The Subject of Philosophy

"The Subject of Philosophy" presents a sustained examination of the relation between literature and philosophy with special emphasis on the problem of the subject and of representation. Spanning the history of philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger, and addressing such major moments in the history of literature as Greek tragedy and German romanticism, The book repeatedly raises the question whether philosophy's very attempts to distinguish itself from literature are not conditioned and exceeded by a fundamental inextricability of the two. In these readings, Lacoue-Labarthe focuses on such issues as the nature of fiction and of figurative language, the fate of the "work", the status of the author, the question of madness, and the definition of gender. He broaches as well the analysis of mimesis, the most important concept of his later work and one that already gives to his persistent aesthetic preoccupations an ethical and political resonance. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe is the author of many books, including "Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics", "Heidegger, Art and Politics", and, with Jean-Luc Nancy, "The Literary Absolute". This book is intended for those in the fields of literary theory, philosophy.