Books by Sean Gaston

In the first book-length study of Derrida and the question of history, and in response to the 2016 publication of Derrida's 1964-1965 seminar on Heidegger and history, Sean Gaston explores Derrida's own political responses to the historical events of his time. He argues that contemporary philosophy can provide a basis for thinking about history.

Examines the relation between absence and chance in Derrida's work and through that a re-examination of the relation between war and literature. This book argues for the importance of the relation between absence and chance in Derrida's work in thinking about war and literature.

Disinterest has been a major concept in Western philosophy since Descartes. This book looks at the treatment of disinterest in the work of two major Continental philosophers: Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas. It traces the history of disinterest in Western philosophy from Descartes to Derrida.

In the mid-eighteenth century metaphysics was broadly understood as the study of three areas of philosophical thought: theology, psychology and cosmology. This book examines the fortunes of the third of these formidable metaphysical concepts, the world.Sean Gaston provides a clear and concise account of the concept of world from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth century, exploring its possibilities and limitations and engaging with current issues in politics and ecology. He focuses on the work of five principal thinkers: Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger and Derrida, all of whom attempt to establish new grounds for seeing the world as a whole. Gaston presents a critique of the self-evident use of the concept of world in philosophy and asks whether one can move beyond the need for a world-like vantage point to maintain a concept of world. From Kant to the present day this concept has been a problem for philosophy and it remains to be seen if we need a new Copernican revolution when it comes to the concept of world.

How does one respond to the death of Jacques Derrida? The author re-examines his own relationship with this great thinker and traces his own mourning, while examining the nature of mourning in Derrida's work. In exploring the gap that the death of Derrida has left open, he traces the gaps (ecarts), and the history of the gap, in Derrida's work.

Introduces Jacques Derrida's major works and ideas by tracing Derrida's reading (and re-reading) of Plato, Aristotle and Hegel throughout his writings. This book encourages the reader to enter Derrida's varied and complex legacy through the moments in Derrida's work that are concerned with the question of origins and beginnings.