Stupidity

"In Stupidity Avital Ronell explores the fading empire of cognition, modulating stupidity into idiocy, puerility, and the figure of the ridiculous philosopher instituted by Kant. Drawing on a range of writers including Dostoevsky, Schlegel, Musil, and Wordsworth, Stupidity investigates ignorance, dumbfounded-ness, and the limits of reason. "The foremost thinker of the repressed conditions of knowledge, Avital Ronell, with the Nietzschean audacity characteristic of her thought, probes the philosophical no-man's land of stupidity." -- Jean-Luc Nancy, author of The Sense of the World"[An] energetic book ...[Ronell's] fifth and perhaps most accomplished...Stupidity as Ronell understands it is a kind of black hole devouring the light of rationality itself." -- Jonathan Re, Times Literary Supplement "In the face of the Enlightenment, stupidity disrupts, disturbs, or dissents...Disrupt, disturb, and dissent -- that is just what Ronell means to do in this book." -- Edward Rothstein, New York Times"[Ronell] proves herself yet again to be one of the most original and exciting of contemporary critics...If you at all suspect that you might be intelligent, do not avoid Stupidity -- embrace it.
"-- Choice"