This essay explores Étienne Balibar’s treatment of the conceptual development of a notion of the super-ego in Freud as crucial to Balibar’s own thinking of the connection between politics and psychoanalysis. Via Balibar’s writing, however, it traces the antinomic forces at work in the question of a psychoanalytic supplement of politics, in the process examining not only the psychic conditions of the "political" but also the "politics" of different forms of psychological discourse and debate.

The Derrida Dictionary is a comprehensive and accessible guide to the world of Jacques Derrida, the founder of deconstruction and one of the most important and influential European thinkers of the twentieth century. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all his major works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Derrida's thought. Students will discover a wealth of useful information, analysis and criticism. A-Z entries include clear definitions of all the key (...) terms used in Derrida's writings and detailed synopses of his key works. The Dictionary also includes entries on Derrida's major philosophical influences and those he engaged with, such as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Freud, Heidegger, Foucault, Lacan and Levinas. It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Derrida's philosophy, offering clear and accessible explanations of often complex terminology. The Derrida Dictionary is the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying Derrida, deconstruction or modern European philosophy more generally. (shrink)

This essay explores Étienne Balibar’s treatment of the conceptual development of a notion of the super-ego in Freud as crucial to Balibar’s own thinking of the connection between politics and psychoanalysis. Via Balibar’s writing, however, it traces the antinomic forces at work in the question of a psychoanalytic supplement of politics, in the process examining not only the psychic conditions of the "political" but also the "politics" of different forms of psychological discourse and debate.

In L'Arrêt de mort, as Derrida suggests, an ‘epochal suspension’ manifests itself, compulsively pulsating so as to conjure a certain spectrality beyond all consciousness, perception, or ordinary attentiveness. Re-reading Blanchot's text, I argue that it is on the borderlines of sleep that the ‘arrythmic pulsation’ of the arrêt de mort happens as impossible event – ‘the state of suspension in which it's over – and over again, and you'll never have done with that suspension itself’, to quote Derrida once more. (...) While ‘Living On’ makes little of sleep, however, I take this cue to follow a pathway which leads from Blanchot to Levinas. Blanchot's writing exposes the sleep of reason which occurs in the very promise of perfect day, a promise which mutates in the dream he associates with the ‘other night’, a dream which harbours the irrepressible return of ‘time's absence’, and which opens on to the very ‘outside’ which the world – and the self – lacks or wants (as much as ‘world’ or ‘self’ seek to overcome this ‘outside’ as such). Levinas, meanwhile, wants to think irremissible pure existing (il y a) in terms of insomnia; in contrast, consciousness seeks to assert itself over the unremitting presence of the ‘there is’ through its capacity for unconsciousness or sleep. This essay seeks to attend to the complexities of a certain ‘fatality of being’ that threatens to sweep away the ‘ego’ as consciousness's capacity to sleep is confronted by the radical vigilance of insomnia and the deep anonymity of the night (Existence and Existents). (shrink)

Through an attentive reading of his essay, “Psychoanalysis Searches the States of Its Soul,” it is possible to pursue Derrida's thinking about psychoanalysis and cruelty in terms of the distinction he makes between Nietzsche and Freud, whereby the latter maintains an “opposable term” to cruelty. This article explores the status and significance of such an “opposable term” as one possible source of a Freudian future beyond Freud, and in a postscript carries its reading into the question of the “side of (...) life” and of death in Derrida's H.C. for Life. (shrink)

This article recalls Derrida's reading of Levinasian ethics as a discourse of the other, particularly in ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, in order to re-elaborate Derrida's own account of the other's heterogeneity, notably in light of critiques of deconstruction's thinking of difference, alterity, and the unconditional. At stake here is the precise meaning of what may be termed wholly other; or, better still, the specific nature of the arguments about the question of the other from among Derrida's earlier texts, which must be (...) recalled amidst any appeal to absolute alterity, especially of the kind frequently found in Derrida commentary today. The article suggests that, in the process of Derrida reading Levinas, the radical alterity of the other is sustained in ‘Violence and Metaphysics’ principally in terms of the legitimacy (or ‘discipline’) of a question that arises only on the hither side of a phenomenology of the other – a phenomenology that emerges, nonetheless, as its unacknowledged ground. Thus, in contrast to Levinasian thought (and yet also in deeper affinity with what we might term, for Derrida, its still obscured originality), deconstruction's discourse of the other opens onto the wholly other not simply as the ‘beyond’ or the ‘outside’ of phenomenology's limits, but only at the point where the phenomenological gives way in something like a double sense. (shrink)

