Rahel Jaeggi argues that forms of life ought to be the main reference point for a critical theory of society because the internal normative structure of life forms allows for immanent critique. In this article, I extend her model by systematically considering the possibility of oppressive forms of life. Oppressive forms of life are clusters of practices in which subordinated groups are systematically excluded or disabled from participating in the social processes of (...) interpretation through which the values and purposes of those very practices are determined. The possibility of oppressive forms of life poses a challenge to the method of immanent critique because it seems that any such critique must rely on immanent norms that are at least partly constituted by interpretations and that can therefore be distorted by oppression. I argue that Jaeggi’s model of immanent critique can be extended to respond to that challenge, either by recovering a constitutive form of freedom within all forms of life or by consciously adopting a partisan stance in favour of oppressed and marginalised self-understandings. (shrink)

The notion of form-of-life refers to a living dimension that has overthrown the structures of power in which humans are supposedly destined to live, disclosing the possibility of a new understanding of political and legal life. By placing the 'form-of-life' in the context of contemporary philosophy, this book re-imagines anew some of the basic categories of human socialities - such as work, rights, obligation, property, and use. It explores the ways in which Agamben's philosophy might be helpful (...) in developing political and legal strategies that leave behind a situation dominated by pervasive sovereign violence. At a moment of history in which the fundamental promises of Western modernity are undergoing a decisive crisis, to look beyond the basic categories of human social institutions becomes an urgency. Through a close engagement with Agamben's concept of form-of-life, this book seeks to challenge the current crisis of juridical, political and economic reality"-- Back cover. (shrink)

Forms of Life and Subjectivity: Rethinking Sartre's Philosophy explores the fundamental question of why we act as we do. Informed by an ontological and phenomenological approach, and building mainly, but not exclusively, on the thought of Sartre, Daniel Rueda Garrido considers the concept of a ""form of life"" as a term that bridges the gap between subjective identity and communities.

In the historical context of a crisis in biological psychiatry, psychedelic drugs paired with psychotherapy are globally re-emerging in research clinics as a potential transdiagnostic therapy for treating mood disorders, addictions, and other forms of psychological distress. The treatments are poised to soon shift from clinical trials to widespread service delivery in places like Australia, North America, and Europe, which has prompted ethical questions by social scientists and bioethicists. Taking a broader view, we argue that the ethics of psychedelic (...) therapy concerns not simply how psychotherapies are different when paired with psychedelic drugs, but how psychedelic therapies shape and are shaped by different values, norms, and metaphysical commitments. Drawing from the published literature and interviews with seven psychedelic therapists working in clinical trials in the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia, this article opens the black box of the treatments to consider the values and informal debates currently animating the therapies. Considering questions of patient autonomy, mechanisms of therapeutic action, and which therapies are best suited to pair with psychedelic substances, we examine the ethics of psychedelic therapy as an emergent form of life. To bring this form of life out in fuller relief, we conclude by comparing and contrasting it with ayahuasca use in Amazonian shamanism. (shrink)

The phrase ‘Lebensform’ had a long and varied history prior to Wittgenstein’s use of it on a mere three occasions in the Philosophical Investigations. It is not a pivotal concept in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. But it is a minor signpost of a major reorientation of philosophy, philosophy of language and logic, and philosophy of mathematics that Wittgenstein instigated. For Wittgenstein sought to replace the conception of a language as a meaning calculus by an anthropological or ethnological conception. A language is not (...) a class of sentences that can be formed from a set of axioms, formation and transformation rules and the meanings of which is given by their truth-conditions, but an open-ended series of interlocking language-games constituting a form of life or way of living. Wittgenstein’s uses of ‘Lebensform’ and its cognates, both in the Investigations and in his Nachlass are severally analysed, and various exegetical misinterpretations are clarified. (shrink)

