Overview

Crises abound. The ‘end of history’ in the form of the triumph of liberalism has given way to a proliferation of crises internal to liberal, and especially neoliberal democracies: our economies and ecosystems, democracies, social and labour relations, constitutions, cultures, identities, and bodies are subjected to repeated and increasingly severe shocks. Unsurprisingly, the vocabulary of crisis is ubiquitous. Ours, we are told, is an age of chronic, multiple, and mutually reinforcing cataclysms. But what exactly do we mean when we speak of crisis? Deceptively simple, the term has become a repository for a mass of fears, hopes and assumptions, bound up with the very institutions and techniques of government it so often claims to address. Overused and emptied out, it leads to either indecision and paralysis, or, at the other extreme, its cynical instrumentalization. To counter this, we need a philosophy, specifically a critique, of crisis. Crisis: A Critique presents crisis as a construction through which we understand, experience and order the world; as a discursive event, producing a range of effects. Drawing on a range of examples (from economic crises to social uprisings, pandemics, genocides, and ecological devastation) and discourses (from ancient medicine to legal theory, political economy, philosophy, the earth sciences, and eco-criticism), this ambitious work of conceptual archaeology and typology engages with a range of authors who have questioned the nature of the connection between crisis and critique. If our time “out of joint” presents a crisis of critique itself, Miguel de Beistegui takes a vital step towards re-calibrating our language and thought for an age of seemingly unrelenting catastrophe.

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9781350588868

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Reviews

In a brilliant philosophical and political analysis, Miguel Beistegui unfolds the multiple layers of what is undoubtedly the most important concept of our times. Infinitely subtle, beautifully written, Beistegui’s Crisis excavates four different regimes of crisis that permeate our world today, attentive to the very plasticity of the concept. He reveals how our times of crises have sparked a crisis of critique itself — one that we simply cannot escape. In the process, Crisis offers paths forward, forcing us out of our dogmatic slumber. This is a book for our times. * Bernard E. Harcourt, Corliss Lamont Professor of Law and Civil Liberties at Columbia University, USA *

Author Information

Miguel de Beistegui is Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, UK and ICREA Researcher in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. His previous titles include: The Government of Desire: A Genealogy of Liberalism (2018), Proust as Philosopher: The Art of Metaphor (2012), Aesthetics After Metaphysics: From Mimesis to Metaphor (2012), and Immanence: Deleuze and Philosophy (2010).

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