Böcker av Christopher Norris

These poems continue Christopher Norris's spirited exploration of the paths by which contemporary poetry might find its way out of the self-enclosed sphere of lyric subjectivity into the larger air of philosophical, ethical, political, scientific, and environmental debate. They do so through a range of formal resources, among them rhyme and meter, which Norris regards as portals of creative-intellectual discovery and not, as free-verse practitioners would have it, artificially cramping constraints. Norris also deploys a great range of stanza forms and verse structures to demonstrate the variety of ways in which technique and prosody can serve not only to emphasize, deepen or qualify a point but to express thoughts and feelings beyond the communicative reach of prose discourse. These aspects of his work are subject to commentary in a concluding essay where Norris talks about his passage from literary theory to philosophy and thence to poetry, although-as the reader will soon discover-without having left those earlier interests behind. Indeed, it is a main concern of this collection to make the case-against dominant post-Romantic or Modernist conceptions-that a poem can justifiably put forward certain ideas, propositions, or hypotheses that ask to be assessed in rational-critical as well as aesthetic or literary-critical terms. Norris is very clear that his kind of formalism is strictly a matter of verse-technique or structure and no part of any larger, doctrinally driven autonomist program, like that of the 'old' New Criticism, that treats poems as purely verbal artifacts self-sealed against any such alien intrusions as history, biography, or the meddlesome prose intellect. These poems are intended as mind-openers whose formal elements are always in the service of a deeper, more lucid, and creative engagement with their diverse topics and concerns.What People Are SayingExploring the relationship between poetry, literary criticism, theory, and philosophy, Norris has the earned authority of an expert in all four fields. Yet there's a disarming playfulness in his engagement with the reader, and he makes complex argument memorably musical by mining the resources of meter and rhyme. Deploying a dazzling array of poetic forms - from villanelle, terza rima and sonnet to ballad and acrostic-this collection is a tour de force of wit, intellect, political verve and musicality: in short, a major achievement. -Lucy Newlyn, author of Reading, Writing, and RomanticismEminent philosophers, or literary theorists, do not usually turn, all of sudden, into fully-formed, metrically-perfect and highly-formalized poets; but that is the trick or magic of Christopher Norris. And in this his latest volume of poetry the magic is all the more magical for often silently becoming the very subject of his poems. Witness talk of William Empson's "late-style change of hats," or James Joyce's Daedalus slipping "the scholar's leash." Here then, juggling his hats as he goes, Scholar Norris is well-and-truly on the run. And, as the Runaway himself writes, "just North of here the games begin."- John Schad, author of Paris Bride: A Modernist LifeAbout the AuthorChristopher Norris is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Cardiff University in Wales, where he taught for four decades. He is the author and editor of more than forty books on topics in philosophy, literary theory, politics, music, and the history of ideas. More recently, he has published ten volumes of poetry ranging from lyrics and reflective verse to philosophical verse-essays and political satires. Academically he is best known for his extensive writing on the poet and literary critic William Empson and for his many books and essays on Jacques Derrida and deconstruction.

Truth Matters is the first full-length introduction to response-dependence, a topic that has become a main focus of interest for philosophers across a wide range of disciplines and subject areas.The response-dependence claim, in brief, is to provide a 'third way' between the realist (or objectivist) conception of truth as always potentially transcending the limits of human ascertainment and the anti-realist (or verificationist) case that truth cannot possibly transcend those limits since then we could never acquire or manifest a knowledge of it.While setting out the issues clearly and concisely, Norris also provides some relevant background history to this current debate, including discussion of its sources and analogues in Plato, Locke, Kant and Wittgenstein. His book offers invaluable guidance for student readers in search of a reliable introductory survey of the field. Among those with a more specialist interest it may sometimes provoke disagreement, as when Norris argues that the response-dependence approach often goes along with a disguised anti-realist bias and hence fails to make good on its 'third-way' promise. However, its combination of wide-ranging coverage with clarity of focus and depth of philosophical treatment will be welcomed.Key Features:*Clear, accessible account of some complex philosophical issues;*First book-length study of the response-dependence debate;*Informative discussion of its pre-history in philosophers from Plato to Hume, Locke and Kant;*Aimed at readers seeking a reliable, well-informed introductory account while relevant to those with a more specialist knowledge of the topic.

Presents a fresh approach to philosophy of mind that combines naturalistic and rationalist perspectives usually thought to be at odds. This title offers various proposals for bringing the two approaches into a mutually enhancing - though also mutually provocative - relationship.

Analyses three main topics - deconstruction, philosophy of language, and literary theory. This book offers a statement of the author's views as to how 'theory' might profit from a greater awareness of philosophical debates while philosophy might likewise gain by adopting a more open-minded attitude toward developments in literary theory.

In this book Christopher Norris develops the case for scientific realism by tackling various adversary arguments from a range of anti-realist positions.

Paul de Man changed the landscape of criticism through his rigorous theories and writings. This book addresses de Man's relationship to philosophical thinking in the post-Kantian tradition, his concern with 'aesthetic ideology' as a potent force of mystification within and beyond that tradition, and the vexed issue of de Man's politics.

What might be the outcome for philosophy if its texts were subjected to the powerful techniques of rhetorical close-reading developed by current deconstructionist literary critics? This title explores such questions in the context of modern analytic and linguistic philosophy.

Pays attention to the bearing of literary theory on questions of truth, meaning and reference. Suiatble for philosophers and critics, this title offers a clear-headed statement of the impact of deconstruction.

A group of leading critics have been invited to offer close readings of well-known poetic texts from the established canon of English literature. The volume is organised historically, with texts ranging from the Renaissance, Augustan and Romantic periods through to the twentieth century.

Alain Badiou's "Being and Event" is one of the significant works of French philosophy. It is the magnum opus of a thinker who is widely considered to have reshaped the character and set new terms for the future development of philosophy in France and elsewhere. This book offers guidance on philosophical and intellectual context.

While in no way oversimplifying its complexity or glossing over the challenges it presents, Norris's book sets out to make deconstruction more accessible to the open-minded reader.

"e;Christopher Norris raises some basic questions about the way that analytic philosophy has been conducted over the past 25 years. In doing so, he offers an alternative to what he sees as an over-specialisation of a lot of recent academic work. Arguing that analytic philosophy has led to a narrowing of sights to the point where other approaches that might be more productive are blocked from view, he goes against the grain to claim that Continental philosophy holds the resources for a creative renewal of analytic thought."e;

A radical reappraisal of post modernity and a guide to the future of critical theory, this text presents a re-anlysis of the leading theorists: Derrida, Foucault, de Man, and Levinas.

A critical introduction to the long-standing debate concerning the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics, and the problems the field has posed for physicists and philosophers from Einstein to the present.