Books by Leonard Lawlor

A systematic study of Derrida's writings on Husserl.

Drawing on a career-long exploration of 1960s French philosophy, Leonard Lawlor seeks a solution to 'the problem of the worst violence'. Lawlor argues all violence must itself be reduced to its lowest level. He engages with Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze and Guattari to create new ways of speaking to best achieve the least violence.

"Phenomenology: Responses and Developments" covers all the major innovators in phenomenology - notably Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and the later Heidegger - and the major schools and issues.

Develops a philosophy of life in opposition to the notion of "bio-power," which reduces the human to the question of power over what Giorgio Agamben terms "bare life," mere biological existence. This book provides conceptual tools for intervening in issues such as the AIDS epidemic and life-support for the infirm.

';[A]n outstanding book that will serve as a fine supplement (and guide) to important primary texts in early twentieth-century continental philosophy' (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews). Early Twentieth-Century Continental Philosophy offers a lucid and engaging introduction to the major works of French and German philosophy in the first half of the century. Leonard Lawlor takes as his starting point the original publication of Bergson's Introduction to Metaphysics in 1903, and his endpoint as the original publication Foucault's The Thought of the Outside in 1966. Lawlor interprets key texts by major figures in the continental tradition, such as Bergson and Foucault, as well as Freud, Heidegger, Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty. Taken together, his assessment of these figures illustrates the major theoretical trends of the timeimmanence, difference, multiplicity, and the overcoming of metaphysics.

Bergson's key philosophical concept was "duration", encompassing both memory and life. This text analyses this central but complex concept through a close reading of one of Bergson's key works "Matter and Memory", setting it in the broader context of Bergson's other writings.