, in 1963) is Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College

Vassar College

Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

. She has lived in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 since 1989. Borradori is a specialist of Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...

, Aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

, and the philosophy of terrorism

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

. A crucial focus of her work is to foster new avenues of communication between rival philosophical lineages, including the analytical and Continental traditions, liberalism

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 and communitarianism

Communitarianism

Communitarianism is an ideology that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. That community may be the family unit, but it can also be understood in a far wider sense of personal interaction, of geographical location, or of shared history.-Terminology:Though the term...

, as well as deconstruction

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...

 and Critical Theory

Critical theory

Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...

. To invigorate this exchange, she pioneered the scholarly interview as a new philosophical genre.

Writings

In her anthology, Recoding Metaphysics: The New Italian Philosophy, Borradori presented late 20th century Italian thinkers, such as Gianni Vattimo

Gianni Vattimo

Gianteresio Vattimo, also known as Gianni Vattimo is an internationally recognized Italian author, philosopher, and politician. Many of his works have been translated into English.-Biography:...

, Massimo Cacciari

Massimo Cacciari

Massimo Cacciari is an Italian philosopher and politician.Born in Venice, Massimo Cacciari graduated in philosophy from the University of Padua , where he also received his doctorate, writing a thesis on Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Judgment." In 1985, he became professor of Aesthetics at the...

, Mario Perniola

Mario Perniola

Mario Perniola is an internationally acclaimed Italian philosopher, professor of Aesthetics and author. Many of his works have been published in English.-Biography:...

,and Emanuele Severino

Emanuele Severino

Emanuele Severino is one of the most important contemporary Italian philosophers.Severino studied at the University of Pavia under Gustavo Bontadini, though he broke publicly from Bontadini in 1970 while both were on the faculty of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan...

, to the American audience. In The American Philosopher: Conversations with Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Nozick, Danto, Rorty, Cavell, MacIntyre, Kuhn, she pressed her interlocutors to reflect on their relation to history, the weight of tradition in philosophy, and their encounters with pragmatism

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...

 and logical positivism

Logical positivism

Logical positivism is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology.It may be considered as a type of analytic...

. The American Philosopher has been one of the first critical examinations of the historical and institutional context in which contemporary American philosophy operates.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

, Borradori became a strong voice in the study of terrorism from a philosophical perspective. Her latest book, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...

 and Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...

, seeks to evaluate the full philosophical and political significance of 9/11 in conversation with two important European thinkers. Overcoming their historical enmity, Habermas and Derrida appear in her book side by side for the first time in their lives. Borradori's book opened the way for their critical collaboration on the public sphere, which continued with a declaration of support for the anti-war demonstrations of February 15, 2003. Entitled, "February 15, or, What Binds Europeans Together: Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, Beginning in Core Europe," their joint statement appeared contemporaneously in major European newspapers and was later published in "Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe

Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe

Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations After the Iraq War documents for Anglophone readers the debate that took place among a number of European intellectuals in response to the manifesto by Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida calling for Europe to come together around a...

" (Verso, 2005).

In "Philosophy in a Time of Terror," Borradori asserts that militant religious fundamentalists

Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...

 explicitly reject secularization

Secularization

Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...

 and modernity

Modernity

Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...

, which constitute the conceptual foundations of the Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

. This leads Borradori to claim that an appropriate response to 9/11 must reach “as far as a critical reassessment of the validity of the Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

 project” (10).

While Habermas’s allegiance to Enlightenment principles has been uncontroversial, Derrida’s explicit defense of them is an important achievement of this book. Another remarkable result is to have identified Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

 as a key reference point in the post-9/11 world. Guided by Borradori’s questions, Habermas and Derrida discuss their different interpretations of Kant’s legacy, both agreeing, however, with the crux of his political philosophy: the legitimacy of international legal and political institutions as a condition for global justice.

Translated into eighteen languages, Philosophy in a Time of Terror ranks as one of the most popular books of philosophy in recent years.

Books

• Il Pensiero Post-Filosofico. Milan: Jaca Books, 1988
• Recoding Metaphysics: The New Italian Philosophy, edited by. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988
• The American Philosopher: Conversations with Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Nozick, Danto, Rorty, Cavell, MacIntyre, Kuhn. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1994
• Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003

External links

• 9/11 and Global Terrorism and Fundamentalism and Terror - Excerpts from Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida