The article explores Jacques Derrida’s view of the secular as the field of the socio-political. It focuses on his argument as to why religion and politics cannot be strictly separated as in the classical modern paradigm. By engaging Derrida’s later writings, this article shows that the secular domain cannot be purified of all faith and is best thought of as theologico-political, where ‘theologico-political’ indicates the interrelatedness and distinction between the theological and the political. The article’s central claim is that by (...) opening up to some form of the theological that is not reducible to traditional conceptions, and to a faith that is not necessarily religious, Derrida provides significant resources for understanding the secular today in more complex and critical ways than usual approaches offer. (shrink)

Incorporating Gadamer and other thinkers from the continental tradition, this essay is a close and detailed hermeneutic, phenomenological, and ontological study of the dialectic practice of Plato’s Socrates—it radicalizes and refutes the Socrates-as-teacher model that educators from scholar academic ideology embrace.

This speculative essay develops a unique understanding of Socrates by reading Heidegger in relation to contemporary Platonic scholarship arising from the Continental tradition, which embraces Plato’s Socrates as a non-doctrinal philosopher. The portrait of Heidegger’s Socrates that emerges is related to contemporary education and its drive toward emphasizing an academic focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) at the exclusion of the Liberal Arts, with the goal of showing that other forms of “knowledge,” such as the philosophical “truth” emerging (...) from the relationship between the human and the unfolding of Being, while stifled or neglected in STEM curricula, are also crucial to our continued development as human beings. Ultimately, the essay seeks to draw out an authentic vision of paideia by turning to the valuable, albeit limited, writings of Heidegger focused specifically on the historical philosopher Socrates, as opposed to Plato. (shrink)

RESUMEN En este trabajo nos proponemos analizar la ontología de distintas corrientes socráticas con un enfoque por Zonas de tensión dialógica. Antístenes y los megáricos Euclides y Estilpón despliegan modelos de negatividad que rechazan la afirmación de principios ontológicos capaces de sustentar lo real y su expresión en el lenguaje. Estas propuestas teóricas no solo ofrecen una perspectiva alternativa a la platónico-aristotélica, sino que influyen de manera decisiva, por medio de la interacción e influencia recíproca, en la construcción de las (...) variantes afirmativas de la época clásica. De este modo, la inclusión de las líneas socráticas permite poner en cuestión el diagnóstico heideggeriano que ve en la filosofía griega la sede del paradigma de la "metafísica de la presencia". La recuperación de las filosofías socráticas, habitualmente invisibilizadas bajo las figuras de Platón y Jenofonte, ofrece una oportunidad para redimensionar la Antigüedad clásica en función de propuestas ontológicas divergentes. ABSTRACT In this article we intend to analyze the ontology of different Socratic lines of thought, through an approach of Zones of dialogic tension. Antisthenes and the megarics Euclid and Stilpo develop ontologically negative conceptions that reject the affirmation of ontological principles capable of sustaining reality and its linguistic expression. This theoretical stance not only offers an alternative to the platonic-aristotelic approach towards ontology, but affects, by means of interaction and reciprocal influence, the constitution of those affirmative variants in classical Greek thought. Thereby, the inclusion of Socratic lines of thought allows us to question the heideggerian diagnosis of ancient Greek philosophy, inscribed solely in the paradigm of "metaphysics of presence". The recovery of the Socratic philosophers, usually obscured by the figures of Plato and Xenophon, offers an opportunity to redimension the period of classical antiquity through the study of its diverse ontological conceptions. (shrink)

This article examines Heidegger’s interpretation of Plato’s Sophist, focusing on his attempts to grasp Plato’s original thinking of being and non-being. Some contemporary thinkers and commentators argue that Heidegger’s view of Plato is simply based on his criticism against the traditional metaphysics of Platonism and its language. But a close reading of his lecture on the Sophist reveals that his view of Plato is grounded in Plato’s questioning struggle with the ambiguous nature of human speech or language. For Heidegger, Plato’s (...) way of philosophizing is deeper than the metaphysical understanding of Platonism which sees only fixed ideas of being. In the Sophist, dialectical thinking of Plato constantly confronts the questionable force of the logos which betrays the natural possibility of non-being based on the tension between movement and rest. Thus, from Plato’s original insight Heidegger uncovers the dynamic association of being and non-being as a natural ground of everyday living with others. However, although Heidegger’s understanding of the Sophist powerfully demonstrates the lively possibility of being beyond the customary perspective of Platonic metaphysics, his interpretation fails to further disclose Plato’s political question of being emerging in the Sophist, which seeks the true associative ground of human beings. (shrink)