Series: Key Contemporary Thinkers

Byung-Chul Han is one of the most important living philosophers, renowned for his critiques of the digital age. In response to the idea that new technological devices expand our freedom, he argues that they lead to burnout and self-absorption and that we must redevelop contemplative practices which slow us down and open us up. He has brought to his thought...

Until recently, "continental" philosophy has been tied either to the German tradition of phenomenology or to French post-structuralist concerns with the conditions of language and textuality. Giorgio Agamben draws upon and departs from both these lines of thought by directing his entire corpus to the problem of life — political life, human life, animal life, and the life of art....

G. A. Cohen was one of the towering political philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His intellectual career was unusually wide-ranging, and he was celebrated internationally not only for his penetrating ideas about liberty, justice, and equality, but also for his method, a highly original and influential combination of analytical philosophy and Marxism. Christine Sypnowich guides readers...

This book provides a clear and comprehensive introduction to the work of Willard van Orman Quine, the most important and influential American philosopher of the post-war period. An understanding of Quine's work is essential for anyone who wishes to follow contemporary debates in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Hookway traces the development of Quine's work...

W.E.B Du Bois is widely considered one of the most accomplished and controversial African American intellectuals in U.S. history. A pioneering historian, sociologist, political economist, and civil rights activist, his masterpiece The Souls of Black Folk remains one of the most widely read books in the history of American literature. In this new book, Reiland Rabaka critically explores Du Bois’s...

Amartya Sen is one of the world’s best-known voices for the poor, the destitute, and the downtrodden, and an inspiration for policy makers and activists across the globe. He has also contributed almost without peer to the study of economics, philosophy, and politics, transforming social choice theory, development economics, ethics, political philosophy, and Indian political economy, to list but a...

H.L.A. Hart is among the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, with an especially great influence on the philosophy of law. His 1961 book The Concept of Law has become an enduring classic of legal philosophy and has also left a significant imprint on moral and political philosophy. In this volume, leading contemporary legal and political philosopher Matthew H....

Michael Walzer is one of the world’s most important political thinkers, whose major works, such as Spheres of Justice and Just and Unjust Wars, have transformed many central debates in contemporary political philosophy. In this book, Toby J. Reiner provides the most wide-ranging and up-to-date introduction to his work available. Reiner examines his writings on topics ranging from justice in...

Frantz Fanon was a French psychiatrist turned Algerian revolutionary of Martinican origin, and one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the postwar period. A veritable "intellect on fire," Fanon was a radical thinker with original theories on race, revolution, violence, identity, and agency. Fanon by Nigel C. Gibson is an excellent introduction to the ideas and legacy of...

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, widely recognised as one of the most important yet difficult philosophers of the 20th century. In this much-needed introduction, Davis unpacks the concepts at the centre of Levinas's thought—alterity, the Other, the Face, infinity—concepts that have previously presented readers with major problems of interpretation....