Eugen Fink propone 5 fenómenos fundamentales de la existencia humana, que son los siguientes: muerte, trabajo, dominio, Eros y juego. En el presente artículo nos ocupamos de dos de ellos: juego y muerte. A modo de destacar algunos de los rasgos primordiales de estos fenómenos -juego y muerte- cabe decir del primero que sobre todo destaca la fantasía, la ficción, y ambos relacionados a su vez con la estructura específicamente lúdica del como-si. De modo espontáneo el niño juega como-si fuera (...) policía, ladrón, rey, plebeyo, padre, madre e incluso niño, es decir, el niño transita con la mayor naturalidad a mundos ficticios. Y esto mismo hará posteriormente el actor profesional. Ello revela a la par el parentesco entre juego y arte. En el caso de la muerte, probablemente lo que más corresponde destacar es su carácter de fenómeno filosófico fundamental, dado que ella se asocia con la concepción del ser en tanto devenir, como que todo lo que es, está transido por el llegar a ser y dejar de ser. Y a la vez que la muerte tiene por lo mismo una peculiar cercanía con el ser, lo tiene también con la nada, y junto con ello, con la pregunta por el sentido. Eugen Fink proposes 5 fundamental phenomena of human existence, which are the following: death, work, dominion, Eros and play. In this article we are dealing with two of them: play and death. How to highlight some of the key features of these phenomena -play and death- it may be said of the first that stands out above all the fantasy, fiction, and both in turn related to the specifically playful structure of the as-if. Spontaneously the child plays as-if he was police, thief, king, plebeian, father, mother and even child, i.e. the child passes naturally to fictional worlds. And the same will do later on the professional actor. This shows at the same time the relationship between play and art. In the case of death, in the first place should be noted its condition as a fundamental philosophical phenomenon, since it is associated with the conception of being as becoming, which implies that everything that is, is determined by the coming to be and the passing away. Death has therefore a unique proximity to being, as with the nothing, and also with the question about meaning. (shrink)

After the publication of Jaques Derrida’s book, L’animal que donc je suis, anti-speciesism has been looking for a theoretical foundation for its ethical content. In my opinion, the defect of all these philosophical perspectives is that they still reduce animals to objects of human philosophy. Here, I develop a new framework in which animals are considered as subjects of their own philosophy. In analogy to the concept of ethnophilosophy, the concept of speciophilosophy is here introduced. The different ways of thinking (...) between humans and other animals are outlined, by explaining the difference between verbal reasoning and thinking through images. Human philosophies are shown to be anthropocentric ideologies, related to carnivorism. Subsequently, animal speciophilosophies are discussed and a dialogical symphilosophein among all living beings is proposed to be the extension of the so-called philosophy of dialogue. Finally, it is shown how this perspective was present in the original Christian ethics. (shrink)

Philosophy becomes speculative when it raises questions about the ultimate nature of being and thought. What does it mean to be? What does it mean to think? How are being and thought related? What does it mean to ask these questions? These questions have occupied a central place in philosophy throughout history, but have led a shadow existence in twentieth-century thought, which has cut the tie between reason and these fundamental questions, leaving the questions in the twilight, and reason instrumentalised. (...) A.N. Whitehead (1861-1947), one of the founders of analytic philosophy and co-author (with Bertrand Russell) of Principia Mathematica, is one of the few contemporary thinkers to have developed an explicit speculative philosophy. Unsurprisingly, his philosophy has played a marginal role in academic debates. In this study, the methodological foundation of Whitehead’s speculative thought is reconstructed. On the basis of a systematic and historical examination of the nature of the question of being, Whiteheads ontology of the event as the passage into novelty emerges in its full scope, allowing the reader to understand why and to what extent Whitehead has walked a different path than other contemporary thinkers. His philosophy contains a conception of reason that is not alien to newness and creativity while being more than procedural or pragmatic, and a mode of understanding existence that brings out the acuteness of freedom, value and legitimacy, as well as the unity of things, of thought and nature. In order to show what is really happening in this philosophy, the received interpretation of Whitehead’s ontology is radically dismantled. The central thought, that to be means to happen, is explained in a process of reiteration and gradual clarification, examining traditional philosophical problems in metaphysics and epistemology (on topics like: nature and matter, knowledge, categorical structure, freedom and necessity, truth and meaning, modality) from its perspective. What emerges is a philosophy in which the temporality of being, when taken seriously, changes the status of familiar problems and dualisms and offers possibilities for thought, which previously did not exist. Whitehead “hears” the classical questions of philosophy in a new way. Beyond the trenches of twentieth-century philosophy, Whitehead’s speculative thinking contains many elements that will be of value to those studying the foundations of thought today and looking for new directions. In a time when the dualism of nature and man is maintained cynically in our economies and dismantled, but only in a biologistic fashion and therefore only seemingly, as a cover-up, in science and philosophy, Whitehead’s new and creative way of hearing, and answering, old questions about ultimate concerns, when understood properly, is more up to date than ever before. (shrink)