Is musical practice 'real' - and how is it connected with everyday life? Eva-Maria Houben shows that making music changes as soon as its meaning is not sought in a purpose-oriented production of results, but in performing music as an activity - indeed, as play. Musical practice, Eva-Maria Houben contends, should be understood as open and never finished. Such an emphasis on repetition can free us from perfection, productivity, and purpose, allowing meaning to unfold in specific situations, places, and (...) relationships. Thus understood, musical practice can become a form of life and a reality in its own right. (shrink)

Philosopher Terry Pinkard revisits Sartre’s later work, illuminating a pivotal stance in Sartre’s understanding of freedom and communal action. Jean-Paul Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason, released to great fanfare in 1960, has since then receded in philosophical visibility. As Sartre’s reputation is now making a comeback, it is time for a reappraisal of his later work. In Practice, Power, and Forms of Life, philosopher Terry Pinkard interprets Sartre’s late work as a fundamental reworking of his earlier ideas, especially (...) in terms of his understanding of the possibility of communal action as genuinely free, which the French philosopher had previously argued was impossible. Pinkard reveals how Sartre was drawn back to Hegel, a move that was itself incited by Sartre’s newfound interest in Marxism. Pinkard argues that Sartre constructed a novel position on freedom that has yet to be adequately taken up and analyzed within philosophy and political theory. Through Sartre, Pinkard advances an argument that contributes to the history of philosophy as well as key debates on action and freedom. (shrink)

Although the expression “form of life” and its plural “forms of life” occur only five times in Philosophical Investigations, and generally few times in his works, it is commonly agreed that this is one of the most relevant issues in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Starting from the analysis of the contexts in which Wittgenstein makes use of this concept, the paper focuses on the different interpretations that have been given in secondary literature, and proposes a classification based on (...) two axes of debate: the monistic versus pluralistic interpretation, and the empirical versus transcendental interpretation. After placing some well-known readings in the resulting scheme, an attempt will be made to offer an evolutionary reading of Wittgenstein’s own ideas about forms of life. It will be argued that the empirical and plural view that seems characteristic of his writings in the Thirties, slowly appears to turn towards a monistic view, sometimes with transcendental tones, although within a pragmatic perspective. This turn remains nevertheless rooted in Wittgenstein’s general attitude towards philosophy intended as a conceptual inquiry with clarifying and therapeutic aims. (shrink)

Individual responsibility is usually articulated either in terms of an individual’s intentions or in terms of the consequences of her actions. However, many of the situations we encounter on a regular basis are structured in such a way as to render the attribution of individual responsibility unintelligible in intentional or consequential terms. Situations of this type require a different understanding of individual responsibility, which I call conditioned responsibility. The conditioned responsibility model advances that, in such situations, responsibility arises directly out (...) of the conditions in which the individual finds herself, irrespective of her intentions or of the consequences of her actions. This model gives rise to a series of challenges, some of which, I propose, can be addressed by drawing on Wittgenstein’s later notion of form of life, together with the notion of honesty implicit in his early approach to ethics. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s writings inspired contemporary philosophical thinking and advanced many issues that had been addressed by traditional philosophy. The questions raised by the Viennese philosopher initiated debates on a reconsideration of philosophical terminology. This is especially true for a term that has generated at least three significant controversies since its creation and will probably generate more disputes in the following years. It is the expression “form(s) of life” which translates into German as “Lebensform(en)” and “Form des Lebens”. The present (...) volume contains contributions on forms of life, language games and the influence of Wittgenstein’s philosophy on other scholars. (shrink)

The article explores aspects of the notion of forms of life in the Wittgensteinian tradition especially following Iris Murdoch’s lead. On the one hand, the notion signals the hardness and inexhaustible character of reality, as the background needed in order to make sense of our lives in various ways. On the other, the hardness of reality is the object of a moral work of apprehension and deepening to the point at which its distinctive character dissolves into the family (...) of connections we have gained for ourselves. The two movements of thought are connected and necessary. (shrink)

