The Fragility of Concern for Others - (Contemporary Continental Ethics) by Estelle Ferrarese (Paperback)

About the Book

Ferrarese develops our thinking about the social conditions of caring for others, while arguing for an understanding of morality that is materialist and political - always-already political.

Book Synopsis

Estelle Ferrarese is one of the leading figures of the contemporary French reception of Critical Theory and this book offers a renewal of the thinking of Theodor W. Adorno.
Ferrarese develops our thinking about the social conditions of caring for others, while arguing for an understanding of morality that is materialist and political - always-already political.
Taking the social philosopher Theodor W. Adorno as a point of departure, she questions this social philosophy by submitting it to ideas deriving from theories of care. She thinks through the mechanisms of the social fragility of caring for others, the moral gesture it enjoins, as well as its political stakes.
In the end, Ferrarese shows that the capitalist form of life, strained by a generalised indifference, produces a compartmentalised attention to others, one limited to very particular tasks and domains and attributed to women

From the Back Cover

A systematic reflection on the social conditions of caring for others Estelle Ferrarese argues for an understanding of morality that is materialist and political. Taking the Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor W. Adorno as a point of departure, she questions his social philosophy by submitting it to ideas deriving from theories of care. She thinks through the mechanisms of the social fragility of caring for others, the moral gestures it enjoins, as well as its political stakes. Ferrarese shows that the capitalist form of life, strained by a generalised indifference, produces a compartmentalised attention to others, one limited to very particular tasks and domains and attributed to women. Offering a systematic study of the idea of 'coldness' in Adorno's philosophy, she stages a dialogue between Adornian Critical Theory and the ethics of care. In doing so, Ferrarese approaches old questions in a new light in a bid to give dignity to the singular, to make its specific claims and its moral pertinence heard. Estelle Ferrarese is Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at Picardie-Jules-Verne University, France. Steven Corcoran has translated numerous works by French and German philosophers, including Jacques Rancière and Alain Badiou, and is the editor of The Badiou Dictionary, published by Edinburgh University Press.

About the Author

Estelle Ferrarese is Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at Picardie-Jules-Verne University, France. She is the author of Vulnerability and Critical Theory (Brill, 2018), Ethique et politique de l'espace public. Habermas et la discussion (Vrin, 2015) and Qu'est-ce que lutter pour la reconnaissance? (Editions Le Bord de l'Eau, 2013). She is co-editor of Formes de vie (editions du CNRS, 2018) and The Politics of Vulnerability (Routledge, 2017). She is also the author of numerous articles on the Frankfurt School, feminism, deliberative democracy and vulnerability as a political category.

Steven Corcoran has translated numerous works by French and German philosophers, including Jacques Rancière and Alain Badiou, and is the editor of The Badiou Dictionary, published by Edinburgh University Press.