Abstract
This essay revives a contentious polemic between Sartre and Lev-Strauss from the early sixties as a way to re-engage the problem of the modernist aesthetic. Through inquiry into the contiguous concepts of habit, labour, desire and need, the argument locates the work of art in a mobile and indeterminate space between regression and engagement, need and desire, repetition and self-transcendence. Freud, Benjamin and Marx bring the essay to a concluding engagement with problems of historical and trans-historical thinking, habit and novelty.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Beckett, S. 2009. Watt. London: Faber and Faber.
Benjamin, W. 1968. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn, 217–252. New York: Schocken Books.
Freud, S. 1919. ‘A Child Is Being Beaten’ A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XVII (1917–1919), 175–204.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1996. Hegel’s Dialectic of Desire and Recognition: Texts and Commentary, ed. John O’Neill. New York: State University of New York Press.
Kafka, F. 1969. Parables and Paradoxes. New York: Schocken Books.
Levi-Strauss, C. 1966. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Marx, K. 1986. Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. In Karl Marx: A Reader, ed. John Elster. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sartre, J.-P. 2004. Critique of Dialectical Reason. London and New York: Verso.
Shklovsky, V. 1965. Art as Technique. In Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, trans. Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Levenson, M. (2018). Habit, Labour, Need and Desire. In: Falcato, A., Cardiello, A. (eds) Philosophy in the Condition of Modernism . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77078-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77078-9_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77077-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-77078-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)