For Lyotard, “Auschwitz” is named only as the terrible sign of a differend. However, this paper argues that the dissymmetrical address alluded to in a 1993 lecture given by Lyotard for Amnesty, “The Other’s Rights,” makes possible an alternative legacy found in the very formation of civil politics which might itself “rephrase” this differend otherwise, transforming what may be termed “distress” into “rights” without recourse to the type of contractuality that would risk both repressing and compounding a “wrong” by seeking (...) to litigate it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.3 (2001) 89-107 [Access article in PDF] Teaching DeconstructionGiving, Taking, Leaving, Belonging, and the Remains of the University Simon Morgan Wortham The Remains of the University and the Study of Culture In his recent essay "Literary Study in the Transnational University," J. Hillis Miller tries to account for the hostility shown by some practitioners of a certain kind of cultural studies toward what is perceived (...) as "high" theory—in particular, deconstruction. Describing the emergence of cultural studies as a quasi-discipline, he remarks:Insofar as cultural studies still depends on the traditional idea of culture as the production in a subject or subjectivity of an identity produced through indoctrination by a nation-state or by a subculture such as an ethnic or gender community... it was necessary to resist the questioning by deconstruction of all the key concepts necessary to this idea of culture. These include identity, agency, the homogeneity of a given culture, whether hegemonic or minority, the definition of an individual by his or her participation in a nation or community, the unbreakable tie of a text or any other assemblage of signs to its context. The questioning by theory of these concepts often needed to be sidestepped in order for the project of cultural studies and related new disciplines to get going. These key concepts are glued together by a reinstalled referentiality that can no longer afford to be put in question and remain in question. [83] For Miller, a cultural studies of this sort relies on a minimal degree of retention of such unquestioned "referentiality" as a condition of its need to thematize, narrativize, or interpret various texts, events, and artifacts according to a wider "context" (whether this be described as "historical," "social," or "cultural") to which these phenomena remain unbreakably tied. A "context" such as outlined by Miller would of course need to be accorded a basic level of coherence for the analysis to get underway. Furthermore, insofar as—for Miller—this "context" would thereby establish a more or less generalizable framework within which might be understood the shaping of identity in particular instances, thus facilitating rather traditional ways of determining objects of cognition and knowledge, it could be considered to work so as to reanimate conventional ideas of the "self" or "agency." In assuming that there is always a "context" for every "text," in a way that could be comprehended in the above terms, a cultural studies of the kind described by Miller would reinstall the particular as an expression or exemplar of a more clearly determined situation or setting (history, nation, culture, society, ideology), which, in turn, might be considered to fuel critical misrecognition or reduction of the effects and implications of "transnationality" or "globalization." Furthermore, in this case, the [End Page 89] supposed exemplarity of the particular in its identity with the general would inevitably tend to prompt an account, as Miller himself puts it, of the "production in a subject or subjectivity of an identity" produced by a culture, whether it be hegemonic or minority: the assumed culture of a nation-state or, as is more often emphasized nowadays, a subculture existing in some sort of relation to more dominant cultural practices and trends. In addition to this reinscription of knowledge in relation to the human subject, the founding of a certain kind of cultural study upon longstanding models of cognition, as described above, would reestablish cultural studies practitioners working in this way as themselves knowing subjects. From this perspective, then, Miller would doubtless see certain aspects of the critical landscape of cultural studies—its not infrequent commitment to "identity politics" over the years, its shift of emphasis toward the participatory agency of subjects within contemporary popular culture, even some versions of the debate about the ethics of cultural studies—as set up to reinstall the coextensivity of subjects of knowledge and knowing subjects in a way that would depend uncritically on deeply structured relations of reference, identity, and agency.Miller therefore views cultural studies as, in the last analysis, based on a rather unquestioning reversion to more orthodox humanistic... (shrink)

