Forms of Life and Subjectivity: Rethinking Sartre’s Philosophy

Forms of Life and Subjectivity: Rethinking Sartre’s Philosophy explores the fundamental question of why we act as we do. Informed by an ontological and phenomenological approach, and building mainly, but not exclusively, on the thought of Sartre, Daniel Rueda Garrido considers the concept of a "form of life” as a term that bridges the gap between subjective identity and communities.

This first systematic ontology of "forms of life” seeks to understand why we act in certain ways, and why we cling to certain identities, such as nationalisms, social movements, cultural minorities, racism, or religion. The answer, as Rueda Garrido argues, depends on an understanding of ourselves as "forms of life” that remains sensitive to the relationship between ontology and power, between what we want to be and what we ought to be.

Structured in seven chapters, Rueda Garrido’s investigation yields illuminating and timely discussions of conversion, the constitution of subjectivity as an intersubjective self, the distinction between imitation and reproduction, the relationship between freedom and facticity, and the dialectical process by which two particular ways of being and acting enter into a situation of assimilation-resistance, as exemplified by capitalist and artistic forms of life.

Contents

Acknowledgement

Preface Download
Daniel Rueda Garrido

Introduction Download
Daniel Rueda Garrido

1. The Phenomenological Ontology of Forms of Life Download
Daniel Rueda Garrido

2. Forms of Life and Ontological Conversion Download
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3. Habits, Identification and Forms of Life Download
Daniel Rueda Garrido

4. Forms of Life, Imitation and Conscious Will Download
Daniel Rueda Garrido

5. Dialectics, Forms of Life and Subjectivity Download
Daniel Rueda Garrido

6. The Capitalist Form of Life and its Subjectivity Download
Daniel Rueda Garrido

7. Forms of Life and Subjectivities of Other Communities in the Capitalist Era Download
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Conclusion Download
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Bibliography

Index

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text for non-commercial purposes of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:

Daniel Rueda Garrido. Forms of Life and Subjectivity: Rethinking Sartre’s Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2021. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0259