{"product_id":"being-and-not-being","title":"Being and Not Being","description":"Against the grain of many contemporary theoretical positions that indulge in delusions of safety and certainty, \u003ci\u003eBeing and Not Being \u003c\/i\u003eargues that contingency is definitive of the structure of being itself. As a result, any predictions about the future founded upon present or habitual states of being are \u003ci\u003enecessarily\u003c\/i\u003e subject to possible error given the unpredictability that is the condition of all emergent forms of being. Rather than signal the absence\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eof an ethical dimension, this prior inscription of potential, which gives rise to profoundly unforeseen forms of being, necessarily invokes an \u003ci\u003ea priori \u003c\/i\u003eethical demand that is common to biological and technological systems alike. This ethical demand transforms the ‘rules’ of critical and ethical engagement not simply with other, ‘inhuman’ forms of being, but with the future itself. Indeed, this ethical demand requires us to pose serious questions about the legitimacy and usefulness of any decisions made today on the back of predicted futures that erroneously presume the absolute determinability of all beings lacking the alchemical privilege definitive of life. As the exemplary figure of unfounded privilege, it is with Hamlet that the question of life ultimately ends, replaced instead by the extremophile as the figure of unforeseen futures that simply cannot be imagined in the present. To \u003ci\u003ebe\u003c\/i\u003e is the potential to \u003ci\u003ebe otherwise\u003c\/i\u003e, that is to say, to \u003ci\u003enot\u003c\/i\u003e be that which a given being \u003ci\u003eis\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing Plc","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54256464757080,"sku":"9781538188224","price":97.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781538188224.jpg?v=1765099823","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/being-and-not-being","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}