Online research in philosophy

Foucault is typically seen as having rebelled against the previous generation of French philosophy, which was dominated by existential phenomenology, and by Sartre in particular. However, the relationship between these two generations and between these two philosophers is more complex than one of simple opposition. Through a refracted focus on Foucault’s late work on Greco-Roman philosophy and on the themes of the practice of the care of the self and the freedom associated with that practice, I argue that Foucault—whose philosophy (...) is centered around the problematization of site-specific processes of subjectification— is closer to existentialism than he seems. (shrink)

Heidegger’s representation of Dasein’s death relation in Division Two of Being and Time remains a singularly prominent reflection on death in the canon of twentieth century continental philosophy. At the same time, though, it is a representation whose limitations have been established by commitments made in Division One, specifically in Heideggers’s account of being-with. My interests in this paper are in the intimate relation between intersubectivity and death, and I engage in a comparative phenomenology in order to free things up. (...) More specifically, I provide a critique of certain key aspects of Heidegger’s account of Dasein, and then I contrast this with the radically different way that the Iroquois practice and experience the connection between intersubjecivity and death. The Iroquois tribe establish their connection between themselves through formal condolences rituals. As I articulate in the paper, for the Iroquois, the relationship to the dead is the source of my relations with those who are living. Dead people are not just an anonymous “they,” and the words said about them are not just idle chatter, but the source of responsibility to continue the community. (shrink)

The impetus for exploring the relationship between Sartre and Foucault may be informed more by Foucault than by Sartre, as it would seem to be geared toward a Foucauldian determination of the discursive parameters of a particular dimension of modern philosophy; that is, of the history of philosophy, including, by extension, the history of existentialism. But insofar as this determination opens up a significant dimension of the situation of philosophy today - of our situation and of the situation of existentialism (...) - it is also Sartrean in nature, as are the effects of this determination, a determination situated somewhere between Sartre's philosophy of freedom and the freedom afforded to Foucault and to us all by the practice of philosophy, and by its future possibilities, which include the possibility "… that I do not believe a word, not one little word, of all I've just scribbled.". (shrink)