Lexington Books The Individual without Passions: Modern Individualism and the Loss of the Social Bond

The Individual without Passions: Modern Individualism and the Loss of the Social Bond offers an innovative look at an extremely timely and important issue-individualism-from the point of view of a theory of passions. This book underlines the importance of the problem of the passions in both forming individual identity and building the social bond. Drawing inspiration from classic authors that represent fundamental milestones along the route of modern individualism-from Montaigne to Hobbes, from Locke to Smith, from Rousseau to Tocqueville-The Individual without Passions puts forward new hypotheses that contrast with the consolidated views of contemporary reflection, both modern and postmodern. Elena Pulcini argues that passions are crucial not only when they are strong (homo oeconomicus), but also when absent or weak (homo democraticus), in both cases producing pathological effects on the Self and the social bond. Finally, this book underlines that the image of the modern individual does not end with the egoistical passions and that it is possible to reactivate empathetic and solidaristic passions; furthermore, it proposes the hypothesis that the solidaristic passions go to fight the egoistical passions. This hypothesis seems confirmed and is most evident in the phenomenon of the gift (as interpreted by Marcel Mauss and his contemporary heirs), the "hidden" testimony of a desire for belonging which enables us to propose a new figure of the individual-homo reciprocus. Review While complying scrupulously to the ordinary demands of criticism and exegesis of philosophical texts, Elena Pulcini has always taken care, in her studies relevant to the history of ideas, to focus on the particular historicity of the discursive sets examined--that is to say, on the fact of their intelligibility is conditioned on a certain type of correlation between the concepts developed by the philosophers and the way the world works--that they express in their manner while influencing the course. The project brought by Elena Pulcini strikes immediately with its ambition. The work of Elena Pulcini has finally donned a remarkable breadth and an undeniable originality that resembles, that of Martha Nussbaum, or that of Axel Honneth and Daniel Innerarity, with whom she also engages in explicit conversation--nonfiction.fr In The Individual without Passions, Elena Pulcini brilliantly deconstructs the presuppositions behind our possessive, narcissistic, and frequently male individualism. Above all she suggests that we should reexamine the bonds between individual and community through a new approach to democracy that revives the requirement for equality based on the gift relationship. With this book Elena Pulcini brings a major contribution to this debate that has the potential to renew political thought.--Marcel Hénaff, University of California, San Diego About the Author Elena Pulcini is full professor of Social Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Florence.