As they make their way through Louis Althusser’s and Jacques Derrida’s texts, readers will cross innumerable curtains – ‘the words and things’, as Derrida says, as many fabrics of traces. These curtains open onto a multiplicity of scenes and mises en scène, performances, roles, rituals, actors, plays – thus unfolding the space of a certain theatricality. This essay traces Althusser’s and Derrida’s respective deployments of the theatrical motif. In his theoretical writings, Althusser’s theatrical dispositive aims to designate the practical and (...) material dimension of the scenes of ideology, materially enacted through roleplays, performances, acts, or discourses. At the horizon: a scientific discourse on ideology or, later, a strategic intervention in the class struggle. This scientific and/or strategic orientation echoes Althusser’s definition of materialism: ‘no more storytelling’. But Derrida’s ‘closure of representation’ reminds us that there’s no presence – even the most ‘material’ – no ‘truth’ or ‘correctness’ – in theoretical or strategic terms – without effects of re-presentation, differential repetition, narrative reconstruction: theatricality and materiality suppose a force of resistance, a secret heterogeneity, curtain foldings. Hence the irreducible necessity of reading, storytelling, transformative interpretation. What are the implications for thinking inheritance and debt – for example, the one binding Althusser and Derrida, and us to them? (shrink)

The centenary of the Louvain Institute of Philosophy (which was founded to contribute to a renewal of philosophy within the Christian community „by adhering as closely as possible to the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas”) is the occasion for a critical examination of the particular form of Thomism developed by Désiré Mercier, the first president of the Institute. In Mercier's view, the appeal to Thomas can not be a submission to tradition or authority. Since philosophy is always (...) a personal, free, rational investigation, the only reason for adhering to a certain doctrine, is its intrinsic philosophical value. The mean argument for preferring Thomas „in philosophicis” is the fact that he „combines observation and rational-speculation, analysis and synthesis”, whereby all empirical facts are integrated and made intelligible in a larger metaphysical frame. By so doing Thomas avoids the extremes of empiricism, which leads to materialism, and idealism, which goes hand in hand with dualistic spiritualism. One may doubt whether this is a good characteristic of the „essence of Thomism”. However, Mercier follows Thomas, not so much for any original doctrine, but because he best represents the great scholastic tradition starting from Aristotle. This tradition should not be admired as an ideal of perfection that cannot be improved upon, but should be further developed and renewed, especially by integrating the achievements of modern experimental investigations within it. (Besides the sciences, we should expect not too much from modern philosophy, except in the discussion of the „critical problem”). Mercier thus bases his philosophical option for Thomism on his judgment that it better than any other philosophy offers a metaphysical synthesis within which the investigations of the modern sciences can be integrated, while at the same time being in concordance with the Christian view on man and world. However, when one studies the Thomism as elaborated in Mercier's manuals, it turns out that his attempt at integration fails. For there is no intrinsic link between the scientific findings he considers and the philosophical theses he develops. Herein lies the inherent weakness of the neo-scholastic construction as it was advocated by Mercier. When one defends Thomism by arguing that it offers a „comprehensive synthesis of all knowledge”', and at the same time one stresses the autonomy of scientific inquiry without apologetic intentions, one can expect that as these sciences develop, there will also arise the need for new conceptual schemes and new philosophical models which better fit these new findings. At that moment Thomistic doctrine also seems to fall away as a superfluous superstructure. One can argue that Mercier too easily understood philosophy as a „natural complement” of the sciences and that for that reason he could not really succeed in renewing Thomism. Most neothomists will try to base their option for Thomas upon the originality of his metaphysics. But this search for the „essence of Thomism” is problematic. At the end of the paper it is argued that no intrinsic philosophical arguments can be given for a normative preference for Thomas. The demand to philosophize „ad mentem Thomae” only makes sense when the relation of reason to faith is considered. As É. Gilson has shown, most neothomists were reluctant to develop this argument, except in a negative way : to argue for the autonomy of their philosophical (thomistic) arguments (although they were, in fact, motivated by a religious interest). (shrink)

This essay examines Étienne Balibar's readings of Jacques Derrida and deconstruction. The text is framed as a review of two books by Balibar: 'Equaliberty' and 'Violence and Civility'. After describing the context of those readings, I propose a broader reflection on the ambiguous relationship between 'post-Marxism' and 'deconstruction', focusing on concepts such as 'violence', 'cruelty', 'sovereignty' and 'property'. I also raise methodological questions related to the 'use' of deconstructive notions in political theory debates.

