Issues surrounding precarity, debility and vulnerability are now of central concern to philosophers as we try and navigate an increasingly uncertain world. Matthew R. McLennan delves into these subjects enthusiastically and sensitively, presenting a vision of the discipline of philosophy which is grounded in real, lived experience.

Developing an invigorating, if at times painful, sense of the finitude and fragility of human life, Philosophy and Vulnerability provocatively marshals three disciplinary "nonphilosophers" to make its argument: French filmmaker and novelist Catherine Breillat, journalist and masterful cultural commentator Joan Didion and feminist poet and civil rights activist Audre Lorde. Through this encounter, this book suggests ways in which rigorous attention to difference and diversity must nourish a militant philosophical universalism in the future.

Matthew R. McLennan is Associate Professor in the School of Ethics, Social Justice and Public Service, Saint Paul University / Université Saint-Paul, Canada

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Toward a Definition of Philosophy which Incorporates Vulnerability
Chapter 1. Catherine Breillat I: An Erotic Suspension of the Ethical
Chapter 2. Joan Didion: Becoming Frail
Chapter 3. Audre Lorde: We must learn to count the living with that same particular attention with which we number the dead
Chapter 4. Catherine Breillat II: Embrace of Weakness?
Conclusion: Vulnerability and the Profession

Notes
Bibliography
Index