Inclinations: A Critique of Rectitude

by Adriana Cavarero, Adam Sitze (Translator), Amanda Minervini (Translator)

Overview

In this new and accessible book, Italy's best known feminist philosopher examines the moral and political significance of vertical posture in order to rethink subjectivity in terms of inclination. Contesting the classical figure of homo erectus or "upright man," Adriana Cavarero proposes an altruistic, open model of the subject—one who is inclined toward others. Contrasting the masculine upright with the feminine inclined, she references philosophical texts (by Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Elias Canetti, and others) as well as works of art (Barnett Newman, Leonardo da Vinci, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Alexander Rodchenko) and literature (Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804792189
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	11/02/2016
Series:	Square One: First-Order Questions in the Humanities
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Adriana Cavarero is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Verona. Her books in English include For More than One Voice (Stanford, 2005) and Horrorism (2008).

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Introduction 1

1 Barnett Newman: Adam's Line 17

2 Kant and the Newborn 25

3 Virginia Woolf and the Shadow of the "I" 35

4 Plato Erectus Sed… 45

5 Men and Trees 57

6 We Are Not Monkeys: On Erect Posture 65

7 Hobbes and the Macroanthropos 71

8 Elias Canetti: Upright Before the Dead 81

9 Artemisia: The Allegory of Inclination 89

10 Leonardo and Maternal Inclination 97

11 Hannah Arendt: "A Child Has Been Born unto Us" 107

12 Schemata for a Postural Ethics 121

Coda: Adieu to Lévinas 133

Notes 177

Editorial Reviews

"Inclinations bears all the marks of Cavarero's work more generally: rigorous argumentation, a style at once direct and playful, a wide-ranging command of the philosophical tradition, combined with trenchant feminist critique."

Universityof California at Berkeley - Barbara Spackman

"Inclinations bears all the marks of Cavarero's work more generally: rigorous argumentation, a style at once direct and playful, a wide-ranging command of the philosophical tradition, combined with trenchant feminist critique." —Barbara Spackman, University of California at Berkeley

From the Publisher