The Signature of the World - (Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers) by Eric Alliez (Paperback)

About the Book

The Signature of the World focuses on one of the most influential works of contemporary philosophy: What is Philosophy? by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, their last joint work after Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. It sets What is Philosophy? in the context of earlier work by the two thinkers and, in a manner sure to challenge and provoke, juxtaposes it to the work of both analytic philosophers and continental phenomenologists.

Book Synopsis

The Signature of the World focuses on one of the most influential works of contemporary philosophy: What is Philosophy? by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, their last joint work after Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. It sets What is Philosophy? in the context of earlier work by the two thinkers and, in a manner sure to challenge and provoke, juxtaposes it to the work of both analytic philosophers and continental phenomenologists.

Alliez explores the distinctive theory of thought put forth by Deleuze & Guattari from a series of angles, delving into their revolutionary, Spinozist treatment of the history of philosophy, elucidating their engagement with the metaphysics of current research programmes in the sciences and delineating their invention of a 'material meta-aesthetics' capable of responding to the most radical experiments in contemporary art.

Much recent philosophy has revelled in declaring the end of metaphysics, of ontology, and sometimes of philosophy itself. In sharp contrast, The Signature of the World is a forceful reminder of the power of ontology and the need for a materialist reinvention of metaphysics.

The Signature of the World is here accompanied by two appendices, 'Deleuze Virtual Philosophy' and 'On the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction to (the) Matter', as well as a preface by Alberto Toscano.

Review Quotes

"Continuum Press is or is near the center of the publication of works by major Continental thinkers: Luce Irigaray, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Henri Lefebrve, Paul Virilio, Michael Foucault, Martin Heidegger, and Theodor Adorno...some of its subsidiary series like the 'Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers' series, and the 'Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy' are where one looks to find the likes of the 'new Heideggerians' or the 'new Deleuzians' those younger philosophers having more recently completed their apprenticeships with the skilled masters and now setting their own philosophical compasses by problems left unsolved or inserted into philosophical futurality by those very teachers. Eric Alliez is among the 'new Deleuzians'. This book follows his enormously influential Capital Times: Tales from the Conquest of Time (1996)...the specific challenge and the very heart of this book is Alliez' grappling explicitly with the very question of how to 'philosophize' in the wake of Deleuze and Guattari's harsh lessons in What is Philosophy? regarding that very question." -Karen Houle, Philosophy in Review

fascinating and important That such a short book contains so many potential points of departure is further testimony to its power, and further reason for it to be recommended to all those interested in contemporary French thought. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, September 2005

About the Author

Eric Alliez is Professor of Philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, UK. His publications include Capital Times (translated by G. Abbeele, University of Minnesota Press, 1996). Eliot Ross Albert received a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Warwick.