Retreating the Political

This collection of essays presents, for the first time in English, some of the key essays on the political by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy. Including several unpublished essays, Retreating the Political offers some highly original perspectives on the relationship between philosophy and the political.
Through contemporary readings of the political in Freud, Heidegger and Marx, the authors ask if we can talk of an a priori link between the philosophical and the political; they investigate the significance of the ’figure’ - the human being as political subject - in the history of metaphysics; and they inquire how we can ’re-treat’ the political today in the face of those who argue that philosophy is at an ’end’.

Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy are both Professors of the Faculté de Philosophie, Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg and Visiting Professors at the University of California, Berkeley. Their most recent books include Musica Ficta, The Experience of Freedom and The Birth of Presence and have all been translated into English.