Wittgenstein mentions “forms of life” only on a limited number of occasions in his writings; however, this concept is at the core of his approach to language, as the vast literature on the subject shows. My aim in this paper is neither to adjudicate which of the many competing interpretations of “forms of life” is correct nor to propose a new one. I start with a methodological take on this notion and test it by applying it (...) to a specific case. In my view, the notion of forms of life is a methodological tool that Wittgenstein uses to draw attention to the embeddedness of language in our lives and practices. This reading, I suggest, allows us to oppose those who want to see in Wittgenstein a conservative thinker, based on his remark on forms of life as “the given” that must be accepted. In particular, it becomes possible to put his notion to use in the study of linguistic and social change. Hence, I propose as an example the case of innovative language games in trans communities. In this context, the notion of forms of life enables us to see with more clarity how linguistic change occurs, which also helps us better understand phenomena such as disagreement, conflict, and hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

Now, in Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice, path-breaking scholar Michael M. J. Fischer moves the discussion to a consideration of the ...

One branch of practical philosophy in whichWittgenstein’s writings might be fruitful, is political philosophy. The concept “forms of life” gives rise to a pluralistic interpretation of society. However, the question arises how societal conflicts in such a pluralistic view con be solved. We will develop a method of criticism which relies on Wittgenstein’s later work and which combines the normative demands of practical philosophy with methodological standards from ethnology and cultural anthropology.

The question of what Wittgenstein meant by "forms of life" has attracted a great deal of attention in the literature, yet it is an expression that Wittgenstein himself employs on only a relatively small number of occasions, and that he does not explicitly define. This Element gives a description of this concept that also explains Wittgenstein's reluctance to say much about it. A short historical introduction examines the origins and uses of the term in Wittgenstein's time. The Element (...) then presents a survey of Wittgenstein's employment of it, and an overview of the literature. Finally, the Element offers a methodological reading of this notion, interpreting it as a conceptual tool in Wittgenstein's wider inquiries into the workings of our language. (shrink)

The logical problem of artificial intelligence—the question of whether the notion sometimes referred to as ‘strong’ AI is self-contradictory—is, essentially, the question of whether an artificial form of life is possible. This question has an immediately paradoxical character, which can be made explicit if we recast it (in terms that would ordinarily seem to be implied by it) as the question of whether an unnatural form of nature is possible. The present paper seeks to explain this paradoxical kind of (...) possibility by arguing that machines can share the human form of life and thus acquire human mindedness, which is to say they can be intelligent, conscious, sentient, etc. in precisely the way that a human being typically is. (shrink)

For many liberals, the question "Do others live rightly?" feels inappropriate. Liberalism seems to demand a follow-up question: "Who am I to judge?" Peaceful coexistence, in this view, is predicated on restraint from morally evaluating our peers. But Rahel Jaeggi sees the situation differently. Criticizing is not only valid but also useful, she argues. Moral judgment is no error; the error lies in how we go about judging. One way to judge is external, based on universal standards derived from ideas (...) about God or human nature. The other is internal, relying on standards peculiar to a given society. Both approaches have serious flaws and detractors. In On the Critique of Forms of Life, Jaeggi offers a third way, which she calls "immanent" critique. Inspired by Hegelian social philosophy and engaged with Anglo-American theorists such as John Dewey, Michael Walzer, and Alasdair MacIntyre, immanent critique begins with the recognition that ways of life are inherently normative because they assert their own goodness and rightness. They also have a consistent purpose: to solve basic social problems and advance social goods, most of which are common across cultures. Jaeggi argues that we can judge the validity of a society's moral claims by evaluating how well the society adapts to crisis--whether it is able to overcome contradictions that arise from within and continue to fulfill its purpose. Jaeggi enlivens her ideas through concrete, contemporary examples. Against both relativistic and absolutist accounts, she shows that rational social critique is possible.--. (shrink)

This article attempts to gain purchase on the information society via the notion of `technological forms of life'. It first addresses the idea of `forms of life'. Forms of life are a mode of conceiving of culture that arose at the turn of the 20th century in conjunction with phenomenology. Previously, in early modernity, culture was conceived very much on a representational model. The rest of the essay explores the possibility that a new paradigm (...) of culture, i.e. technological forms of life is emerging at the turn of the 21st century. Technological forms of life are understood as `culture-at-a-distance'. They are the flattening, stretch-out, speed-up and lift-out of forms of life. They are forms of life become non-linear. They involve the exteriorization of inferiority and reflexivity. (shrink)

