Based on ethnographic research done in Moscow, Russia, this article describes how some Muscovites articulate their moral consciousness, that is, the ways in which persons articulate to themselves and others how they conceptualize morality. While it may be possible, and indeed is often the case, that these concepts influence how people act and help guide individuals toward moral behavior, what is more important for our purposes is that these concepts provide a way for persons to give meaning, both for themselves (...) and for others, to their moral worlds and experience. Thus, what I hope to do in this article is describe just one of the conceptual frameworks within which moral experience is rendered meaningful for my Muscovite interlocutors. In doing so, I will consider how certain concepts of the moral person that have their origins in turn of the century Russian religious philosophy, Russian Orthodox Christianity, and Soviet ideology have all come together to make up various aspects of this moral consciousness. (shrink)

Translated Felicia McCarren. Stanford: Stanford UP and Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995 (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics series). Pages: xxiii + 161. Pb: 0 8047 2385 0; 10.95. Hb: 0 8047 2376 I; 25.00. Originally published in French as Musica Ficta (Figures de Wagner). Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1991.

Heidegger's Destruktion of the metaphysical tradition leads him to the view that all Western metaphysical systems make foundational claims best understood as 'ontotheological'. Metaphysics establishes the conceptual parameters of intelligibility by ontologically grounding and theologically legitimating our changing historical sense of what is. By first elucidating and then problematizing Heidegger's claim that all Western metaphysics shares this ontotheological structure, I reconstruct the most important components of the original and provocative account of the history of metaphysics that Heidegger gives in support (...) of his idiosyncratic understanding of metaphysics. Arguing that this historical narrative generates the critical force of Heidegger's larger philosophical project (namely, his attempt to find a path beyond our own nihilistic Nietzschean age), I conclude by briefly showing how Heidegger's return to the inception of Western metaphysics allows him to uncover two important aspects of Being's pre-metaphysical phenomenological self-manifestation, aspects which have long been buried beneath the metaphysical tradition but which are crucial to Heidegger's attempt to move beyond our late-modern, Nietzschean impasse. (shrink)

A. N. Whitehead's approach to physical theorizing contrasts with that of mainstream or official physics in being centrally concerned with articulating a background explanation of physical facts and phenomena in general that would take the place of the “ether” of classical physics, a project otherwise unpursued by the science in its modern period. Unlike Einstein's, Whitehead's approach to relativity primarily seeks explanation rather than utility ; also, it avoids the philosophical problems with Einstein's theory alleged by Whitehead and a range (...) of other philosophers. This stops short of a finding as to the comparative worth of Whitehead's alternative basis for quantitative formulations. (shrink)

The nature and value of autonomy has long been debated in diverse philosophical traditions, including moral and political philosophy. Although the notion dates back to ancient Greek philosophy, it was during the Age of Enlightenment that autonomy drew much attention. Thus, as may be known, moral philosophers tended to emphasize self-regulation, particularly one’s own will to abide by universal moral laws, as the term “autonomy” originates from the Greek words “self” (auto) and “rule” (nomos). In parallel, modern epistemologists supposedly espoused (...) the idea of intellectual autonomy as self-reliance. In this classical view, an intellectually autonomous explorer of knowledge must not depend on a belief that is obtained from another’s testimony, until one can justify it to oneself. However, accompanying the growing focus on the importance of social dimensions of acquiring knowledge and understanding, recent epistemologists have doubted the classical view and have since reconsidered intellectual autonomy from distinct approaches such as social and virtue epistemology. This paper propounds an interpersonal-epistemic approach to intellectual autonomy. First, it is argued that thinking through questioning both individually and with other epistemic peers is an interpersonal-epistemic practice. Second, it is demonstrated that with particular cognitive features inherent within us, an intellectually autonomous person must think through questioning in necessary situations. This interpersonal account of intellectual autonomy can conceptually enrich intellectual autonomy by considering its relationship with not only responsibility but also with vulnerability. Specifically, regarding responsibility, an intellectually autonomous person must be responsible for his or her own actions throughout questioning processes. Regarding vulnerability, our intellectual autonomy lies in retaining autonomy with vulnerability in the plastic control of the questioning processes. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 8, Page 1140-1173, October 2022. This article explores the complexities of Marcuse’s philosophical anthropology in light of Foucault’s criticisms of Marcuse and the Frankfurt School. While Marcuse’s theory of human nature is grounded upon a dialectical conception of essential human potentialities striving for realization, it secretes a radically plastic conception of life that undermines all anthropological essentialism. This fundamental tension between essentialist and plastic conceptions of human nature has significant implications for rethinking Marcuse’s (...) project and legacy. (shrink)

