Philosophy and Communication

The essays assembled in this volume focus on philosophical questions regarding various aspects of communication. They are predicated on the author’s conviction that communication between human beings, regardless of the many difficulties involved, is something of sufficient importance to justify a patient philosophical exploration such as that embarked upon here. Interwoven with philosophical considerations readers will find insights gained from psychoanalytical thinkers such as Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva. The essays address a wide range of themes. Sometimes they concern fundamental things, such as the question of the very possibility of communication or the indispensable function of communication in sexual relations. The communicational significance of a certain kind of architecture is scrutinized, as well as that of images in our media-saturated, postmodern world, together with the connection between the latter and the experience of identity today. Other essays concentrate on communicational phenomena such as seduction and Kristeva’s notion of ‘revolt’, the difficulties surrounding communication in the age of ‘Empire’, and the reappearance of communicational sophistry as a theme in contemporary cinema.

Author Biography

The Author: Bert Olivier is Professor of Philosophy at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He holds an M.A. and D.Phil. in philosophy, and has held Postdoctoral Fellowships in philosophy at Yale University and a Research Fellowship at the University of Wales, Cardiff. He has published widely in the philosophy of culture, of art and architecture, of cinema, music and literature, as well as the philosophy of science, epistemology, and psychoanalytic, social, media and discourse theory. In 2004 he was awarded the Stals Prize for Philosophy by the South African Academy for Arts and Sciences.