditating on the meanings of a series of gnostic images, in another we gingerly explore the topography of a spiders' web, until Agamben settles down somewhat and looks at what I suspect he was yearning to do from the onset, existential angst.

Looking at angst, a defining stigmata of human identity, Agamben wonders it through its various moments to discover the possibility that angst itself is not the most proximal experience in angst, and that instead there is first a kind of boredom. We are reminded of that in Heidegger's thinking, a stone is worldless, an animal is impoverished of world, whereas human beings are rich of world. Other animals, according to existential phenomenology, are not "open" to "the open" in the way that humans are, they are captivated by the disinhibitors in their environment, their umwelt.

Agamben finds a way clear to argue that human beings too can now be considered as animals alongside others, with our own peculiar disinhibitors being something like what has traditionally been thought of as "existentialia".

In some way, the fibrous chapters that had seemed so flimsy on first reading are woven together as the work reaches its finale, but as with all such works, there is a sense that there is far more to be said than has actually been performed by the author.

This is, as no doubt intended, a most thought-provoking work, especially in its post-eschatological ramification: we are now living after the human apocalypse, the end of history, and it is only now that we get to find out who we are in relation to nature. Now this would be an interesting thought-experiment, if nothing else, but for philosophy, anthropology, psychology and sociology, the actual meaning of this is deadly serious. What if we were to give up our notion of our exclusivity, our anthropocentricism, and accept our place alongside other species?

I cannot recommend this book on that basis - since it only sweeps the floor in preparation of finding the path these questions might lead us in - but I can recommend it in the same way I might recommend a song or a poem "about" what is at stake in taking such paths.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject
















i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.