Autism is often taken to be a specific kind of mind. The dominant neuro‐cognitivist approach explains this via static processing traits framed in terms of hyper‐systemising and hypo‐empathising. By contrast, Wittgenstein‐inspired commentators argue that the coherence of autism arises relationally, from intersubjective disruption that hinders access to a shared world of linguistic meaning. This paper argues that both camps are unduly reductionistic and conflict with emerging evidence, due in part to unjustifiably assuming a deficit‐based framing of autism. It then develops (...) a new Wittgensteinian account—autism as a different form of life—which avoids these issues. Rather than autistic systemising being the basis of autistic cognition, it is taken to be a reaction to pre‐epistemic and semantic anxieties that come with developing as a minority within a different form of life. This re‐framing can provide a coherent account of the autistic mind, and has significant conceptual, practical, and ethical implications. (shrink)

This article examines an often-mentioned but largely undeveloped concept in the work of Giorgio Agamben and in particular his Homo Sacer project: form-of-life. What is at stake in this concept is, I attempt to show, a way of thinking “politics” outside of the space of sovereignty. By examining a short text on this notion published just before the opening installment of the Homo Sacer sequence, this article demonstrates the way this early formulation of the concept is indebted to certain (...) strains of Italian workerist and post-workerist thought. The fundamental question this analysis poses, however, is whether the concept of form-of-life, being to some extent “beyond” the classical space of politics, should in fact be understood as fundamentally aesthetic in nature. (shrink)

Dialectic of endarkenment -- Feather-light rubble -- Present while absent -- How to imagine a form of life.

This paper aims to distinguish Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘form of life’ from other concepts or expressions that have been confused or conflated with it, such as ‘language-game’, ‘certainty’, ‘patterns of life’, ‘ways of living’ and ‘facts of living’. Competing interpretations of Wittgenstein’s ‘form of life’ are reviewed, and it is concluded that Wittgenstein intended both a singular and a plural use of the concept; with, where the human is concerned, a single human form of life characterized (...) by innumerable forms of human life. (shrink)

Here we are witness to the great cultural event of the West, the emergence of a Latin philosophical language translated from the Greek. Once again, it would be necessary to make a systematic study of the formation of this technical vocabulary that, thanks to Cicero, Seneca, Tertullian, Victorinus, Calcidius, Augustine, and Boethius, would leave its mark, by way of the Middle Ages, on the birth of modern thought. Can it be hoped that one day, with current technical means, it will (...) be possible to compile a complete lexicon of the correspondences of philosophical terminology in Greek and Latin? Furthermore, lengthy commentaries would be needed, for the most interesting task would be to analyze the shifts in meaning that take place in the movement from one language to another. In the case of the ontological vocabulary the translation of ousia by substantia, for example, is justly famous and has again recently inspired some remarkable studies. This brings us once more to a phenomenon we discretely alluded to earlier with the word philosophia, and which we will encounter throughout the present discussion: the misunderstandings, shifts or losses in meaning, the reinterpretations, sometimes even to the point of misreading, that arise once tradition, translation, and exegesis coexist. So our history of the Hellenistic and Roman thought will consist above all of recognizing and analyzing the evolution of meanings and significance. Pierre Hadot holds the chair of the History of Hellenistic and Roman Thought at the Collège de France. He is the author of many books and articles on the history of ancient philosophy and theology. Among his works are Plotin et la simplicité du regard, Porphyre et Vitctorinus, Marius Victorinus: Recherches sur sa vie et ses oeuvres, and Exercises spirituels et philosophie antique. Arnold I. Davidson, executive editor of Critical Inquiry, is associate professor of philosophy and a member of the Committees on the Conceptual Foundations of Science and General Studies in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He introduced and edited the “Symposium on Heidegger and Nazism” . He is currently working on the history of horror as it relates to the epistemology of norms and deviations. Paula Wissing, a free-lance translator and editor, has recently translated Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant’s The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks . She also contributed translations of articles by Maurice Blanchot, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, and Emmanuel Levinas for the “Symposium on Heidegger and Nazism.”. (shrink)

This book provides a defence of epistemological relativism against its most powerful opponents.

Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude" is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people." Globalization is forcing us to rethink some of the categories—such as "the people"—that traditionally have been associated with the now eroding state. Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude," elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to analyze contemporary (...) issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people," favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. "When they rebel against the state," Hobbes wrote, "the citizens are the multitude against the people." But the multitude isn't just a negative notion, it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, "not-feeling-at-home-anywhere," is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the last twenty years is leading to a paradoxical "Communism of the Capital.". (shrink)

In this article, my purpose is to explore conversion in its onto-phenomenological structure. To this end, in the first section, I develop a notion of form of life as an ontological unit. That is, the totality of the possible actions of a subject according to the principle that drives him/her. In this way, the subject is the result of the actions that constitute the adopted form of life. In the second section, I hold that all conversion is precisely (...) the passage from one form of life to another triggered by a crisis, and that if this requirement is not met, neither is there a conversion. This makes it possible to reduce any type of conversion, whether religious, moral, or intellectual, to a single onto-phenomenological structure based on the form of life as an ontological unit. And it even allows for the analysis of other phenomena in terms of conversion, such as the passage from one social group to another. (shrink)

The paper investigates the cultural unit of “sanctity” in the light of the notion of “form of life”, in order to show how jazz master John Coltrane pursued sanctity as a regulative model with regards both to personhood and musicianship, so as to translate his existential quest into music. Firstly, the paper briefly summarizes: what we mean today by sanctity ; what are the relationships interweaving music and sanctity ; what we mean by form of life—a notion brought (...) into philosophical discourse by Ludwig Wittgenstein—in semiotic terms and why we can apply it to sanctity. Afterwards, the paper addresses Coltrane’s musical career, relying both on hagiographic discourse built around him and his discography, with special focus on three game-changers among his albums: Giant Steps, A Love Supreme, and Ascension. Coltrane headed a twofold conversion: he abandoned his native Methodist faith to embrace a personal form of syncretic pantheism; he abandoned the language of traditional jazz to embrace the avant-garde technique of modal composition and the once despised free jazz. Not only Coltrane wanted to be a saint, not only was he regarded as such to the extent that a “St. John William Coltrane Church” was established in San Francisco, but he tried to be one through music; namely, by conveying his spiritual journey via sonic means: proposing a musical catechism, a musical mass, and his own mystique. Consistently with the process of selection any saintly figure—and mystiques especially—undergoes in order to be canonized stricto sensu, only some tokens within Coltrane’s body of work were included in the canon, while his later works were left out due to their radicalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Forms of Life and Cultural EndowmentsVictor Peterson IIYou know, honey, us colored folk is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways.—Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God 15)what does it mean when we speak of a form of life? When speaking of a form of life, we consider one different from others by way of its mode of expression, (...) that is, by its means of construction. This interpretation lends itself to a functional analysis of the material put to use and whose operations jointly express the concept we are after. Modes of expression can be plotted between a rhetorical and semantic axis (Gates 48). As such, "[t]he level of connotation of the visual sign, of its contextual reference and positioning in different discursive fields of meaning and association, is the point where already coded signs intersect with the deep semantic codes of a culture and take on additional more active ideological dimensions" (Hall 56). Coordinates within this domain encode signifying practices, revitalizing the traditional concept of signification as a function of what's signified with respect to a signifier. The content of a syntagm in this coordinate system, a point in this plane, indexes its function with respect to others. As such, we will conceive of the content of modes of expression functionally.A function is defined by pairing an element from a domain and another from a sub/co-domain whereby that pair is an element of that function. In this way, we can treat functions as abstract objects. If we treat a domain as what determines the availability of an expression, and a sub/co-domain as representative of its range of application, then the function of applying some proposition maps a movement from a domain of selection to one of composition, that is, its use with respect to others. The function of an expression, then, represents an operation over the possible worlds of its appropriate application (Taylor 201–02, 269, 276). This becomes more interesting when considering assertions whereby one subject is known to be the case for another, a concept that's modeled when a proposition from one is appearing in the object position of another (Fara 65–73). Resultingly, a proposal for an [End Page 26] ontology constituted by modes of interaction rather than identity stipulations to physical entities arises. It follows that if a form of life is understood by way of its mode of expression, then its content is expressed as an ensemble of the functions of its operations. Let this ensemble of functions be called an endowment.There is a pervasive debate in cultural studies that obsesses over proprietary notions as well as the ability to locate an origin. With that in mind, let us consider a coordinate system where there are two perpendicular axes, and we define positions within the space provided at the intersection of lines drawn from each. Each axis is represented by an ordered series of markers. A line drawn from each axis indicates that the coordinates indexed at their intersection is a function of these two markers. This locates an individual at a point in that domain, indexing a relation between the axes framing that space. Therefore, that coordinate-wise space, here a domain of possible expression, is not "empty" as pessimists would claim, but is filled with functional-content, albeit functions yet applied and marked by a point in that plane.Although we are currently speaking of two-dimensional space, the same follows for as many dimensions as we want. A point's location is a function of three values in three dimensions, four in four dimensions, and so on. Forms of life, then, will be comprised of four dimensions. This allows for a space-time conception, wherein joint expressions bend space-time and that space dictates those individuals' possible movements. From this, we construct a geometrical model of space-time represented as a cube composed of two-dimensional slices with these slices extending in a particular direction like cards stacked one on top of the other to model time.We want our conception of a form of life to be spatial. After all, it... (shrink)

