Pub Date : 2023-09-29DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2262342
Václav Rut
ABSTRACTThis paper deals with the political philosophy of Václav Havel, mainly its relation to ethics and what Michel Foucault called governmentality. Besides using his analytical framework, Foucault’s politics are engaged with to highlight similar trajectories of two intellectuals dealing with related dilemmas of ethics and politics. As a dissident of communist Czechoslovakia Havel, developed a profound critique of modernity, but also discovered technologies of the self, exclusive to dissidents, which empowered them in their moral struggle against the regime. The Velvet Revolution in 1989 ascended Havel to the presidency of the republic, a position from which he quickly embraced and disseminated neoliberal governmentality. The final section deals with Havel’s use of human rights in the later years of his presidency, being a justification for military interventions and comparing them to Foucault’s conceptualisation of rights. Human rights discourse is the culmination of Havel’s lifelong quest for the ethical foundation of politics and it is the source of most difficulties and potentialities associated with this project.KEYWORDS: HavelFoucaultgovernmentalitydissidenceneoliberalism Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Bělohradský, “Od Havla k havlismu a zpět.”2 Havel, Dálkový výslech, 133–44.3 Brennan, The Political Thought of Václav Havel; Gümplová, “Rethinking Resistance with Václav Havel”; Tucker, The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence.4 Brennan, The Political Thought of Václav Havel, 171–8.5 Eyal, “Anti-Politics and the Spirit of Capitalism.”6 Cf. Keane, Vaclav Havel.7 For a discussion on Foucault’s alleged affinity to neoliberalism see Becker, Ewald, and Harcourt, “Becker on Ewald on Foucault on Becker”; Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD; Sawyer and Steinmetz-Jenkins, Foucault, Neoliberalism, and Beyond.8 Lemke, “The Birth of Bio-Politics,” 202.9 Vighi and Feldner, Žižek: Beyond Foucault, 77–8.10 Foucault in: Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD, 46.11 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 108.12 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 2.13 Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” 19.14 Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, 10–11.15 Foucault, “Interview with Michel Foucault,” 295–6.16 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 91–2. In a lecture, Foucault said: “what socialism lacks is not so much a theory of the state as a governmental reason, the definition of what a governmental rationality would be in socialism, that is to say, a reasonable and calculable measure of the extent, modes, and objectives of governmental action.”17 Havel, Do různých stran, 57.18 Ibid.19 Steger and Replogle, “Václav Havel’s Postmodernism.”20 Havel, ’94, 105–6.21 Havel, Dopisy Olze, 134.22 Bělohradský, “Dva odkazy Václava Havla”; Brennan, The Political Thought of Václav Havel, 14–15.23 Havel, Dopisy Olze, 315–7.24 Ibid., 283–4.25 Foucault in: Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD, 82–3.26 Havel, Moc bezmocn
{"title":"Václav Havel’s Search for Emancipatory Governmentality","authors":"Václav Rut","doi":"10.1080/14409917.2023.2262342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2262342","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis paper deals with the political philosophy of Václav Havel, mainly its relation to ethics and what Michel Foucault called governmentality. Besides using his analytical framework, Foucault’s politics are engaged with to highlight similar trajectories of two intellectuals dealing with related dilemmas of ethics and politics. As a dissident of communist Czechoslovakia Havel, developed a profound critique of modernity, but also discovered technologies of the self, exclusive to dissidents, which empowered them in their moral struggle against the regime. The Velvet Revolution in 1989 ascended Havel to the presidency of the republic, a position from which he quickly embraced and disseminated neoliberal governmentality. The final section deals with Havel’s use of human rights in the later years of his presidency, being a justification for military interventions and comparing them to Foucault’s conceptualisation of rights. Human rights discourse is the culmination of Havel’s lifelong quest for the ethical foundation of politics and it is the source of most difficulties and potentialities associated with this project.KEYWORDS: HavelFoucaultgovernmentalitydissidenceneoliberalism Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Bělohradský, “Od Havla k havlismu a zpět.”2 Havel, Dálkový výslech, 133–44.3 Brennan, The Political Thought of Václav Havel; Gümplová, “Rethinking Resistance with Václav Havel”; Tucker, The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence.4 