Philosophy and the book
Subtitle: early modern figures of material inscription
By: Daniel Selcer
Series: Philosophy, aesthetics and cultural theory
Publisher: Continuum
Published: 2010
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 258
ISBN-13: 9781441113214; 9781441150097
Description: Philosophy and the Book examines the philosophical mobilization of metaphors for print, inscription, reading and knowledge organization in early modern philosophical texts in continental Europe. Primarily engaging with the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Bayle while also touching on Valla, Gassendi, Hobbes, Lamy, and others, the book explores the effect the explosion of early modern print technology, textual distribution and related cultural practices had on the early modern philosophical imagination. Daniel Selcer foregrounds a series of figures that were extremely important to many early modern philosophers as they sought to develop positions on the nature of the material world and our knowledge of it. He explores significant questions for the history of early modern philosophy in relation to the problem of the materiality of philosophical discourse and counterpoises these considerations with approaches in late twentieth-century continental philosophy, such as Foucaultian archaeology and Derridean deconstruction. Finally, through rhetorical analysis and historical contextualization, Selcer begins to sketch an 'ontology of the page'.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Infinite mechanism and the allegorical library; title: Encyclopedic method and the uninterrupted ocean; title: The materialist encyclopedia; title: Reading and repetition; title: The body and the book.