If critical momentum in European philosophy and theory has seemed to shift away from deconstruction over the past decade or so, nevertheless the indebtedness of contemporary key thinkers to Derrida's writing and the entire project of deconstruction is unquestionable, regardless of whether it is always fully acknowledged, and whether or not Derrida's influence manifests itself as a source of inspiration or the grounds of critical antagonism or opposition. Many of those who now reject deconstruction continue to write texts that engage (...) with Derrida's work, whether dismissively or not. In this context, how best to recall deconstruction as a continuing 'voice' across the various fields of the critical humanities, theory and philosophy? The starting point for this collection of essays is the idea that, rather than reduce deconstruction to an object of historical importance or memory, one might more fruitfully analyze its significance in terms of complex matrices of desire in which it continues to figure; ceaselessly provoked in this way, deconstruction may neither be dismissed as simply 'dead', nor unproblematically defended as still alive and well. Instead, it asks to be repositioned on the threshold of life-death (about which deconstruction has always had much to say), an intricate threshold which profoundly complicates its relationship to the 'present' field of critical thought. This is a field which-according to a highly complex set of desires-still struggles to memorialize, to inter, or indeed to cremate, reduce to ashes, the deconstructive corpus. This collection therefore brings together leading voices at the forefront of their critical fields, in order to address the question of the desires of deconstruction, in precisely these multiple senses. With contributions from Etienne Balibar, Catherine Malibou and Martin Hagglund, the volume includes key thinkers across various generations of scholarship: those whose careers took off in the 1960s, at the same time Derrida's importance was gaining acknowledgement; those who played their part in the Anglo-American reception and translation of Derrida in the subsequent two or three decades; those taught by him; and those who, without undue discipleship or hagiography, now seek to critically re-evaluate his work. (shrink)

This book provides a definitive account of Jacques Derrida's involvement in debates about the university. Derrida was a founding member of the Research Group on the Teaching of Philosophy (GREPH), an activist group that mobilized opposition to the Giscard government's proposals to "rationalize" the French educational system in 1975. He also helped to convene the Estates General of Philosophy, a vast gathering in 1979 of educators from across France. Furthermore, he was closely associated with the founding of the International College (...) of Philosophy in Paris, and his connection with the International Parliament of Writers during the 1990s also illustrates his continuing interest in the possibility of launching an array of literary and philosophical projects while experimenting with new kinds of institutions in which they might take their specific shape and direction. Derrida argues that the place of philosophy in the university should be explored as both a historical question and a philosophical problem in its own right. He argues that philosophy simultaneously belongs and does not belong to the university. In its founding role, it must come from "outside" the institution in which, nevertheless, it comes to define itself. The author asks whether this irresolvable tension between "belonging" and "not belonging" might not also form the basis of Derrida's political thinking and activism where wider issues of contemporary significance are concerned. Key questions today concerning citizenship, rights, the nation-state and Europe, asylum, immigration, terror, and the "return" of religion all involve assumptions and ideas about "belonging"; and they entail constitutional, legal, institutional and material constraints that take shape precisely on the basis of such ideas. This project will therefore open up a key question: Can deconstruction's insight into the paradoxical institutional standing of philosophy form the basis of a meaningful political response by "theory" to a number of contemporary international issues? (shrink)

This essay reads Derrida’s Geschlecht III: Sex, Race, Nation, Humanity in the context of the philosophical and political legacies associated with the motif of leaping. Surveying the philosophical and textual ‘politics’ of this figure of the leap in the work of Kierkegaard, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Heidegger and others, the essay tracks its connection to the question of philosophical nationalism (and associated images of place, ground and gathering) explored by Derrida in Geschlecht III, speculating on the ambivalent resonances that ‘leap’ across (...) the political spectrum. (shrink)

Encountering Derrida explores the points of engagement between Jacques Derrida and a host of other European thinkers, past and present, in order to counter recent claims that the era of deconstruction is finally drawing to a close. The book rereads Derrida in order to renew deconstruction's various conceptions of language, poetry, philosophy, institutions, difference and the future. This impressive collection of essays from the world's leading Derrida scholars re-evaluates Derrida's legacy and looks forward to the possible futures of deconstruction by (...) confronting various challenges to Derrida's thought. Collectively, the essays argue that Derrida must be read alongside others , an approach that produces some surprising new accounts of this challenging critical thinker. _ _. (shrink)