Brennan, The Political Thought of Václav Havel, 171–8.5 Eyal, “Anti-Politics and the Spirit of Capitalism.”6 Cf. Keane, Vaclav Havel.7 For a discussion on Foucault’s alleged affinity to neoliberalism see Becker, Ewald, and Harcourt, “Becker on Ewald on Foucault on Becker”; Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD; Sawyer and Steinmetz-Jenkins, Foucault, Neoliberalism, and Beyond.8 Lemke, “The Birth of Bio-Politics,” 202.9 Vighi and Feldner, Žižek: Beyond Foucault, 77–8.10 Foucault in: Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD, 46.11 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 108.12 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 2.13 Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” 19.14 Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, 10–11.15 Foucault, “Interview with Michel Foucault,” 295–6.16 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 91–2. In a lecture, Foucault said: “what socialism lacks is not so much a theory of the state as a governmental reason, the definition of what a governmental rationality would be in socialism, that is to say, a reasonable and calculable measure of the extent, modes, and objectives of governmental action.”17 Havel, Do různých stran, 57.18 Ibid.19 Steger and Replogle, “Václav Havel’s Postmodernism.”20 Havel, ’94, 105–6.21 Havel, Dopisy Olze, 134.22 Bělohradský, “Dva odkazy Václava Havla”; Brennan, The Political Thought of Václav Havel, 14–15.23 Havel, Dopisy Olze, 315–7.24 Ibid., 283–4.25 Foucault in: Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD, 82–3.26 Havel, Moc bezmocn","PeriodicalId":51905,"journal":{"name":"Critical Horizons","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135193810","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}
Pub Date : 2023-09-29DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2262343
Daniel Brennan
ABSTRACTThe paper considers the legacy of Václav Havel in regard to civil disobedience and dissident action. The paper frames its analysis on the long-standing debate Havel undertook with the Czech author Milan Kundera. Ultimately the paper argues that the nuance to Havel’s optimism, as it emerges against Kundera’s more pessimistic position, regarding dissident action is a timely and important response with great value for contemporary global challenges.KEYWORDS: Václav HavelMilan Kunderadissidencecivil disobedience Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Havel, Letters to Olga.2 Havel, “Power of the Powerless.”3 Havel, Disturbing the Peace, 173.4 Said, “On Lost Causes,” 428.
{"title":"Václav Havel’s Legacy: Politics as Morality","authors":"Daniel Brennan","doi":"10.1080/14409917.2023.2262343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2262343","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe paper considers the legacy of Václav Havel in regard to civil disobedience and dissident action. The paper frames its analysis on the long-standing debate Havel undertook with the Czech author Milan Kundera. Ultimately the paper argues that the nuance to Havel’s optimism, as it emerges against Kundera’s more pessimistic position, regarding dissident action is a timely and important response with great value for contemporary global challenges.KEYWORDS: Václav HavelMilan Kunderadissidencecivil disobedience Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Havel, Letters to Olga.2 Havel, “Power of the Powerless.”3 Havel, Disturbing the Peace, 173.4 Said, “On Lost Causes,” 428.","PeriodicalId":51905,"journal":{"name":"Critical Horizons","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195368","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}
Pub Date : 2023-09-27DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2262341
Jack Reynolds
Despite rarely explicitly thematizing the problem of dirty hands, this essay argues that Merleau-Ponty’s political work can nonetheless make some important contributions to the issue, both descriptively and normatively. Although his political writings have been neglected in recent times, his interpretations of Marxism and Machiavelli enabled him to develop an account of political phronesis and virtù that sought to retain the strengths of their respective positions without succumbing to their problems. In the process, he provides grounds for generalizing the problem of “dirty hands” beyond Michael Walzer’s influential understanding that pertains primarily to “emergencies” and singular time-slice actions, and addresses concerns about the coherence of the very idea that there is justified action that one ought to do which remains wrong. Merleau-Ponty does this by emphasizing the diachronic relationship between theoretical principles and concrete political action over a period of time, thus imbuing the problem of dirty hands with a historicity that is not sufficiently recognized in the more static and action-focused discussions.
