{"product_id":"giving-an-account-of-oneself-twentieth-anniversary-edition-with-a-new-preface-by-the-author-paperback-softback-9781531509972","title":"Giving an Account of Oneself; Twentieth Anniversary Edition, with a New Preface by the Author (Paperback \/ softback) 9781531509972","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eGiving an Account of Oneself\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eTwentieth Anniversary Edition, with a New Preface by the Author\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eJudith Butler (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781531509972\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 1 April 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e176 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.249 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat does it mean to lead a moral life?\u003cbr\u003e  In their first extended study of moral philosophy, Judith Butler offers a provocative outline for a new ethical practice—one responsive to the need for critical autonomy yet grounded in the opacity of the human subject.\u003cbr\u003e  Butler takes as their starting point one's ability to answer the questions \"What have I done?\" and \"What ought I to do?\" They show that these questions can be answered only by asking a prior question, \"Who is this 'I' who is under an obligation to give an account of itself and to act in certain ways?\" Because I find that I cannot give an account of myself without accounting for the social conditions under which I emerge, ethical reflection requires a turn to social theory.\u003cbr\u003e  In three powerfully crafted and lucidly written chapters, Butler demonstrates how difficult it is to give an account of oneself, and how this lack of self-transparency and narratibility is crucial to an ethical understanding of the human. In dialogue with Adorno, Levinas, Foucault, and other thinkers, they eloquently argue the limits, possibilities, and dangers of contemporary ethical thought.\u003cbr\u003e  Butler offers a critique of the moral self, arguing that the transparent, rational, and continuous ethical subject is an impossible construct that seeks to deny the specificity of what it is to be human. We can know ourselves only incompletely, and only in relation to a broader social world that has always preceded us and already shaped us in ways we cannot grasp. If inevitably we are partially opaque to ourselves, how can giving an account of ourselves define the ethical act? And doesn't an ethical system that holds us impossibly accountable for full self-knowledge and self-consistency inflict a kind of psychic violence, leading to a culture of self-beratement and cruelty? How does the turn to social theory offer us a chance to understand the specifically social character of our own unknowingness about ourselves?\u003cbr\u003e  By recasting ethics as a project in which being ethical means becoming critical of norms under which we are asked to act, but which we can never fully choose, Butler illuminates what it means for us as \"fallible creatures\" to create and share an ethics of vulnerability, humility, and ethical responsiveness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePreface to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition\u003c\/i\u003e   vii\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAcknowledgments \u003c\/i\u003e  xiii\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAbbreviations \u003c\/i\u003e  xv\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e1. \u003c\/b\u003eAn Account of Oneself   3\u003cbr\u003e Scenes of Address 9 Foucaultian Subjects   22\u003cbr\u003e Post-Hegelian Queries 26 ''Who Are You?''   30\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e2. \u003c\/b\u003eAgainst Ethical Violence   41\u003cbr\u003e Limits of Judgment   44 \u003cbr\u003e Psychoanalysis   50\u003cbr\u003e The ''I'' and the ''You''   65\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e3. \u003c\/b\u003eResponsibility   83\u003cbr\u003e Laplanche and Levinas: The Primacy of the Other   84\u003cbr\u003e Adorno on Becoming Human   101\u003cbr\u003e Foucault's Critical Account of Himself   111\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eNotes \u003c\/i\u003e  137\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eIndex \u003c\/i\u003e  147\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Fordham University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52653248938264,"sku":"9781531509972","price":16.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/giving-an-account-of-oneself-twentieth-anniversary-edition-with-a-new-preface-by-the-author-paperback-softback-9781531509972","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}