The notion of “conception” plays a central role in Thomas Reid’s theory of perceptual knowledge, although “conception” might be studied for itself as a source of knowledge. In this study, we attempt to expose systematically the several contexts where Reid deals with the source of knowledge and the kind of mental operation called “conception”. The purpose is to understand a specific aspect of the deliverances of “conception” in Reid’s theory of perception, namely, a direct relationship, not mediated by ideas, (...) between knowing subject and external world. To understand the operation of conceiving, which is intrinsic to and constitutive of perception, is an efficient way to comprehend the nature and content of perceptual knowledge. At this step, reflections on the relationship between mind and external world, that is, mind and material world, have to be made. (shrink)

Desire Joseph Mercier (1851-1926) was founder and first president of the Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Leuven. After his studies in the classics, philosophy, and theology at the seminary of Mechelen, Mercier was ordained (1874), obtained a licentiate in theology at Leuven (1877), and became professor of philosophy at Mechelen the same year. In 1922 he was commissioned to inaugurate the chair of Thomistic philosophy created at the University of Leuven at the request of Pope (...) Leo XIII. Mercier endeavored to realize the program formulated in the encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879): to restore the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, harmonize it with the progress of modern science and thought, and extend its influence to the scientific and social disciplines. On the basis of his initial success, he asked for, and received, the support of the Pope for the creation of an Institute of Philosophy that would provide a complete education in the various philosophical areas. When named president of this institute (1899), Mercier gathered collaborators from among his first students and with their assistance formed an international group of enthusiastic and devoted disciples. The Revue Neo-scolastique made the writings of the institute available throughout the scholarly world. On Feb. 7, 1906, Mercier was named archbishop of Mechelen. He took a lively interest in problems of the universal Church and he was also preoccupied with Church Union. (Cf. A.L. Wylleman, 'Mercier, Desire Joseph' in New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol IX. New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, Toronto, London, Sydney, McGraw Hill Book Company, 1967, p. 671-672.) See: Cardinal Mercier: A Memoir (David A. Boileau, Peeters, 1996, 417 pages. S 35). Jude P. Dougherty, Dean Emeritus of the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America and editor of the Review of Metaphysics, had this to say about Fr. Boileau's book: This book should be required reading for anyone who aspires to leadership in Catholic Intellectual Circles Today, Crisis, January 1998. (shrink)

This article examines Jacques Derrida’s work of self-reflection on his own teaching practice by using as a guiding thread the problematics of reproduction in the seminars of the 1970s. The first part of the article examines the sequence of seminars taught by Derrida at École normale supérieure from 1971 to 1977 to show how the concept of reproduction is deconstructed by Derrida across several seminars. Derrida systematically demonstrates, across several themes and fields (sociology and economy, biology and sexuality, art, technique, (...) ontology, and so on), that the critical recourse to the concept of reproduction (for instance, in its Marxist form) risks being complicit in the reproductive system it criticizes. The deconstructive motif of débordement is introduced to problematize this onto-logic of re-production. The second part of the article analyzes more specifically the unpublished seminar “GREPH, le concept de l’idéologie chez les idéologues français” (1974–75), in which Derrida examines the seminar function, his role as a teacher, and his own situation within the French educational system. In particular, Derrida offers a deconstructive critique of the reproductive effects of teaching, and of the institution of philosophy inasmuch as it functions as a reproductive machine. This work of deconstruction is done in the seminar notably through readings of Marx, Engels, and Althusser, with special attention to the concepts of ideology, reproduction, and sexual difference. (shrink)

Developmental research suggests that young children tend to value dominant individuals over subordinates. This research, however, has nearly exclusively been carried out in Western cultures, and cross-cultural research among adults has revealed cultural differences in the valuing of dominance. In particular, it seems that Japanese culture, relative to many Western cultures, values dominance less. We conducted two experiments to test whether this difference would be observed in preschoolers. In Experiment 1, preschoolers in France and in Japan were asked to identify (...) with either a dominant or a subordinate. French preschoolers identified with the dominant, but Japanese preschoolers were at chance. Experiment 2 revealed that Japanese preschoolers were more likely to believe a subordinate than a dominant individual, both compared to chance and compared to previous findings among French preschoolers. The convergent results from both experiments thus reveal an early emerging cross-cultural difference in the valuing of dominance. (shrink)

Thomas Fuchs, Ecology of the Brain, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2018, 336 pp.

