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List of contents
Introduction
Part 1: Interpretations
1. From Affect to Action to Interpretation: On Michel Henry’s Theoria of Immanent Praxis (Frédéric Seyler, de Paul University, USA)
2. Affective Labor and the Henry-Ricoeur Debate over Marx (Scott Davidson, West Virginia University, USA)
3. Spiritual Life and Cultural Discernment: Thinking Spirituality through Michel Henry (Neal DeRoo, Kings University, Canada)
4. Working in the “World of Life”: Michel Henry’s Philosophy of Subjective Labor (Jeffrey Hanson, Havard University, USA)
5. Freud after Henry (Ruud Welten, Tilburg University, The Netherlands)
6. The World or Life’s Fragility: A New Critical Reading of Henry’s Phenomenology of Life (Paula Lorelle, Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, France)
Part 2: Applications
7. The Liberal Subject: The Politics of Life in Michel Henry (Joseph Rivera, Dublin City University, Ireland)
8. Michel Henry’s Barbarism and the practices of education (Brian Harding, Texas Women's University, USA)
9. Russian Avant-Garde and Michel Henry’s Radical Phenomenology (Ioulia Podoroga, Geneva University, Switzerland)
10. Affectivity and its Effects: Social Prospects for the Pathetic Community (Aaron Simmons, Furman University, USA and Maia Wellborn, Fordham University, USA)
Conclusion
Index
About the author
Jeffrey Hanson is Senior Philosopher in The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, USA. He is author of Kierkegaard and the Life of Faith: The Aesthetic, the Ethical, and the Religious in "Fear and Trembling" (2017), Kierkegaard as Phenomenologist: An Experiment (2010), and co-editor with Michael R. Kelly of Michel Henry: The Affects of Thought (Bloomsbury, 2013).Brian Harding is Professor of Philosophy at Texas Women's University, USA. He is author of Not Even a God can Save us Now: Reading Machiavelli after Heidegger (2017) and co-editor with Michael R. Kelly of Early Phenomenology: Metaphysics, Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion (Bloomsbury, 2016).Michael R. Kelly is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego, USA. He is co-editor of Bergson and Phenomenology (2010), with Jefferey Hanson Michel Henry: The Affects of Thought (Bloomsbury, 2012), and with Brian Harding, Early Phenomenology: Metaphysics, Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion (Bloomsbury, 2016) and Phenomenology and the Problem of Time (2016).
Summary
Providing theoretical and applied analyses of Michel Henry’s practical philosophy in light of his guiding idea of Life, this is the first sustained exploration of Henry’s practical thought in anglophone literature, reaffirming his centrality to contemporary continental thought. This book ranges from the tension between his methodological insistence on life as non-intentional and worldly activities to Henry’s engagement with the practical philosophy of intellectuals such as Marx, Freud, and Kandisky to topics of application such as labor, abstract art, education, political liberalism, and spiritual life.
An international team of leading Henry scholars examine a vital dimension of Henry's thinking that has remained under-explored for too long.
Foreword
The first book in English on the practical thought - particularly the ethical and political dimensions - of leading 20th-century French philosopher, Michel Henry.
Additional text
Michel Henry's philosophy of action is as momentous as his philosophy of life, but less well understood. He wants to uncover the real motivation of human action, where pathos and freedom coincide, where the fate of democracy, culture, and life itself, all hang in the balance. The essays in this book help bring to light this important dimension of Henry’s thought.