Nietzsche sometimes praises the drive to order—to simplify, organize, and draw clear boundaries—as expressive of a vital "classical" style, or an Apollonian artistic drive to calmly contemplate forms displaying "epic definiteness and clarity." But he also sometimes harshly criticizes order, as in the pathological dialectics or "logical schematism" that he associates paradigmatically with Socrates. I challenge a tradition that interprets Socratism as an especially one-sided expression of, or restricted form of attention to, the Apollonian: they are more radically disparate. Beyond (...) strengthening the case for this basic point, I develop a distinctive account of what, exactly, distinguishes the Apollonian-classical and Socratic forms of order. To this end, I advance interrelated interpretations of Apollonian-classical simplicity and the "cold" calm that it elicits, by contrast to superficially similar Socratic phenomena. This illuminates Nietzsche's broader ambivalence toward science, in part by clarifying the nature and value of an idealized Apollonian science. (shrink)

Los intentos de delimitación que se presentan a continuación, con motivo del arte danzario como forma de obra de arte performática o como instancia de lo performático, atienden a algunos cuestionamientos propuestos a la reflexión sobre el arte, por parte de algunas prácticas y fenómenos artísticos de la década de 1960 y que se relacionan con prácticas de la primera mitad del siglo XX. Son fenómenos artísticos que involucran la espacialidad, la corporeidad y el movimiento de quienes convergen con motivo (...) de los eventos artísticos, y que hacen énfasis en la dimensión procesual de las obras, una dimensión que escasamente tiene presencia en los constructos estéticos dominantes como el kantiano y el hegeliano. Ahora bien, sobre el fondo de la obra de arte total del siglo XIX ( en las declaraciones estéticas de Richard Wagner y de Friedrich Nietzsche), más recientemente se hacen visibles y tematizables formas de arte multimediático, happening, performance, body art, instalación, vídeo arte, arte experimental, además de la dominante y tradicional obra de arte visual y plástica o la del lenguaje poético: en efecto, ya podemos señalar la presencia de la problemática de lo performático en la plástica, en gran parte de la obra de Marcel Duchamp, o en las lecturas de poesía dadaísta, o en las mismas obras efímeras de varios artistas y movimientos de la época. (shrink)

Abstract Both the subject of science and the notion of creativity in Nietzsche have not been studied with the attention they deserve. The subject of science, however, can be considered a thread of research that is attracting the attention of a large number of philosophers. The notion of creativity, for its part, occupies, among other notions, a little known place within the interests that revolve around the figure of the thinker of Röcken. Therefore, we intend to develop a study of (...) the concept of science in Nietzsche focusing on an analysis of his criticism, to pose the gaze on the subject of Darwinism. Creativity will be studied in light of Nietzsche works and later in nexus with science. The relationship between these themes allows a novel approach to the study of science in Nietzsche and, therefore, to perceive its possible consequences. (shrink)

This paper explores similarities between the sacrilegious revaluations Nietzsche and Spinoza undertook with regards to Christianity and Judaism respectively. In both cases, these revaluations involve a devaluation of an ancestral religious tradition, followed by the infusion of alternative values posited through forms of secular salvation linked to immanent conceptions of eternity. Given the importance of the structural and phenomenological similarities the paper analyses, it is argued that if Nietzsche thought of himself as the Anti-Christ, there is a convincing case to (...) think of Spinoza as the Anti-Moses. And because both the Anti-Christ and the Anti-Moses not only devaluated their respective religious traditions, but also suggested forms of beatitude based on a valorizing notion of eternity, their efforts are profoundly religious. Accordingly, Nietzsche and Spinoza are not only arguably the greatest Christian and Jewish heretics, but also the prophets of innovative forms of secular and immanent religiosity. (shrink)

Debord’s influential theory of the spectacle is vitiated by its lack of historical and analytical differentiation. This article draws on Debord’s own undeveloped distinction between the concentrated spectacle and the diffuse spectacle in order to propose a double genealogy and a fourfold typology of the spectacle since the French Revolution.