Cet essai présente une description de plusieurs travaux inédits de Jacques Derrida au sujet de Marx et d'Althusser datant des années 1960 et 1970. Au-delà du travail philologique, il s'agit aussi d'une étude théorique de notions telles que 'idéologie', 'fétichisme', 'reproduction', 'division du travail', 'différence sexuelle', 'domination', 'économie politique', 'matérialisme dialectique', ou 'production culturelle' — tout autant à travers les textes marxistes que dans les lectures déconstructives qu'en propose alors Derrida. Durant les années 1970, dans le cadre de son séminaire, (...) Derrida s'efforce de penser une autre économie politique, au-delà de l'économie du propre qu'il identifie aussi bien chez les économistes classiques que chez leurs critiques marxistes. Ces lectures détaillées et combattives de textes marxistes restent aujourd'hui inédites. Leur prise en compte contribue à redéfinir l'image de Derrida et de la déconstruction, en témoignant de ses discussions très avancées de Marx, d'Althusser, et de la pensée marxiste — et ce dès la fin des années 1960 et le début des années 1970, plus de 20 ans avant la publication de Spectres de Marx (1993). -/- Une version plus courte de cet article fut traduite en espagnol par Ramiro Parodi, et publiée en 2019 dans le numéro 7 de la revue Demarcaciones — numéro consacré au 25ème anniversaire de la publication de Spectres de Marx. (shrink)

" En écrivant son Traité de l'Interprétation, Aristote a trempé sa plume à l'encre de son esprit! " L'antique remarque de Cassiodore vaut encore aujourd'hui tant la matière étudiée est complexe et le style ramassé. Aristote démonte les mécanismes du langage philosophique, aux confins de la linguistique et de la métaphysique. Il offre à cette occasion des développements fondateurs sur la formulation de la vérité, les règles de mise en contradiction, les propositions universelles, la contingence des jugements sur le futur, (...) ou encore les redoutables énonciations modales. S'appuyant sur ses prédécesseurs, Thomas d'Aquin en rédige un commentaire hautement structuré, reconnu comme l'un des plus explicites. Demeuré cependant inachevé, il est complété par Thomas de Vio, dit Cajetan, un des premiers grands thomistes et maître logicien. C'est de l'ensemble de ces deux parties de commentaires que nous proposons la traduction ; la seconde pour la première fois en langue française. (shrink)

Este ensayo presenta una descripción de los escritos inéditos de Jacques Derrida sobre Marx y Louis Althusser en la década de 1970, y un estudio de conceptos como ideología, diferencia sexual, reproducción, violencia, dominación o hegemonía en perspectiva deconstructiva. Se trata de pensar en una otra economía, más allá de la economía del cuerpo propio. El artículo fue publicado en el Volumen 7 de la Revista Demarcaciones, "a 25 años de Espectros de Marx.".

This article interrogates a certain philosophical scene – one which constitutes itself through the position of what Jacques Derrida calls “the ethical instance of violence.” This scene supposes a certain “style” of writing or doing philosophy, and perhaps even a certain philosophical “genre” or “subgenre”: the philosophical discourse on violence. In the course of the essay, I analyze this quasi-juridical scene through readings of Aristotle, Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, Werner Hamacher, Rodolphe Gasché, and Martin Hägglund among (...) others. The scene, built on texts on texts on violence, demands a logic of purity; it is wary of contaminations and equivocations. And yet it thrives on them. In analyzing the implications of text, writing, and trace for the philosophical discourse on violence, I follow Derrida “just to see” what could make the scene tremble. (shrink)

This text was prompted by a forum discussing the legacy of Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx, twenty-five years after its publication. In this short essay, I explore the book’s influence on the fields of Marxism, post-Marxism, and beyond. With the problematic of heritage and legacy in mind, I raise the questions of sexual difference and dissemination as that which comes to interrupt the genealogical logic of inheritance understood as filiation and reproduction. I show that Derrida’s book, besides questioning reception and (...) influence, yet remains to be read, especially in light of ongoing archival research on Derrida’s numerous engagements with Marx and Marxist thought in a series of unpublished seminars from the 1970s. This is done more specifically through a reading of an unpublished seminar from 1974-1975, dealing with the Marxian concepts of ideology and division of labor – which Derrida interrogates more particularly in relation to sex, sexuality, and sexual differences. This text was published in the section "Ambivalent Promises—Reproductions of the Subject: A Forum on Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx after 25 Years, Part IV", Contexto Internacional, 42 (1), pp. 125-148. (shrink)

In this 2004 interview — translated into English and published in its entirety for the first time — Jacques Derrida reflects upon his practices of writing and teaching, about the community of his readers, and explores questions related to corporeity and textuality, sexual difference, desire, politics, Marxism, violence, truth, interpretation, and translation. In the course of the interview, Derrida discusses the work of Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Maurice Blanchot, Hélène Cixous, Jean Genet, Paul Celan, and many others.