{"title":"Merleau-Ponty and “Dirty Hands”: Political Phronesis and <i>Virtù</i> Between Marxism and Machiavelli","authors":"Jack Reynolds","doi":"10.1080/14409917.2023.2262341","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2262341","url":null,"abstract":"Despite rarely explicitly thematizing the problem of dirty hands, this essay argues that Merleau-Ponty’s political work can nonetheless make some important contributions to the issue, both descriptively and normatively. Although his political writings have been neglected in recent times, his interpretations of Marxism and Machiavelli enabled him to develop an account of political phronesis and virtù that sought to retain the strengths of their respective positions without succumbing to their problems. In the process, he provides grounds for generalizing the problem of “dirty hands” beyond Michael Walzer’s influential understanding that pertains primarily to “emergencies” and singular time-slice actions, and addresses concerns about the coherence of the very idea that there is justified action that one ought to do which remains wrong. Merleau-Ponty does this by emphasizing the diachronic relationship between theoretical principles and concrete political action over a period of time, thus imbuing the problem of dirty hands with a historicity that is not sufficiently recognized in the more static and action-focused discussions.","PeriodicalId":51905,"journal":{"name":"Critical Horizons","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135534856","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-24DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2241060
Francisco Conde Soto
{"title":"Deleuze’s and Guattari’s Body Without Organs and Lacan’s Other Jouissance: Bodies Under Capitalism","authors":"Francisco Conde Soto","doi":"10.1080/14409917.2023.2241060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2241060","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51905,"journal":{"name":"Critical Horizons","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48853701","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-10DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2241058
P. J. Casey
ABSTRACT From social media to the halls of academia all the way to the White House, everyone is talking about “lived experience”. Yet, there is considerable confusion about what, precisely, the term means. Part of this confusion results from the lack of awareness about the origin of the term and the philosophical need that it was introduced to address. Accordingly, the first aim of this essay is to elucidate the meaning of “lived experience” by teasing out and enumerating its various features as found in the thought of Wilhelm Dilthey, who first developed and popularized it as a philosophical concept. The second goal is to critique the use of “lived experience” in contemporary academic and political discourse. Lived experience is simultaneously denigrated by those who regard it as merely subjective and exalted by those who regard it as epistemically authoritative. A return to Dilthey’s original formulation reveals that both of these attitudes are predicated on misunderstandings of the nature of lived experience.
{"title":"Lived Experience: Defined and Critiqued","authors":"P. J. Casey","doi":"10.1080/14409917.2023.2241058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2241058","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 From social media to the halls of academia all the way to the White House, everyone is talking about “lived experience”. Yet, there is considerable confusion about what, precisely, the term means. Part of this confusion results from the lack of awareness about the origin of the term and the philosophical need that it was introduced to address. Accordingly, the first aim of this essay is to elucidate the meaning of “lived experience” by teasing out and enumerating its various features as found in the thought of Wilhelm Dilthey, who first developed and popularized it as a philosophical concept. The second goal is to critique the use of “lived experience” in contemporary academic and political discourse. Lived experience is simultaneously denigrated by those who regard it as merely subjective and exalted by those who regard it as epistemically authoritative. A return to Dilthey’s original formulation reveals that both of these attitudes are predicated on misunderstandings of the nature of lived experience.","PeriodicalId":51905,"journal":{"name":"Critical Horizons","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43689413","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-04DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2241063
Philipp Wagenhals
ABSTRACT This paper advances a novel take on Chantal Mouffe’s appropriation of the late Wittgenstein, arguing that Wittgenstein’s philosophy, at the same time, gives rise to and offers a solution to the relativism problem as it can be found in Mouffe’s radical political thought. Unlike other vindications of Wittgenstein-inspired political thought, I also show at which point Wittgenstein’s support for such an approach comes to an end. I thus acknowledge that the relativism problem – at least to some extent – stems from the ambiguity of Wittgensteinian thought itself. After having outlined these challenges, I suggest turning to alternative approaches from the field of critical social philosophy. In particular, Rahel Jaeggi’s Frankfurt School account of forms of life highlights what such a non-relativist but still context-sensitive approach may look like. By virtue of this last step, this paper contributes to recent engagements by Critical Theorists with the late Wittgenstein.