This article highlights major results of a study into the ethical norms and rules governing biobanks. After describing the methodology, the findings regarding four topics are presented: (1) the ownership of human biological samples held in biobanks; (2) the regulation of researchers’ use of samples obtained from biobanks; (3) what constitutes “collective consent” to genetic research, and when it is needed; and (4) benefit sharing and remuneration of research participants. The paper then summarizes key lessons to be drawn from the (...) findings and concludes by reflecting on the importance of such empirical research to inform future governance norms and practices. (shrink)

What role does non-genetic inheritance play in evolution? In recent work we have independently and collectively argued that the existence and scope of non-genetic inheritance systems, including epigenetic inheritance, niche construction/ecological inheritance, and cultural inheritance—alongside certain other theory revisions—necessitates an extension to the neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis (MS) in the form of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). However, this argument has been challenged on the grounds that non-genetic inheritance systems are exclusively proximate mechanisms that serve the ultimate function of calibrating organisms (...) to stochastic environments. In this paper we defend our claims, pointing out that critics of the EES (1) conflate non-genetic inheritance with early 20th-century notions of soft inheritance; (2) misunderstand the nature of the EES in relation to the MS; (3) confuse individual phenotypic plasticity with trans-generational non-genetic inheritance; (4) fail to address the extensive theoretical and empirical literature which shows that non-genetic inheritance can generate novel targets for selection, create new genetic equilibria that would not exist in the absence of non-genetic inheritance, and generate phenotypic variation that is independent of genetic variation; (5) artificially limit ultimate explanations for traits to gene-based selection, which is unsatisfactory for phenotypic traits that originate and spread via non-genetic inheritance systems; and (6) fail to provide an explanation for biological organization. We conclude by noting ways in which we feel that an overly gene-centric theory of evolution is hindering progress in biology and other sciences. (shrink)

Morgan’s Canon is a very widely endorsed methodological principle in animal psychology, believed to be vital for a rigorous, scientific approach to the study of animal cognition. In contrast I argue that Morgan’s Canon is unjustified, pernicious and unnecessary. I identify two main versions of the Canon and show that they both suffer from very serious problems. I then suggest an alternative methodological principle that captures all of the genuine methodological benefits that Morgan’s Canon can bring but (...) suffers from none of its problems. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir held that human experience is intrinsically ambiguous and that there are no values extrinsic to experience, but she also designated some actions as absolute evil. This essay explains how Beauvoir utilized an intrinsic absolute value to ground an action-guiding principle of freedom that justifies her notion of evil. Morgan's analysis counters Robin May Schott's objections that Beauvoir failed to systematically justify her notion of absolute evil and that Beauvoir shifted from a “logic of action” to a (...) “logic of history” when she utilized the concept. (shrink)

Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1852–1936) is widely regarded as the father of modern comparative psychology. Yet, Morgan initially had significant doubts about whether a genuine science of comparative psychology was even possible, only later becoming more optimistic about our ability to make reliable inferences about the mental capacities of non-human animals. There has been a fair amount of disagreement amongst scholars of Morgan’s work about the nature, timing, and causes of this shift in Morgan’s thinking. We argue (...) that Morgan underwent two quite different shifts of attitude towards the proper practice of comparative psychology. The first was a qualified acceptance of the Romanesian approach to comparative psychology that he had initially criticized. The second was a shift away from Romanes’ reliance on systematizing anecdotal evidence of animal intelligence towards an experimental approach, focused on studying the development of behaviour. We emphasize the role of Morgan’s evolving epistemological views in bringing about the first shift – in particular, his philosophy of science. We emphasize the role of an intriguing but overlooked figure in the history of comparative psychology in explaining the second shift, T. Mann Jones, whose correspondence with Morgan provided an important catalyst for Morgan’s experimental turn, particularly the special focus on development. We also shed light on the intended function of Morgan’s Canon, the methodological principle for which Morgan is now mostly known. The Canon can only be properly understood by seeing it in the context of Morgan’s own unique experimental vision for comparative psychology. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir held that human experience is intrinsically ambiguous and that there are no values extrinsic to experience, but she also designated some actions as absolute evil. This essay explains how Beauvoir utilized an intrinsic absolute value to ground an action-guiding principle of freedom that justifies her notion of evil. Morgan’s analysis counters Robin May Schott’s objections that Beauvoir failed to systematically justify her notion of absolute evil and that Beauvoir shifted from a “logic of action” to a (...) “logic of history” when she utilized the concept. (shrink)

