As a discipline, philosophy too often alibis the hyperbolic sense of autonomy, self-interest, and instrumentality that undergird the supposed common sense of capitalism. As an antidote, Matthew McLennan argues that the ability to philosophize itself relies on vulnerability-both in our finitude and our relationships with others, and in the kinds of egalitarian social solidarity that not only make these relationships possible, but desirable.

Devin Shaw

Against the androcentric myth of the independent command of rationality, terribly central to philosophy's conception of itself, Matthew R. McLennan has produced an adept introspection on philosophy as dependent and vulnerable––a practice that is the "mastery of being mastered". To explore this theme of vulnerability, as both philosophical object and philosophy itself, Philosophy and Vulnerability methodically but beautifully develops its themes through the work of Catheriene Breillat, Joan Didion, and Audre Lorde. Treating these figures as "pre-disciplinary philosophers" who "hit up against a wall of finitude" and "struggle from within that finitude," McLennan succeeds in crafting a work of gracefully fragile militancy. This book indeed contributes to the survival and democratization of philosophy in the face of the closure of thought.

J. Moufawad-Paul, Professor of Philosophy, York University, Toronto, Canada