The One and the Others
Metaphysics, Poetry, and the Antinomies of Plato's "Parmenides"
Will be published approx. on 15. December 2025
Book
Hardback
296 pages
978-0-8101-4938-0 (ISBN)
Description
An original account of Western metaphysics based on Plato' s Parmenides
At the end of Plato's Parmenides, Parmenides concludes that 'whether' the One is or is not, it and 'the Others' both are and are not, and both appear and do not appear, all things in all ways. Throughout the history of philosophy various attempts have been made to make sense of Plato's puzzling dialectical exercise. In this ambitious book Andrew Cutrofello shows how Kant and Hegel extended it, how contemporary philosophers, including Graham Priest and Alain Badiou, have reinterpreted it, and how poets such as Dante, Shakespeare, Blake, Wordsworth, and Susan Howe have channeled it. What emerges is an original conception of the history of metaphysics as a series of antinomies, and of metaphysical poetry as a type of antinomianism.
At the end of Plato's Parmenides, Parmenides concludes that 'whether' the One is or is not, it and 'the Others' both are and are not, and both appear and do not appear, all things in all ways. Throughout the history of philosophy various attempts have been made to make sense of Plato's puzzling dialectical exercise. In this ambitious book Andrew Cutrofello shows how Kant and Hegel extended it, how contemporary philosophers, including Graham Priest and Alain Badiou, have reinterpreted it, and how poets such as Dante, Shakespeare, Blake, Wordsworth, and Susan Howe have channeled it. What emerges is an original conception of the history of metaphysics as a series of antinomies, and of metaphysical poetry as a type of antinomianism.
Reviews / Votes
"The One and the Others is an impressive, lively retelling of the history of Western philosophy as a series of attempts to resolve the paradoxes identified in Plato's Parmenides. Cutrofello provides a sympathetic and original examination of an extraordinary range of figures, both philosophical and literary, connecting each figure with one of the hypotheses Parmenides explores with the young Socrates in that dialogue. This book leaves us with an exciting, if dizzying picture of the history of metaphysics as a never-ending oscillation between a fixed number of intrinsically unstable positions." - Mark Alznauer, Northwestern UniversityMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Evanston
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
536 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8101-4938-0 (9780810149380)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Andrew Cutrofello is a professor of philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. His previous books include Imagining Otherwise: Metapsychology and the Analytic A Posteriori, published by Northwestern University Press, and All for Nothing: Hamlet's Negativity.
Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 On One Side and Other Side, Trojan and Greek: Plato's Parmenides and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida
Chapter 2 If the One Is: Priest and Dante
Chapter 3 If the One Is Not: Badiou and Howe
Chapter 4 If the Others Are: Kant and Blake
Chapter 5 If the Others Are Not: Hegel and Wordsworth
Chapter 6 On One Side and Other Side, Hegel and Genet: Shakespeare' s Antony and Cleopatra and Derrida's Glas
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
Chapter 1 On One Side and Other Side, Trojan and Greek: Plato's Parmenides and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida
Chapter 2 If the One Is: Priest and Dante
Chapter 3 If the One Is Not: Badiou and Howe
Chapter 4 If the Others Are: Kant and Blake
Chapter 5 If the Others Are Not: Hegel and Wordsworth
Chapter 6 On One Side and Other Side, Hegel and Genet: Shakespeare' s Antony and Cleopatra and Derrida's Glas
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index