Andrew Cutrofello has a long-standing interest in meta-philosophical disagreements about the philosophical enterprise. His book Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2005) explores the meta-philosophical significance of the disciplinary distinction between analytic and continental philosophy. On his account, this notoriously vague yet institutionally powerful distinction is best understood as a legacy of the Kantian critical project, indeed as a struggle over the Kantian legacy itself. To each of the four questions that Kant took to be fundamental to philosophy, the first analytic and continental philosophers proposed not alternative answers but alternative questions, and ever since it has been difficult for the inheritors of these new questions to explain themselves to one another. Having used Shakespeare's depiction of the Wars of the Roses as a rhetorical frame for his presentation of the analytic/continental division, Cutrofello is now exploring the role that Shakespeare himself has played in the history of philosophy. For the past thirteen years, he has been a professor at Loyola University Chicago. In addition to Continental Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction he is the author of three other books, including The Owl at Dawn: A Sequel to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (State University of New York, 1995).

Summary

"This is an excellently written, witty, and challenging book. It extends a Foucauldian debate on 'discipline' through an interesting critique of Kantian moralism and opens up new perspectives on a principled resistance in philosophy."

-- Martin Donougho, University of South Carolina

"Anyone interested in the current debates on poststructuralism and postmodernism, as well as anyone interested in the history of philosophy, or the connection between more 'traditional' philosophy and 'poststructuralist' philosophy, will find this work accessible and important." -- Tamsin Lorraine, Swarthmore College

Andrew Cutrofello demonstrates that in light of Michel Foucault's genealogical criticisms of the juridical model of power, it is possible to develop a postjuridical model of Kantian critique. Recasting game theory's celebrated "prisoner's dilemma" in Foucauldian terms, Cutrofello illuminates the techniques of mutual betrayal that train bodies to reason themselves into complicity with forces of subjugation. He shows how a genealogically reformulated version of Kantian ethics can provide the basic parameters of a "discipline of resistance" to such forces, and he argues for a more nuanced assessment of the stakes involved in the demise of philosophy as a disciplinary formation. Along the way, Cutrofello presents fascinating readings of Kant's own "care of the self" ethic, drawing on the conceptual resources of Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray. This tour-de-force will prompt social theorists to reconsider the way power functions in our modern/postmodern world.

"This is a powerful and provocative study of Kant, Foucault, and the construct of freedom. It focuses on what I believe to be the raging question among continental philosophers today: How in the wake of postmodernism can philosophers find a basis for normative theory?

"It will prove useful and exciting not only to the many continental philosophers who are finding that they can no longer ignore normative issues but also to theorists across the disciplines." --Cynthia Willett, University of Kansas

Andrew Cutrofello is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana.