The Idiot: His Place in Creation, and His Claims on Society (Bateman Frederick).

Эта книга посвящена глубокому анализу личности и судьбы князя Мышкина - главного героя известного романа Фёдора Достоевского "Идиот". Автор ставит перед собой задачу понять, каким образом в характере Мышкина сочетаются черты истинной доброты, всепрощения и самопожертвования с наивностью и неприспособленностью к жестокому и циничному миру.

Особое внимание в книге уделяется религиозно-философским взглядам Мышкина, его представлениям о Христе как об идеале человечества. Автор анализирует отношение Мышкина к любви, страданию, греху и порокам общества. Также рассматриваются причины, по которым такой чистый и возвышенный герой не может найти своё место в мире и обречён на одиночество и трагедию.

В целом, эта книга - глубокое философское эссе, помогающее лучше понять один из самых загадочных образов русской литературы. Она будет интересна всем, кто любит творчество Достоевского и размышляет о вечных вопросах человеческого бытия.

This study is a classic exploration of the idea that the prodigal son represents the idiotic, or natural, man in comparison with the civilized man involved in religion and politics and other forms of ethical activity, especially in modern parlance, within "civilization." Over the course of his disquisition of ancient and modern antiquarian traditions, from Greek philosophy to the Enlightenment and Romantic period, Bateman illustrates how authors Jacques Lacan integrated this motif into the theoretical fabric of psychoanalysis. Building on Lacan's ideas, Bateman then goes on to expand these considerations into other domains of philosophical, religious, psychopathological, anthropological, historical, social, scientific, political, economic, aesthetic, literary, and cultural practice and discourse. These include a study of Foucault's concept of the madman as the paradigm figure or precedent for the representation of anamnesis recently explored by Philippe Ariès and others; a revisiting of the Christian theme of the Lamech Man and its relation to popular belief in the uncultured witch-hunter figure of Gilles de Rais; analysis of neostoicism and Barrès and thinking about the passerby, an archetype of the neutral or borderless observer who may take over, if only momentarily, the place of a subaltern voice within the ongoing representation of society; and an evaluation of Levinas' notion of the battered man as basis for a think-critique of subjectivity. Moreover, Bateman replaces the clichéd image of the sort of flippant, sociopathic delinquent whose acts are committed out of purely sadistic gratification with a more complex definition of "idiocy," one characterized by "violated ways of being," "abysm of sense," and/or "blind vitality" (Benjamin). These categories help to divest the notion of idicy from its tendency to become merely negative and suggests that it is possible to see it arising out of a wholly different motivational complex (merely passing through by way of reflective participation, self-assertion, constructive infusion, etc.) than the one often assumed. Finally, there is also a rethink of Hobbes' use of beastly man and a return to Bacon's analogical conception of animal and machine as models for consideration on this topic. All these disparate approaches reveal idiocy as not just some sentimental presentation of innocence, but rather an imperative for reflecting seriously upon our lives, thought processes, identity, responsibilities, and futures without being trapped in the ossified category of good versus bad or loser versus winner.Already best known for his classic Studies in the Novel (1958) and Historical Sketch of Metaphysics (1973), this book will be welcomed by instructors and students of nineteenth-century literature and culture, comparative philosophy, romantic and neostoic thought, philosophy of mind and action, psychoanalysis, history of culture, American literary theory, speculative philosophy, and philosophy of language. 256 pages, hardcover