Dr. Stephen Lofts

Full Professor

Phone: 4517
Email: Stephen.Lofts@kings.uwo.ca
Website: http://kingscollege.net/lofts/

Education

BA - Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada
MA  - Philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium    
PhD  - Philosophy at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium  

Teaching

• 1901E Foundations in the Humanities
• 2206X Modern and Post-Modern Philosophy
• 2204E Contemporary European Philosophy
• 4095F Heidegger
• Seminars in 20th Century Philosophy

Research

Twentieth Century European Philosophy, Culture, Critical Theory, Psychoanalysis and Theories of Subjectivity

My research interest lies at the intersection of theories of culture, subjectivity and being. I am interested in how, through our individual concrete actions, we are able to constitute a common cultural world of transpersonal meanings that shape our own proper understanding of ourselves, others, and our world, thus constituting us as historical and cultural subjects. My work on Cassirer’s transcendental theory of culture has allowed me to bring together insights concerning Husserl’s theory of constitution, horizon and transcendental phenomenology, Lebensphilosophie (in particular Bergson, Dilthey, and Simmel), Heidegger’s existential/hermeneutical phenomenology, and more contemporary theories of language and subjectivity. The essential thrust of my research is to rethink the human through a radical and critical reapportion of the tradition.

Selected Publications

Lofts, S. G., A “Repetition” of Modernity (Contemporary Continental Philosophy).  Albany: Statue University of New York Press, 2001, 262 pp.

Lofts, S.G., La vie de l'esprit: Essai sur l'unité systématique de la culture (Accent).  Louvain-Paris: Éditions Peeters/Vrin, 1997, 180 pp.

Lofts, S.G., “The Subject of Culture,” in J.M. Krois and C. Hamlin (eds), Symbolic Forms and Cultural Studies Ernst Cassirer’s Theory of Culture, Yale University Press, 2004, pp. 61-77.

Lofts, S.G., “Introduction: The Historical and Systematic Context of Zur Logik der Kulturwissenschaften,” in Ernst Cassirer, The Logic of the Cultural Sciences: Five Studies, trans. by S.G. Lofts.  New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000, pp. I-xxxii.

Lofts, S.G., “La Lecture de l’«histoire»,” in S.G. Lofts and Ph. W. Rosemann (eds), Éditer, traduire, interpreter: essays de méthodologie philosphique (Philosophes médiévaux, 36).  Louvain-la-Neuve: Éditions de l’Institut supérieur de philosophie.  Louvain-Paris: Peeters, 1996, pp. 156-173.

Lofts, S.G. “L’ordre symbolique de Jacques Lacan,” in S.G. Lofts and P. Moyaert (eds), La pensée de Jacques Lacan: Questions historiques – Problèmes théoriques (Bibliothèque Philosophique de Louvain, 39).   Louvain-la-Neuve: Éditions de l'Institut superior de philosophie.  Louvain-Paris: Éditions Peeters, 1994, pp. 83-105.