Description: Alphonso Lingis's singular works of philosophy are not so much written as performed, and in The First Person Singular the performance is characteristically brilliant, a consummate act of philosophical reckoning. Lingis's subject here, aptly enough, is the subject itself, understood not as consciousness but as embodied, impassioned, active being. His book is, at the same time, an elegant cultural analysis of how subjectivity is differently and collectively understood, invested, and situated.
Brief description: Alphonso Lingis is professor of philosophy emeritus at the Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of many books, including Dangerous Emotions, Contact, and Violence and Splendor.
Review Quotes: "This is a visceral, embodied phenomenology, blending Whitman with Merleau-Ponty, Levinas with Nietzsche. The First Person Singular is a splendid addition to the Lingis corpus." --David C. Wood, Vanderbilt University