Deleuze, Kierkegaard and the Ethics of Selfhood

Description

Explores Gilles Deleuze and Søren Kierkegaard’s radical ethics of ‘becoming what one is’Compares Deleuze and Kierkegaard on the topics of personal identity and moral philosophySituates the two philosophers in relation to a tradition of post-Kantian reflection on identity and ethics Analyses Kierkegaard’s shifting status within Deleuze’s oeuvre, from his early ‘What is Grounding?’ lectures to his late, co-authored What is Philosophy?Elaborates an implicit materialist political philosophy contained in Deleuze and Kierkegaard’s workAndrew Jampol-Petzinger pursues Gilles Deleuze’s significantly under-discussed interpretation of Søren Kierkegaard. He presents a view of ethics and selfhood that responds to theories of moral judgment and selfhood based on stable, substance-orientated forms of identity.Starting from their common rejection of these categories of moral judgement, and looking at their shared projects of ethics as fundamentally a matter of becoming who one is, Jampol-Petzinger argues for a conception of normativity that privileges ideas of growth and self-overcoming while also recognising the importance and need for values adequate to leading a liveable life.