Most of the core concepts of the Western philosophical tradition originate in antiquity. Yet boredom is strikingly absent from classical thought. In this philosophical study, Dmitri Nikulin explores the concept's genealogy to argue that boredom is the mark of modernity. Nikulin contends that boredom is a specifically modern phenomenon. He provides a critical reconstruction of the concept of the modern subject as universal, rational, autonomous, and self-sufficient. Understanding itself in this way, this subject is at once the (...) protagonist, playwright, director, and spectator of the staged drama of human existence. It is therefore inevitably monological, lonely, and alone, and can neither escape its own presence nor get rid of it. In other words, it is bored-and this boredom is the fundamental expression and symptom of the modern condition. Considering such thinkers as Descartes, Pascal, Kant, Kierkegaard, Kracauer, Heidegger, and Benjamin, Critique of Bored Reason places boredom on center stage in the philosophical critique of modernity. Nikulin also considers the alternative to the notion of the autonomous subject in the-nonbored and nonboring-dialogic and comic subject capable of shared existence with others. (shrink)

The structures of history -- Early history -- The epic of history -- The homer galaxy -- The logos of history -- Memory and history -- The genealogy of history.

This book considers the emergence of dialectic out of the spirit of dialogue and traces the relation between the two. It moves from Plato, for whom dialectic is necessary to destroy incorrect theses and attain thinkable being, to Cusanus, to modern philosophers—Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher and Gadamer, for whom dialectic becomes the driving force behind the constitution of a rational philosophical system. Conceived as a logical enterprise, dialectic strives to liberate itself from dialogue, which it views as merely accidental and (...) even disruptive of thought, in order to become a systematic or scientific method. The Cartesian autonomous and universal yet utterly monological and lonely subject requires dialectic alone to reason correctly, yet dialogue, despite its unfinalizable and interruptive nature, is what constitutes the human condition. (shrink)

Collected writings on Plato’s unwritten teachings.

_Collected writings on Plato’s unwritten teachings._.

This book is a philosophical study of two major thinkers who span the period of late antiquity: Plotinus, who establishes many of the central themes for later debate and establishes strategies of argument and interpretation, and Proclus, who develops a grand philosophical synthesis and provides original insights into a number of important problems regarding being and thinking, matter and evil.

:Beginning with an outline of memory and recollection in Plato and Aristotle, this paper argues that establishing the role of memory and recollection in their mutual relation in Plotinus requires a careful reconstruction. Whereas memory for Plotinus is not a storage of images or imprints that come either from the sensible or the intelligible but rather is a power capable of producing memories, recollection takes the form of a discursive rational rethinking and reproduction of the soul’s experience of the noetic (...) objects. Recollection, then, is a triple motion of the descent, stay, and return of the soul to the intelligible. (shrink)

This article investigates the constitutive ties of modernity and the modern subject to the phenomenon of boredom, through its interpretation by Walter Benjamin. The nineteenth century—with Paris as its capital—forms the material for this interpretation, and the fragmentary constellations of quotation and reflection in Convolute D of The Arcades Project present boredom both in its social aspect (the city as protagonist) and as experience. A number of the forms of boredom is thus elaborated: the relation of city dweller to nature (...) and the cosmos, as weather; in its temporal orientation, as waiting; the mechanistic character of the modern world and its subject, as repetition; in the cycles of production and consumption, as the ideological boredom of the ruling class. Among three of Benjamin’s typologies for the bored modern subject—the gambler, the flaneur, and the one who waits—I turn particularly to the experience of the flaneur, the dedicatee of Convolute D. In flaneurie the experience of boredom is accumulated and distributed, and in this way the flaneur is in the city but also constitutes and memorializes it, as boredom. This ambivalent relation to the urban fabric and landscape is also captured in his characteristic observation and exhibition, his consumption without acquisition and without production. After considering some possible antitheses to Benjamin’s types of boredom, I conclude with the reflection that passing over boredom to its opposite would require the overcoming of modern subjectivity itself. (shrink)

Edited by Cinzia Arruzza and Dmitri Nikulin, _Philosophy and Political Power in Antiquity_ is a collection of essays examining reflections by ancient philosophers on the implicit tension between political activity and the philosophical life from a variety of critical perspectives.

