A Hedonist Manifesto - The Power to Exist

Michael Onfray passionately defends the potential of hedonism to resolve the dislocations and disconnections of our melancholy age. In a sweeping survey of history's engagement with and rejection of the body, he exposes the sterile conventions that prevent us from realizing a more immediate, ethical, and embodied life. He then lays the groundwork for both a radical and constructive politics of the body that adds to debates over morality, equality, sexual relations, and social engagement, demonstrating how philosophy, and not just modern scientism, can contribute to a humanistic ethics.

List of contents

Translator's Introduction
Preface
Part I. An Alternative Method
1. A Philosophical Side Path
2. Bodily Reason
3. A Philosophical Life
Part II. An Elective Ethics
4. An Atheological Morality
5. A Rule of Immanent Play
6. A Hedonist Intersubjectivity
Part III. Solar Erotics
7. The Ascetic Ideal
8. A Libertarian Libido
9. Carnal Hospitality
Part IV. A Cynical Aesthetic
10. An Archipelagic Logic
11. A Psychopathology of Art
12. A Playful Art
Part V. A Promethean Bioethics
13. De-Christianized Flesh
14. An Art of Artifice
15. The Faustian Body
Part VI. Libertarian Politics
16. Mapping Poverty
17. Hedonist Politics
18. A Practice of Resistance
Notes
Index

About the author

Michel Onfray, geb. 1959 im französischen Argentan, promovierter Philosoph, hat nach zwanzig Jahren seine Stelle als Philosophielehrer an einem technischen Gymnasium aufgegeben und 2002 die 'Université Populaire', die philosophische Volkshochschule, in Caen gegründet, zu der jedermann Zutritt hat. Jährlich besuchen tausende Zuhörer seine Vorlesungen. Er verfasste zahlreiche Bücher, unter anderem über die Theorie des Hedonismus, die in zehn Sprachen übersetzt wurden.

Summary

The provocative French intellectual promotes a radical body politics that shows us how we must think and act to live well.

Report

"A highly original contribution to the literature, A Hedonist Manifesto is a short, yet wide-ranging text that attempts to develop a post-Christian, post-Platonist, post-idealist ethical framework. I read it with great interest and enjoyment." Levi Bryant, Collin College

Product details

• Authors: Michel Onfray
• Assisted by: Joseph McClellan (Translation), Joseph (Northland College) McClellan (Translation), McClellan Joseph (Translation)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.11.2015
• EAN: 9780231171267
• ISBN: 978-0-231-17126-7
• No. of pages: 232
• Dimensions: 148 mm x 218 mm x 22 mm
• Series: Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture; Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / Social, PHILOSOPHY / Political, PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / General, PHILOSOPHY / Metaphysics, Social & political philosophy, Ethics & moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology, Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology, Ethics and moral philosophy, Philosophical traditions and schools of thought, History of Western philosophy