Martin Hägglund

A profound, original, and accessible book that offers a new secular vision of how we can lead our lives. Ranging from fundamental existential questions to the most pressing social issues of our time, This Life shows why our commitment to freedom and democracy should lead us beyond both religion and capitalism.In this groundbreaking book, the philosopher Martin H�gglund challenges our received notions of faith and freedom. The faith we need to cultivate, he argues, is not a religious faith in eternity but a secular faith devoted to our finite life together. He shows that all spiritual questions of freedom are inseparable from economic and material conditions. What ultimately matters is how we treat one another in this life, and what we do with our time together.H�gglund develops new existential and political principles while transforming our understanding of spiritual life. His critique of religion takes us to the heart of what it means to mourn our loved ones, be committed, and care about a sustainable world. His critique of capitalism demonstrates that we fail to sustain our democratic values because our lives depend on wage labor. In clear and pathbreaking terms, H�gglund explains why capitalism is inimical to our freedom, and why we should instead pursue a novel form of democratic socialism.In developing his vision of an emancipated secular life, H�gglund engages with great philosophers from Aristotle to Hegel and Marx, literary writers from Dante to Proust and Knausgaard, political economists from Mill to Keynes and Hayek, and religious thinkers from Augustine to Kierkegaard and Martin Luther King, Jr. This Life gives us new access to our past--for the sake of a different future.

Radical Atheism presents a profound new reading of the influential French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Against the prevalent notion that there was an ethical or religious "turn" in Derrida's thinking, Hägglund argues that a radical atheism informs Derrida's work from beginning to end. Proceeding from Derrida's insight into the constitution of time, Hägglund demonstrates how Derrida rethinks the condition of identity, ethics, religion, and political emancipation in accordance with the logic of radical atheism. Hägglund challenges other major interpreters of Derrida's work and offers a compelling account of Derrida's thinking on life and death, good and evil, self and other. Furthermore, Hägglund does not only explicate Derrida's position but also develops his arguments, fortifies his logic, and pursues its implications. The result is a groundbreaking deconstruction of the perennial philosophical themes of time and desire as well as pressing contemporary issues of sovereignty and democracy.

Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and Vladimir Nabokov transformed the art of the novel in order to convey the experience of time. Nevertheless, their works have been read as expressions of a desire to transcend time--whether through an epiphany of memory, an immanent moment of being, or a transcendent afterlife. Martin Hagglund takes on these themes but gives them another reading entirely. The fear of time and death does not stem from a desire to transcend time, he argues. On the contrary, it is generated by the investment in temporal life. From this vantage point, Hagglund offers in-depth analyses of Proust's "Recherche," Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," and Nabokov's "Ada."Through his readings of literary works, Hagglund also sheds new light on topics of broad concern in the humanities, including time consciousness and memory, trauma and survival, the technology of writing and the aesthetic power of art. Finally, he develops an original theory of the relation between time and desire through an engagement with Freud and Lacan, addressing mourning and melancholia, pleasure and pain, attachment and loss. "Dying for Time" opens a new way of reading the dramas of desire as they are staged in both philosophy and literature.

Was wir brauchen, um ein sinnvolles Leben zu führen, ist die beinahe heroische Anerkennung und Bejahung dieses einen Darin besteht die inspirierende Einsicht des philosophischen Shootingstars Martin Hägglund. In seinem gefeierten Bestseller zeigt er, dass wir keinen religiösen Glauben an die Ewigkeit, sondern einen säkularen Glauben kultivieren sollten, der sich unserem endlichen Zusammenleben widmet. Nur ein solcher Glaube kann die Quelle einer wahren Freiheit sein – und muss folglich das Zentrum einer überzeugenden Ethik und Politik für das 21. Jahrhundert bilden.Unsere Freiheit ist untrennbar mit materiellen und ökonomischen Bedingungen Es kommt darauf an, wie wir in diesem Leben miteinander umgehen und was wir mit unserer begrenzten Zeit anfangen. In seinem tiefgründigen, originellen und durchweg zugänglichen Buch beschäftigt sich Hägglund daher nicht nur mit großen Philosophen von Aristoteles bis Hegel und Marx, sondern auch mit Schriftstellern von Dante bis Proust und Knausgård, mit politischen Ökonomen von Mill bis Keynes und Hayek sowie mit religiösen Denkern von Augustinus bis Kierkegaard und Martin Luther King Jr. Ihm geht es dabei sowohl um eine Kritik religiöser Ideale als auch um eine neuartige Vision einer postkapitalistischen Form des Zusammenlebens, in der wir unsere Lebenszeit wirklich besitzen und unsere geistige Freiheit leben können.