Studies in Continental Thought
13 total works
The Shakespearean image of a tempest and its aftermath forms the beginning as well as a major guiding thread of Logic of Imagination. Moving beyond the horizons of his earlier work, Force of Imagination, John Sallis sets out to unsettle the traditional conception of logic, to mark its limits, and, beyond these limits, to launch another, exorbitant logic-a logic of imagination. Drawing on a vast range of sources, including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud, as well as developments in modern logic and modern mathematics, Sallis shows how a logic of imagination can disclose the most elemental dimensions of nature and of human existence and how, through dialogue with contemporary astrophysics, it can reopen the project of a philosophical cosmology.
"This excellent work . . . deserves the serious consideration of all who are interested in contemporary philosophy as well as those who concern themselves with ancient philosophy, especially Plato." -Review of Metaphysics
In Chorology, John Sallis takes up one of the most enigmatic discourses
in the history of philosophy. Plato's discourse on the chora-the chorology-forms the pivotal moment in the Timaeus. The implications of the chorology are momentous and communicate with many of the most decisive issues in contemporary philosophical discussions.
What is the effect of light as it measures the seasons? How does light leave different traces on the terrain-on a Pacific Island, in the Aegean Sea, high in the Alps, or in the forest? John Sallis considers the expansiveness of nature and the range of human vision in essays about the effect of light and luminosity on place. Sallis writes movingly of nature and the elements, employing an enormous range of philosophical, geographical, and historical knowledge. Paintings and drawings by Alejandro A. Vallega illuminate the text, accentuating the interaction between light and environment.
Force of Imagination
The Sense of the Elemental
John Sallis
A bold and original investigation into how imagination shapes thought and feeling.
"This is a bold new direction for the author, one that he takes in an arresting and convincing manner. . . . a powerful, original approach to what others call 'ecology' but what Sallis shows to be a question of the status of the earth in philosophical thinking at this historical moment." —Edward S. Casey
In this major original work, John Sallis probes the very nature of imagination and reveals how the force of imagination extends into all spheres of human life. While drawing critically on the entire history of philosophy, Sallis's work takes up a vantage point determined by the contemporary deconstruction of the classical opposition between sensible and intelligible. Thus, in reinterrogating the nature of imagination, Force of Imagination carries out a radical turn to the sensible and to the elemental in nature. Liberated from subjectivity, imagination is shown to play a decisive role both in drawing together the moments of our experience of sensible things and in opening experience to the encompassing light, atmosphere, earth, and sky. Set within this elemental expanse, the human sense of time, of self, and of the other proves to be inextricably linked to imagination and to nature. By showing how imagination is formative for the very opening upon things and elements, this work points to the revealing power of poetic imagination and casts a new light on the nature of art.
John Sallis is Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. His previous books include Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic Dialogues; Shades—Of Painting at the Limit; Stone; Chorology: On Beginning in Plato's Timaeus (all published by Indiana University Press), Crossings: Nietzsche and the Space of Tragedy and Double Truth.
Studies in Continental Thought—John Sallis, editor
Contents
Prolusions
On (Not Simply) Beginning
Remembrance
Duplicity of the Image
Spacing the Image
Tractive Imagination
The Elemental
Temporalities
Proprieties
Poetic Imagination
"[Sallis's] ideas are presented in a singular, scholarly, remarkable, captivating, conceptually rigorous, dense, and deep manner. . . . Highly recommended." -Choice
"This fascinating book by one of the more original voices writing philosophy in English poses questions about the nature of the visible and invisible, sensible and intelligible." -Dennis Schmidt
What is it that an artist paints in a painting? Working from paintings themselves rather than from philosophical theories, John Sallis shows how, through shades and limits, the painter renders visible the light that confers visibility on things. In his extended examination of three phases in the development of modern painting, Sallis focuses on the work of Claude Monet, Wassily Kandinsky, and Mimmo Paladino-three painters who, each in his own way, carry painting to the limit.
John Sallis dismantles the traditional conception of nature in this book of imagination and the cosmos. In the thought of Emerson, Hegel, and Schelling, Sallis discerns the seeds of an understanding of nature that goes against the modern technological assault on natural things and opens a space for a revitalized approach to the world. He identifies two fundamental reorientations that philosophical thought is called on to address today: the turn to the elemental in nature and the turn from nature to the cosmos at large. He traces the elusive course of the imagination, as if coming from nowhere, and describes the way in which it bears on the relation of humans to nature. Sallis's account demonstrates that a renewal of our understanding of nature is one of the prime imperatives we demand from philosophy today.
The Birth of Tragedy is a rethinking of art at the
limit of metaphysics. His close reading focuses on the
complexity of the Apollinian/Dionysian dyad and on the
crossing of these basic art impulses in tragedy.
"Sallis effectively calls into question some commonly
accepted and simplistic ideas about Nietzsche's early
thinking and its debt to Schopenhauer, and proposes
alternatives that are worth considering."-Richard
Schacht, Times Literary Supplement
Broaching an understanding of nature in Platonic thought, John Sallis goes beyond modern conceptions and provides a strategy to have recourse to the profound sense of nature operative in ancient Greek philosophy. In a rigorous and textually based account, Sallis traces the complex development of the Greek concept of nature. Beginning with the mythical vision embodied in the figure of the goddess Artemis, he reanimates the sense of nature that informs the fragmentary discourses of Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Empedocles and shows how Plato takes up pre-Socratic conceptions critically while also being transformed. Through Sallis's close reading of the Theaetetus and the Phaedo, he recovers the profound and comprehensive concept of nature in Plato's thought.
"Stunning insights into Renaissance aesthetic theory. . . a rigorous and critical assessment of key moments in the Western aesthetic tradition, speaks beyond the audience of philosophers and literary critics . . ." -Renaissance Quarterly
"Stone challenges the simple opposition of philosophy and art . . . in a style that has the directness of sculpture." -John Llewelyn
In an elegant and provocative text enhanced by photographs, John Sallis offers an important new theory of philosophy and art. He takes up the various guises and settings in which stone appears and what philosophers have said about the beauty of stone.
" . . . offers both an excellent entry into [Sallis's] thought and a strong example of where the tasks of philosophy may yet be found at the closure of metaphysics." —American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
Since Hegel, philosophers have declared repeatedly that metaphysics is at an end. What exactly does the end, or closure, of metaphysics mean, and what are the implications of this view? In his second edition, John Sallis has expanded this major work, contributing to current debates in continental philosophy.
"Philosophers have become increasingly concerned with the places and spaces of our Earth. They are finally coming to acknowledge their situatedness, and to be grateful for it. Sallis's wonderful book evokes in word and image the power of places that bring him—and now us—to think, feel, imagine, and write." —David Farrell Krell, DePaul University
How does it feel to get caught in a violent storm in the high Alps? What does a visitor think while ascending the sacred way in Delphi? How does a rock garden in Kyoto challenge one's sense of self? What comes out of a face-to-face encounter with deer in the woods? In Topographies, John Sallis invites readers to open their imaginations to the power of evocative places. Written in the style of a travel diary, Sallis responds reflectively and receptively to experiences that are beyond the carefully prepared tidbits of the exotic that often characterize tourism. On this venture into the foreign, Sallis discloses a unique power for drawing from place as he allows himself and readers to be drawn into it. Forty illustrations grace the book and enhance our sense of what it means to understand and connect to our world.