This chapter shall mainly focus on strategies of resistance against the alleged neutral perspective adopted by the liberal tradition of social and political theory vis-à-vis the plurality of personal expectations about happiness and well-being. I shall first support that material and symbolic hindrances that individuals and groups find as they pursue happiness, as well as stave off pain and suffering, belong to a set of troubles that politics ought to face and attempt to forestall in the entangled context of global (...) neoliberal society. Second, I aim at tackling how the current provision of global standards of forms of life, spread as a homogeneous norm by large companies and media, brings about large spaces of precariousness, lack of recognition and social death, which are often misinterpreted in public as a subjective uneasiness, when not directly viewed as a personal disability. Finally, I shall explore whether the classical liberal disclaimer before economic and social misfortune of citizens has been seized by neoliberalism as an excellent opportunity to make of liveability an unexpected source of business and profitability, drawing as a conclusion that it engages a deep disrepair of our affective life and health. (shrink)

This paper studies the concept of form of life as central to ordinary language philosophy : philosophy of our language as spoken ; pronounced by a human voice within a form of life. Such an approach to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy shifts the question of the common use of language – central to Wittgenstein’s Investigations – to the definition of the subject as voice, and to the reinvention of subjectivity in language. The voice is both a subjective and common (...) expression: it is what makes it possible for my individual voice, or claim, to become shared and for our forms of life to be intertwined with a lifeform. (shrink)

According to Wittgenstein, mathematics is embedded in, and partly constituting, a form of life. Hence, to imagine different, alternative forms of elementary mathematics, we should have to imagine different practices, different forms of life in which they could play a role. If we tried to imagine a radically different arithmetic we should think either of a strange world or of people acting and responding in very peculiar ways. If such was their practice, a calculus expressing the (...) norms of representation they applied could not be called false. Rather, our criticism could only be to dismiss such a practice as foolish and to dismiss their norms as too different from ours to be called ‘mathematics’. (shrink)