{"title":"Mouffe’s Wittgenstein and Contemporary Critical Theory","authors":"Philipp Wagenhals","doi":"10.1080/14409917.2023.2241063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2241063","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 This paper advances a novel take on Chantal Mouffe’s appropriation of the late Wittgenstein, arguing that Wittgenstein’s philosophy, at the same time, gives rise to and offers a solution to the relativism problem as it can be found in Mouffe’s radical political thought. Unlike other vindications of Wittgenstein-inspired political thought, I also show at which point Wittgenstein’s support for such an approach comes to an end. I thus acknowledge that the relativism problem – at least to some extent – stems from the ambiguity of Wittgensteinian thought itself. After having outlined these challenges, I suggest turning to alternative approaches from the field of critical social philosophy. In particular, Rahel Jaeggi’s Frankfurt School account of forms of life highlights what such a non-relativist but still context-sensitive approach may look like. By virtue of this last step, this paper contributes to recent engagements by Critical Theorists with the late Wittgenstein.","PeriodicalId":51905,"journal":{"name":"Critical Horizons","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43106193","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}
Pub Date : 2023-08-03DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2241061
Robert Lucas Scott
ABSTRACT This essay traces Hegel's conceptualisation of “the spirit and the letter”, from the period of his early theological writings to that of the Science of Logic, with particular reference to his correspondence. This dialectic, for Hegel, concerns the realisation of the truth or “spirit” of something from the specificity and fixity of its particular details – its “letter”. It also concerns, then, the freedom to interpret the spirit of something in spite of the apparent authority of any supposed original meanings or authorial intentions. We find him using the phrase in a variety of contexts, with reference to politics, Biblical hermeneutics, textual criticism, the history of philosophy and education. While originally derived from St Paul's dictum – “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6) – Hegel's early invocations of “the spirit and the letter” are inspired by Fichte, who sought to distinguish the spirit from the letter of Kant's philosophy. However, while Fichte conceives of the “spirit” as an “aesthetic sense” with which to take creative liberties with the letter, the later Hegel finds that it is only by tarrying with the contradictions of the dead letter that the spirit might be brought to life.
{"title":"“The Letter Kills, but the Spirit Gives Life”: Letters on the Spirit and the Letter of Hegel's Philosophy","authors":"Robert Lucas Scott","doi":"10.1080/14409917.2023.2241061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2241061","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This essay traces Hegel's conceptualisation of “the spirit and the letter”, from the period of his early theological writings to that of the Science of Logic, with particular reference to his correspondence. This dialectic, for Hegel, concerns the realisation of the truth or “spirit” of something from the specificity and fixity of its particular details – its “letter”. It also concerns, then, the freedom to interpret the spirit of something in spite of the apparent authority of any supposed original meanings or authorial intentions. We find him using the phrase in a variety of contexts, with reference to politics, Biblical hermeneutics, textual criticism, the history of philosophy and education. While originally derived from St Paul's dictum – “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6) – Hegel's early invocations of “the spirit and the letter” are inspired by Fichte, who sought to distinguish the spirit from the letter of Kant's philosophy. However, while Fichte conceives of the “spirit” as an “aesthetic sense” with which to take creative liberties with the letter, the later Hegel finds that it is only by tarrying with the contradictions of the dead letter that the spirit might be brought to life.","PeriodicalId":51905,"journal":{"name":"Critical Horizons","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43460393","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}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2233111
Isabell Dahms
ABSTRACT This article explores queer spatial and feminist coalitional practices through Adriana Cavarero's concept of maternal and mimetic “inclinations”, Sara Ahmed's concept of queer “orientations” and a political action by the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP). It argues that through these paradigms, social histories become central to philosophical thinking about subjectivity. Ahmed and Cavarero conceive of subjectivity through postural and spatial relations. To explore how spatial and postural relations generate subjectivities, I focus on an example of a deliberate political takeover of space. In the article, Ahmed and Cavarero's concepts are explored through a historical analysis of the 1982 takeover of Holy Cross Church (London, UK) by the ECP. This political action offers a different starting point for philosophical inquiry and proposes an additional response by orienting and inclining us towards a feminist coalitional practice and commons that builds support without minimising difference. The paper will show that the conceptual tools of Cavarero, Ahmed and the ECP can be productively brought into conversation and used to conceptualise maternal inclinations through queer spatial relations and feminist coalitional practices.
