Collected Writings of John Sallis

John Sallis's thought is oriented to two overarching tasks: to bring to light the elemental in nature and to show how the imagination operates at the very center of human experience. He undertakes these tasks by analyzing a broad range of phenomena, including perception, the body, the natural world, art, space, and the cosmos. In every case, Sallis develops an original form of discourse attuned to the specific phenomenon and enacts a thorough reflection on discourse itself in its relation to voice, dialogue, poetry, and translation. Sallis's systematic investigations are complemented by his extensive interpretations of canonical figures in the history of philosophy such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Schelling, and Hegel and by his engagement with the most original thinkers in the areas of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction.

A presentation of the two-semester lecture course on Merleau-Ponty given at Duquesne University from 1970 to 1971 by the esteemed American philosopher. Devoted primarily to a close reading of the French philosopher's magnum opus, Phenomenology of Perception, this course begins with a detailed analysis of The Structure of Behavior. The central topics considered in the lectures include the functions of the phenomenological body, beyond realism and idealism, the structures of the lived world, spatiality, temporality, language, sexuality, and perception and knowledge. Sallis illuminates Merleau-Ponty's first two works and offers a thread to follow through developments in his later essays. Merleau-Ponty's notion of the primacy of perception and his claim that "the end of a philosophy is the account of its beginning" are woven throughout the lectures. For Sallis's part, these lectures are foundational for his extended engagement with Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible, which was published in Sallis's Phenomenology and the Return to Beginnings.

“Nietzsche's Voices”, a much-anticipated volume of “The Collected Writings of John Sallis”, presents his two-semester lecture course on Nietzsche offered in the Philosophy Department of Duquesne University during the school year 1971—72. "Nietzsche is easy to read; his is apparently the easiest of all the great philosophies. Yet the easy intelligibility is deceptive. Nietzsche's writings make us believe we have understood when in fact we have not. His philosophy is actually the exact opposite of easy," says Sallis. With this warning always in mind, Sallis first discusses Nietzsche's life and the relevance of the ancient Greeks to his thought and then analyzes Nietzsche's views on truth, history, morality, and the death of God. The entire second half of the book is devoted to Nietzsche's main work, the tragic, comedic, poetic Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche's Voices offers a sensitive and brilliant introduction to the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, as presented by one of today's most significant philosophers.

Ethicality and Imagination is the astounding conclusion to John Sallis's landmark trilogy launched with Force of Imagination and Logic of Imagination. In this new work,Sallis embarks on an unforgettable voyage spanning the cosmos and delving deep into what makes us human. If the first two works consider the question of being and thinking, respectively, the third and culminating volume takes up the question of action. In a series of highly original and always provocative meditations, Sallis articulates the way humans are rooted in their abodes yet not determined by them. Ethicality and Imagination develops a new approach to the relation of the imagination to literature, ethics, political thought, and recent discoveries in astrophysics. It represents a brilliant conclusion to one of the most exciting works of thinking in the Continental school in recent decades.

John Sallis's thought is oriented to two overarching tasks: to bring to light the elemental in nature and to show how the imagination operates at the very center of human experience. He undertakes these tasks by analyzing a broad range of phenomena, including perception, the body, the natural world, art, space, and the cosmos. In every case, Sallis develops an original form of discourse attuned to the specific phenomenon and enacts a thorough reflection on discourse itself in its relation to voice, dialogue, poetry, and translation. Sallis's systematic investigations are complemented by his extensive interpretations of canonical figures in the history of philosophy such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Schelling, and Hegel and by his engagement with the most original thinkers in the areas of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction.

Since Hegel, philosophers have declared repeatedly that metaphysics is at an end, a pronouncement that has sparked much contemporary philosophical debate. What exactly does the end, or closure, of metaphysics mean, and what are the implications of this view? John Sallis characterizes the end of metaphysics as a limit, or horizon, both enclosing metaphysical thought and opening the field of thinking beyond it. He elaborates five areas in which the boundaries of thinking are extended: imagination as an opening power, the radicalizing of phenomenology's injunction to attend to the things themselves, Heidegger's shift of thinking toward an opening or clearing, archaic closure through a return to Plato and Heraclitus, and the nonidentity that takes place in the act of delimitation. This last question is developed in relation to Husserl's project of a pure phenomenology, to the debate between hermeneutics and deconstruction, and to the secluding of ground announced in Schelling's thought.

The work of the contemporary Chinese painter prompts reflections on nature, art, and music from one of America's leading philosophers. This text by John Sallis carries out a series of ruminations by taking up Cao Jun's art and thought, with a focus on questions of the elemental. Sallis's reflections are not a matter of simply relating art works to philosophical thought, as theoretical insights and developments run throughout Cao Jun's writings and inform many of his artistic works. Sallis maintains abundant points of contact with Chinese philosophical traditions but also with Western philosophy. In these reflections on art, Sallis poses a critique of mimesis and considers the relation of painting to music. He affirms his conviction that the artist must always turn to nature, especially as reflections on the earth and sky delimit the scale and place of what is human. Full-color illustrations enhance this provocative and penetrating text.

On Beauty and Measure features renowned philosopher John Sallis' commentaries on Plato's dialogues the Symposium and the Statesman. Drawn from two lecture courses delivered by Sallis, they represent his longest and most sustained engagement to date with either work. Brilliantly original, Sallis's close readings of Plato's dialogues are grounded in the original passages and also illuminate the overarching themes that drive the dialogues.

This volume of the Collected Writings of John Sallis presents his lecture courses on Kant. Each course was devoted respectively to one of Kant's three Critiques, and so the book as a whole treats the entirety of the Kantian critical project. Sallis displays here, as he does in all his lecture courses, an uncanny ability to open up dense philosophical texts. The matters Kant deals with-in theoretical, practical, and aesthetic philosophy-are difficult in themselves, and Kant's writings might at times seem so convoluted as to magnify the difficulty. Sallis patiently and successfully lays out the issues and the critical approach to them, such that the reader is led step by step into the very core of Kant's spirit of critique. This volume makes Kant accessible to students, while the most advanced scholars will also profit from it.