ABSTRACTIn this article I explore the idea that Heidegger's lectures on The Basic Problems of Phenomenology are of particular importance to our understanding of the relationship between Heidegger and Kant. These lectures can be read as a “historical” commentary on Being and Time. Of course, Heidegger does not present himself as a historian of philosophy, but acts as a philosophical reader of Kant in order to expound the principal ideas of his own philosophy. My central claim is that it is (...) through Kant's philosophy of self-consciousness that Heidegger attempts to provide us with a better understanding of his own conception of self-understanding. (shrink)

This contribution is a critical and constructive engage ment with discourse ethics. First, it clarifies why discourse ethics has difficulties with the grounding and application of moral norms. Second, it turns to a positive appropriation of the formal and proce dural aspects of discourse ethics. The goal is the elaboration of an ethics that is able to incorporate the material aspects of goods and the formal dimension of ethical validity and consensuability. Every morality is the formal application of some substantive (...) good. Every ethical perspective demands its evaluation in terms of its uni versability. In order to achieve this mediation, it is suggested that we must incorporate not only the historical dimension of moral systems, but also the role of critical consciousness and the negativity embod ied by those who are victims of the existing consensus. The essay con cludes with six points that need to be considered when formulating a material ethics that is universalizable and, most importantly, that can address the massive poverty and dehumanization of those excluded from the present community of communication. Key Words: application • consensual • corporeality • discourse ethics • formal • grounding • intersubjective • Kantian • liberation • ethics • material • phronesis • procedural • validity. (shrink)

There is no more central issue to education than thinking and reasoning. Certainly, such an emphasis chimes with the rationalist and cognitive deep structure of the Western educational tradition. The contemporary tendency reinforced by cognitive science is to treat thinking ahistorically and aculturally as though physiology, brain structure and human evolution are all there is to say about thinking that is worthwhile or educationally significant. The movement of critical thinking also tends to treat thinking ahistorically, focusing on universal processes of (...) logic and reasoning. Against this trend and against the scientific spirit of the age this paper presents a historical and philosophical picture of thinking. By contrast with dominant cognitive and logical models the paper emphasizes kinds of thinking and styles of reasoning. The paper grows out of interests primarily in the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein, and in the extension and development of their work in Critical Theory and French poststructuralist philosophy. The paper draws directly on some of this work to argue for the recognition of different kinds of thinking, which are explored by reference to Heidegger, and also the significance of styles of reasoning, which are explored by reference to Wittgenstein and to Ian Hacking. (shrink)

This study sets out the main points in Leonardo Polo’s theory of moral development, which systematically articulates goods, norms, and virtues. To make them easier to understand, each point has been compared with Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, which is well known to specialists and radically different to it. We have chosen three aspects of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development to highlight the uniqueness of Polo’s theory: a) Kohlberg does not account for the specificity of voluntary acts, particularly the act (...) of deciding; b) The options that solve Kohlberg’s dilemmas are isolated from potential prior and subsequent decisions, so his moral development ignores any internal biographical storyline to the decisions themselves; and c) The Kohlbergian morality is an ethics of justice and duty, thereby relegating the friendship, which to Polo is the culmination of ethics, to a morally irrelevant level. (shrink)

Nietzsche consistently valorizes artistic falsehoods. On standard interpretations, this is because art provides deceptive yet salutary fictions that help us affirm life. This reading conflicts, however, with Nietzsche’s insistence that life-affirmation requires untrammeled honesty. I present an alternative interpretation which navigates the interpretive impasse. With special attention to the influence of Friedrich Schiller, the paper argues for three claims: (1) Nietzsche does not hold that art is false because it “beautifies,” but because it produces mere semblances of, its objects; (2) (...) these semblances are essentially non-deceptive; (3) he values artistic illusions because they dispose us positively to illusion more generally. Such ‘evaluative reorientation,’ I argue, is not merely consistent with, but integral to, achieving Nietzsche’s ideal of honesty. (shrink)

One of the more interesting aspects of the relatively unexplored topic of Nietzsche’s interest in Epicurus and Epicurean philosophy is his tendency to associate both with suffering. In this essay I examine a number of Nietzsche’s references to Epicurus and Epicureanism, paying particular attention to his recurring suggestion that both the foundation of this philosophy and its special appeal have much to do with the mitigation of suffering and the prospect of rest and contentedness. I also examine Nietzsche’s unusual suggestion (...) that Epicureanism and Christianity have much in common. While Nietzsche is sympathetic to Epicurus and appreciates the therapeutic appeal of his philosophy, this essay goes on point out several fundamental ways in which this ancient “redemption doctrine” is markedly un-Nietzschean in its character and goals. (shrink)

(2005). Frameworks & foundations. Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the german traditionissue editor: damian veal, pp. 201-218.

