Philosophy and Kafka

The relationship of philosophy with Kafka’s oeuvre is complex. It has been argued that Kafka’s novels and stories defy philosophic extrapolation; conversely, it has also been suggested that precisely the tendency of Kafka’s writings to elude discursive solution is itself a philosophical tendency, one that is somehow contributing to a wiser relationship of human beings with language. These matters are the focus of the proposed volume on Philosophy and Kafka. The proposed collection brings together essays that interrogate the relationship of philosophy and Kafka, and offer new and original interpretations. The volume obviously cannot claim completeness, but it partially does justice to the multiplicity of philosophical issues and philosophical interpretations at stake. This variety informs the composition of the volume itself. A number of essays focus on specific philosophical commentaries on Kafka’s work, from Adorno’s to Agamben’s, from Arendt’s to Benjamin’s, from Deleuze and Guattari’s to Derrida’s. A number of essays consider the possible relevance of certain philosophical outlooks for examining Kafka’s writings: here Kafka’s name goes alongside those of Socrates, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Buber, Heidegger, Blanchot, and Levinas. Finally, a number of essays consider Kafka’s writings in terms of a specific philosophical theme, such as communication and subjectivity, language and meaning, knowledge and truth, the human/animal divide, justice, and freedom. In all contributions to the volume, such themes, motifs, and interpretations arise. To varying degrees, all essays are concerned with the relationship of literature and philosophy, and thus with the philosophical significance of Kafka’s writings.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part 1: Philosophical Investigations Chapter 1: I Don’t Want to Know that I Know: The Inversion of Socratic Ignorance in the Knowledge of the Dogs Chapter 2: Kafka’s Empty Law: Laughter and Freedom in The Trial Chapter 3: A Kafkan Sublime: Dark Poetics on the Kantian Philosophy Chapter 4: The Everyday’s Fabulous Beyond: Nonsense, Parable, and the Ethics of the Literary in Kafka and Wittgenstein Chapter 5: You’re nobody ‘til somebody loves you: Communication and the Social Destruction of Subjectivity in Kafka’s Metamorphosis Chapter 6: Kafka’s Insomnia Part 2: Philosophical Topics Chapter 7: Animal Bachelors and Animal Brides: Fabulous Metamorphosis in Kafka and Garnett Chapter 8: Kafka’s Political Animals Chapter 9: The Calamity of the Rightless: Hannah Arendt and Franz Kafka on Monsters and Members Chapter 10: Knowing Life Before the Law: Kafka, Kelsen, Derrida Part 3: Philosophical Readings Chapter 11: Anxiety and Attention: Benjamin and Others Chapter 12: On the Mimesis of Reification: Adorno’s Critical Theoretical Interpretation of Kafka Chapter 13: “In the Penal Colony” in the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze Chapter 14: In a Messianic Gesture: Agamben’s Kafka Index About the Contributors

About the Author :
Brendan Moran is currently research scholar at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, and Adjunct associate professor at the University of Calgary, Canada, where he has taught in the Department of Philosophy, the Faculty of Humanities, and the Faculty of Arts. Under the anagrammatic “pseudonym,” Monad Rrenban, he has published Wild, Unforgettable Philosophy, a book on Walter Benjamin’s early writings. He has also published essays on Benjamin, Agamben, and Salomo Friedlaender, and is completing a book on Benjamin’s Kafkan politics. Carlo Salzani holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Verona (Italy) and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Monash University (Australia). He has published Crisi e possibilità: Robert Musil e il tramonto dell’Occidente (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010), Constellations of Readings: Walter Benjamin in Figures of Actuality (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009) and co-edited Essays on Boredom and Modernity (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009). He has translated into Italian some of Slavoj Žižek’s books.

Review :
Several readings are illuminating. ... Philosophy and Kafka contains many valuable insights. ... The illuminating moments of Philosophy and Kafka will reward curious fans of Kafka's work. These illuminating essays explore some of the ways in which the ideas of philosophers such as Socrates, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, and Kant are at play in Kafka's writing, and the ways in which more recent philosophers such as Adorno, Agamben, Arendt, and Benjamin have considered Kafka's work. What is more, many of the essays collected here shed light on the ways in which Kafka's own thinking can contribute to on-going philosophical debates about issues such as the conditions for identity, the nature of animality, the requirements of justice, and the moral implications and promise of certain forms of writing. Philosophy and Kafka is an important and long overdue contribution to Kafka scholarship as well as to philosophical reflection on a range of pressing issues. This essay collection – the first of its kind – explores a rich variety of ways in which Kafka’s writings are bound to philosophical concerns. It bridges the gap between the philosophical and the literary, highlighting how the two coexist and illuminate one another. From Socrates to Agamben, from Kierkegaard to Wittgenstein, ethics and aesthetics, logic and literature, Kafka’s prose resonates, reflects and provokes. By bringing together scholars from different disciplines, "Philosophy and Kafka" establishes fascinating new paths of enquiry into Kafka’s thinking and philosophers’ engagement with it. It allows us to understand why we continue to be captured by Kafka’s writing, standing as a testament to its relevance, and attesting to the vitality of the research it inspires.