One of the features of John Locke’s moral philosophy is the idea that morality is based on our beliefs concerning the future good. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding II, xxi, §70, Locke argues that we have to decide between the probability of afterlife and our present temptations. In itself, this kind of decision model is not rare in Early Modern philosophy. Blaise Pascal’s Wager is a famous example of a similar idea of balancing between available options which Marcelo Dascal (...) has discussed in his important 2005 article “The Balance of Reason”. -/- Leibniz, however, was not always satisfied with this kind of simple balancing. In his commentary to Locke’s Essay, Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain, II, xxi, §66, he presented an alternative model which is based on an idea of plural, mutually conflicting inclinations. This kind of model, called as vectorial theory of rational decision by Simo Knuuttila, fits well with Leibniz’s theory of the soul where volitions are formed as a kind of compromise between different inclinations to different goods. -/- I will present these two models and show how they illustrate the practical rationality of Locke and Leibniz and how their moral philosophies differ, although being similar in certain respects. The topics include Leibniz’s criticism of Lockean hedonism and the discussion of akratic behaviour in II, xxi of Essay and Nouveaux essais. (shrink)

This article analyzes the role played by Immanuel Kant's defense of the death penalty, in the first and the second years of Jacques Derrida's Death Penalty Seminars, delivered from 1999 to 2001. Regarding the first year, the initial part of this article charts how Derrida introduces Kant's writings that purport to elaborate the categorical imperative of the death penalty, not by Kant's primary arguments but rather precisely through Kant's concession of an exception to this categorical imperative, concerning the impunity of (...) a mother's infanticide. Derrida's lectures juxtapose Kant's philosophy of the death penalty with Victor Hugo's claim for the inviolability of life, and in doing so, the sessions introduce other examples of the applicability of the death penalty to mothers who have killed their children. What is at stake is the status of philosophy relative to the death penalty. Concerning the second year, the latter part of this article isolates the logic of Kant's categorical imperative, as deconstructed by Derrida, through recourse to the additions that Kant was obliged to append to his initial argument—those involving precisely sex crimes. The article follows how Derrida thoroughly takes apart both the simplicity of Kant's categorical imperative of the death penalty by means of the complications that are its abyssal foundation and the phallogocentrism of Freud's sexual oppositions through the extraction of insights into another thinking of sexual difference that Freud's categories foreclosed. (shrink)

The paper aims at analyzing the production of creditworthiness within the context of commercial banking in international banks. Taking the interim financing in the Polish automobile sector as an example, the paper reconstructs the process between legal framing of the financial instrument, marketing, and risk management. Firstly, it shows that changes in the state vehicle registry function as a prerequisite upon which the bank uses the newly introduced vehicle registration document as a security. Secondly, it analyzes the change of perspectives (...) which takes place between the marketing of the product and the analysis of documents . Thirdly, it argues that creditworthiness cannot be deduced from the economic representation of the enterprise but is the very result of negotiations between the actors involved. (shrink)

This paper gives the wider background to the references in Lacan’s work to the life of Angelus Silesius, the pseudonym of Johann Scheffler [1624-1677], and his principle mystical text, the Cherubinische Wandersmann. A text almost certainly written between 1651 and 1653, a period of deeply personal transition and transformation which culminated in his reception into the Catholic Church and his decision to become a Jesuit. It includes a summary of the development of Christian mysticism in the West and the immediate (...) context in which Lacan’s interest in the mystical emerged. This latter included a study of Silesius by Jean Baruzi. While Derrida and others have considered Silesius’ work not truly mystical, this paper argues that this is to over subscribe to a view in which the mystical is reduced to subjective, individual experience. A reading that only became common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (shrink)