{"title":"Maternal Inclinations, Queer Orientations, Common Occupation","authors":"Isabell Dahms","doi":"10.1080/14409917.2023.2233111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2233111","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores queer spatial and feminist coalitional practices through Adriana Cavarero's concept of maternal and mimetic “inclinations”, Sara Ahmed's concept of queer “orientations” and a political action by the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP). It argues that through these paradigms, social histories become central to philosophical thinking about subjectivity. Ahmed and Cavarero conceive of subjectivity through postural and spatial relations. To explore how spatial and postural relations generate subjectivities, I focus on an example of a deliberate political takeover of space. In the article, Ahmed and Cavarero's concepts are explored through a historical analysis of the 1982 takeover of Holy Cross Church (London, UK) by the ECP. This political action offers a different starting point for philosophical inquiry and proposes an additional response by orienting and inclining us towards a feminist coalitional practice and commons that builds support without minimising difference. The paper will show that the conceptual tools of Cavarero, Ahmed and the ECP can be productively brought into conversation and used to conceptualise maternal inclinations through queer spatial relations and feminist coalitional practices.","PeriodicalId":51905,"journal":{"name":"Critical Horizons","volume":"24 1","pages":"147 - 163"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47217154","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}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2233108
N. Lawtoo, W. Verkerk, Adriana Cavarero
At first glance, it may appear perplexing to join the ancient concept of “mimesis” with the contemporary concept of “inclinations” via the title of “mimetic inclinations” – and for more than one reason. After all, Plato staged a philosophical critique of mimetic arts in the Republic via the trope of a metaphysical mirror that turns the real world into an appearance, a shadow, or a phantom far removed from reality. As such, the scene was staged for an agonistic confrontation that pits the philosopher against the artist, placing the abstract Forms in the vertical sky of eternal ideas in tension with the horizontally inclined world of aesthetic simulations. From the vertical,meta-physical perspective, the dominant definition of mimesis understood as a mirroring copy or representation of reality that in-forms (gives form to) Western metaphysics is thus at odds with the pluralism internal to an embodied, dramatic, and relationally inclined ontology that, contra Plato, is now reappearing on the contemporary philosophical scene. This relational ontology is constitutive of what the Italian feminist philosopher, classicist, and political theorist Adriana Cavarero has recently grouped under the rubric of “inclinations” (inclinazioni). She provides a different position, or disposition, towards others that troubles the ideal of a self-possessed, autonomous, and solipsistic subject in favour of a magnetic and affective “force”. This force inclines subjectivity towards alterity – thereby proposing a different ontological posture to rethink ethical and political relations constitutive of being in common with others in this world. Adriana Cavarero is one of the most influential contemporary Italian philosophers writing today. A feminist thinker with a pluralist training in classics, political theory, and literary theory, Cavarero is a protean theorist whose work spans the history of Western philosophy – from Plato to Kant, Hannah Arendt to Judith Butler, and beyond. Furthermore, she develops a pluralist thought that goes beyond ancient quarrels between philosophy and literature to rethink the human condition for present and future generations. Cavarero’s influential and now classic works like In Spite of Plato (1995), Relating Narratives (2000), Stately Bodies (2002), For More than one Voice (2005), Horrorism (2008), and, more recently, Inclinations (2014) and Surging Democracy (2021) have rethought the foundations of the subject through a relational ontology attentive to vulnerability, precarity, and care, which she posits at the foundations of an ethics of non-violence. These concepts have been important for influential anglophone theorists like Judith Butler and Bonnie Honig, for instance.
