Break-out from the Crystal Palace;: The anarcho-psychological critique; Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky

Rouledge Library Editions: Friedrich Nietzsche

by John Carroll

Before Marcuse and Laing, before Heidegger and Sartre, even before Freud, the way was prepared for the anarcho-psychological critique of economic man, of all codes of ideology or absolute morality, and of scientific habits of mind. First published in 1974, this title traces this philosophical tradition to its roots in the nineteenth century, to the figures of Stirner, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, and to their psychological demolition of the two alternative axes of social theory and practice, a critique which today reads more pertinently than ever, and remains unanswered.

To understand this critique is crucial for an age which has shown a mounting revulsion at the consequences of the Crystal Palace, symbol at once of technologico-industrial progress and its rationalist-scientist ideology, an age whose imaginative preoccupations have telescoped onto the individual, and whose interest has switched from the social realm to that of anarchic, inner, 'psychological man'.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology

188 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

John Carroll is a professor of sociology at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and a fellow of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University.

Reviews

[space · Rating 5 out of 5]

high recommendation.

[Sergei Moska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Legitimate five-star book. Wonderful.

[Yanick Punter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicely written and intriguing.

[Julian Stephenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carried it around with me for months.
I regularly recommend it.
Free PDF's (scans) of the full book that are easily found.

[Alvaro de Menard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly shallow exegesis, written in an indefensible style. Just go straight to the primary sources.