A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought, the practices that we accept rest.... Criticism is a matter of flushing out that thought and trying to change it: to show that things are not as self-evident as one believed, to see that what is accepted as self-evident will no longer be accepted (...) as such. Practicing criticism is a matter of making facile gestures difficult. Michel Foucault (1988b, 154). (shrink)

It is seldom in dispute that genealogy, or genealogical accounts are central to Nietzsche’s philosophic enterprise. The role that genealogy plays in Nietzsche’s thought is little understood, however, as is Nietzsche’s argumentation in general, and, for that matter, what Nietzsche might be arguing for. In this paper I attempt to summarize Nietzsche’s genealogical account of modern ethical practices and offer an explanation of the philosophical import of genealogy. The difficulties in coming to understand the philosophical function of genealogy are obvious. (...) Genealogy, whatever else we say about it, offers a story of the genesis of contemporary ethical beliefs and practices. The story that Nietzsche gave is obviously a revisionist one, and Nietzsche seldom cites specific historical evidence; although it contains many historical allusions, the presentation is thematic or even mythical. At the same time, Nietzsche’s interests were primarily ethical: he seems to be attempting, in some novel way, either to solve or to eliminate1 philosophical problems about norms and values. In particular, he offered his genealogy as part of a critique of specifically “modern” values and the advancement of an “immoralism” that would take their place. So the difficulties are: it is unclear what status we should accord Nietzsche’s stories in particular, and it is unclear what role any story about the emergence of modern values can play in an assessment of those values. We seem to need a reason to take Nietzsche’s account as particularly authoritative, and then an explanation of how his account does in fact bear upon the normative status of “modern values.”. (shrink)

Heidegger jamais considerou Ser e tempo como uma investigação ética nem dedicou qualquer de suas obras à discussão específica dessa questão, aspecto que vem sendo criticado como sintoma de uma insidiosa precariedade ética instalada no coração de sua reflexão ontológica. A crítica recorrente afirma que, em Ser e tempo, Heidegger teria inviabilizado a reflexão ética ao comprometer-se com o "solipsismo existencial", isto é, com o isolamento do "si-mesmo decidido" em relação aos outros, desconsiderando, ainda, a exigência de uma fundamentação última (...) da ação ética. O argumento deste texto considera que Ser e tempo não configura um tratado ético no sentido metafísico tradicional, mas traz consigo os elementos teóricos para a sua reavaliação pós-metafísica ao dar ensejo a uma ética da precariedade. Uma ética da precariedade é desprovida de fundamentos últimos ou procedimentos intersubjetivos capazes de assegurar critérios transcendentais infalíveis de validação da qualidade ética da conduta humana, pois se assenta no reconhecimento da finitude constitutiva do Dasein. A consideração do "ser-para-a-morte" como o "modo de ser mais próprio" do Dasein não implica a irresponsabilidade ética para com os outros, mas tem como seu aspecto positivo a liberação da amizade como o modo próprio da relação ética, inspirando um agir cauteloso e resistente a quaisquer sistemas teóricos que definam padrões últimos quanto à moralidade do agir.Heidegger did not dedicate his philosophical thinking to ethical questions and explicitly denied considering his major opus, Being and Time, as an ethical inquiry, a fact that has been interpreted by many critics as a symptom of a deep ethical failure at the heart of his ontological thinking. The recurrent criticism is that Heidegger's Being and Time avoids any ethical questioning by committing itself to the "existential solipsism" which isolates the authentically resolute self from the others, and by disregarding the requirement of a last foundation able to assure the ethical character of human actions in the world. This text argues that although Heidegger's Being and Time should not be viewed as an ethical treatise in the sense of metaphysics, it brings forth important ethical implications that may procure a post-metaphysical ethics, an ethics of precariousness. An ethics of precariousness does not depend on having access to first principles, foundations or inter-subjective proceedings aiming at transcendental criteria to evaluate and warrant the ethical character of one's actions in the world, since it is based on the acknowledgment of Dasein's essentially constitutive finitude. The consideration of "being-toward-death" as the most proper way of Dasein's being does not imply ethical irresponsibility toward others, but has as its positive consequence the liberation of friendship, understood as the proper mode of Dasein's ethical relation to otherness. Such a post-metaphysical ethics should inspire a cautious acting in the world as well as resistance against theoretical systems aiming at the foundation of absolute standards of morality. (shrink)

Adorno's conception of conceptually articulated experience can be defended and made fruitful for a critical philosophy after the so-called linguistic turn. The aim is both to answer the criticisms raised by Jürgen Habermas and others that Adorno's philosophy remains bound by the premises of a subject-centred philosophy, and to criticize social-pragmatism from the vantage-point of Adorno's philosophy of language. It is shown that Adorno is committed to a picture of experience very much in line with the recent views of John (...) McDowell, which extends the space of reasons beyond the space of concepts. Further, it is shown that non-inferential justification can be combined with an expressivist picture of judgment. Finally, it is argued that what is called the extended space of reasons is ultimately social; that representation, the aboutness of thought, serves expressive roles in a socially articulated space of reason-giving. The advantage of Adorno's position vis-à-vis a one-sided social-pragmatism consists in his defence of what is called subjective-material proprieties of judgment. Adorno's idea that the extended space of reasons implies the acknowledgement of what he refers to as the non-identical within conceptually articulated experience is thus reconstructed and defended. Such non-identity, it is claimed, is exhibited in successful art-works which thereby ought to be counted as forms of reasoning. On this basis, Adorno's philosophy acquires critical and normative significance after the linguistic turn. (shrink)

Αναμφίβολα, όσοι γνώρισαν προσωπικά και όχι μόνο μέσα από τα κείμενά του τον Ευθύμη Παπαδημητρίου, θα θυμούνται ότι ο ίδιος κατέφευγε συχνά σε αυτήν την έκφραση, όταν αναφερόταν σε κάτι αυτονόητο ή σε κάτι δύσκολο στην πραγμάτωση του και άρα δεν σχετίζεται άμεσα με τη συνήθη χρήση της ως έκφραση στην αγγλική γλώσσα. Επιπλέον, οι ίδιοι μάλλον θα συμφωνήσουν μαζί μου, ότι οι παρελθοντικοί χρόνοι που θα ακουστούν/θα χρησιμοποιηθούν σήμερα εδώ και θα τον αφορούν, θα δημιουργήσουν, μάλλον, αμηχανία, αφού, αν (...) θέλουμε να είμαστε ακριβείς στην περιγραφή μας οφείλουμε να προκρίνουμε στις αναφορές μας για εκείνον, ως πιο ενδεδειγμένο χρόνο έναν Εξακολουθητικό Ενεστώτα, ο οποίος στην περίπτωση του Παπαδημητρίου μπορεί αβίαστα να συμπαρουσιάζεται με έναν Οραματικό Μέλλοντα…. (shrink)