Synopsis "What is Power? "

Power is a pervasive phenomenon yet there is little consensus on what it is and how it should be understood. In this book the cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han develops a fresh and original perspective on the nature of power, shedding new light on this key feature of social and political life. Power is commonly defined as a causal relation: an individual’s power is the cause that produces a change of behaviour in someone else against the latter’s will. Han rejects this view, arguing that power is better understood as a mediation between ego and alter which creates a complex array of reciprocal interdependencies. Power can also be exercised not only against the other but also within and through the other, and this involves a much higher degree of mediation. This perspective enables us to see that power and freedom are not opposed to one another but are manifestations of the same power, differing only in the degree of mediation. This highly original account of power will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and of social, political and cultural theory, as well as to anyone seeking to understand the many ways in which power shapes our lives today.

Byung-Chul Han

(Author)

View Author's Page

Byung-Chul Han (Seoul, South Korea, 1959) studied Philosophy at the University of Freiburg and German Literature and Theology at the University of Munich. In 1994, he earned his doctorate from the first of these universities with a thesis on Martin Heidegger. After his habilitation, he taught philosophy at the University of Basel, from 2010 he was a professor of philosophy and media theory at the Karlsruhe College of Design, and since 2012 he has been a professor of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at the Berlin University of the Arts. He is the author of more than a dozen titles, most of which have been translated into Spanish by Herder Editorial.

See less