Pub Date : 2021-01-05DOI: 10.5422/fordham/9780823289929.003.0002
Geoffrey Bennington
The difficult relation of politics and philosophy has most often been negotiated with reference to the distinction between the bios theōrētikos and the bios politiōs. It is argued that this opposition is unstable from Aristotle onwards, and that effects of that instability can be read throughout the tradition, through Kant and Hegel, up to and including Hannah Arendt and John Rawls, Jacques Ranciere, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben and Hardt & Negri. The instability of that distinction calls for a deconstructive rather than a dialectical understanding of difference.
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Beginning with a curious invocation of our line from Homer by one of the defendants at the so-called “Justices Trial” at Nuremberg, the chapter analyses the famous exchange over “political theology” between Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson. The inconsistencies of Peterson’s argument are brought out, and attention is drawn to the importance of the use he makes in establishing the supposed impossiblity of a Christian political theology of a quotation about the Trinity from Gregory of Nazianzus. Schmitt’s own claim as to a “stasiology” at the heart of the doctrine of the Trinity, that would support the thought of a political theology of Christianity, is shown to rely on an egregious misreading of Gregory’s text, but doubt is nonetheless cast on the ability of that doctrine successfully to solve the problems associated with the self-destructive properties of the One, as more clearly brought out by Derrida.
{"title":"Stasiology (Rothaug, Peterson, Schmitt, Gregory of Nazianzus)","authors":"Geoffrey Bennington","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv119918b.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv119918b.15","url":null,"abstract":"Beginning with a curious invocation of our line from Homer by one of the defendants at the so-called “Justices Trial” at Nuremberg, the chapter analyses the famous exchange over “political theology” between Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson. The inconsistencies of Peterson’s argument are brought out, and attention is drawn to the importance of the use he makes in establishing the supposed impossiblity of a Christian political theology of a quotation about the Trinity from Gregory of Nazianzus. Schmitt’s own claim as to a “stasiology” at the heart of the doctrine of the Trinity, that would support the thought of a political theology of Christianity, is shown to rely on an egregious misreading of Gregory’s text, but doubt is nonetheless cast on the ability of that doctrine successfully to solve the problems associated with the self-destructive properties of the One, as more clearly brought out by Derrida.","PeriodicalId":371657,"journal":{"name":"Scatter 2","volume":"123 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132584312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The line from Homer appears saliently in two famous 1570 texts, by Jean Bodin and Etienne de la Boétie respectively. It is shown how Bodin’s supposedly modern conception of sovereignty inherits aporias Scatter 2 has been following since Aristotle, and how the paradoxical prerogative to both make and break the law makes it impossible rigorously to discern monarchy from tyranny. La Boétie’s commentary on the line from Homer, and his general attempt to argue “against one,” is shown to lead to a complex and aporetical account on the edge of political space, in which the concepts of nature and of the One increasingly escape La Boétie’s conceptual grasp.
荷马的这句话在1570年的两篇著名文章中都有明显的出现，分别是由Jean Bodin和Etienne de la bosamtie写的。它展示了博丹所谓的现代主权概念是如何继承自亚里士多德以来一直遵循的aporias Scatter 2，以及制定和破坏法律的矛盾特权如何使得严格区分君主制和暴政变得不可能。La bosamtie对荷马诗句的评论，以及他对“反对一”的一般尝试，被证明导致了对政治空间边缘的复杂和无目的性的描述，其中自然和“一”的概念越来越脱离了La bosamtie的概念把握。
{"title":"Polykoiranie IV (Bodin, La Boétie)","authors":"Geoffrey Bennington","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv119918b.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv119918b.10","url":null,"abstract":"The line from Homer appears saliently in two famous 1570 texts, by Jean Bodin and Etienne de la Boétie respectively. It is shown how Bodin’s supposedly modern conception of sovereignty inherits aporias Scatter 2 has been following since Aristotle, and how the paradoxical prerogative to both make and break the law makes it impossible rigorously to discern monarchy from tyranny. La Boétie’s commentary on the line from Homer, and his general attempt to argue “against one,” is shown to lead to a complex and aporetical account on the edge of political space, in which the concepts of nature and of the One increasingly escape La Boétie’s conceptual grasp.","PeriodicalId":371657,"journal":{"name":"Scatter 2","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124952028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In Hobbes’s wake, Spinoza is shown to demonstrate an affinity between democracy and the immediately pre-political state of nature and is credited with an insight into the essentially failing structure of sovereignty in general. After a brief analysis of Kant, the importance of the transitional moment from nature to politics is pursued in Rousseau, who explicitly brings out the implication of language in this transition. Rousseau’s own notion of sovereignty as inherently collective is explored, and it is shown that that sovereignty must rely on at least two originary supplements in order to have a chance of being in fact sovereign. The first supplement, the legislator, has been discussed at length elsewhere: this chapter focuses on the second, namely government, and it is again stressed that the formation of any government in Rousseau’s account again involves a moment of proto-democracy. It is shown how in Rousseau this government, without which the sovereign would not be sovereign, inevitably ends up usurping the sovereignty it supposedly allows for and supports.