Kirjoitus tarkastelee Martin Heideggerin myöhäisajattelussa esiin nousevaa olemisen ainutkertaisuuden (Einzigkeit, Einmaligkeit) teemaa ja sen edelleenkehittelyä Jean-Luc Nancyn ajattelussa. Teeman osoitetaan kytkeytyvän Heideggerin välienselvittelyyn filosofian esisokraattisen alun, erityisesti Parmenideen ajattelun kanssa. Parmenides ajattelee olemista kaikkia yksittäisiä ilmentymiään, "kuolevaisten" äärellisiä "näkemyksiä" (doksai) yhdistävänä absoluuttisen homogeenisena ja itseidenttisenä ilmeisyytenä (alētheia), todellisuuden puhtaana läsnäolona ajattelulle. Tätä vasten Heidegger ajattelee olemisen nimenomaan yksittäisten ilmentymiensä kontekstuaalisena ainutkertaisuutena, mielekkyystilanteiden ainutkertaistavana kontekstualisoitumisena. Nancy jatkaa ajatusta kuvailemalla olemista "ainutkertaiseksi-monikolliseksi" (singulier pluriel), mutta täydentää Heideggerin ajatteluun tunnetusti jäänyttä aukkoa soveltamalla ajatusta (...) yhteisön ajattelemiseen ainutkertaisuuksien yhdessäolemisena ja keskinäisyytenä. Näin avautuva "ainutkertaisuuden politiikan" teema onkin viime vuosikymmeninä noussut mannermaisen poliittisen ajattelun keskiöön. (shrink)

Foucault inscreve a fenomenologia num movimento de desconstrução da racionalidade. Esse registro será arqueologicamente operado em As Palavras e as Coisas como signo de uma subversão radical vinda a lume pela “modernidade” em franca oposição à “idade clássica” da cultura no Ocidente, tendo como pano de fundo algo que se revela aquém do cogito: o “impensado”. O que emerge, aqui, é a dimensão mais profunda da razão e da epistémê, ou seja, a camada subterrânea pela qual o acontecimento e a (...) historicidade operam sob a superfície do saber. É essa nova figura que entra em cena, por exemplo, via diferentes discursos como a “alienação”, o “inconsciente” ou o “irrefletido”. No tocante à tradição fenomenológica, a admissão da Lebenswelt, do Dasein, do cogito pré-reflexivo ou da Carne, o “impensado” transfigura a região privilegiada pela qual o pensamento sempre retorna. Ora, se é patente que Foucault circunscreve essa operação como uma posição de princípio a ser superada, não deixa, contudo, de ser plausível o quanto ele parece selar uma espécie de “aliança à distância” com o espírito fenomenológico. O “retorno às coisas mesmas”, em termos foucaultianos, investe-se de outro estatuto, liberando a história de todo pressuposto teleológico, num regresso ao coração do presente. É esse agenciamento que permite, sob certos aspectos, situar a obra de Foucault próxima a de Merleau-Ponty, à maneira de uma reflexão marginal, “transgressora”, abrindo, pois, uma zona de sombra, “impensada”, em sua infraestrutura última. Tal é a “paragem” interpretativa a ser, aqui, perseguida. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Anaximander's pinax, the first map according to Western tradition. Its aim is to demonstrate that it is only after the realization of the pinax that it was possible to distinguish between Being and beings in a Heideggerian sense, that is to pose the question of the ontological difference. Consequently, all the history of Western thought is nothing but the history of the raising of cartographical representation, and of reason here embodied, from the dark rigidity of death (...) to the rarefied splendours of Pure Reason. (shrink)

The object of the paper is the attempt at retracing Heidegger’s conception of the relation of time and being from his major work “Being and Time” to the lecture he gave in 1962 on “Time and Being.” In order to explain the transformation of Heidegger’s thinking between 1927 and 1962, the emphasis is put on the new understanding of the oblivion of Being as belonging to the essence of Being itself, as well as on the analysis of the double meaning, (...) temporal and ontological of presence and on Ereignis, the “event of appropriation,” which is the new name given of the relation between man and Being. (shrink)

