Skip to content
Home/ Adventure
Adventure

Adventure

No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780262037594

Agamben charts a journey that ranges from poems of chivalry to philosophy, from Yvain to Hegel, from Beatrice to Heidegger.

An ancient legend identifies Demon, Chance, Love, and Necessity as the four gods who preside over the birth of every human being. We must all pay tribute to these deities and should not try to elude or dupe them. To accept them, Giorgio Agamben suggests, is to live one's life as an adventure--not in the trivial sense of the term, with lightness and disenchantment, but with the understanding that adventure, as a specific way of being, is the most profound experience in our human existence. In this pithy, poetic, and compelling book, Agamben maps a journey from poems of chivalry to philosophy, from Yvain to Hegel, from Beatrice to Heidegger. The four gods of legend are joined at the end by a goddess, the most elusive and mysterious of all: Elpis, Hope. In Greek mythology, Hope remains in Pandora's box, not because it postpones its fulfillment to an invisible beyond but because somehow it has always been already satisfied. Here, Agamben presents Hope as the ultimate gift of the human adventure on Earth.

About the author

Product details

Pub dateMar 9, 2018
ISBN-100262037599
ISBN-139780262037594
LanguageEnglish
Last updated 2026-03-19 00:36
$9.28 $12.95 28% off
You save $3.67 · list price $12.95
In stock soon — order now to reserve your copy
Delivery by Monday, September 14, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from History & Surveys - Medieval
See all
Oxford Handbook of Medieval Philosophy
This <em>Handbook</em> is intended to show the links between the philosophy written in the Middle Ages and that being done today. Essays by over twenty medieval specialists, who are also familiar with contemporary discussions, explore areas in logic and philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, moral psychology ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy and philosophy of religion. Each topic has been chosen because it is of present philosophical interest, but a more or less similar set of questions was also discussed in the Middle Ages. No party-line has been set about the extent of the similarity. Some writers (e.g. Panaccio on Universals&#x3b; Cesalli on States of Affairs) argue that there are the closest continuities. Others (e.g. Thom on Logical Form&#x3b; Pink on Freedom of the Will) stress the differences. All, however, share the aim of providing new analyses of medieval texts and of writing in a manner that is clear and comprehensible to philosophers who are not medieval specialists. <p/>The <em>Handbook </em>begins with eleven chapters looking at the history of medieval philosophy period by period, and region by region. They constitute the fullest, most wide-ranging and up-to-date chronological survey of medieval philosophy available. All four traditions - Greek, Latin, Islamic and Jewish (in Arabic, and in Hebrew) - are considered, and the Latin tradition is traced from late antiquity through to the seventeenth century and beyond.
$71.63