Description: Philosophy holds an ambivalent relation to the pleasures of intoxication, this excess that both fascinates and questions philosophy's sober ambitions for conceptual clarity and appropriate behavior. Displacing established dualities--mind and body, reason and desire, logic and eros--Nancy's subject becomes intoxicated: Ego sum, ego existo ebrius--I am, I exist--drunk.
Brief description: Philip Armstrong is Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University.
Review Quotes: "Intoxication, a short reflection from Jean-Luc Nancy, explores the ambivalent pleasures of intoxication as it has been configured within histories of philosophical and poetic thought. This abundant meander through the work of Plato, Hegel and Baudelaire among others offers readers a rewarding, even intoxicating, experience."-- "--Bjarke Mørkøre Stigel Hansen, LSE Review of Books"