A fundamental misapprehension of the nature of our being in the world underlies the general inhumanity and incoherence of modern culture. The belief that abstraction as a mode of knowing can be universalized to provide a rational ground for all human knowledge and action is a pernicious and unacknowledged background to several modern diseases. Illustrative of these maladies is the seeming dichotomy between the aesthetic and the analytic approaches to nature. One critical arena in which the incoherences of our current (...) understandings of our place in nature come to light is in the battle over the environment. I argue that a more adequate conceptualization of our place in the natural world can be erected if the central metaphors for our understanding are grounded in notions derived from the sciences of life. The key concepts must include contingency, historicity, evolution, organism, and imaginative interaction with concrete reality in individual human beings. (shrink)

A common contention of literary criticism is that literary forms can express, reflect, shape, represent or otherwise give form to human life. Literature can seem to offer the same idea as a promise of life’s meaningfulness; where expressive form is powerful, life need not be empty. Can literary forms give form to human life? I will argue for one sense in which this is true. As will become clear, at stake in this inquiry is (...) not simply an idea about the meaningfulness of literature’s poetry, but a way of answering the question of what it means to be human. (shrink)

New words have found their way into the public sphere: we now commonly talk about “confinement”, “barrier-gesture” or “distancing”. The very idea of public space has been transformed: with restrictions on movement and interaction in public; with the reintegration of lives (certain lives) into the home (if there is one) and private space; with the publicization of private space through internet relationships; with the cities’ space occupied, during confinement, by so-called “essential” workers; with the restriction of gatherings and political demonstrations (...) in public space. With these and other recent changes, it is imperative to revisit the concept of public space, which continues to be used as if it were self-evident, despite its profound transformation over the past few decades, in a process of realization and “literalization”. No longer just a comfortable metaphor for reasonable debates, public space has become a concrete reality in the 21th century. This transformation in the various phenomena, such as the occupation of squares and public spaces; the demand for spaces of conversation and expression for those without a voice; the transition of private matters into the public realm through verbal expression; and the expression and circulation of public issues within popular cultures. As a result, the question of public space is increasingly intertwined with that of private spaces, such as the home or individual subjectivities, forming an internal, logical relationship. (shrink)

A fundamental misapprehension of the nature of our being in the world underlies the general inhumanity and incoherence of modern culture. The belief that abstraction as a mode of knowing can be universalized to provide a rational ground for all human knowledge and action is a pernicious and unacknowledged background to several modern diseases. Illustrative of these maladies is the seeming dichotomy between the aesthetic and the analytic approaches to nature. One critical arena in which the incoherences of our current (...) understandings of our place in nature come to light is in the battle over the environment. I argue that a more adequate conceptualization of our place in the natural world can be erected if the central metaphors for our understanding are grounded in notions derived from the sciences of life. The key concepts must include contingency, historicity, evolution, organism, and imaginative interaction with concrete reality in individual human beings. (shrink)

The publication of The Use of Bodies, the final volume in Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer series, makes it possible to take stock of Agamben’s project as a whole. Having started with a powerful critique of the biopolitical sovereignty as the essence of modern politics, Agamben concludes his project with an affirmative vision of inoperative politics of form-of-life, in which life is not negated or sacrificed to the privileged form it must attain, but rather remains inseparable from the form (...) that does nothing but express it. The article begins by reconstituting the non-relational logic that Agamben develops in order to render inoperative the existing apparatuses of ontology, ethics and politics. We then address the dimension of lifestyle as a new key domain of Agamben’s work, in which biopolitics may be recast in an affirmative key of form-of-life. While Agamben is better known for sceptical and scornful statements about contemporary liberal democracies, we shall argue that his affirmative biopolitics, characterized by destituent power, resonates with Claude Lefort’s understanding of democracy as structured around the ontological void and epistemic indeterminacy. In the conclusion we question the viability of this biopolitical democracy, focusing on Agamben’s example of the Nocturnal Council in Plato’s Laws. (shrink)