En el presente trabajo, abordamos la obra de Friedrich Nietzsche con el objeto de analizar el modo en que su temprana crítica a las instituciones educativas alemanas y, específicamente, a la filosofía universitaria de su tiempo deriva de manera progresiva en los esbozos de una concepción tardía de la filosofía, fundada en la vida misma como medio de conocimiento a través del “experimento”. El diagnóstico nietzscheano es crítico y su resolución, un gran desafío para los futuros pensadores, a quienes les (...) demanda vivir experimentalmente sus palabras más allá de los libros. La cultura del ensayo emerge como horizonte final para esta praxis filosófico-experimental. (shrink)

El presente texto aborda el parágrafo 36 de los Aportes a la filosofía de Martin Heidegger, para desde este exponer una vía de comprensión de esta obra en torno al lenguaje filosófico-poético, vía que llevaría a considerar el pensamiento del filósofo como una posibilidad de un proyecto pensante que no asumiría el lenguaje como mero medio de enunciación del ente, como instrumento de la razón, sino que lo piense como modo de darse el Ser mismo. En este sentido, se piensa (...) al lenguaje como silenciamiento (Erschweigung) y, al pensarlo de esta manera, se presenta como modo en el que el ente se decide y el hombre se ajusta a su esencia. El texto toma como reflexión la inflexión hecha por Heidegger con respecto al pensar y al poetizar como ámbitos en los que el lenguaje se da como posibilidad de escucha, pero también de dicción. En esta última se juega el todo del ente, como se mencionará al final, al considerar algunas palabras de Nietzsche, que el mismo Heidegger piensa. (shrink)

In the Sophist, Plato claims that the philosopher is always engaged through reasonings with the idea tou ontos (254a4–b1). I argue that, contrary to appearances and to what various commentators believe, this phrase does not refer to the Kind Being singled out in the Sophist as one of the so-called ‘greatest’ or ‘most important’ Kinds, but to the whole intelligible realm. The proposed reading better accounts for Plato’s exact wording at Sophist 254a4–b1 and preserves the consistency of Plato’s view on (...) the object of philosophical knowledge. I conclude with some broader considerations on the relationship between this passage, Platonic dialectic and Aristotle’s conception of a science of being qua being. (shrink)

El pensador suizo Andreas Urs Sommer es, sin dudarlo, uno de los actuales especialistas de Nietzsche. En el año 2017 publica un texto titulado Nietzsche und die Folgen, un libro que recobra la figura del pensador alemán a la luz de ideas bastantes novedosas que hasta ahora no habían sido presentadas por la mayoría de los intérpretes de Nietzsche. En ese sentido, la filosofía experimental (Experimentalphilosophie) que presenta Sommer es la que ha llamado la atención de la crítica. Se trataría (...) de esconder bajo el juego experimental la filosofía de Nietzsche, omitiendo de ese modo un cierto tipo de compromiso de sus postulados filosóficos. Esta determinación está cobrando fuerza en la medida en que nos muestra las consecuencias de la filosofía experimental. Este trabajo pretende desarrollar, por un lado, los postulados centrales de la propuesta de Sommer para luego confrontarlos a la luz de la crítica y en qué medida dicha crítica es medular. Lo anterior da luces a una discusión que, más que inclinarse a la polémica, muestra el nutriente de una fructífera investigación. -/- The Swiss thinker Andreas Urs Sommer is, undoubtedly, one of Nietzsche’s current specialists. In the year of 2017 publishes a text entitled Nietzsche und die Folgen, a book that recovers the figure of the German thinker in the light of quite novel ideas that until now had not been presented by most of the interpreters of Nietzsche. In that sense, the experimental philosophy (Experimentalphilosophie) presented by Sommer is the one that has caught the attention of critics. It would be a matter of hiding Nietzsche’s philosophy under the experimental game, thus omitting a certain type of commitment from his philosophical postulates. This determination is gaining strength insofar as it shows us the consequences of experimental philosophy. This work aims to develop, on the one hand, the central postulates of Sommer’s proposal and then confront them in the light of criticism and to what extent such criticism is central. The foregoing gives light of a discussion that more than leaning to the controversy shows the nutrient of a fruitful investigation. (shrink)