Afin d’examiner la forme et la fonction « cours » dans le corpus de Derrida, je propose une lecture du séminaire inédit « GREPH. Le concept de l’idéologie chez les idéologues français ». Ce séminaire fut mené dans le cadre des engagements politico-institutionnels du GREPH. Il constitue donc un point d’entrée privilégié pour saisir le rapport complexe que Derrida entretient avec l’enseignement, et plus généralement avec l’institution philosophique. Au cours de ce séminaire, Derrida s’intéresse au « corps enseignant » en (...) tant qu’il fonctionne comme « machine reproductrice » au sein de l’organisation économique générale de la société. Courant deux lièvres à la fois, Derrida mêle une réflexion généalogique sur l’histoire de l’enseignement philosophique en France et en Europe à une analyse théorique de concepts marxistes et sociologiques tels que « capital », « reproduction », ou « appareil idéologique ». À travers des lectures déconstructrices et transformatrices de Marx et d’Althusser, Derrida s’efforce de penser une autre économie — une économie du texte débordant la logique reproductrice qu’il identifie aussi bien chez les économistes classiques que chez leurs critiques marxistes. (shrink)

The idea that Derrida kept silent on Marx before the publication of Spectres de Marx, in 1993, has become a commonplace in Derrida studies and in the history of Marxism and French 20th century political thought. This idea has often been accompanied by a certain representation of the relationship between deconstruction and dialectical materialism, and fed the legend of deconstruction’s «apoliticism» – at least before what some have called Derrida’s «ethicopolitical turn», usually dated in the early 1990s. Against this narrative, (...) this essay analyzes Derrida’s notorious «silence on Marx» before Specters of Marx from the perspective of the archives. Archival research transforms the narrative: Derrida’s «silence on Marx» was only «relative». Beyond the scene of publications, archives reveal another scene: multiple engagements with Marx and Marxist thought, marked and remarked in many archival documents – more particularly in a series of early seminar notes from the 1960s and 1970s. How does this archival scene transform our interpretation of Derrida’s «silence»? (shrink)

Responding to the provocative phrase ‘The Age of Grammatology’, I propose to question the notion of ‘age’, and to interrogate the powers or forces, the dynameis or dynasties attached to the interpretative model of historical periodisation. How may we think the undeniable actuality of the event beyond the sempiternal history of ages, and beyond the traditional, onto-teleological chain of power, possibility, force or dynamis that undergirds such history?

The idea that Derrida kept silent on Marx before the publication of Spectres de Marx, in 1993, has become a commonplace in Derrida studies and in the history of Marxism and French 20th century political thought. This idea has often been accompanied by a certain representation of the relationship between deconstruction and dialectical materialism, and fed the legend of deconstruction’s «apoliticism» – at least before what some have called Derrida’s «ethicopolitical turn», usually dated in the early 1990s. Against this narrative, (...) this essay analyzes Derrida’s notorious «silence on Marx» before Specters of Marx from the perspective of the archives. Archival research transforms the narrative: Derrida’s «silence on Marx» was only «relative». Beyond the scene of publications, archives reveal another scene: multiple engagements with Marx and Marxist thought, marked and remarked in many archival documents – more particularly in a series of early seminar notes from the 1960s and 1970s. How does this archival scene transform our interpretation of Derrida’s «silence»? (shrink)

