Books by Barbara Cassin

Sophistry has long been philosophy's bad other, yet in many ways, its emphasis on words and performativity remain more important than philosophical Truth. This book celebrates an underground survival of the sophistical tradition in the work of work of psychoanalysis, and its determination to take seriously equivocations, jokes, and unfinishable projects of interpretation.

A witty, philosophically-informed, and openly polemical critique by Barbara Cassin of Google that looks at Google's claims to organize knowledge, and its alleged ethical basis. This critique goes to the heart of the assumed benefits to humanity of increasingly advanced internet technology.

Through a subtle reading of the writings of Homer, Virgil, and Hannah Arendt, Barbara Cassin produces an in-depth analysis, at once scholarly and personal, of nostalgia. Where does nostalgia come from? Where do we truly feel at home? Cassin explores the notion that nostalgia has less to do with place and more to do with language.

Sophistics is the paradigm of a discourse that does things with words. It is not pure rhetoric, as Plato want us to believe, but it provides an alternative to the philosophical mainstream. This book constitutes a major contribution to the debate between philosophical pluralism, unitarism, and pragmatism.