Inheriting the Future Legacies of Kant, Freud, and Flaubert [Hardcover]

This book explores several canonical works of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literature. The surprising juxtaposition of Kant's moral philosophy, Freud's reflections on obsessional neurosis, and Flaubert's peculiar late novelBouvard et P?cuchetforms the basis of a compelling argument linking each of these central works around the problem of moral thought as it fundamentally determines the modern subject in relation to time. The book engages an area of emerging importance in contemporary critical thought, the problem of ethics or otherness as a crucial factor at play in speculative and literary works. The readings in this book provide insight into the ways in which three fundamental philosophical, psychoanalytic, and literary texts can be reread in light of their confrontation with a seemingly inhuman force at the heart of the foundation of the human subject.This book is an exploration of the notion of drive as it passes from Kant's need of reason, to Freud's concept of hallucinatory wish fulfillment, to the relentless force of indifferentiation in Flaubert'sBouvard and P?cuchet.Elizabeth Rottenberg is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. She is the editor and translator ofNegotiations: Interventions and Interviews, 1971-2001by Jacques Derrida (Stanford, 2001) and the translator ofFriendshipby Maurice Blanchot (Stanford University Press, 1997).