Nourishment: A Philosophy of the Political Body

by Corine Pelluchon, Justin E.H. Smith (Translation)

This book seeks to replace the philosophy of the subject, underlying contemporary contractualism, with another philosophy. The ethics of vulnerability, which emphasizes the category of passivity, is the first phase in this philosophy of corporality, further supplemented in Nourishment by a philosophy of “living from,” which takes the materiality of our existence seriously: hunger, oikos, space and time, place, and enjoyment.

Based on a radical phenomenology of sensations, this book takes inspiration from the French philosophers who were able to suggest an alternative to Heidegger's ontology of concern, such as Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Paul Ricœur. Going beyond the dualism between nature and culture, subject and object, Pelluchon aims to determine the existential structures that break with Heidegger's ontology of concern and the philosophies of freedom that serve as a foundation for liberal political theory.

416 pages, Paperback

Published February 21, 2019

About the author

Corine Pelluchon est professeur à l’université de Franche-Comté. Spécialiste de philosophie politique et d’éthique appliquée, elle a notamment publié Leo Strauss, une autre raison, d’autres Lumières (Vrin, 2005, Prix François Furet 2006), L’Autonomie brisée (PUF, 2009) et Éléments pour une éthique de la vulnérabilité (Cerf, 2011, Grand Prix Moron de l’Académie française 2012).