The paper asks about the difficulty of reading Schelling's work today given the historical biases that dominate contemporary philosophical inquiry. But if we cannot succeed as the readers Schelling himself appears to be looking for, this does not already have to mean that his work cannot speak to our time. Such a possibility, however, presupposes that we consider Schelling's work as it is inseparably connected to a critique of the modern project and as it points thereby to the monstrous discord (...) that defines human philosophical discourse as such. In particular, the paper considers the Kantian opposition between faith and knowledge and claims that this opposition itself appears to establish a kind of limit for philosophical inquiry today. In this context, some reflections are offered on the history of European nihilism and the death of God. The paper concludes by giving several indications of how Schelling's thought promises to subvert this opposition and this limit. (shrink)

This essay pursues Gilbert Durand’s plea for a new anthropological spirit that would overcome the bureaucracy-or-madness dichotomy which has since Nietzsche left its imprint upon contemporary thought, forcing it to choose between an “Apollonian” ontology established upon some kind of first principle and a “Dionysian” ontology consisting in the erasure of any founding norm. It does so by reclaiming Dionysus and Apollo’s original twin-ness and dual affirmation in dialogue with contemporary anthropological theory, especially Roy Wagner’s thesis on the interplay of (...) “elicitation” and “containment” in sociocultural life. What would happen then, I ask, if we were to reimagine today’s philosophical game – which after Heidegger Deleuze, and Derrida turns variously and increasingly around subtraction – otherwise: as a chiastic board on which Apollo would cut Dionysus’s continuum, which Dionysus would in turn restore despite Apollo’s cuts, and on which the obliteration of any of the two gods would entail the inevitable dismemberment of the other? Accordingly, I offer a full reassessment of Dionysus’s and Apollo’s complementary roles in ancient-Greek culture in discussion not only with Nietzsche’s Dionysian philosophy but also with Ihab Hassan’s postmodern critique of Orpheus. All of it less with the purpose of putting forward a new metaphysics than with the intent of restating the translucent-ness that keeps together reality and thought against any claim that they are either transparent or opaque to one another. (shrink)

Our purpose in this study – which stands at the crossroads of contemporary philosophy, anthropology, and religious studies – is to assess critically the plea for radical contingency in contemporary thought, with special attention to the work of Meillassoux, in light, among other things, of the symptomatic presence of Pauline motifs in the late twentieth to early twenty first-century philosophical arena, from Vattimo to Agamben and especially Badiou. Drawing on Aristotle’s treatment of τύχη and Hilan Bensusan’s neo-monadology (as well as (...) on the network biology of David George Haskell, Scott Gilbert’s holobiont hypothesis, and Terrence Deacon’s teleo-dynamics), we ask what is missing in such plea, from a theoretical standpoint. Next, we examine the relation between radical contingency and worldlessness in dialogue with Leroi-Gourhan’s theory of biocultural evolution, Lévi-Strauss’s structural anthropology, Pierre Clastres’s ethnography, Heidegger’s philosophy of language, and contemporary authors like Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Patrice Maniglier. These two parallel lines of inquiry help us explore what radical contingency, in turn, prevents us from thinking: the intersection of ontology, cosmopolitics, and modality. (shrink)

I seek to interpret the work of Walter Benjamin in light of the "system programme" of German Idealism, in order to confront an antinomy of contemporary radical thought. Benjamin has been regarded as an anti-Hegelian thinker of the exception. Reading him against the grain, I draw out a concept of counter-tradition that eschews the opposition of intra-historical progress and extra-historical exception. The philological inspiration is a book by Franz Joseph Molitor, student of Schelling and "teacher" of Benjamin: The Philosophy of (...) History, or, On Tradition. (shrink)

Robert Miller | : This essay explores how myth functions as a means of revelation in Scripture. It first clarifies a definition of myth, and then discusses the appearance of myth in the Old Testament. Not only is myth found in the Bible, but its presence is of great importance. Considering the various functions of myths in general, it becomes indispensable that myth form a part of the inspired canon. Revelatory myth is essential, especially today. Finally, this essay considers how (...) one might recapture an appreciative reception of biblical myths. | : Cette contribution examine la fonction du mythe biblique. L’auteur y défend que le mythe est utilisé comme un instrument de révélation dans l’Écriture. Dans la première partie de cet article, l’auteur définit ce qu’est le mythe en général et comment il est employé dans l’Ancien Testament. Le mythe est non seulement présent dans la Bible, conclut-il, mais il y est d’une grande importance. En considérant les diverses fonctions du mythe, on ne peut que conclure que le mythe fait partie intégrante du canon inspiré. Aujourd’hui, le mythe révélateur est essentiel et, pour cette raison, la dernière partie de cet article examine comment on pourrait faire renaître une réception élogieuse du mythe biblique. (shrink)

To elaborate the intention of previous contribution, this paper opens again the problem of reception of Kant's definition of the category sublime. Variations which perform Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Adorno represent some innovative approaches. Bridging the history of this aesthetic category in the 20th century in theirs thinking, represents functionality of the sublime, which we observe through the transformations in artistic and aesthetic discourse and which encourages us to an contemporary revaluation of this concept.

My paper is conceived as a critical contribution to this growing literature, intended to clarify certain problematic controversies in fundamental ontology. In particular, I will analyze the ontological project Roberto Unger, and Lee Smolin. who have developed the most systematic philosophy in the continental tradition, and who draw on mathematics and science as a source of philosophical inspiration. While I admire the philosophy of nature developed by Unger and Smolin, this paper will argue that their project has not successfully reconciled (...) mathematics and physics into a coherent philosophical system. I will conclude by suggesting that Schelling offers more valuable philosophical resources to develop a cogent philosophy of nature. (shrink)