The article situates Kittler’s view on the question of visual technology within his general media theory and critically examines Kittler’s optical paradigm with regard to questions of (visual) technology, discourse, strategy and style. Focus is given to the link between visual technology and the Renaissance period.

The Anaximander fragment, in the readings of both Heidegger and Derrida, speaks of that which exceeds positive law. In this article, the author provides a detailed reading of Heidegger’s Der Spruch des Anaximander, showing how Heidegger relates this fragment to his thinking of Being, the latter having been ‘forgotten’ by metaphysics. Heidegger’s reading at the same time involves a contemplation of technology and of the ontological relation of beings to each other. Derrida’s reading of Heidegger’s Der Spruch highlights specifically those (...) parts of Heidegger’s text where that which precedes Being’s gathering, Being’s disjoining or dissemination, is pointed to. This disjoining, Derrida contends, speaks of the gift of a day more ancient than memory itself and ties in closely with certain aspects of the thinking of Marx. Derrida’s focus on that which precedes Being is in turn related to his contemplation of the law or condition of possibility of technology and also of that which makes possible a relation to the other as other. This condition of possibility, or the gift of Being, which Heidegger’s text also speaks of, involves a ‘higher law’ which can serve as a ‘measure’ for the evaluation, interpretation and transformation of positive law. (shrink)

‘Disastrologies’ explores Derrida's fascination with dates and how that fascination reveals a secret correspondence, in every sense of the word, with Walter Benjamin – a man who has the same birth-date as Derrida. It is, though, the date of Benjamin's death and indeed its infamous mise-en-scène, the cheap hotel on the Franco-Spanish border, that dominates this text which takes the form of a dramatic monologue delivered by the hotel manager, Juan Suñer, a man known to be both a manipulator of (...) dates and, indeed, close to the Gestapo. As the monologue unfolds, Suñer advances an elaborate calendrical re-reading of a host of Derrida texts which probes at the mystery not only of Benjamin's last night but also of living with both Jewish and Christian calendars. Finally, we see how this last of nights puts under unbearable pressure the infinite promise of both the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday. (shrink)

This essay develops an account of the link between Kant's aesthetics and his ethics. It does so by articulating a Kantian account of moral psychology by way of aesthetic reflective judgements of sublimity. Since judgements of sublimity enrich the picture of a Kantian subject by forcefully revealing the unbounded power of the faculty of reason, I investigate the possibility that judgements of this kind could serve as a basis for moral motivation. The paper first shows how judgements of sublimity help (...) a subject recognize reason's unbounded nature, and proceeds to analyse the practical effects of a subject judging itself sublime. When judgements of sublimity have as their object the unbounded and unsythesizable power of reason, they may thereby serve as the basis for both the recognition of our moral vocation, and the grounds for determining the will to act from respect for it. Since a judgement of sublimity produces for Kant the experience of an enlivening emotion and an outflowing of vital forces, the paper then develops Kant's concept of “life” motivated by a recognition of its practical orientation. In this way sublimity rather than beauty can be interpreted as symbolic hypotyposis of morality. The paper then takes up less favourable interpretations of the practical effects of self-predicated judgements of sublimity, and constructs critical responses to such positions. I conclude, following Adorno, by stressing the historical and social dimension of the capacities for both making sublime judgements, and being morally enlivened by them. (shrink)

