One of the most pressing concerns for contemporary society is the issue of violence and the factors that promote it. In "Altared Ground: Levinas, History and Violence, Brian Schroeder stages an engagement between Emmanuel Levinas, one of the leading figures in 20th century Continental philosophy, and Plato, Hegel, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and others in the history of ideas. Not merely an exposition of Levinas' original and complex ethical thinking, Brian Schroeder seeks to re-read the history of Western philosophy and religion by going beyond Levinas' alternatives to traditional theories of the self in order to suggest a notion of subjectivity that is not grounded in violence.
Schroeder contributes to current discussions of re-conceiving subjectity as intersubjectivity in a postmodern context through a sustained analysis of interpersonal violence. In addition, he takes up the themes of alterity, ground, transcendence, responsibility, language, community, politics, Divinity, and futurity.
This interdisciplinary work will appeal not only to philosophers but to those in theology, religious studies, literary theory, and to anyone else interested in issues of subjectivity and societal violence.
