Philosophy and literature in times of crisis : challenging our infatuation with numbers / Michael Mack.
2014
PN51 .M17 2014 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection
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Details
Title
Philosophy and literature in times of crisis : challenging our infatuation with numbers / Michael Mack.
Author
Mack, Michael, 1969-2020.
ISBN
9781623566494 paperback
1623566495 paperback
9781623560461 hardcover
1623560462 hardcover
1623566495 paperback
9781623560461 hardcover
1623560462 hardcover
Published
New York : Bloomsbury, 2014.
Language
English
Description
viii, 234 pages ; 22 cm
Call Number
PN51 .M17 2014
Dewey Decimal Classification
809/.93358
Summary
"Analyses the heuristic value of fiction by highlighting literature and philosophy's potential impact on economics, health care, bioethics, public policy and theology"-- Provided by publisher.
"Highlighting literature and philosophy's potential impact on economics, health care, bioethics, public policy and theology, this book analyses the heuristic value of fiction. It alerts us to how we risk succumbing to the deceptions of fiction in our everyday lives, because fictional representations constantly feign to be of the real and claim a reality of their own. Philosophy and literature disclose how the substantive sphere of social, economic and medical practice is sometimes driven and shaped by the affect-ridden and subjective. Analysing a wide range of literature--from Augustine, Shakespeare, Spinoza and Deleuze to Kafka, Sylvia Plath, Philip Roth, W. G. Sebald and Jonathan Littell--Michael Mack rethinks ethical attitudes towards the long or eternal life. In so doing he shows how philosophy and literature turn representation against itself to expose the hollowness of theologically grand concepts that govern our secular approach towards ethics, economics and medicine. Philosophy and literature help us resist our current infatuation with numbers and the numerical and contribute towards a future politics that is at once singular and diverse"-- Provided by publisher.
"Highlighting literature and philosophy's potential impact on economics, health care, bioethics, public policy and theology, this book analyses the heuristic value of fiction. It alerts us to how we risk succumbing to the deceptions of fiction in our everyday lives, because fictional representations constantly feign to be of the real and claim a reality of their own. Philosophy and literature disclose how the substantive sphere of social, economic and medical practice is sometimes driven and shaped by the affect-ridden and subjective. Analysing a wide range of literature--from Augustine, Shakespeare, Spinoza and Deleuze to Kafka, Sylvia Plath, Philip Roth, W. G. Sebald and Jonathan Littell--Michael Mack rethinks ethical attitudes towards the long or eternal life. In so doing he shows how philosophy and literature turn representation against itself to expose the hollowness of theologically grand concepts that govern our secular approach towards ethics, economics and medicine. Philosophy and literature help us resist our current infatuation with numbers and the numerical and contribute towards a future politics that is at once singular and diverse"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Linked Resources
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Table of Contents
Introduction: Objects and number: Our Current Infatuation
1. What is it about Numbers?
2. Playing the Numbers: Ethics and Economics
3. Certainty and the Predictability of Numbers: The Question of Literary Ethics
4. A Disenchantment with Numbers: Philosophy and Literature
5. Medicine and the Limits of Numbers
6. Towards a Numerical Ambiguity
7. Conclusion: From Numbers to the Individual: A New Ethics of Subjectivity.
1. What is it about Numbers?
2. Playing the Numbers: Ethics and Economics
3. Certainty and the Predictability of Numbers: The Question of Literary Ethics
4. A Disenchantment with Numbers: Philosophy and Literature
5. Medicine and the Limits of Numbers
6. Towards a Numerical Ambiguity
7. Conclusion: From Numbers to the Individual: A New Ethics of Subjectivity.