Trouble With Strangers

In this major new book, Terry Eagleton, one of the world's greatest cultural theorists, writes with wit, eloquence and clarity on the question of ethics. Providing rare insights into tragedy, politics, literature, morality and religion, Eagleton examines key ethical theories through the framework of Jacques Lacan's categories of the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real, measuring them against the 'richer' ethical resources of socialism and the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
a major new book from Terry Eagleton, one of the world's greatest cultural theorists
investigates ethical theories from Aristotle to Alain Badiou and Slavoj ?i?ek
engages with the whole modern European tradition of thought about ethics
brings together personal and political ethics and makes a passionate case for political love

Terry Eagleton is John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester. His recent publications include How to Read a Poem (2006), The English Novel (2004), Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic (2003), The Idea of Culture (2000), Scholars and Rebels in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (1999), and The Illusions of Postmodernism (1996), all published by Wiley-Blackwell.

"In his inimitable way, Eagleton is helping to develop this intriguing scene, and further framings of his thought are keenly anticipated.." (New Left Review, July - August, 2010)
“Readers who know the writers being discussed will enjoy the book.” (Choice, April 2009)
"Eagleton has laboured diligently in tracing the wellsprings of ethics across literature, philosophy, morality and religion. Trouble With Strangers is an engrossing book, peppered with remarkable insights into theory, philosophy and psychoanalysis." (Australian Book Review, March 2009)
"Eagleton is absolutely correct to ask why do we have ‘trouble with strangers?’ It is to ask, after all, how we might be able to recreate solidarity. And it is in pursuit of this answer that he examines the attempts of moral philosophers to give altruism a firm footing." (Culture Wars, March 2009)
“This difficult, highly abstract, yet extremely closely reasoned study touches on so many topics and ideas that the reader may come away from it wondering whether Eagleton has made a convincing argument for his main thesis which is that most ethical theories can be assigned to one of Jacques Lacans three psychoanalytical categories of the imaginary the symbolic and the Real or in some combination of the three.” (Library Journal, December 2008)
"Confronted now with Eagleton's eighth book in 11 years … One finds his trademark qualities in abundance: impishness, prodigious breadth of reading, a poacher's disregard of boundaries and of 'no trespassing' notices, sublime self-confidence, and an opening up of the heart to old allegiances as sudden as a blow to the chest." (Times Higher Education Supplement, December 2008)
"Written in Eagleton's very readable, clear and witty style, this book may achieve the unthinkable: bridging the gap between academic High Thought and popular philosophy manuals."
–Slavoj Žižek


"… An engagement with the whole modern European tradition of thought about ethics, drawing on both philosophical and literary texts, and paying close attention to shifting cultural currents and historical contexts. The insights are often sharp, and the criticisms both pointed and – usually – laced with humour"
–Peter Dews, University of Essex

"This is a fine book. It is hugely ambitious in its scope, develops an original thesis to illuminating effect and is written with a compelling passion and commitment"
–Peter R. Sedgwick, Cardiff University

"Written with Eagleton's usual wit, panache and uncanny ability to summarise and criticize otherwise complex philosophical positions ... this is an important book by a hugely important voice"
–Simon Critchley, The New School for Social Research

Preface.
Part I: The Insistence of the Imaginary.
Introduction: The Mirror Stage.
1. Sentiment and Sensibility.
2. Francis Hutcheson and David Hume.
3. Edmund Burke and Adam Smith.
Part II: The Sovereignty of the Symbolic.
Introduction: The Symbolic Order.
4. Spinoza and the Death of Desire.
5. Kant and the Moral Law.
6. Law and Desire in Measure for Measure.
Part III: The Reign of the Real.
Introduction: Pure Desire.
7. Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
8. Fictions of the Real.
9 . Levinas, Derrida and Badiou.
10. The Banality of Goodness.
Conclusion.
Index.