In this article, I engage with Derrida’s deconstructive reading of theories of performativity in order to analyse Max Weber’s sovereignty–legitimacy paradigm. First, I highlight an essential articulation between legitimacy and sovereign ipseity (understood, beyond the sole example of State sovereignty, as the autopositioned power-to-be-oneself). Second, I identify a more originary force of legitimation, which remains foreign to the order of performative ipseity because it is the condition for both its position and its deconstruction. This suggests an essential fallibility of the (...) performative, which implies a ‘mystical’ legitimacy and a paradoxical, divisible and self-differential representation of sovereignty. The structural differentiality of legitimacy and sovereignty signifies an irreducible coloniality of law and language, but also suggests the possibility of an unconditional resistance located in the radical interpretability of the law, beyond determined representations of powers, dominations, sovereignties or resistances. This reflection is triggered by a reading of Cynthia Weber’s theory of ‘performative states’, describing sovereignty under the form of an impossible ontology, which leads me to elaborate the notion of legitimation-to-come as a non-ontological ‘concept’: this notion of unconditional legitimacy, beyond sovereignty, binds beliefs and phantasms to the unpresentable force of the event. Pursuing the efforts of scholars such as Rob Walker and Cynthia Weber, I sketch the implications of this archi-performative legitimacy regarding the methodological protocols of International Relations and sociology, in view of elucidating the persistent ontological presuppositions of these disciplines. (shrink)

In this paper, I engage with the motif of “the pluriverse” such as it has increasingly been used in the past few years in several strands of critical humanities pertaining to the so-called “ontological turn”: science and technology studies (Bruno Latour, Isabelle Stengers), critical geography and political ontology (Mario Blaser), cultural anthropology (Marisol de la Cadena, Arturo Escobar, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro), decolonial thought (Walter Mignolo), or posthuman feminism (Donna Haraway). These various iterations of the figure of the pluriverse constitute (...) a loose network of textual traces, a supposedly new scene for ‘humanities’, organized around what is understood as a pluralistic ontology. In political terms, the discourse of the pluriverse presents itself as a strategic response to the violence of universalism. It advocates for a multiversal ethics, a pluriversal cosmopolitics based on interspecies and multi-natural kinships, and more aware of the multiplicity of worlds and world-making practices that make up the post-globalization scene. Based on readings of Bruno Latour, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Arturo Escobar and Marisol de la Cadena among others, I argue that the notion of pluriversality remains self-contradictory and self-defeating as long as it relies on an ontological representation of world/worlds in the form of copresence. Drawing on Derrida’s deconstruction of the concept of world (cosmos, mundus) in his late writings, I propose to think an exorbitant plurality, before the pluriverse and before being. Beyond ontological pluralism, Derrida’s “infinity of untranslatable worlds” also signifies an irreducible interruption, the end of the world, of any “world-in-common”, thus raising the stakes for the ethical demand towards the other. (shrink)

I. General introduction to philosophy, by Cardinal Mercier. Cosmology, by D. Nys. Psychology, by Cardinal Mercier. Criteriology, by Cardinal Mercier. General metaphysics; or, Ontology, by Cardinal Mercier. Appendix to Cosmology, by D. Nys.--II. Natural theology; or, Theodicy, by Cardinal Mercier. Logic, by Cardinal Mercier. Ethics: General ethics, by A. Arendt (based on Cardinal Mercier's notes); Special ethics, by J. Halleux. History of philosophy, by M. de Wulf. Synopsis in the form of the principal (...) theses. Glossary of scholastic terms, by G. Simons. (shrink)

In its hegemonic definition, biopolitical governmentality is characterised by a seemingly infinite capacity of expansion, susceptible to colonise the landscape and timescape of the living present in the name of capitalistic productivity. The main trait of biopower is its normative, legal and political plasticity, allowing it to reappropriate critiques and resistances by appealing to bioethical efficacy and biological accuracy. Under these circumstances, how can we invent rebellious forms-of-life and alternative temporalities escaping biopolitical normativity? In this essay, I interrogate the theoretical (...) presuppositions of biopolitical rationality. I provide a deconstruction of the conceptual and temporal structures upholding the notion of biopolitics, in view of laying the ground for new forms of resistance. The articulation between life and power has a long philosophical history, which has been largely ignored by social theorists and political thinkers using biopolitics as an interpretative model. I re-inscribe this model within the tradition of critical materialism, by articulating Foucault’s ‘critical ontology’ to recent philosophical works on biological plasticity (Malabou). In these discourses, the logic of biopower depends on a representation of life – ‘the living’ – as living present. Biopower finds itself anchored in the authority of the present, that is to say, of being-as-presence (ontology); it sustains presentist definitions of life and materiality, be it under the form of a ‘plastic’ ontology. By drawing on Derrida’s notions of ‘spectrality’ and ‘life-death’ and Francesco Vitale’s work on ‘biodeconstruction’, I deconstruct these discourses on life and materiality and attempt to dissociate them from their ontological grounding, in order to suggest new paths of resistance to biopower. In particular, I follow the tracks of “the monster” in the work of Foucault, Derrida and Malabou. Foucault tells us that the monster is a singular figure, parasitic and subversive, beckoning a life beyond life, at once organic and non-organic, located at the limit between the normal and the exceptional, and exceeding the scope of biopolitical normativity in both theoretical and practical terms. It exists at the intersection of what Foucault names “the symbolics of blood” and “the analytics of sex”. As such, it materialises a self-transformative dimension of the living which remains, I argue, inadequate to Malabou’s representation of plasticity. The monstrous is a self-deconstructive motif calling for another biopolitical rationality, before or beyond ontological reductions or reconstructions. (shrink)

