Philosophical Archaeology

Download or read book Philosophical Archaeology written by Ido Govrin and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering, for the first time, a full historicized accounting of philosophical archaeology, Ido Govrin delineates how this overarching method of historical inquiry has today become associated, to a large extent, with the work of Giorgio Agamben—and how it constitutes Agamben’s philosophy of history in particular. As befits a book situated at an intellectual crossroads that brings together a range of discourses—philosophy, history, aesthetics, theology, and philology—Govrin conceives of philosophical archaeology as a multifaceted concept, on a broad scale. The discussion slides along the length of the multilateral fault line and into the related fields of contemporary art and art history/theory. In doing so, it illuminates the potential for philosophical archaeology, as an artistic modus operandi in the broader context of contemporary art, to expand our conception of history and historiographic research, and for this sense of history to expand our conception of art, in turn. At stake in this consideration is the possibility of a new, materially based philosophy of history.