In
Self-Identity and Powerlessness, Alice Koubová proposes a conception of human existence that does not essentially depend on the definition of self-identity. The author shows that the philosophical stress on human identity fails to grasp essential aspects of human existence. By emphasizing the moments of
Dasein’s powerlessness in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, she develops — in her analysis of various philosophers, literary examples, and social psychology —an original phenomenology of alternation of existence and affair.
How necessary is identity for thinking? Are we capable of philosophical thought even when we have neither ourselves, nor the world under our full control? Is it possible to relax, become powerless, and yet think precisely? These questions are to be answered in this book.
Alice Koubová, PhD. (2005) Université Paris X, is a researcher at the Academy of Science in Prague. She has published monographs and articles on postphenomenology, performance philosophy, and phenopraxis, including
Beyond the Principle of Identity (Filosofia Publishing, 2007). She coordinates the international program “Philosophy in Experiment” based in Prague.
All those interested in philosophical reflexion of identity and of experience, and in late phenomenology.