Philosophy of the Encounter

Philosophy of the Encounter:Later Writings, 1978-1987

  • Paperback

    + free ebook

    Sale price ÂŁ22.99
    Page redirects on selection
    Add to cart
  • Hardback

    + free ebook

  • Ebook

    Sale price ÂŁ10.00
    Page redirects on selection
    Add to cart

A profound exploration of questions of determinism and contingency, from Epicurus to Marx

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Louis Althusser endured a period of intense mental instability during which he murdered his wife and was committed to a psychiatric hospital. Spanning this deeply troubling period, this fourth and final volume of political and philosophical writings reveals Althusser wrestling in a creative and unorthodox fashion with a whole series of theoretical problems to produce some of his very finest work. In his profound exploration of questions of determinism and contingency, Althusser developed a “philosophy of the encounter,” which he links to a hidden and subterranean tradition in the history of Western thought which stretches from Epicurus through Spinoza and Machiavelli to Marx, Derrida and Heidegger.

Reviews

  • Althusser traversed so many lives—so many personal, historical, philosophical and political adventures; marked, inflected, influenced so many discourses, actions and existences by the radiant and provocative force of his thought—that the most diverse and contradictory accounts could never exhaust their source.

    Jacques Derrida