Jeff Malpas

5. Malpas, Jeff, ed. From Kant to Davidson: Philosophy and the Idea of the Transcendental. London: Routledge, 2003. 237 pp.

I can confirm that I read this book. Was it enjoyable? No. Did I learn anything new? A few things. Beyond that, the discussions here on the path that transcendental philosophy took after Kant, and who exactly was a transcendentalist and who was not got a little tedious. There were nuggets about perception and reason that were interesting, such as the role of logic in the sensual. Outside of that, this one has a stereo instructions vibe to it. I understood most of the words, but there is not lasting picture of the book for me. I am definitely not the intended audience here. This is more like a collection of essays that a graduate student would have to read for a seminar class. Approach with caution.… (mere)

J.E. Malpas explores "Proust's Principle" of "the place-bound identity of persons" in this academic and philosophical study of the connections between humans and human culture on the one hand, and place and space on the other. As humans are physical beings, he argues that "place is integral to the very structure and possibility of experience," and he draws upon multiple disciplines and genres, in his exploration of the idea...

Here is another book, much like John Wylie's 2007 Landscape, that I might never have picked up, had I not been writing a paper for my children's literature masters, on the use and significance of place and landscape in two children's novels - Eilís Dillon's The Island of Ghosts and Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Malpas' book is definitely outside of the areas of study with which I normally concern myself, and it didn't end up being that germane to my work, as I decided to use the topos idea, found in Jane Suzanne Carroll's Landscape in Children's Literature, in the aforementioned paper. That said, I did find it interesting, if for no other reason than it made me think about place and space in ways I had not hitherto. I have not read a number of the philosophers the author quotes, but that did not detract from the sense of Malpas' argument in any significant way. This is a rather specialized book, and probably will not have much interest outside of certain academic circles. Recommended largely to those readers interested in the academic study of the idea of place.… (mere)

Als Gründe für das Erscheinen dieses Buches nennen die Herausgeber in ihrem Vorwort nicht nur eine gewisse persönliche Betroffenheit, von der man bei (fast) allen Menschen sprechen kann, sobald das Thema des Todes berührt wird, sondern auch die überaus reichen Anmerkungen zum Thema des Todes bei Philosophen wie u. a. Martin Heidegger oder Sören Kierkegaard. In der zeitgenössischen philosophischen Diskussion würde dieses Thema jedoch leider nur am Rande behandelt werden. Im Falle, dass dieses Thema aufs Tableau kommt, ist das meist nur im Zusammenhang der Bioethik und den technischen Definitionen des Todes (zum Beispiel jenen des Hirntods) der Fall, die vor allem wichtig werden in Zusammenhang mit bestimmten legalen oder ethischen Angelegenheiten. Malpas und Solomon distanzieren sich ausdrücklich vom Thema des Todes, wie es in solchen technischen Definitionen behandelt wird. Das Anliegen dieses Bandes wäre somit tatsächlich eines der persönlichen Betroffenheit über den Tod, wie er im Leben der Menschen zu figurieren scheint und somit ein solches, das aus persönlichen Todeserfahrungen so etwas wie die Bedeutsamkeit des Lebens oder eben die Schmälerung einer solchen Bedeutsamkeit herauszustellen imstande wäre.… (mere)