Most of the core concepts of the Western philosophical tradition originate in antiquity. Yet boredom is strikingly absent from classical thought. In this philosophical study, Dmitri Nikulin explores the concept’s genealogy to argue that boredom is the mark of modernity. Nikulin contends that boredom is a specifically modern phenomenon. He provides a critical reconstruction of the concept of the modern subject as universal, rational, autonomous, and self-sufficient. Understanding itself in this way, this subject is at once the (...) protagonist, playwright, director, and spectator of the staged drama of human existence. It is therefore inevitably monological, lonely, and alone, and can neither escape its own presence nor get rid of it. In other words, it is bored—and this boredom is the fundamental expression and symptom of the modern condition. Considering such thinkers as Descartes, Pascal, Kant, Kierkegaard, Kracauer, Heidegger, and Benjamin, Critique of Bored Reason places boredom on center stage in the philosophical critique of modernity. Nikulin also considers the alternative to the notion of the autonomous subject in the—nonbored and nonboring—dialogic and comic subject capable of shared existence with others. (shrink)

Offering the first book-length study of a central concept in modern European philosophy to appear in the English-speaking world, this book provides an authoritative collection of articles that systematically address the concept of productive imagination in pre-Kantian philosophy, Kant, German Idealism, Phenomenology and Hermeneutics.

This paper considers the problem of evil as it has been discussed and formulated by Plotinus and polemically taken over by Proclus. Contrary to Plotinus, Proclus does not consider matter as evil. Rather, evil in its elusive indefinite nature has to be characterized by the redefined concepts of privation, subcontrary and parypostasis. In its inescapable deficiency, evil, then, is the privation and subcontrary of the good that exists parypostatically, that is, as elusively present in its absence as the misplacement of (...) being and the displacement of the good. (shrink)

The role of agreement or consensus in the constitution of both modernity and antiquity can hardly be underestimated. On the one hand, in the practical sphere, that of lawful and moral action, legally constitutive agreement appears as a constitution which brings otherwise dispersed individuals into one independent and autonomous “body politick”, or commonwealth, capable of being extended to a treaty between the independent members of a union. Agreement also reigns supreme in establishing le contrat social, which supposedly allows people to (...) shake off a state of unruliness and discord. As moral, agreement further extends to socially acceptable norms of behavior, and is later interpreted as an agreement of the autonomous rational will with itself in its own maxims according to the moral law. Thus, in the practical sphere, a consensus about certain basic principles of communication between individuals and/or larger groups appears to be necessary in order to achieve a stable and just social interaction. (shrink)

This book examines being human in its theoretical, practical, and productive aspects; not in abstraction from historical, social, and political settings but, rather, as set in concrete historical and material circumstances.

The notion of dialogue occurs frequently in current debates. Yet it is often used too broadly. Rather than as a proper concept, it is sometimes unintentionally applied in an ambiguous manner, whereas at other times it is used deliberately to mean that which is plurivocal. Dialogue is one of those passwords that everyone takes to be a “good thing,” even if it is understood very differently from what it is. When such a term is used so loosely and in many (...) different contexts, it tends to lose its original form and meaning, as well as any sense of its having a definite content. (shrink)

The notion of dialogue occurs frequently in current debates. Yet it is often used too broadly. Rather than as a proper concept, it is sometimes unintentionally applied in an ambiguous manner, whereas at other times it is used deliberately to mean that which is plurivocal. Dialogue is one of those passwords that everyone takes to be a “good thing,” even if it is understood very differently from what it is. When such a term is used so loosely and in many (...) different contexts, it tends to lose its original form and meaning, as well as any sense of its having a definite content. (shrink)

This article traces some modern conceptions of memory in history (Halbwachs, Nora), indirectly comparing them with the ancient poetic tradition of so-called “catalogue poetry.” In the discussion of memory and oblivion, I argue that history encompasses multiple histories rather than constituting one single teleological and universal history. Every history is produced by a historical narrative that follows and interprets what may be called the historical proper, which comprises lists of names of people, things, or events that have to be kept (...) and transmitted within a history. The historical and the narrative within a history are relatively independent, insofar as the narrative that interprets the historical may in principle change, whereas the historical has to be preserved, which is the primary task of historical memory. Historical being, then, is being remembered within a history. (shrink)

This article traces some modern conceptions of memory in history (Halbwachs, Nora), indirectly comparing them with the ancient poetic tradition of so-called “catalogue poetry.” In the discussion of memory and oblivion, I argue that history encompasses multiple histories rather than constituting one single teleological and universal history. Every history is produced by a historical narrative that follows and interprets what may be called the historical proper, which comprises lists of names of people, things, or events that have to be kept (...) and transmitted within a history. The historical and the narrative within a history are relatively independent, insofar as the narrative that interprets the historical may in principle change, whereas the historical has to be preserved, which is the primary task of historical memory. Historical being, then, is being remembered within a history. (shrink)

The structures of history -- Early history -- The epic of history -- The homer galaxy -- The logos of history -- Memory and history -- The genealogy of history.