This paper proposes to analyse the process that makes paths of action meaningful. It argues that this process is one of ‘figuration’. The term ‘figuration’ intends to outline how the experience of moral meaning is one that already positively marks out a field and to identify and analyse the mechanisms used for such marking and selection. It is my contention that these mechanisms predate the persuasion to a moral path; they are the process through which this path is constructed as (...) meaningful. This thesis is elucidated through an analysis of the tactics of meaning in Kant’s moral theory. Kant turns to aesthetics as a means of corroboration for his moral theory, but he also attempts to limit the scope of the interactions between his aesthetic and moral theory. For instance, when he writes on the topic of form in aesthetic taste or outlines the technical specifications of aesthetic judgment, it is arguably the arcane peculiarities of his system that are met. For this reason, Kant insists on the merely analogical relations between beauty and morality. However, it is also possible to see how certain aspects of Kant’s aesthetic theory execute wider, and potentially more important, functions for his practical philosophy, such as providing meaningful orientation for the ascetic moral attitude of his duty-ethics. In this respect, certain figures of Kant’s aesthetic theory may well be viewed as complementing the dependence in his moral philosophy, in the important sections on moral pedagogy and methodology, on appeals to heroic models and stories as ways of shaping and inculcating the moral disposition. This paper considers these aspects of interaction between Kant’s aesthetic and moral philosophies as both 1) a problem for the consistency of his philosophy given his avowed exclusion of aesthetic and religious elements of meaning in his duty-ethics; and 2) as a case study for the new, schematic analysis of ‘moral figuration’ outlined in the paper. (shrink)

This article focuses on a potentially perplexing aspect of our interactions with pictorial representations : in some cases, it seems that visual representations can play tricks on our cognitive faculties. We may either come to believe that objects represented in pictures are real or perhaps perceive them as such. The possibility of widespread pictorial illusions has been oft discussed, and discarded, in the aesthetics literature. I support this stance. However, the nature of the illusion is more complicated than is usually (...) considered. I argue that there are five different types of potential illusions and present reasons for rejecting each. I also explore in detail the most persistent illusion: the “object recognition perceptual illusion thesis,” which states that we undergo a perceptual illusion while viewing pictorial representations simply in virtue of seeing objects in the representation. I contend that a rejection of this thesis depends on the nature of perceptual content, an issue with far-reaching consequences in aesthetics. (shrink)

In his introduction to Copy-Archive-Signature: A Conversation on Photography published in 2009, Gerhard Richter observes that while photography is concerned, ‘like deconstruction’, with ‘questions of presentation, translation, techné, substitution, deferral, dissemination, repetition, iteration, memory, inscription, death, and mourning’, relatively little attention has been given to those texts of Derrida's that specifically address photography and the work and thought of the photograph: ‘Aletheia’, Rights of Inspection, Athens, Remains, to name the most obvious. Things have changed a little since 2009, but it (...) remains the case that photography, with its strange logic and uncanny temporalities, situates itself in Derrida's publications as, possibly, the most performative of tropes in Derrida's writing. As Richter argues, it is available to our view as a ‘metalanguage’, through which all other questions are brought into focus. This paper therefore focuses on the photograph: the photograph in Derrida's writings and photographs of Derrida. (shrink)

This paper examines the hitherto neglected resonance between Danto's and Derrida's concepts of the Artworld and the Frame. In doing so, I challenge prevalent understandings of Danto's theoretical framework, highlighting the necessary instability that he integrates into his definition of the art object. Equally, I emphasise the applicability of Derrida's deconstructive concept to the concrete conditions of contemporary artistic practice. I begin by examining the tensions present in Danto's definitional approach, as it demands a complex vision of Artworld relations. I (...) then consider how the ontologically constitutive character of Danto's Artworld may be re-examined through Derrida's concept of the parergon, as a supplementary techné that is fundamentally unstable and fragmented. Through this comparative reading I show that despite their different approaches, Danto's and Derrida's philosophies of art advance similar ontological conclusions. I thus argue that while their differences should not be minimised, our understanding of Danto's and Derrida's aesthetic concepts is enriched through recognition of their unforeseen correspondences. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue for three interpretative claims about the philosophical strategies and examples employed in the first of Heidegger’s three lectures on ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’. I argue that his initial response to a Van Gogh painting is intended to dramatize a confusion rather than to articulate an insight; that his invocation of a poem by C. F. Meyer serves a number of functions overlooked by other commentators; and that Heidegger’s overall approach is best understood (...) in terms of Michael Fried’s conception of modernism in painting. (shrink)