{"title":"Nature, Sovereignty, Government (Spinoza, Rousseau)","authors":"Geoffrey Bennington","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv119918b.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv119918b.14","url":null,"abstract":"In Hobbes’s wake, Spinoza is shown to demonstrate an affinity between democracy and the immediately pre-political state of nature and is credited with an insight into the essentially failing structure of sovereignty in general. After a brief analysis of Kant, the importance of the transitional moment from nature to politics is pursued in Rousseau, who explicitly brings out the implication of language in this transition. Rousseau’s own notion of sovereignty as inherently collective is explored, and it is shown that that sovereignty must rely on at least two originary supplements in order to have a chance of being in fact sovereign. The first supplement, the legislator, has been discussed at length elsewhere: this chapter focuses on the second, namely government, and it is again stressed that the formation of any government in Rousseau’s account again involves a moment of proto-democracy. It is shown how in Rousseau this government, without which the sovereign would not be sovereign, inevitably ends up usurping the sovereignty it supposedly allows for and supports.","PeriodicalId":371657,"journal":{"name":"Scatter 2","volume":"102 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123783805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A close reading of Hobbes stresses the latter’s recognition of a democratic or proto-democratic moment at the root of the political, at the aporetic moment of transition from the state of nature to the political state. This rather effaced priority of democracy sits uneasily with Hobbes’s deep suspicion of it, and its constant association in his work with rhetoric and oratory. A reading of Hobbes’s language theory in light of Aristotle’s distinction between phonè and logos shows how this rhetorical dimension of language is in fact irreducible (and indeed exuberantly exploited in Hobbes’s own writing), and how, especially in Hobbes’s elaborate and fascinating discussion of counsel, it relates to the structural failing both of the sovereignty Hobbes is concerned to defend and of the models of reading he promotes in the Leviathan.
{"title":"Protodemocracy and the Fall of Sovereignty (Hobbes, Aristotle)","authors":"Geoffrey Bennington","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv119918b.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv119918b.13","url":null,"abstract":"A close reading of Hobbes stresses the latter’s recognition of a democratic or proto-democratic moment at the root of the political, at the aporetic moment of transition from the state of nature to the political state. This rather effaced priority of democracy sits uneasily with Hobbes’s deep suspicion of it, and its constant association in his work with rhetoric and oratory. A reading of Hobbes’s language theory in light of Aristotle’s distinction between phonè and logos shows how this rhetorical dimension of language is in fact irreducible (and indeed exuberantly exploited in Hobbes’s own writing), and how, especially in Hobbes’s elaborate and fascinating discussion of counsel, it relates to the structural failing both of the sovereignty Hobbes is concerned to defend and of the models of reading he promotes in the Leviathan.\u0000","PeriodicalId":371657,"journal":{"name":"Scatter 2","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134561115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Aristotle’s recognition of an irreducible plurality in politics is pursued initially in the context of his effaced recognition of the issue of sexual difference, as ambiguously retrieved for political thinking in Hannah Arendt. More generally, the complexities of Aristotle’s account of democracy as the least bad of “deviant” regimes is shown to lead to a more affirmative view of democracy once it is established that all political regimes are in a certain sense “deviant.” Aristotle’s own attempt to master the potential excess of democracy by appealing to the notion of the “mean” is shown to be incoherent, and his account of an extreme form of democracy as collapsing into anarchy is retrieved as an insight into the potentially catastrophic effects of trying to think democracy in teleological terms.
{"title":"Democracy (Arendt, Aristotle)","authors":"Geoffrey Bennington","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv119918b.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv119918b.12","url":null,"abstract":"Aristotle’s recognition of an irreducible plurality in politics is pursued initially in the context of his effaced recognition of the issue of sexual difference, as ambiguously retrieved for political thinking in Hannah Arendt. More generally, the complexities of Aristotle’s account of democracy as the least bad of “deviant” regimes is shown to lead to a more affirmative view of democracy once it is established that all political regimes are in a certain sense “deviant.” Aristotle’s own attempt to master the potential excess of democracy by appealing to the notion of the “mean” is shown to be incoherent, and his account of an extreme form of democracy as collapsing into anarchy is retrieved as an insight into the potentially catastrophic effects of trying to think democracy in teleological terms.","PeriodicalId":371657,"journal":{"name":"Scatter 2","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127192673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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