Based on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger the article presents the possibility of actualizing Heidegger’s main question about the meaning of Being in the context of the analysis of so-called “a priori perfect.” During the development of fundamental ontology in the second half of the 1920s, Heidegger ponders the approach to Being in the history of philosophy and identifies such a feature of Being as a priori, a kind of antecedence of Being in relation to being. Although tradition invariably understands (...) Being in this way, in it, according to Heidegger, the question is no longer raised either about the sense of such antecedence, or about the temporal basis of this sense, and therefore a priori as the essential character of Being is left in total oblivion. We suggest that it is the problematization of apriority in its temporal origin that can contribute to resolving Heidegger’s fundamental philosophical question of time as the transcendental horizon of any concept of Being that precedes being. In this precedence there is a cherished temporal moment, the comprehension of which allows us to develop the “basic question of metaphysics” about the relationship of Being and time in a more concrete way than Heidegger’s four main themes of the question of Being: the ontological difference; the basic articulation of Being ); the truth-character of Being; the possible modifications of Being and the unity of Being’s variety. Revealing a priori question as the central question of all Heideggers thinking before the “Turn” we attempt to update this question and justify the need for its renewal on the basis of a fundamental ontology. With this task we relate the question of the essence of philosophy in general in its existential-temporal concept since philosophy appears as a temporality-based possible of the questioning return to the “earlier”: to the essential structures of being, knowledge, Being, Dasein. Our analysis is based on the following decisions: Being in relation to being is always pre-understood as “earlier,” and in this understanding a temporal definition operates, hence the main question of fundamental ontology about the relation of Being and time can be developed or at least clarified through the problem of meaning of a priori. The question of the meaning of the “earlier” and of the temporal basis for understanding Being as “earlier,” a priori, is concretized into the question of the conditions for the possibility of any ontology, including the fundamental ontology, which raises the question of the earlier in relation to Being and therefore “lives” in the light of the understanding of the “earlier” as such. This reflexive foundation of the fundamental ontology from itself is a necessary stage on the way of developing its project, if we remember that the main “duty” of the philosopher is to clarify “our inner nature” for the sake of opening the boundaries and conditions of the possibility of philosophy. The conclusion is that the possibilities of fundamental ontology in making sense of Being, time, and philosophy in general are far from exhausted, but await the questions that actualize them and new readings that allow to see the hidden richness of Heidegger’s thought. (shrink)

This thesis wrestles with the normativity of language, its usage and its practices while questioning the signifié-signifiant reality. A structural reading of language designs its translational practices within the source-target framework, thereby essentialising its relationship en passant: everything has meaning as long as we accept the hidden framework of a universal language. Therefore, language outlined as a system of signs is a product of transcendental considerations and consequently it renders practice into a hermeticrealm in which the distinction between eidos and (...) eidolon, right and wrong, familiar and unfamiliar, grammar and gibberish makes perfect sense and in which the translation from A to B is simply a matter of transferring identities. Linguistic power neutralises through its transcendental conditioning ephemera in life and world. We will discover that a phenomenological reading of language is open to layers which questions the dialectic setting of linguistic knowledge production. Phenomenology proposes to study life-world relationships by reducing the power of dialectical denomination to the power of gazing or to the lenses of ambiguity. Theorising language and translational practices within the phenomenological realm follows the concept of being oriented towards body-life-world while laying bare the phenomenon language. This revealing method supersedes empirical considerations since phenomenological methodology questions permanently our very own positioning. Hence, the transfer from A to B will be challenged by possibilities which are temporary: it is about a transfer zone featuring A as A’ to B or A’ in B / C. However, the phenomenological possibility reveals that the price for ephemera is tamed by the condition of its possibilities: indeed, the aporia of linguistic identity in polyvalence requires not only phenomenological brackets but also a transcendental backup. Chapter I and II study the translational practice of language and phenomenology by explaining its analysis via dynamised transcendental conditions. The disillusion of the phenomenological inquiry will be yield by radicalising phenomenological reading of language towards a phenomenographical practice of language. Chapter III goes to the extremes in exposing a language without content. The introduction of the trickster figure Narcissistgrotesque Face will be the anti-metaphor in which the grotesque line up forces us to learn bearing A with B and in which the non-content materiality of linguistic practices resemble le bas matérialisme. Not explanation, understanding and rendering things plausible is the movens for language but it is all about the spur of its enactment, its style and its story telling that renders translational practice visible. Chapter III is a performative practice in which we turn the text into texture. Translation happens then when your are perplex and the translational void enacts you and me. (shrink)

