The Wounded World: Essays on Ethics and Politics

Description

Thinking takes its birth at the moment of it being wounded, the moment when the world suddenly opens itself like a wound, when an immense question mark erupts in the middle of our life and when nothing in the world appears to be so absolute and self-sufficient. If there were no such wound, if the world as it exists were sufficient for the mortals, philosophy would be mere superfluous luxury, a pass-time for idle chatter, a prattle arising out of boredom. These essays take their points of departure from such an irreducible experience of being wounded. Such an "experience" of being wounded arises from the eruption of mortality at the very heart of existence itself, rendering each thought of the world and each task of the mortals destined to a fundamental incompletion and destitution. bereft of the consolation which Infinite alone can give to us. Hence the thoughts that these essays open us to, may to be called "finite thoughts". Taking up to read some of the most important works of modern philosophy like Hegel and Kierkegaard and philosophers from the last century like Martin Heidegger, Franz Rosenzweig and Jacques Derrida, this book gives itslef the task to renew the idea that philosophy must not shy away from the desert of the world but rather must undertake anew the very adventure of thinking and existing from this wound of life and to envisage out of this very wound the possibility of an ethical and political existence for these wouded beings called "mortal".

A former Fellow at Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla,Saitya Brata Dascurrently teaches at Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is associated with UFR Philosophie, Universite de Strasbourg, France and with Maison des Sciences de L’ Homme, Paris, France. where he was Post Doctorate Fellow during the academic year 2006-2007. His first book length study calledThe Promise of Time: Towards a Phenomenology of Promise(2011) is published from Indian Institute of Advanced Study.