This paper is a critical interpretation of the role of laughter in the work of Agnes Heller. Following the distinction between innate affect and culturally conditioned emotion, Heller argues that laughter is an affect that comes as the expressive reaction to the hiatus between the social and the natural. As such, laughter is ubiquitous and yet remains ultimately undefinable, because it signifies the unbridgeable gap between the two worlds that we inhabit at the same time. Laughter thus sonorously presents our (...) human condition as expressible yet not graspable according to a single theory of laughter, or any combination thereof. Paraphrasing Immanuel Kant, laughter is ultimately the instinct of reason that liberates us from the illusion that a resolution between the two conflicting constituents of our existence is ultimately possible. (shrink)

The article provides a close hermeneutical reading and philosophical interpretation of a short text by Mikhail Bakhtin from 1943, quoted and translated in the beginning. Contra the modern Cartesian interpretation of the subject as always open to itself in an act of self-reflection, it is argued that one’s self is not immediately accessible and fully transparent to itself. Looking at oneself in the mirror stands for an attempt of self-cognition, in which one both recognizes and misses oneself, seeing oneself as (...) another with no “seamy side.” Thinking oneself, then, constitutes a constant dialogue with oneself, in which one is always involved in a process of non-finalizable explanation of oneself to oneself as one’s own other. (shrink)

The paper discusses the concept of the beautiful based on Agnes Heller’s philosophical genealogy of beauty in Plato, Plotinus, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and Benjamin. For Heller, experience of the beautiful begins as heterogeneous (anything can be beautiful) and negative (with the realization that this is not beautiful but something else is). The demise of the beautiful, then, comes with the establishment and self-affirmation of the modern subject, whose claim to universality and rational autonomy entails the rejection of the everyday lived (...) experience, which was once the locus for beauty in all its multiple expressions. In the modern world, beauty remains only a promise of happiness ( “warm beauty”) and truth ( “cold beauty”). As Heller argues, this promise can be fulfilled, if we acknowledge that there is no privileged access to the beautiful but rather accept beauty in its utter negativity and radical heterogeneity. (shrink)

Drawing from the works of Plato and more contemporary philosophers such as Bakhtin, Buber, Taylor, and Gadamer, On Dialogue explores the necessity of dialogue to being. Author Dmitri Nikulin argues that dialogue is not just a form of communication, but it is the very conditio humana. Nikulin provides a systematic account of dialogue and its role in philosophy, literature, and oral discourse.

Dmitri Nikulin extends his earlier study of oral dialogue (On Dialogue [Lexington, 2006]) to an investigation of dialectic, moving from a narrative of its development in Plato and the history of philosophy (ch.s 1-3) through a renewed phenomenological account of oral dialogue (ch.s 4-5) to a critique, from the perspective of oral dialogue, of the limitations of written dialectic (ch. 6). I take up some of the provocations of his bold and open-ended argument. Does his own “writing against (...) writing” constitute a performative contradiction, and if so, does this attest his critique of the limitations of dialectic or exhibit, in the elicitative force of its irony, the transcending of these limitations? How, if at all, may we reconcile Nikulin’s radical claim that oral dialogue is the very mode of being human with the drive of the turn to written dialectic to understand being itself and its relation to being human? Just insofar as the virtues distinctive of written dialectic — above all, precision, systematic elaboration, and universality — move the philosopher to suspend oral dialogue in its essential attention to a particular other and to the “who” that one emerges as for this other, may this very suspension also constitute a phase within ongoing oral dialogue? Are the last words of the “(Dialectical) Conclusion” with which Nikulin paradoxically closes his critique of dialectic really just the opening words of a conversation that the attentive reader’s very being moves him to pursue? (shrink)