"_Weaving the World_ is a well-written and lucid overview of Simone Weil's writings on science and mathematics. This book will be of great benefit for anyone who wishes to pursue Weil's thought in depth." —_Eric O. Springsted, President of the American Weil Society_ "_Weaving the World_ is a detailed account of the philosophy of science and knowledge of Simone Weil. It is a very useful contribution to our understanding of one of the deepest and most incandescent thinkers of the twentieth (...) century." —_Martin Andic, University of Massachusetts, Boston_ This clearly written book introduces readers to Simone Weil’s philosophy of science and mathematics. Weil held that, for the ancient Greeks, the ultimate purpose of science and mathematics was the knowledge and love of the divine. Her creative assimilation of this vision led her to a conception of science and mathematics that connects the human person with not only the physical world but also the spiritual and aesthetic aspects of human existence. Vance Morgan sketches an outline of a metaphysical foundation for mathematics and science that, according to Weil, opens the door to a reinvigorated discussion among science, philosophy, art, and religion. (shrink)

I examine Beauvoir's moral assessment of Romantic Love in The Second Sex. I first set out Beauvoir's central philosophical assumptions concerning the nature and situations of women, setting the framework for her analysis of the intersubjective dynamic which constitutes the phenomenology of romantic loving. In this process four double-bind paradoxes are generated which can lead, ultimately, to servility in the woman who loves. In a separate analysis, I ask whether it is wrong for a woman to aspire to and/or choose (...) this form of servitude. I distinguish two kinds of considerations: (1) those having to do with the intrinsic moral nature of the commitment or decision, and (2) those based on considerations of harm: first, to the woman who loves; second, to the loved Other; third to the nature of the relationship; and fourth, to society in general. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir incorporates a significantly altered form of the Hegelian master/slave dialectic into "The Ethics of Ambiguity." Her ethical theory explains and denounces extreme wrongdoing, such as the mass murder of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis. This essay demonstrates that, in the Beauvoirean dialectic, the Nazi value system (and Hitler) was the master, Adolf Eichmann was a slave, and Jews were denied human status. The analysis counters Robin May Schott's claims that "Beauvoir portrays the attitudes (...) of the oppressor as defined fundamentally in relation to the oppressed" and that her use of the dialectic is "inadequate to account for how human beings create extreme situations of evil, such as that of genocide.". (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to some intellectual origins of Simone Weil’s philosophy through a summary of and comment on her Lectures on Philosophy given when she was a teacher at a girls’ school at Roanne in the Loire region of central France. The article provides a comment on Simone Weil’s Lectures on Philosophy. There is a brief Introduction followed by a summary of Weil’s life which indicates her various interest as a religious thinker, mystic, (...) anarchist, and political activist and some of the important academic commentaries on these aspects of her life and work. The source of the Lectures on Philosophy edited by her pupil Anne Reynaud-Guérithault is then discussed followed by a detailed summary of and comment on the Lectures themselves. They are grouped under five headings which are considered in turn. These are: The materialist point of view; after the discovery of mind; politics and social theory; ethics and aesthetics; miscellaneous topics and essay plans. There is a further discussion of Simone Weil’s later philosophical thought which shows that what she published reveals classical learning and intellectual quality, but also the several antimonies with which she struggled in her thinking, the two major influences on her thought being Ancient Greece and Christianity. There is a short Conclusion and Bibliography. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to provide a comment on Simone Weil’s brief but seminal essay ‘Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.’ It complements an earlier one on Weil’s Lectures on Philosophy. The essay was sent via a letter to her friend and mentor, the Catholic priest, and Dominican friar, Father Joseph-Marie Perrin O.P. It set out her belief that school studies should provide the individual pupil or student with (...) an education in the value and acquisition of attention. This, Weil believed, would be of fundamental value when reaching out to God through prayer. Such a capacity for attention would also enhance the student’s general academic and social learning providing a basis for authentic dialogue with others, and not only teachers and schoolfellows. The article introduces her as a religious philosopher, explains the origins of the essay, and Weil’s friendship with Father Perrin, who was her Christian religious mentor, examines the text itself, considers some critical commentaries, and assesses its relevance to the philosophy and practice of education today. (shrink)

Levinas’s Ethical Politics, by MorganMichael L.. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016.