The essay recapitulates the decisive steps in Heidegger’s development of the problem of human freedom. The interpretation is set in the context of a general matrix for how freedom is treated in the tradition, as both a theoretical ontological problem, and as practical appeal. According to some readers, Heidegger’s thinking is a philosophy of freedom throughout; according to others his “turning” implies abandoning the idea of human freedom as a metaphysical remnant. The essay seeks an intermediate path, by following his (...) explicit attempts to develop an ontology based on the concept of freedom in the earlier writings, showing how this is the central theme in his confrontation and also his final break with German idealism, with Kant and with Schelling in particular, and with the prospects for a system of freedom. However, this break does not terminate his preoccupation with the problem of freedom, which is then transformed into the idea of thinking as a practice of freedom, as a way of reaching into “the free”. (shrink)

The article explores the topic of Gelassenheit (releasement) in Heidegger, through the lense of the ambiguous role of Christian mysticism in general and Eckhart in particular in and for his thinking. In an analysis of how mysticism appears in his early lectures on religion, it explains why he is critical of this concept and of how it is commonly understood. It also gives reasons for why we too should be cautious in using it to describe his position in his later (...) writings where he explicitly reconnects to themes and concepts from Eckhart. The text provides a critical rehearsal of Eckhart's understanding of both “Abgeschiedenheit” (detachment) and "Gelassenheit" and how Heidegger relates to it both in his early lectures and in his later essays. Ultimately it outlines a phenomenological understanding of what is commonly referred to as a “mystical” comportment more along the lines of a heightened openness and awareness, in Heidegger’s words as a “releasement toward things and an openness to the secret”. Thus, instead of seeing Heidegger’s later writings as a sort of crypto-mysticism, the text seeks to show how his critical appropriation of Eckhart explicitly points beyond a standard dichotomy between the rational and the mystical, in an effort to develop a comportment of thinking than can respond to the demand of modern technological predicament. (shrink)

