21st-Century Philosophy of Events: Beyond the Analytic/Continental Divide

by James Bahoh (Editor), Marta Cassina (Editor), Sergio Genovesi (Editor)

Overview

The concept of ‘event’ has held a prominent position in both analytic and continental philosophy since the middle of the 20th century. And yet, until recently, the division between these two traditions resulted in their respective theories of events rarely coming into contact. However, early 21st-century philosophy has been marked by a concerted effort by many to move beyond the analytic-continental divide. Explaining the nature of events, their place in reality, and their significance in the world has become a major problem around which segments of this work coalesce. This book draws together current philosophers to reframe existing debates on events within a post-divide pluralism, to recalibrate the theory of events based on recent ontology and metaphysics, and to advance the philosophy of events. It includes as an appendix a previously unpublished piece on the topic of events by the late Jean-Luc Nancy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399539777
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	08/31/2025
Series:	Intersections in Continental and Analytic Philosophy
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

James Bahoh is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Memphis. He is a previous recipient of a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship and a VolkswagenStiftung / Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship. He is author of Heidegger's Ontology of Events (Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2020) and articles in journals like Comparative and Continental Philosophy, Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual, Deleuze and Guattari Studies, among others.

Marta Cassina is a contemporary art curator and PhD candidate at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universityät Bonn, the Universityé Paris-Sorbonne, and the Universityà degli Studi di Firenze. Her research explores themes of contemporary post-Wittgensteinian criticism and lies at the intersection of philosophy of language, ethics of forms of life, and radical community thought. She has published studies on Wittgenstein and Agamben, including Mostrare l’indicibile. Etica e soprannaturale in Ludwig Wittgenstein (EGR srl, 2016). She also worked as research assistant at the Center for Science and Thought, Bonn, on the development of an ethical certification for AI-powered software in the framework of the ‘KI.NRW’ project.

Sergio Genovesi held a position as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bonn’s Center for Science and Thought until 2023. He has published two books on the philosophy of events: Ereignis und Erfahrung (Mohr Siebeck, 2023) and Tracce dell’informe: L’indecostruibile e la filosofia dell’evento in Jacques Derrida (Mimesis, 2020). Additionally, at the University of Bonn, Genovesi conducted research on the philosophy of digital technologies and AI ethics, publishing several research articles and a collected volume on ethical issues of recommender systems. He is currently a consultant for AI ethics at SKAD AG.

Table of Contents

Series List
Acknowledgements

Introduction: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Events: Issues in Analytic, Continental, and Post-Divide Approaches
Co-authored by James Bahoh, Sergio Genovesi, and Marta Cassina

1. Events, Actions and Agency Across the Analytic-Continental Divide
Sean Bowden (Deakin University)

2. Thinking as a Predictable Event VS the Event of Thinking as a Prophecy
Anna Longo (Universityé Paris I)

3. The Unforeseeability of the Event in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Claude Romano (Universityé Paris IV)

4. Towards an Empirical Realism about Events
Sergio Genovesi (University of Bonn)

5. Alain Badiou’s Event and the New Realism
Becky Vartabedian (Regis University)

6. Event and Object: Badiou at the Place de la République
Graham Harman (Southern California Institute of Architecture)

7. Anomalous Monism and the Univocity of Being: Davidson, Deleuze, Spinoza
Paul M. Livingston (University of New Mexico)

8. Events in Contemporary Semantics
Friederike Moltmann (Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Universityé Côte d'Azur)

9. Pre-Emergence: Schelling, Hegel, and Natural Events
Adrian Johnston (University of New Mexico)

10. Davidson, Strawson, and a Hegelian Basis for an Ontology of Events
Sıla Özkara (University of Memphis)

11. The Event(s) of Process
Tina Röck (University of Dundee)

12. Modern Physics and the Ontology of Events
Leemon B. McHenry (California State University, Northridge)

13. The Limits of Process Philosophy and the Primacy of Substance
Thomas Crowther (University of Warwick)

Appendix

The Disappearance of the Event
Jean-Luc Nancy (formerly Universityé de Strasbourg and European Graduate School)

Index

Editorial Reviews

With the hackneyed siloing of Analytic and Continental philosophical approaches very much in its rearview mirror, the present collection of extraordinary philosophical talents masterfully advances contemporary inquiry into a philosophy of events, across putatively commonplace, epochal, and ontologically fundamental senses of events and their novelty.

Dan Dahlstrom

In the hands of Bahoh, Cassina, and Genovesi, this striking volume opens wide a new path for what is possible in contemporary philosophy. Offering a remarkable contribution to the theory of events, it shows that, if there ever was a single concept for upending the stale divide between Continentals and Analytics, ‘event’ is it.

Ryan J. Johnson. Elon University

Through a division of philosophical labor, analytic philosophers have focused on everyday events, continental philosophers on once-in-a-blue-moon events as well as events that involve being as well as beings. Classifying these as ordinary, extraordinary, and ontological events, the papers in this collection raise fascinating questions about their individual natures and interrelationships.

Andrew Cutrofello

This groundbreaking volume brings together an extraordinary group of philosophers working across the analytic and continental traditions on a topic fundamental to both, the nature of events. In exhibiting work of this depth and importance that is accessible to both traditions, this volume exemplifies what 21st-century philosophy should be.

Michael J. Ardoline