Special Exhibition

The name of my special collection would be “Continental Philosophy and Social Justice.” This book collection intends to bring the kinds of books that are related to continental philosophy, social justice or both. The kinds of questions that guide continental philosophy are broad, fundamental, and relevant like “how should we live?” “how should we understand the world around us?” “how do our social and political structures guide us?” These kinds of questions are closely related to the issues of social justice, because they bring out the issues of inequality. The study of social justice or any activities that strive towards creating more just society require theoretical contexts. Even though theories cannot directly be applied to specific instances of social problems, understanding theory provide important contexts and principles that are necessary for authentic action.

For example, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” a remarkable book on disclosing the truth of injustice in the age that is supposedly free from racism, naturally goes with “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison” by Foucault. But it also goes with “Dialectic of Enlightenment” by Adorno and Horkheimer, as it talks about the historical development of Enlightnment ideals that results in the present societies dominated by instrumental reason––treating everything, including human beings, as instruments and with exchange value rather than for its own sake or with use value.

This collection is not only important because it works as a book collection on practical ethics––the field that has to be emphasized more in the increasingly capitalistic and technological society that we live in––but also unique because it works as a very focused collection of books on continental philosophy and social justice that concern themselves with the issues of inequalities and human suffering.