The tradition of Kant’s critical philosophy developed the concept of imagination rigorously and productively. In this article, I shall defend the suitability of placing this concept in a paleoanthropological frame and linking it to the cognitive practices – predominantly sensorimotor, interactive and those directed at the emergence of technologies – which preceded and prepared for the advent of articulated speech. Special attention will be paid to the internalization processes of these practices and their effects on human conduct. On the basis (...) of this discussion, I shall defend the theory by which the advent of denotative articulated speech entailed a profound reorganization of the technical performances attributable to the imagination and the relative internalization processes. Moreover, the origin of articulated speech inaugurated a singular story, that of the relationship between word and image. In my conclusions, I shall describe a major outcome of this within the framework of the new electronic technologies. (shrink)

At the outset it is worth remembering how Heidegger in the 1970s first appeared prominently, though very differently, at the intersection of rhetoric and philosophy. The "rhetoric of figures and tropes" then seemed compelling due in part to Derrida's Heidegger, who played a key role in the famous Derrida essay translated into English with the added subtitle "White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy." Compelling for many was the history there referenced from Cicero, book 3 of Aristotle's Rhetoric, book (...) 8 of Quintilian's Institutes through the later French treatises of Fontanier and Du Marsais, which, if read in a certain way, destroyed the language transparency model that seemed threatening at the time.1... (shrink)

En 1887, Nietzsche écrivait: «Lévénement le plus actuel, à savoir que Dieu est mort, commence à jeter ses premières ombres sur l'Europe». Ceux qui regardent le monde avec attention, avec une certaine suspicion même, remarquent que le soleil s'est couché, que la confiance de jadis s'est transformée en doute, que notre monde quotidien est devenu plus sombre, plus étrange, «vieux». Cependant cet evenement ne s'est pas encore annonce publiquement, continue Nietzsche, et on ne mesure pas encore les implications de la (...) mort de Dieu: une longue suite de démolitions, de destructions, de déclins, de renversements. II y aura une «logique de terreur», comme on ne l'aura pas encore vu sur la surface de la terre. (shrink)

El presente artículo sostiene la siguiente hipótesis: la inmensa mayoría de las conceptualizaciones teóricas con las que, a inicios del siglo XXI, se intenta dar cuenta de la subjetividad contemporánea son explícita o subrepticiamente reelaboraciones del concepto de superhombre. De ciborgs a posthumanos, pasando por una amplia y variada gama de sujetos contemporáneos, se puede apreciar que el concepto de Übermensch aporta las claves fundamentales con las cuales deconstruir el concepto de identidad fija que pone en juego el universalismo abstracto. (...) Siguiendo la teorización de Nietzsche, estas nuevas posiciones teóricas proponen una forma particular y concreta de vida como alternativa a las dicotomías y trasmundos con que la metafísica construyó a los sujetos del pasado. Sin embargo, estas propuestas han pasado por alto algo fundamental. Para demostrarlo, proponemos una relectura de Nietzsche y de dichos conceptos con el objetivo de plantear una nueva manera de pensar sobre la vida. (shrink)

هایدگر متأخر، با واکاوی تاریخ تفکر مغرب‌زمین، فلسفه دوره مدرن را به مثابه تداوم سنت متافیزیک یونانی، و نه گسستی از آن، تبیین کرده و سوبژکتیویسم دکارتی را برآمده از هستی‌-‌خداشناسی یونان، خاصه افلاطون و ارسطو، تفسیر می‌کند. رشد خودآگاهی سوژه عقلانی به خویشتن، به مثابه بسط منطقی و ضروری عقلانیت یونانی ، منجر به این می‌شود که دکارت هستی را به عنوان تصورشدگی نزد فاعل شناسا تفسیر کند. در این صورت، تصورشدگی، به مثابه هستی هستندگان، وامدار سوژه انسانی خواهد (...) بود و در نتیجه فاعل شناسا را در جایگاه بنیاد هستندگان قرار می‌دهد. با این وصف، انسان، در مقام سوژه، پس از این می‌تواند جایگاهی را اشغال کند که پیش از این، و در متافیزیک و الهیات فلسفی، متعلق به خداوند بوده است. همین تصاحب جایگاه خداوند به وسیلۀ سوژه انسانی است که منجر به افول اعتبار او به مثابه بنیاد هستندگان می‌شود و تردیدهایی ملازم با وجود یا معناداری او را از پی می‌آورد. (shrink)

