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Centre for Research in Philosophy and Literature

Philosophy and Tragedy

Edited by Miguel de Beistegui and Simon Sparks
Warwick Studies in European Philosophy

'Philosophy and Tragedy is an invaluable contribution to an enduring and fascinating debate.'
Jacques Taminaux, Boston College

From Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Poetics to Heidegger's Reflections, the theme of tragedy has been subject to radically conflicting philosophical interpretations. Yet despite this focus, tragedy has yet to receive proper treatment as a philosophical tradition in its own right.

Philosophy and Tragedy is a compelling contribution to that oversight and the first book to address the topic in a major way. Eleven new essays by internationally renowned philosophers clearly show how time and again, major thinkers have returned to tragedy in many of their key works. Philosophy and Tragedy asks why, in the wake of Kant, thinkers as far apart as Hegel and Benjamin have found themselves constrained by the theme of tragedy. Tracing a path from Hölderlin's Remarks to Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy and beyond, Philosophy and Tragedy presents an outstanding and original study of this preoccupation.

The five sections are organised clearly around five major philosophers: Hegel, Hölderlin, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Benjamin.

The Contributors: Miguel de Beistegui, Walter Brogan, Jean-François Courtine, Françoise Dastur, Günter Figal, Marc Froment-Meurice, Rodolphe Gasché, David Farrell Krell, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Will McNeill and Simon Sparks.

Essential reading for all those in contemporary philosophy, literature, and German Studies, Philosophy and Tragedy is a much-needed investigation of a topic central to contemporary thinking.

Miguel de Beistegui is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Warwick. Simon Sparks is Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University of Strasbourg.