Rahel Jaeggi’s Critique of Forms of Life represents a welcome new development in critical social thought. It aims to overcome the ‘liberal abstinence’, which forbids criticizing the ethical fabric of social life, and proposes to connect normative evaluation with a serious social-ontological model of ‘forms of life’. In this article we argue, however, that Jaeggi’s ontological characterization of the concept of form of life is problematic in ways that introduce a number of adverse consequences (...) for social critique. In section 1, we lay out the main components of Jaeggi’s account. In section 2, we present four interconnected problems that beset Jaeggi’s substantializing conception of forms of life. In section 3, we present an alternative construal of the idea of forms of life, one which does not utilize the concept for grasping substantial unities, but rather focuses on the ‘forms’ that specifically human life takes, and which grasps social practices as concrete collaborative activities involving expectations of recognition. We thereby bring together the recognition-theoretical strand of critical social thought with Jaeggi’s welcome new gambit. In section 4 we briefly put forth three mutually complementary ways to conceive of recognitive expectations immanent in social life understood as a collaborative endeavor. (shrink)

In this paper, after outlining the methodological role Wittgenstein's appeal to language-games is supposed to play, I examine the picture of language which his discussion of such games and their relations to what Wittgenstein calls forms of life suggests. It is a picture according to which language and its employment are inextricably connected to wider contexts—they are embedded in specific natural and social environments, they are tied to purposive activities serving provincial needs, and caught up in distinctive ways (...) of life which creatures of a certain sort enjoy. In the remainder of the paper, I consider whether Wittgenstein's emphasis on the link between language and the circumstances surrounding its use points in the direction of an influential view widespread in contemporary philosophy of language, namely, semantic contextualism. I examine carefully a number of passages which scholars have appealed to in support of the claim that Wittgenstein advances contextualism and argue that they in fact provide no such support. The connection which Wittgenstein sees between what is expressed in the use of words and the circumstances in which they are used is not the connection the contextualist insists on. (shrink)

The notion of forms of life points to a crucial aspect of Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach that challenges an influential line in the philosophical tradition. He portrays intellectual activities in terms of a cohesion of things held together in linguistic scenes rooted in the lives of people and the facts of the world. The original inspiration with which Wittgenstein worked on this approach is still relevant today in the recent technological turn associated with AI. He attacked a conception that (...) treated human activities as material to be examined by external models of rationality. Along with other modernists such as Musil, he saw the danger of losing faith in human intellectual and moral capacities. In contrast, Wittgenstein elucidates and substantively defends an idea of forms of life in which the great normative enterprises, from science to the works of the imagination, are based on our individual capacity to take the next step from a normative authority that rests entirely with us, as agents who can claim it in the name of others, in the name of arithmetic, in the name of our native language, in the name of justice, and so on. Forms of life are the place to look to claim this authority over the mistrust we feel compelled to cultivate in our human endeavors. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's later writings generate a great deal of controversy and debate, as do the implications of his ideas for such topics as consciousness, knowledge, language and the arts. Oswald Hanfling addresses a widespeard tendency to ascribe to Wittgenstein views that go beyond those he actually held. Separate chapters deal with important topics such as the private language argument, rule-following, the problem of other minds, and the ascription of scepticism to Wittgenstein. Describing Wittgenstein as a 'humanist' thinker, he contrasts his views (...) on language, art humanity and philosophy itself with those of scientifically minded philosophers. He argues that 'the human form of life' calls for a kind of understanding that cfannot be achieved by the methods of emirical science; that consiousness, for example, cannot properly be regarded as a property of the bran; and that the resulting 'problem of consoiusness is an illusion. Wittgenstein and the Human Form of Life is essential reading for anyone interested in Wittgenstein's approach to what it means to be human. It will be invaluable to all Wittgenstein scholars, and all who are interested in the philosophy of mind, language and aesthetics. (shrink)

Far from overthrowing or stepping outside that tradition, Wittgenstein builds on it, draws from it, and contributes brilliantly to the fruition of certain elements in it. In This Complicated Form of Life, Garver analyzes from several angles Wittgenstein's relationship to Kant, and to what Finch has called Wittgenstein's completion of Kant's revolt against the Cartesian hegemony of epistemology in philosophy.