Bartholomew Ryan

Antonio Cardiello

Giovanbattista Tusa

This pioneering volume explores the extraordinary Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) and his relationship to philosophy. On the one hand, this book reveals Pessoa’s serious knowledge of philosophy and playful philosophical explorations and how he has the gift of synthesizing, appropriating, and subverting complex ideas into his art; and, on the other hand, the chapters shed new light on central aspects and problems of philosophy through the prism of Pessoa’s diverse writings. The volume includes sixteen new essays from an international group of scholars, analyzing Pessoa’s multifaceted poetic work alongside philosophical themes and movements, from conceptions of time, ancient and modern aesthetics, philosophy of language, transcendentalism, immanence, and nihilism; to Islamic philosophy, Indian philosophy, Daoism, neo-paganism, and the philosophy of the self. The breadth of his work provides a springboard for new thinking on the aesthetic and the spiritual, the logic of value and capitalist modernity, and ecological thought and postmodernism. The volume also includes the most complete English translation of Pessoa's text (written by his heteronym Álvaro de Campos) called "Notes for the Memory of my Master Caeiro."

Countless Lives Inhabit Us

Fernando Pessoa and Philosophy

A critical biography of the modernist Portuguese writer. As a young man Fernando Pessoa aspired to, as he put it, “be plural like the universe.” He would fulfill this desire by inventing over one hundred fictional alter-egos which he called heteronyms. Beginning with Pessoa’s early days in Portugal, this philosophical biography explores the life, work, and imaginative universe of this modernist pioneer. Bartholomew Ryan offers a detailed overview of Pessoa’s writings on radical politics, his ventures into esoteric realms, and his expertise in astrology. Along the way, Ryan unravels Pessoa’s real and literary relationships and explores his unfinished prose masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet. This is a compelling, timely exploration of Pessoa’s profound, innovative ideas.

Fernando Pessoa

João Constâncio

Maria João Mayer Branco

Nietzsche's critique of the modern subject is often presented as a radical break with modern philosophy and associated with the so-called ‘death of the subject’ in 20th century philosophy. But Nietzsche claimed to be a ‘psychologist’ who was trying to open up the path for ‘new versions and sophistications of the soul hypothesis.’ Although there is no doubt that Nietzsche gave expression to a fundamental crisis of the modern conception of subjectivity (both from a theoretical and from a practical-existential perspective), it is open to debate whether he wanted to abandon the very idea of subjectivity or only to pose the problem of subjectivity in new terms. The volume includes 26 articles by top Nietzsche scholars. The chapters in Part I, “Tradition and Context”, deal with the relationship between Nietzsche's views on subjectivity and modern philosophy, as well as with the late 19th century context in which his thought emerged; Part II, “The Crisis of the Subject”, examines the impact of Nietzsche's critique of the subject on 20th century philosophy, from Freud to Heidegger to Dennett, but also in such authors as Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, or Luhmann; Part III, “Current Debates - From Embodiment and Consciousness to Agency”, shows that the way in which Nietzsche engaged with such themes as the self, agency, consciousness, embodiment and self-knowledge makes his thought highly relevant for philosophy today, especially for philosophy of mind and ethics.

Nietzsche and the Problem of Subjectivity

António Cardiello

This pioneering volume, for the first time, explores the extraordinary Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) and his relationship to philosophy. On the one hand, this book reveals Pessoa's serious knowledge of philosophy and playful philosophical explorations and how he has the gift of synthesizing, appropriating and subverting complex ideas into his art; and, on the other hand, the chapters shed new light on central aspects and problems of philosophy through the prism of Pessoa's diverse writings. The volume includes sixteen new essays from an international group of scholars, analyzing Pessoa's multifaceted poetic work alongside philosophical themes and movements, from conceptions of time, ancient aesthetics, philosophy of language, transcendentalism, immanence, nihilism; to Islamic philosophy, Indian philosophy, philosophy of religion, neo-paganism, the philosophy of the self. The breadth of his work provides a springboard for new thinking on the aesthetic and the spiritual, the logic of value and capitalist modernity, and ecological thought and postmodernism.

M. Darsie Alexander

"Published on the occasion of the exhibition International Pop, organized by Darsie Alexander with Bartholomew Ryan for the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis."

Bartholomew Ryan

Books

Your next favorite book is out there