Encounters with Alphonso Lingis

Encounters with Alphonso Lingis is the first extensive study of this American philosopher who is gaining an international reputation to augment his national one. Lingis's books have already been translated into nearly a dozen languages, and writers from many disciplines are finding his works a source for fresh philosophical and scholarly inquiries. The distinguished contributors to this volume reflect on their own encounters with this unique American thinker as they engage his work from their various critical perspectives. They address most of the central themes found in his writings-including singularity and otherness, death and eroticism, emotions and rationality, embodiment and the face, excess and the sacred. In the book's first section, the contributors discuss Lingis's significance as a contemporary philosopher, particularly with regard to such renowned figures as Dante, Kant, Nietzsche, Foucault, and the major existential and phenomenological thinkers of the past century. In the second section, they focus on Lingis's ideas as the basis for inquiries into additional fields, such as art, literature, cultural studies, and politics. The book closes with a new essay by Lingis himself.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Locating Lingis in Traditions of Thought Chapter 2 Far from the Pallid Float Chapter 3 Seeing the Named, Naming the Seen: Relations to the Tradition Chapter 4 Reflections Since Dangerous Emotions: Interview with Alphonso Lingis, 2002 Chapter 5 The Sacred Vision of a Solitary Voyager Chapter 6 Encounter the World, Keep a Clear Eye Chapter 7 Silent Communities: Foucault and Lingis on the End of Philosophy Chapter 8 Foreign Bodies: Interview with Alphonso Lingis (1996) Part 9 Departures: Singular and Common Realities Chapter 10 Limits, Borders, and Shores of Singularity Chapter 11 Dream of a Blind Sculptress Chapter 12 Naked Chapter 13 There is Always Another Island Chapter 14 Mapping the Earth Otherwise Chapter 15 Grief Suspended: Lingis, Cavell, Emerson Part 16 The Return Home Chapter 17 Trust

About the Author :
Alexander E. Hooke is Professor of Philosophy at Villa Julie College. He is the editor of Virtuous Persons, Vicious Deeds (1998). Wolfgang W. Fuchs is Professor of Philosophy at Towson State University.

Review :
The studies gathered here, written by some of the leading philosophers on both sides of the Atlantic, bear witness to the importance of Alphonso Lingis as one of the most original voices in contemporary American philosophy. For more than three decades he has been jolting American academicians out of their settled ways of thinking and writing with a series of brilliant, provocative, and original studies of phenomena of elemental importance. As the contributors to this volume remind us, Lingis has impressed on us a renewed sense of our impassioned and embodied existence and he has taught an entire generation of American philosophers how to think for themselves while maintaining a dialogue with the great masters of European philosophy.