For over 2000 years, the sublime has been a source of fascination for philosophers, artists, and even the general public at times. We have written hundreds of treatises on the subject, put forth innumerable definitions and explanations, and even tried to reproduce it in art and literature. But, despite our efforts, our understanding of the sublime remains elusive. In this paper, the sublime is explored as a potential human experience that can be evoked by an image. Drawing upon concrete experiences, (...) the phenomenon of sublimity suggests a compelling, embodied response to the visual object that can evoke a fundamental change of being. (shrink)

The book is an attempt to explore the affinities between contemporary critical theories and modernist and postmodernist American poetry. The analysis focuses on poststructuralist theories, notorious for their tendency to destabilize generic boundaries between literary, philosophical and critical discourses. The main argument and the structure of the book derive from Jacques Derrida’s essay “Che cos’è la poesia” [What is poetry?] in which the philosopher postulates the impossibility of defining poetry by comparing a poem to a hedgehog – prickly, solitary, untamed, (...) fragile and protective, rolling itself up into a ball at the first sign of danger or when in the hands of the reader-intruder. The metaphor captures thus the fragility of the relationship between poetry and the world. The book examines this relationship as exemplified by the erinaceous poetics of high modernists and their postmodernist followers In the study I employ also other oststructuralist theories, such as the notion of the text and the pleasure of the text formulated by Roland Barthes, the heories of metaphor as seen by Paul Ricoeur or Paul de Man, and gender-sensitive theories of Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray. (shrink)

My purpose, broadly construed, is a simple one; to interpret Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art" in the light of his early work on the nature of phenomenology and philosophy. My method will therefore be to present certain key elements of Heidegger's early understanding of phenomenology and philosophy, and then to trace these elements, and certain challenges which arise from them, into their development in Being and Time. Following this I will enquire into how these considerations should guide (...) our interpretations of "The Origin of the Work of Art" and evaluate how "The Origin of the Work of Art" presents a different perspective, and perhaps a new answer, to earlier concerns. My thesis is that, within "The Origin of the Work of Art", Heidegger develops a more radical understanding of the insight which first allowed him to reply to the neo-Kantian attacks on phenomenology and which led him to break away from Husserlian phenomenology. This insight/innovation is the transformation of categorial intuition into pre-ontological understanding, as discussed in the work of commentators such as Theodore Kisiel. From the insights of intentionality and categorial intuition follows the explicit necessity of human finitude as later understood as Dasein's thrown-being-in-the-world. This finitude leads to what I call the riddle of Gelassenheit, meaning how, faced with the inevitability of comportment and the concealing nature of all limited disclosure, we can yet comport ourselves in such a way as to allow things to be what they are. One answer to this riddle is provided in the comportment specifically towards the undisclosed which is later to become Gelassenheit proper, but which also appears in the techne of the artist which points to the origin of our pre-ontological understanding in the fundamental event of disclosure/concealment that occurs in art. (shrink)

I have been teaching qualitative research in education at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem for some years now. I have a sense that dealing with the issues of research methodology is of importance if we do indeed consider anthropology and qualitative methods to have something to contribute to improve the world in which we live. I write this rather short note out of a commitment to empirical research in the social sciences, emphasizing that which is observed and experienced, and recognizing (...) the complexity of studying that which is human. I reflect on my experience as a learner looking for ways to understand educational practice through methods able to capture its complexity. I then reflect on my experience as a teacher of anthropology and education, and consider the problems I encounter when trying to share my trade with my students. I hint at the potential connection between the political organizations within which we evolve and the paradigmtic perspectives which seem to become an obstacle in overcoming traditional empirical perspectives in the social sciences in general and in education in particular. Last, I consider multiple literacies as tools which might help us realize the problems mentioned and emphasize that these do not belong only in the world outside but also inside our immediate academic settings. (shrink)