The aim of this paper is to clarify Kierkegaard’s concept of demonic despair (and demonic evil) and to show its relevance for discussions of the guise of the good thesis (i.e. that in f-ing intentionally, we take f-ing to be good). Contemporary discussions of diabolic evil often emphasise the phenomena of despair and acedia as apparent counter-examples to the guise of the good. I contend that Kierkegaard’s analysis of despair is relevant to these discussions, because it reconciles demonic (extreme) despair (...) and acedia with the guise of the good. In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard provides an influential, systematic account of despair that relates evil, despair, and acedia to each other. Michelle Kosch argues that this account goes beyond Kierkegaard’s German predecessors by introducing a concept of diabolic evil and despair. By contrast, the present paper argues that Kierkegaard takes diabolic evil to be impossible, although he offers a rich analysis of the demonic that resembles diabolic agency. Still, Kierkegaard’s analysis rests on ontological assumptions about the nature of the good that belong to a Platonico-Christian tradition that is controversial today. (shrink)

In this article, I provide phenomenological reflections on patients’ experiences of undergoing extreme isolation protocols while admitted to Intensive Care Units [ICU] during the first wave of COVID-19. Based on observation studies from within the patient isolation rooms and retrospective, in-depth phenomenological interviews with patients, I characterize this exceptional experience as one of becoming anonymous. To illustrate this, I start by establishing a perspective on embodied existence as constituted on a scale between anonymous embodiment and being enrooted into a personal (...) niche. Against the backdrop of this framework, I illustrate how being admitted to the ICU under strict isolation protocols produced extraordinary experiences of becoming anonymous. Sources of the anonymization were: (1) Mechanical expropriation, pacification and disownership of the visceral-kinaesthetic body; (2) Objectification; (3) Spatial and intercorporeal anonymity (4) Surrealism: the intermingling of objective impressions and dream-like interpretations. Finally, I illustrate how anonymization induced an experience of embodiment as raw materiality, confronting the patient with what Martin Heidegger called the facticity of naked existence. This experience is discussed against Levinas’ critique of Heidegger, while I propose that insights from this exceptional case may substantiate Heidegger’s account. (shrink)

This article aims to outline a theory of political boredom based on the concept of the liberal temporal dispositive. According to this concept, modern politics is characterized by the reduction of political time consumption to enable the growing temporal autonomy of the individual. However, individuals may experience considerable stress in their pursuit to utilize this free time effectively. Boredom arises when individuals fail to “fill” their available time with meaningful actions. Political crises of boredom occur as attempts by individuals to (...) relieve the pressures accompanying temporal autonomy, sometimes restarting political temporality on a new, massive scale. Furthermore, the article examines modern political philosophy as inherently rooted in the liberal temporal dispositive. Through several historical examples, it is discussed how political philosophy may either contribute to imbuing politics with a desire for meaning or abstain from it in an attitude of serene resignation. It is proposed that liberal democracy requires a temporal ethics based on the latter. (shrink)

This essay examines the complex topic of illusion and art in Nietzsche’s philosophy. It focuses on two topics in particular: Nietzsche’s practice of self-transformation; and the question of how to differentiate through the analysis of style those practices that are deluded from those that are transformative.

ABSTRACT This introduction argues for competing diachronic and synchronic accounts of melancholy in European and American culture. Taking the pioneering and yet belated work Saturn and Melancholy (1964) of Erwin Panofsky, Fritz Saxl, and Raymond Klibansky as its starting point, this article situates melancholy as at once its own, often local and non-specialist discourse as well as a conceptual web binding together medical, artistic, and social innovations, competitions, and turmoil. As a subject, melancholy demands interdisciplinary study, as Dürer’s print Melencolia (...) I continues to prove. As a locus of methodological innovation, melancholy in the wake of Panofsky, Saxl, and Klibansky continues to yield the alternative genealogies, conceptual histories, and formal artistic vocabularies of this volume’s contributions whether moving backwards from Dürer to Homer or forward to the present day with Lars von Trier and major European novelists. (shrink)