The topic of foundations has long been a focus of philosophical debate. Critiques of the claim to absolute knowledge, to ultimate ground, and to essential truth have called the very desire and need for founding principles into question. Even the concept of foundation itself has come under extensive scrutiny.
This volume addresses the problem of a contemporary world in which foundations are placed in question at every turn. It seeks to explore the meaning of a post-foundational context in which subverted truths, shattered identities, and fragmented cultures permeate the discourses of the age. The continental tradition of philosophy has long focused its energies on the question of foundations from Kant and Hegel, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Gadamer, Foucault and Derrida, Lyotard and Deleuze, From this particular vantage with its wealth of perspectives, the essays in this volume reopen the conventional understanding of classical themes upon which philosophy has been based since its inception.
Questioning Foundations addresses specifically the questions of "truth," "subjectivity," and "culture." These themes are considered in domains as diverse as science, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, feminism, visual representation, poetry, post-colonialism, and non-capitalist economies. The volume brings together new essays by leading international cultural and philosophical critics on the question of foundations in the contemporary world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Hugh J. Silverman

I. Truth

1. THE TRUTH OF HERMENEUTICS
Gianni Vattimo

2. TRUTH AS FUNDAMENTAL AND TRUTH AS FOUNDATIONAL
Basil O'Neill

3. SCIENCE AS FOUNDATIONAL?
Robert P. Crease

4. DELETION OR DEPLOYMENT: IS THAT
ANY WAY TO TREAT A SIGN?
Herbert Hrachovec

II. Subjectivity

5. AUTONOMY AS FOUNDATIONAL
Richard White

6. INTENTIONALITY, ONTOLOGY AND EMPIRICAL THOUGHT
Tony O'Connor

7. REHABILITATING THE "I"
Susan Bordo and Mario Moussa

8. CRITICAL EXCHANGES: THE SYMBOLIC
AND QUESTIONS OF GENDER
Judith Butler

III. Culture

9. FOUNDATIONS AND CULTURAL STUDIES
Gayatri Spivak

10. GRUND AND ABGRUND:
QUESTIONING POETIC FOUNDATIONS
IN HEIDEGGER AND CELAN
James Hatley

11. GENEROSITY AND FORGETTING
IN THE HISTORY OF BEING
Galen A. Johnson

12. TENOCHTILAN
Alphonso Lingis

13. EASY BECOMING UNEASY IMAGES:
A PHOTOGRAMMIC SOLARIZATION OF CAVES
James R. Watson

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Notes on Contributors