Dans cet essai, j'analyse les présuppositions du récit dudit « retour du religieux », du point de vue de la psychanalyse (Freud) et de la déconstruction (Derrida). Après avoir mis à jour l'eurocentrisme et le colonialisme inhérents aux concepts de « magie », « animisme », « religion » et « croyance » chez Freud (avec une attention particulière portée à Totem et tabou), j’offre une lecture déconstructrice des discours politiques contemporains sur le sécularisme, la foi et le savoir.

This thought piece dealing with the Covid-19 ‘crisis’ was written – in the form of a diary that runs from February to July 2020 – for a special issue of Derrida Today entitled ‘Fire, Flood, Pestilence and Protest’, edited by Nicole Anderson, and published in November 2020. The piece deals with matters of biopolitics, telecommunication, death and mourning through Derrida and Agamben, and interrogates the eventness of what is called an ‘event’.

This essay explores how contemporary works of critical theory and deconstruction can challenge preconceptions of the body and embodiments and interrogate their limits, particularly in relation to intertwined foldings of desire, gender, race and sexuality. It aims to suggest that Jacques Derrida’s acute concern for the question of translation might help challenge and re-configure the conventional dichotomy between understandings of the body either as physical/material or as socio-culturally constructed. The authors then analyse the questions of translation and untranslatability in relation (...) to interculturality, and explore their implications for thinking the corporeal and the material. (shrink)

This article pursues the exploration of how contemporary works of deconstruction can challenge preconceptions of the body and embodiments and interrogate their limits, particularly in relation to intertwined foldings of desire, gender, race and sexuality. Through readings of Jacques Derrida and Sarah Kofman, the authors show that deconstruction allows for an understanding of the body or bodies that goes beyond the present body — indexed as human, male, white, able, living body — thus opening up towards the thinking of bodies (...) and corporealities exceeding the limitations of Christian transsubstantiation and of the Eucharist. The deconstructive body is not one of communion; it is one of (self-)interruption, différance and non-presence. It is the other's body — or the body as otherly. The authors then analyse the ethical-political implications of this thinking of another body, one inassimilable by Western metaphysics, and marked by incalculable sexual differences, animality, undecidable life-death, machinicity, monstrosity, and so on. (shrink)

This essay zooms in on a series of parentheses in Derrida’s Politics of Friendship in order to examine a somewhat failed encounter between deconstruction and Donna Haraway’s ontological discourse on kinship and companion species. The essay claims that Derrida’s notion of trace, as it exceeds the humanist-anthropocentric logic and challenges any simple division between humankind and animality, can be followed as a condition for thinking friendship, kinship, or companionship as non-strictly anthropological categories, and for accounting for a principle of failure (...) or fallibility at the very heart of the ‘encounter’ with the other – human or nonhuman. What Derrida calls ‘the possibility of failure’ is inseparable from a certain legibility and illegibility of friendship, kinship, and companionship, from their dependence on the trace-structure, suggesting that they do not have strict ontological consistency (pace Haraway) but are structurally differantial and heterogeneous, and therefore remain to be read, interpreted, attested, translated, perhaps in view of transformative deconstruction. Reading and, with it, fallibility and undecidability, contribute to problematising Haraway’s ontology of companionship, making-kin, and becoming-together. Moreover, from the perspective of the exegesis of deconstruction, the essay also claims that the problematic of the trace-structure – virtually limitless in Derrida’s corpus – presupposes, everywhere it appears, the interrogation of the anthropological machine, of human exceptionalism, and raises the ‘question of animality’ even when this ‘question’ is not formulated as such, and when the so-called ‘animal’ is not named as such. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza algunos conceptos del alma - no siempre fáciles deconciliar entre sí- en los diálogos tempranos de Platón. Prosigue luego con una discusión acerca de la bien conocida doctrina sobre la tripartición del alma en la República y el Timeo, sosteniendo que esta doctrina constituye, en muchos sentidos, un progreso importante con respecto al pensamiento temprano de Platón, especialmente al Fedón. Se menciona también la cuestión poco discutida de la naturaleza e importancia de la diferenciación de géneros del (...) alma en el Timeo. En relación con el famoso pasaje, también del Timeo, sobre la composición del alma, se sostiene que bien pudo haber sido un intento de Platón por lidiar con la espinosa cuestión del dualismo psicofísico. (shrink)

