On Humour (Thinking in Action)

Does humour make us human, or do the cats and dogs laugh along with us? On Humour is a fascinating, beautifully written and funny book on what humour can tell us about being human. Simon Critchley skilfully probes some of the most perennial but least understood aspects of humour, such as our tendency to laugh at animals and our bodies, why we mock death with comedy and why we think it's funny when people act like machines. He also looks at the darker side of humour, as rife in sexism and racism and argues that it is important for reminding us of people we would rather not be.

Humor & Entertainment

Simon Critchley

Humor

Routledge

Does humour make us human, or do the cats and dogs laugh along with us? On Humour is a fascinating, beautifully written and funny book on what humour can tell us about being human. Simon Critchley skilfully probes some of the most perennial but least understood aspects of humour, such as our tendency to laugh at animals and our bodies, why we mock death with comedy and why we think it's funny when people act like machines. He also looks at the darker side of humour, as rife in sexism and racism and argues that it is important for reminding us of people we would rather not be.

This book is an invitation to read poetry. Simon Critchley argues that poetry enlarges life with a range of observation, power of expression and attention to language that eclipses any other medium. In a rich engagement with the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Critchley reveals that poetry also contains deep and important philosophical insight. Above all, he agues for a 'poetic epistemology' that enables us to think afresh the philosophical problem of the relation between mind and world, and ultimately to cast the problem away. Drawing astutely on Kant, the German and English Romantics and Heidegger, Critchley argues that through its descriptions of particular things and their stubborn plainness - whether water, guitars, trees, or cats - poetry evokes the 'mereness' of things. It is this experience, he shows, that provokes the mood of calm and releases the imaginative insight we need to press back against the pressure of reality. Critchley also argues that this calm defines the cinematic eye of Terrence Malick, whose work is discussed at the end of the book.

Things Merely Are: Philosophy in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

On Heidegger's Being and Time

On Heidegger's Being and Time is an outstanding exploration of Heidegger's most important work by two major philosophers. Simon Critchley argues that we must see Being and Time as a radicalization of Husserl's phenomenology, particularly his theories of intentionality, categorial intuition, and the phenomenological concept of the a priori. This leads to a reappraisal and defense of Heidegger's conception of phenomenology. In contrast, Reiner Schürmann urges us to read Heidegger 'backward', arguing that his later work is the key to unravelling Being and Time. Through a close reading of Being and Time Schürmann demonstrates that this work is ultimately aporetic because the notion of Being elaborated in his later work is already at play within it. This is the first time that Schürmann's renowned lectures on Heidegger have been published. The book concludes with Critchley's reinterpretation of the importance of authenticity in Being and Time. Arguing for what he calls an 'originary inauthenticity', Critchley proposes a relational understanding of the key concepts of the second part of Being and Time: death, conscience and temporality.

Politics & Social Sciences

Reiner Schürmann

Philosophy

Log 22: The Absurd gets serious about the seemingly irrational side of architecture. Guest edited by Michael Meredith of MOS, this special thematic issue identifies the funny, ugly, contradictory, and more fuzzy realms of architecture, disavowing the purported orderliness of disciplinary presumptions to uncloak the implausibility at its core (maybe even its origin) and present new possibilities for experimentation. Sketches, tweets, a book of exorcisms, a comic, and a special DVD are presented alongside critical and provocative essays on hoarding, disaster, failure, and bowlers (as in hats). Log 22 features: Sylvia Lavin on architecture's accommodation of hoarding; Jacques Ranciere on the conundrums of art and life; and Lucia Allais on Superstudio's 'Salvages of Italian Historic Centers,' a 1974 project presented here for the first time in English. Also in the issue: Mark Jarzombek on Bruno Taut's attack of seriousness; David Foster Wallace on Kafka's funniness; Amanda Reeser Lawrence on the self-influence of James Stirling; Caroline O'Donnell on Karl Rosenkranz's aesthetic of ugliness; and K. Michael Hays and Marrikka Trotter on fictions in recent architecture. Plus: a comic by Jimenez Lai; a spectrum of social orderliness by Jeffrey Kipnis; an overlooked Donald Judd project; machines by Francois Roche; tweets from the Bauhaus; a DVD by MOS; and much more.

Log 22

Tom McCarthy

Michael Meredith

Jimenez Lai

François Roche

Sylvia Lavin

Mark Jarzombek

K. Michael Hays

Jeffrey Kipnis

Sam Jacob

Amanda Reeser Lawrence

John McMorrough

Lucia Allais

Timothy Hyde

Caroline O'Donnell

Michael Osman

Superstudio

Anyone Corporation

Memory Theatre

Fitzcarraldo Editions

Humor (Routledge filosofie)

On Humour

Taylor&Francis

[Edited and introduced by Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley][Read by Sean Pratt and Marguerite Gavin]A timeless volume to be treasured, The Stone Reader provides an unparalleled overview of contemporary philosophy.Once solely the province of ivory tower professors and college classrooms, contemporary philosophy was finally emancipated from its academic closet in 2010, when the Stone was launched in the New York Times. First appearing as an online series, the column quickly attracted millions of readers through its accessible examination of universal topics like the nature of science, consciousness, and morality, while also probing more contemporary issues such as the morality of drones, gun control, and the gender divide.The Stone Reader presents 133 meaningful and influential essays from the series, placing nearly the entirety of modern philosophical discourse in the listener's reach. The audiobook, divided into four broad sections: Philosophy, Science, Religion and Morals, and Society, opens with a series of questions about the scope, history, and identity of philosophy. What are the practical uses of philosophy? Does the discipline, begun in the West in ancient Greece with Socrates, favor men and exclude women? Does the history and study of philosophy betray a racial bias against nonwhite thinkers, or geographical bias toward the West?These questions and others form a foundation for listeners as the audiobook moves to the second section, Science, where some of our most urgent contemporary philosophical debates are taking place. Will artificial intelligence compromise our morality? Does neuroscience undermine our free will? Is there a legitimate place for the humanities in a world where science and technology appear to rule? Should the evidence for global warming change the way we live or die?In the book's third section, Religion and Morals, we find philosophy where it is often at its best, working through the arguments provoked by competing moral theories in the face of real-life issues and rigorously addressing familiar ethical dilemmas in a new light. Can we have a true moral life without belief in God? What are the dangers of moral relativism?In its final part, Society, The Stone Reader returns to its origins as a forum to encourage philosophers who are willing to engage closely, critically, and analytically with the affairs of the day, including economic inequality, technology, and racial discrimination. In directly confronting events like the September 11 attacks, the killing of Trayvon Martin, and the Sandy Hook School massacre, the essays here reveal the power of philosophy to help shape our viewpoints on nearly every issue we face today.

The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments

Various, Authors

Peter Catapano

Gildan Audio and Blackstone Audio

On Bowie

Arts & Photography

Music

Serpent's Tail

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Books by Simon Critchley