Examines how violence has been conceptually and rhetorically put to use in continental social theory. Images of violence enjoy a particular privilege in contemporary continental philosophy, one manifest in the ubiquity of violent metaphors and the prominence of a kind of rhetorical investment in violence as a motif. Such images have also informed, constrained, and motivated recent continental feminist theory. In Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary, Ann V. Murphy takes note of wide-ranging references to the themes of violence and vulnerability in contemporary theory. She considers the ethical and political implications of this language of violence with the aim of revealing other ways in which identity and the social bond might be imagined, and encourages some critical distance from the images of violence that pervade philosophical critique. “Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary makes a unique and remarkable contribution to contemporary discussions of violence. What is unique about the approach of the book is that, from a position squarely on the side of nonviolence, Ann Murphy embarks on a critical analysis of critiques of violence. This is as brave as it is necessary.” — Rosalyn Diprose, author of Corporeal Generosity: On Giving with Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas Ann V. Murphy is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University