Dmitri Nikulin is one of the few contemporary philosophers to have devoted books to the topic of dialogue and the dialogical self, especially in the last fifteen years. Yet his work on dialogue and the dialogical has received scant attention by philosophers, and this neglect has hurt the ongoing development of contemporary philosophical work on dialogicality. I want to address this lacuna in contemporary philosophical scholarship on dialogicality and suggest that, although Nikulin’s account is no doubt insightful (...) and thought-provoking, it is problematic for two main reasons: first, his account fails to recognize the proper relationship between dialogue and agency; and second, his enumeration of the necessary and sufficient conditions for dialogue contains conceptual inconsistencies. (shrink)

Ce volume collectif traite des relations entre philosophie et pouvoir politique dans l’Antiquité, des sophistes jusqu’aux néoplatoniciens, dans huit contributions issues pour la plupart du Hannah Arendt and Reiner Schürmann Symposium in Political Philosophy - Tyrants, Kings, Emperors, and Philosophers : Philosophy and Political Power in Antiquity à la New School for Social Research à New York en mai 2013. Les éditeurs rappellent dans l’introduction l’invention de la philosophie politique par...

Dmitri Nikulin is one of the few contemporary philosophers to have devoted books to the topic of dialogue and the dialogical self, especially in the last fifteen years. Yet his work on dialogue and the dialogical has received scant attention by philosophers, and this neglect has hurt the ongoing development of contemporary philosophical work on dialogicality. I want to address this lacuna in contemporary philosophical scholarship on dialogicality and suggest that, although Nikulin’s account is no doubt insightful (...) and thought-provoking, it is problematic for two main reasons: first, his account fails to recognize the proper relationship between dialogue and agency; and second, his enumeration of the necessary and sufficient conditions for dialogue contains conceptual inconsistencies. (shrink)

Dmitri Nikulin extends his earlier study of oral dialogue (On Dialogue [Lexington, 2006]) to an investigation of dialectic, moving from a narrative of its development in Plato and the history of philosophy (ch.s 1-3) through a renewed phenomenological account of oral dialogue (ch.s 4-5) to a critique, from the perspective of oral dialogue, of the limitations of written dialectic (ch. 6). I take up some of the provocations of his bold and open-ended argument. Does his own “writing against (...) writing” constitute a performative contradiction, and if so, does this attest his critique of the limitations of dialectic or exhibit, in the elicitative force of its irony, the transcending of these limitations? How, if at all, may we reconcile Nikulin’s radical claim that oral dialogue is the very mode of being human with the drive of the turn to written dialectic to understand being itself and its relation to being human? Just insofar as the virtues distinctive of written dialectic — above all, precision, systematic elaboration, and universality — move the philosopher to suspend oral dialogue in its essential attention to a particular other and to the “who” that one emerges as for this other, may this very suspension also constitute a phase within ongoing oral dialogue? Are the last words of the “(Dialectical) Conclusion” with which Nikulin paradoxically closes his critique of dialectic really just the opening words of a conversation that the attentive reader’s very being will move him to pursue? (shrink)

In recent decades, memory has become one of the major concepts and a dominant topic in philosophy, sociology, politics, history, science, cultural studies, literary theory, and the discussions of trauma and the Holocaust. In contemporary debates, the concept of memory is often used rather broadly and thus not always unambiguously. For this reason, the clarification of the range of the historical meaning of the concept of memory is a very important and urgent task. This volume shows how the concept of (...) memory has been used and appropriated in different historical circumstances and how it has changed throughout the history of philosophy. In ancient philosophy, memory was considered a repository of sensible and mental impressions and was complemented by recollection-the process of recovering the content of past thoughts and perceptions. Such an understanding of memory led to the development both of mnemotechnics and the attempts to locate memory within the structure of cognitive faculties. In contemporary philosophical and historical debates, memory frequently substitutes for reason by becoming a predominant capacity to which one refers when one wants to explain not only the personal identity but also a historical, political, or social phenomenon. In contemporary interpretation, it is memory, and not reason, that acts in and through human actions and history, which is a critical reaction to the overly rationalized and simplified concept of reason in the Enlightenment. Moreover, in modernity memory has taken on one of the most distinctive features of reason: it is thought of as capable not only of recollecting past events and meanings, but also itself. In this respect, the volume can be also taken as a reflective philosophical attempt by memory to recall itself, its functioning and transformations throughout its own history. (shrink)