This paper responds to five critics (Eva Buddeberg, Scott Marratto, Michael Naas, Janna Thompson, and Jason Wirth) and their commentaries on my Taking Turns with the Earth. Phenomenology, Deconstruction, and Intergenerational Justice (Stanford University Press, 2018). In relation to the book’s argument, my response seeks to clarify and elaborate the role of indigenous philosophies; the meaning and value of the concept of earth; the ontology-ethics interface and the emergence of normativity with birth and death; the practical feasibility and motivational force (...) of the book’s proposals for conceptualizing justice for future generations, namely asymmetrical reciprocity and taking turns; and the role of democratic institutions for justice between generations in view of the global capitalist economy. (shrink)

El objetivo de mi trabajo estriba en reconocer sucintamente algunos de los puntos principales en que se fundamenta la posición de Nietzsche en relación a la teleología natural. El modo de atajar la cuestión será, en esta oportunidad, oponer la visión de Nietzsche al estado en que dejó Schopenhauer la cuestión. Para ello, abordaré en primer lugar algunos de los elementos que emparentan ambos proyectos y, en segundo lugar, un aspecto clave que parece alejarlos irremediablemente. Además de esclarecer este último (...) aspecto, intentaré un acercamiento a la especificidad y originalidad del proyecto nietzscheano sobre el tema. (shrink)

Two major twentieth century philosophers, of East and West, for whom the nothing is a significant concept are Nishida Kitarō and Martin Heidegger. Nishida’s basic concept is the absolute nothing upon which the being of all is predicated. Heidegger, on the other hand, thematizes the nothing as the ulterior aspect of being. Both are responding to Western metaphysics that tends to substantialize being and dichotomize the real. Ironically, however, while Nishida regarded Heidegger as still trapped within the confines of Western (...) metaphysics with its tendency to objectify, Heidegger’s impression of Nishida was that he is too Western, that is, metaphysical. Yet neither was too familiar with the other’s philosophical work as a whole. I thus compare and assess Nishida’s and Heidegger’s discussions of the nothing in their attempts to undermine traditional metaphysics while examining lingering assumptions about the Nishida–Heidegger relationship. Neither Nishida nor Heidegger means by “nothing” a literal nothing, but rather that which permits beings in their relative determinacy to be what they are and wherein or whereby we find ourselves always already in our comportment to beings. Nishida characterizes this as a place that negates itself to give rise to, or make room for, beings. For Heidegger, being as an event that clears room for beings, releasing each into its own, is not a being, hence nothing. We may also contrast them on the basis of the language they employ in discussing the nothing. Yet each seemed to have had an intuitive grasp of an un/ground, foundational to experience and being. And in fact their paths cross in their respective critiques of Western substantialism, where they offer as an alterantive to that substantialist ontology, in different ways, what I call anontology. (shrink)

The question of truth is one of the oldest philosophical topics, but perhaps it concerns the world today more than ever. Der Beitrag geht auf einen Vortrag zurück, der 2018 in verschiedenen Fassungen beim Nietzsche-Forum München e.V., beim Nietzsche-Forum der Tongji-Universität Shanghai und beim Nietzsche-Kolloquium der Stiftung Nietzsche-Haus in Sils-Maria und 2019 in Machatschkala, Dagestan, gehalten wurde. Nietzsche was a realist about truth and he sought to criticize and reject the idealizations and moralizations that continue to dominate philosophical thinking: he (...) wanted to see how truth really stands. Following Nietzsche we can recognize more clearly that we need illusions in order to live, but that these illusions also endanger the very lives they support. We demand a final truth on which we can rely at all times, and which allows us to live together, such as the truth of God, the truth of reason, or the truth of being. But searching for such a final truth, we face “nothing,” or what Nietzsche described as “nihilism.” At the same time, however, we keep on speaking about truth and truths. How to speak—after Nietzsche—about truth without succumbing to illusion? Starting from Nietzsche’s critique of truth and Heidegger’s metaphysical account of Nietzsche’s position, this article examines how Nietzsche, in contrast to Heidegger’s ontological commitments, allows us to decide about truth on the grounds of perspectivism. While Nietzsche’s position thus seems compatible with that of Niklas Luhmann’s constructivism, Nietzsche still holds on to his truth as the truth of “an evangelist the like of which there has never been” (EH, Destiny 1). (shrink)