In this paper I provide a reading of Derrida’s seminal text, "White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy". In this text, Derrida deals with the encounter between philosophy and metaphor as an external element to philosophy. The conclusion is that Philosophy tends to internalize any external element. Philosophy considers metaphor as something ought to be subjected. Therefore, when one searches for the metaphor in philosophy, what he or she finds not the metaphor itself, but the concept of metaphor? Metaphor (...) in the text of philosophy is the philosophical metaphor. Derrida at the end discusses the metaphor of metaphor, the tireless metaphorical movement, and unlimited metaphor as the truth of metaphor. Philosopher during its history always considers metaphors as something to be subjugated and controlled. So, metaphor in the text of philosophy is the concept of metaphor, not metaphor in itself, which according to Derrida, pure dissemination. In this sense, the origin of concepts is not conceptual. Key words: Metaphor, Derrida, Dissemination, Aristotle, Proper Name 1. Introduction In this paper we provide a reading of Derrida’s seminal text, "White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy" which deals with the encounter between philosophy and metaphoricity as its main outsider. Through an analysis of Derrida’s text and some reference to his sources, we would conclude that Philosophy tends to internalize any external element, including metaphoricity. Philosophy considers metaphor as something to be subjugated. Therefore, when one searches for the metaphor in philosophy, what he or she finds is not the metaphor itself, but the concept of metaphor. Concept of metaphor Metaphor in the text of philosophy is the philosophical metaphor, and not the literary one. Derrida at the end discusses the metaphor of metaphor, the tireless metaphorical movement, and unlimited metaphor as the truth of the concept of metaphor. During its history, philosophy always considers metaphors as something to be subjugated and controlled. Hence, metaphor in the text of philosophy is the concept of metaphor, not metaphor in itself, which is, according to Derrida, pure dissemination. A metaphor in itself is a material movement, the material production of concepts. In this sense, the origin of concepts is not conceptual, but rather a literary movement. Concepts as the elements of philosophy are just the result of something concrete and indeterminate, namely the metaphorical dissemination. It seems Derrida stands here against philosophy, but the case is that he redefines it, by taking metaphoricity as its central motor. Philosophy appears as the surface of a profound material movement of thought, which can be found in pure literature, in the work of mad literary figures such as Artaud or Mallarme. Even in the realm of mainstream philosophy, this literary movement is tractable everywhere, from Plato to Nietzsche. Madness is the motor of reason. Therefore, what Derrida does is applying a therapy on philosophy from within through revealing a tendency in philosophy to objectify and conceptualize what is its subject matter. The will in philosophy to conceptualize meets its limit in the case of metaphor as its subject matter, because in this case philosophy conceptualizes something which inherently evades conceptualization and objectification. It indicates a will which is never fully successful and this is why everywhere in the history of philosophy we can find a literary attitude instead of a full philosophical conceptuality. Each philosophical concept is the result of the will to conceptualization applying on a non-conceptualizable entity, or better, movement. Hence, what we find in the text of philosophy is the concept of metaphor, not the metaphor in itself and its pure form, but the concept of metaphor reveals the metaphoricity of concepts. Philosophy wants to overcome metaphor, but at the end of the day, it is the latter that invades the purity of the former. Therefore, instead of the concept of metaphor, Derrida introduces the metaphor of metaphor, which is not any more a concept, but rather a movement. The relation between concept and metaphor is like that of signified and signifier in Derrida’s early work. What is called signification is not any more under the governance of signified, as is in the classical structuralism, but rather it turns to be a movement from signifier to signifier, having the transcendental signified as eliminated. Transcendental signified is the concept as a halt in the movement of signification. What is the case here is not that the concept does not exist, but rather is the genetic movement of concept, how it comes into existence. Derrida performs a genealogy of concept, seeking its formation in the course of history, or rather in the course of the history of philosophy. Here, we can find a very good example of what is called deconstruction, useful to understand what Derrida does on other problematics, such as writing, being a book, nature and culture, etc. 2. Aristotle on Metaphor Derrida demonstrates the will to conceptualization in philosophy through some references to Aristotle, specifically when he tends to reduce any polysemy into univocity. This tendency is called logos. This is the reign of proper name over philosophy and human thinking in general. Only things that have proper name exist. Without a proper name nothing is a thing, so it is nothing. This is the renouncement of plurality in general. Instead, Derrida brings forward the idea of a pure multiplicity in the idea of dissemination. It is the multiplicity of sense in a metaphorical movement. Everything is a metaphor as long as it is not reduced to a unity, to one entity with a proper name. Everything is a metaphor before gaining a name. Neither human beings nor their language begins with the unity of proper names. In the beginning is not logos but rather the multiplicity of metaphors, or dissemination. The latter is the original move, the original sin. Having several meanings is just having no meaning. And having infinitely many meanings is the original sin! But history changed this story by saying that everyone and everything has just one thing to say, namely logos. The unity of logos used to stand against the plurality of dissemination. This is the birth of logic and its governance over thinking. Before the governance of logic thinking was vivid, with the multiplication of metaphors as its motor. 3. Conclusion The whole story is about the source of organizations. In a Platonic and Aristotelian view, organizations are pre-established patterns governing the creation of being. Derrida changes the story by claiming that organizations are just the results of the original movement of dissemination which is without any pre-existing organization. Grammar for example is the law of making correct phrases, but the result of an accidental formation of phrases. Grammar would be different if the historical speakers of a language could put the words together in a different way, and they really could, and it is also the case about the formation of a word through putting voices together. Therefore, metaphoricity is the original accident, the original accidental movement that produces concepts and organizations. Human being is an animal who learned to think in the course of history. References - Aristotle Metaphysics, Translated by W. D. Ross, Oxford: Clarendon Press. - Aristotle Poetics, Translated by Malcolm Heath, Pinguin Classics, New Edition. - Derrida, J. “Wight Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy” in Margins of Philosophy, translated by Alan Bass, The University of Chicago. - Heidegger, M. Der Satz vom Grund, Pfullingen, Neske 1957. - Louis, Pierre Les Métaphores de Platon, Paris,‘Les Belles Lettres. (shrink)