{"title":"Mimetic Inclinations: An Introduction","authors":"N. Lawtoo, W. Verkerk, Adriana Cavarero","doi":"10.1080/14409917.2023.2233108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2233108","url":null,"abstract":"At first glance, it may appear perplexing to join the ancient concept of “mimesis” with the contemporary concept of “inclinations” via the title of “mimetic inclinations” – and for more than one reason. After all, Plato staged a philosophical critique of mimetic arts in the Republic via the trope of a metaphysical mirror that turns the real world into an appearance, a shadow, or a phantom far removed from reality. As such, the scene was staged for an agonistic confrontation that pits the philosopher against the artist, placing the abstract Forms in the vertical sky of eternal ideas in tension with the horizontally inclined world of aesthetic simulations. From the vertical,meta-physical perspective, the dominant definition of mimesis understood as a mirroring copy or representation of reality that in-forms (gives form to) Western metaphysics is thus at odds with the pluralism internal to an embodied, dramatic, and relationally inclined ontology that, contra Plato, is now reappearing on the contemporary philosophical scene. This relational ontology is constitutive of what the Italian feminist philosopher, classicist, and political theorist Adriana Cavarero has recently grouped under the rubric of “inclinations” (inclinazioni). She provides a different position, or disposition, towards others that troubles the ideal of a self-possessed, autonomous, and solipsistic subject in favour of a magnetic and affective “force”. This force inclines subjectivity towards alterity – thereby proposing a different ontological posture to rethink ethical and political relations constitutive of being in common with others in this world. Adriana Cavarero is one of the most influential contemporary Italian philosophers writing today. A feminist thinker with a pluralist training in classics, political theory, and literary theory, Cavarero is a protean theorist whose work spans the history of Western philosophy – from Plato to Kant, Hannah Arendt to Judith Butler, and beyond. Furthermore, she develops a pluralist thought that goes beyond ancient quarrels between philosophy and literature to rethink the human condition for present and future generations. Cavarero’s influential and now classic works like In Spite of Plato (1995), Relating Narratives (2000), Stately Bodies (2002), For More than one Voice (2005), Horrorism (2008), and, more recently, Inclinations (2014) and Surging Democracy (2021) have rethought the foundations of the subject through a relational ontology attentive to vulnerability, precarity, and care, which she posits at the foundations of an ethics of non-violence. These concepts have been important for influential anglophone theorists like Judith Butler and Bonnie Honig, for instance.","PeriodicalId":51905,"journal":{"name":"Critical Horizons","volume":"24 1","pages":"103 - 114"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47423298","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}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2023.2233112
Andrea Timár
ABSTRACT This paper examines how Adriana Cavarero extends and offers an alternative to Hannah Arendt's understanding of speech and its relationship to politics and violence through a re-reading of Herman Melville’s, Billy Budd, Sailor (1891). The novella was examined by Arendt in On Revolution (1963) where she considers the apolitical character of the French Revolutionary Terror and establishes a link between violence, mimetic contagion, and the failure of articulate speech. I suggest that whereas Arendt’s reading only offers two possible responses to violence—forgiveness or punishment (perpetuating violence)—a reading of the novella inspired by Cavarero’s work shows a third alternative, the prevention of violence, while equally revealing the blind spot of Arendt’s argument. The blind spot is Arendt's privileging of articulate speech and her failure to consider the embodied character of human expression. Cavarero’s ethics of inclination, however, allows for a response to, and responsibility for, the uniqueness of the human voice, and for the intention to convey meaning. To mediate between Arendt and Cavarero, the paper also reconsiders Nidesh Lawtoo’s understanding of mimesis, evokes Eve Sedgwick’s paradigm-setting queer reading of Billy Budd, and engages with Walter Benjamin’s and Giorgio Agamben’s contrary takes on the relationship between violence and language.
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