An intellectual history of cannibalism / Catalin Avramescu ; translated by Alistair Ian Blyth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Avramescu, Cătălin, 1967-

Standardized Title:

Filozoful crud. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cannibalism--Philosophy.

Cannibalism.

Cannibalism--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (361 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The cannibal has played a surprisingly important role in the history of thought--perhaps the ultimate symbol of savagery and degradation-- haunting the Western imagination since before the Age of Discovery, when Europeans first encountered genuine cannibals and related horrible stories of shipwrecked travelers eating each other. An Intellectual History of Cannibalism is the first book to systematically examine the role of the cannibal in the arguments of philosophers, from the classical period to modern disputes about such wide-ranging issues as vegetarianism and the right to private property. Catalin Avramescu shows how the cannibal is, before anything else, a theoretical creature, one whose fate sheds light on the decline of theories of natural law, the emergence of modernity, and contemporary notions about good and evil. This provocative history of ideas traces the cannibal's appearance throughout Western thought, first as a creature springing from the menagerie of natural law, later as a diabolical retort to theological dogmas about the resurrection of the body, and finally to present-day social, ethical, and political debates in which the cannibal is viewed through the lens of anthropology or invoked in the service of moral relativism. Ultimately, An Intellectual History of Cannibalism is the story of the birth of modernity and of the philosophies of culture that arose in the wake of the Enlightenment. It is a book that lays bare the darker fears and impulses that course through the Western intellectual tradition.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One. A Hobbesian Life Raft

Chapter Two. The Tortures and Fate of the Body

Chapter Three. Creatures of Evil

Chapter Four. The Conquest of the Savages

Chapter Five. The Predicaments of Identity

Chapter Six. A Question of Taste

Chapter Seven. The Anthropophagus in the City

Chapter Eight. The Agent of Absolute Cruelty

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9786613168962

9781283168960

1283168960

9781400833207

1400833205

OCLC:

743693582