Comment Richard Wolin a-t-il pu, à deux ans d'intervalle, publier deux fois le même volume dans des maisons d'êdition différentes, et pourquoi celles-ci ont-elles accepté un tel marché? On se trouve en effet ici en présence de deux ouvrages, ayant même directeur de publication et même titre, portant tous deux sur le nazisme de Heidegger, et qui plus est, ayant exactement le même contenu à une différence près! En fait, c'est le résultat d'une rocambolesque histoire impliquant Heidegger, Derrida et Wolin (...) lui-même, exégète minutieux du corpus politique heideggerien. Mais avant de relater cette aventure, laquelle, bien que révélatrice, relève tout au plus de la petite histoire, parlons d'abord de l'histoire avec un grand «H», celle qui, sous la forme du nazisme, s'est engouffrée à la dérobée dans l'œuvre du penseur de Fribourg, et qui menace actuellement d'entacher la philosophie tout entière de celui que d'aucuns appelaient encore, il y a peu, le «plus grand philosophe du xxe siècle». (shrink)

Heidegger nunca llama a la política por su nombre; escribe la palabra entre comillas, pues la “política” carece de verdad; pero su adhesión al nacionalsocialismo es consistente con sus ideas, sobre todo las relativas a la historicidad, la resolución y el destino del pueblo ¿Quiere decir que la “política” carente de esencia se inviste de “verdad interna”? ¿Habría una filosofía nazi de verdad? La “animadversión contra la política”, que advierte Arendt en la mayoría de los filósofos, tiene una réplica en (...) ella, manifiesta en su reserva frente a la filosofía, especialmente frente a la filosofía política. La relación de Arendt con Heidegger pasa por su despertar del sueño político y la experiencia de una pérdida de mundo. Este artículo analiza la relación entre ambos a la luz de la tensión entre filosofía y política, e intenta responder esas interrogantes y paradojas, a través de una discusión de las ideas de carencia de mundanidad y de apoliticidad. (shrink)

An original reading of Blanchot's thought with far-reaching philosophical and literary implications.

En este trabajo nos proponemos exponer la importancia de la afectividad en la fenomenología francesa contemporánea de la mano de dos conceptos centrales del pensamiento de Henri Maldiney: lo transposible y la transpasibilidad. Además, nos esforzaremos en concretar y ahondar en esta cuestión atendiendo a la experiencia del duelo, esto es, la pérdida del otro como acontecimiento afectivo. Para ello recurriremos a algunas ideas de Claude Romano, pero también, y a modo de situación descriptiva, a los testimonios literarios de la (...) escritora y periodista Joan Didion y del escritor C.S. Lewis. La experiencia del duelo se mostrará, así, como un caso ejemplar en el que el existente es afectado por los acontecimientos. Finalmente, y como conclusión, habremos podido pensar la radical exposición o apertura de la existencia a los acontecimientos (transpasibilidad), así como la capacidad de estos para tocar y tras-tocar los horizontes del sujeto. (shrink)

The paper discusses the possibility of applying Heidegger’s considerations on art to the problematic and multifaceted field of contemporary art. The questions of origin and essence, which we are accustomed to refer to the metaphysical tradition, take on new significance by connecting art not to beauty, but to truth. In this epochal change of position, we can find the identity of contemporary art, which reveals itself not by offering edifying meanings, but by indicating a horizon of comprehensibility in which we (...) are involved. Starting from the innovative status of the Dasein as a projecting being-in-the-world, the horizon of comprehensibility of contemporary art outlines a context in which there is no subjectivity using a work, but in which an encounter happens. In its intrinsic and sometimes complacent contradictoriness, contemporary art, especially installations and performances, always manifests its identity as a struggle between truth and untruth, as an event that has no steady ground, and no unique or ascertained origin or monolithic essence, and which is nevertheless expressive and meaningful. The quality of being an event implies that contemporary art is not something objectifiable, representable, or categorizable, but is something that happens. What happens cannot become a substantial foundation, because it remains perpetually a happening, which affects us with its different languages and perspectives. The poetic matrix of contemporary art indicates the uniqueness and unrepeatability of each work of art, which shows us how the un-originality and un-essentiality of art is the main pathway to arrive at an experience of the world that each time is like the first time. (shrink)

