Publisher's Synopsis
"Reconfigurations" is a wide-ranging exploration of contemporary critical theory and of the forces that have transformed the classical modes of thought dominating Western critical theory from its beginnings.;Plotnitsky explores the confrontation and necessary reordering of ideas, introducing notions of a plural style and specific investigative techniques such as play, reading, metaphors of scientific inquiry and the interplay of metaphors.;"Reconfigurations" proposes complementarity as a model of general economy, a theory that relates the objects it considers to the loss of meaning. Drawn from Niels Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics, complementarity accounts for the indeterminacy of quantum systems and describes their conflicting aspects.;The book persistently critiques and relates its terms and argument to the terms and arguments that shape current debates about deconstruction, poststructuralism, postmodernism and contemporary Marxist and psychoanalytic discourse. In contesting the boundaries of old approaches, Plotnitsky engages with key issues, uncovering new possibilities for understanding philosophical, critical and historical problems. He offers both a cohesive overview of contemporary theory and demonstration of the theory of general economy at work.;In telling this complex story of problems considered by philosophers, posing questions in which we attempt to comprehend ourselves, Plotnitsky shows how the issues have become targets of increasingly systematic inquiry over time, particularly in the 19th but especially in the 20th century.
