A philosophy of the possible : modalities in thought and culture / by Mikhail Epstein ; translated from the Russian by Vern W. McGee and Marina Eskina.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Epstein, Mikhail, author.

Contributor:

McGee, Vern, translator.

Ėskina, Marina, translator.

Series:

Value Inquiry Book Series 333.

Value inquiry book series, 0929-8436 ; volume 333

Standardized Title:

Filosofii︠a︡ vozmozhnogo. English

Language:

English

Russian

Subjects (All):

Possibility.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (379 pages).

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill Rodopi, [2019]

Language Note:

In English, translated from Russian.

Summary:

In this book, Mikhail Epstein offers a systematic theory of modalities (the actual, possible, and necessary), as applied to the discourse of philosophy in its post-Kantian and especially post-Derridean perspectives. He relies on his own experience of living in the USSR and the US, dominated respectively by imperative and possibilist modalities. Possibilism assumes that a thing or event acquires meaning only in the context of its multiple possibilities, inviting counterfactual and conditional modes of description. The author focuses on the creative potentials of possibilistic thinking and its heuristic value. The book demonstrates the range of modal approaches to society, culture, ethics, and language, and outlines potentiology as a new philosophical discipline interacting with ontology and epistemology.

Contents:

Front Matter

Copyright Page

Dedication

Preface

Introduction: Fundamental Concepts of the Theory of the Possible

The Possible in Philosophy

Criticism and Activism

Philosophy and Reality

Change of Modalities in the History of Philosophy

Philosophy as Possibilistic Thinking

The Area of the Thinkable: the Value of Thinking in Itself

Theory, Utopia, and Hypothesis

Catharsis of Thinking

Personified Thinking

Possible and Impossible: Aporia of Thinking

Language, Thinking, and Signifiability

Universals as Potentials: Conceptualism

From the General to the Concrete and Universal

Multiplication of Entities

Philosophy as Parody and Grotesque

The Fate of Metaphysics: from Deconstruction to Possibilization

Introduction to Part 2

Reverse Metaphysics: Critique and Deconstruction

Beyond Being and Nothingness: the Feeling of the Possible

A Worldview, Not a Point of View: “A Net with No Knots”

The Possible in Jean Derrida

The Metaphysics of Deconstruction: the Main Terms

The Radical Nature of Difference: Profit and Transcendence

Center and Structure

Reverse Metaphysics: the Other, the Play, and the Writing

Différance and the Tao

Construction and Possibilization

From Deconstruction to Construction

Construction and Creativity

De- and Con-

Potentiation as Method: Eros of Thinking

What Is “the Interesting”? Proposed Criteria

Small Metaphysics: the Unique

The Worlds of the Possible

Introduction to Part 3

Society

Culture

Ethics

Psychology

Religion

Conclusion

Back Matter

To Be Able, to Be, and to Know: a System of Modalities

Index of Names.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

90-04-39834-1

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004398344 DOI