This article examines the double account of the human in Friedrich Nietzsche's writings. Genealogically, Nietzsche insists that humanity is a tamed herd that attacks its own animality. Philologically, this human – through anthropomorphism – sunders itself from those aspects of language that are not representational. Read in relation to this double critique, the article argues that Thus Spoke Zarathustra is an attempt to imagine an entirely different relation between politics and language, one that enables a thinking of a future without (...) dominion and responds to the crisis of human rights and the humanities today. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the notion of monetary debt does not displace but merely conceals our deeper, ontological debt to the sources of our being and way of life. I suggest that first Christianity and then modern science attempted to find a means of redemption that could free us from debt, but that both were unable to reconcile the ideas of freedom and indebtedness. I then examine the way in which Friedrich Nietzsche tried to resolve the apparent contradiction (...) of our debt to the past and our freedom to shape the future by developing a new form of redemption rooted in his doctrine of the eternal recurrence. (shrink)

In the early work of Martin Heidegger, I argue, we can confect a particular and particularly useful conception of rhetoric as a capacity to articulate situatedness by means, in part, of a more precise vocabulary for what I call the phenomena of everydayness. One aspect of this claim is that rhetoric is a diagnostic of established positions. Practicing what I preach, my first task here is to articulate as synoptically as possible the established positions on the topic at hand. In (...) the most general terms, that topic is “Heidegger and rhetoric.” We can identify eight stances in the literature. I articulate them in order of determinateness, as a series of specifications. First, before the publication in recent... (shrink)

Comment Richard Wolin a-t-il pu, à deux ans d'intervalle, publier deux fois le même volume dans des maisons d'édition différentes, et pourquoi cellesci ont-elles accepté un tel marché? On se trouve en effet ici en présence de deux ouvrages, ayant même directeur de publication et même titre, portant tous deux sur le nazisme de Heidegger, et qui plus est, ayant exactement le même contenu à une différence près! En fait, c'est le résultat d'une rocambolesque histoire impliquant Heidegger, Derrida et Wolin (...) lui-même, exégète minutieux du corpus politique heideggerien. Mais avant de relater cette aventure, laquelle, bien que révélatrice, relève tout au plus de la petite histoire, parlons d'abord de l'histoire avec un grand «H», celle qui, sous la forme du nazisme, s'est engouffrée à la dérobée dans l'œuvre du penseur de Fribourg, et qui menace actuellement d'entacher la philosophie tout entière de celui que d'aucuns appelaient encore, il y a peu, le «plus grand philosophe du XXe siècle». (shrink)

The topic and theme of memory has occupied an ambiguous position in phenomenological and hermeneutic thinking from the start, at once central and marginalized. Parallel to and partly following upon the general turn toward collective and cultural memory in the human and social sciences over the last decades, the importance of memory in and for phenomenological and hermeneutic theory has begun to emerge more clearly. The article seeks to untangle the reasons for the ambiguous position of this theme. It describes (...) how and why the question of what memory is can provide a unique entrance to thinking the temporality and historicity of human existence, while at the same time it can also block the access to precisely these most fundamental levels of subjectivity. The text argues for a deeper mutual theoretical engagement between phenomenological–hermeneutical thinking and contemporary cultural memory studies, on the basis of an understanding of memory as finite and ec-static temporality, and as the enigma of so-called anamnetic subjectivity. (shrink)

Diversos trabajos han abordado la influencia del protestantismo en la configuración del mundo moderno. Más allá de la influencia del protestantismo en la sociedad moderna desde distintos ámbitos particulares (la economía, el derecho, la política, etc.), podría considerarse la existencia de algún vector aglutinante de penetración de dicha influencia. Es aquí donde la filosofía se intuye definitiva. La comprensión del ser humano pasa para el creyente por su comprensión de la fe. Este trabajo revisa las coincidencias, similitudes, relaciones o simples (...) compatibilidades entre el pensamiento existencialista y el luteranismo. Se concluye que ambos se muestran significativamente afines no sólo en la problemática acometida y sus conclusiones, sino también en lo relativo al talante y la retórica utilizados. (shrink)