This essay stages an encounter between several texts by Jacques Derrida which delineate the contours of what could be called a ‘memorial agonistics’. Through readings of Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, Derrida shows that memory and commemorations always involve struggles in nomination and classification, jealous movements of appropriation and expropriation of the departed, wars in and for the name converging towards the imposition of some countersignature. These violent plays of preservation and substitution seem always to take place around the enigmatic figure (...) of the mother – a monumental corpse instantiated in the essay through the name ‘Notre-Dame de la Garde’. (shrink)

A relação mente-corpo é um dos problemas componentes da agenda da filosofia. Na modernidade, Renê Descartes foi um dos que trataram da questão, adquirindo bastantes adeptos e críticos. Ele defende uma abordagem dualista substancial, segundo a qual mente e corpo são entes substancialmente distintos. Uma visão oposta a essa é defendida pelas perspectivas fisicalistas reducionistas, segundo as quais, de modo geral, toda a realidade é ou pode ser reduzida, ontológica e/ou epistemologicamente ao físico, de modo a dissolver o problema da (...) relação mente-corpo. Ambas as visões apresentam controvérsias. A dualista cartesiana, por afirmar que a mente pertence a um plano metafísico, não consegue explicar como seria possível a interação entre uma entidade imaterial e uma material. As de cunho fisicalista, com frequência, desconsideram processos mentais subjetivos, dada a dificuldade de sua redução aos termos físicos. Outra perspectiva explicativa do mental, denominada teoria do aspecto dual, pretende ser um meio termo entre os fisicalismos e o dualismo substancial. Analisamos algumas das principais correntes de pensamentos dentro da filosofia da mente buscando apresentar, de maneira simples, o quão plural são as perspectivas que tratam do mesmo objeto de pesquisa, qual, seja a mente, tratando em particular da relação entre a mente o corpo. (shrink)

Thomas Reid introduced the notion of social operation of mind in the theory of mind and language. Hhis friend James Gregory developed this notion and gave it a meaningful role in classical Uuniversal Grammar, especially in the General Theory of the Mmoods of Vverbs. Bbefore Reid and Gregory, the classical Philosophical Grammar presupposes, inter alia, that the mind is self-contained; in other words, that mental contents and operations are all independent from the natural and social environment. Ssome of these (...) operations have a modus/dictum structure corresponding, grosso modo, to the actual distinction between psychological mode and conceptual mental content, also analogous to the distinction between illocutionary force and propositional content, which is partially reflected in the system of verbal moods of natural languages. The famous Grammaire de Port-Royal already pointed to a serious limitation of this model. Arnauld & Lancelot wrote: “Oon ne se commande pas proprement à soi-même” (“Oone does not command properly to oneself”). I will try to show that Reid realized clearly that what we call today “individualism” does not allow us to characterize adequately the social aspects of language, and consequently headed for a different conception of the mind, an anti-individualist one. The notion of social operation of the mind is the cornerstone of that reform undertaken by Reid in the philosophy of mind. Furthermore, he and Gregory defended that natural languages were created especially to expresses those social aspects of language and mind. (shrink)

Demystifies complex philosophical ideas and debates in a comprehensive format that introduces the major theories of such great philosophers as Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche, Epicurus, and Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas Jefferson had a profoundly advanced educational vision that went hand in hand with his political philosophy - each of which served the goal of human flourishing. His republicanism marked a break with the conservatism of traditional non-representative governments, characterized by birth and wealth and in neglect of the wants and needs of the people. Instead, Jefferson proposed social reforms which would allow people to express themselves freely, dictate their own course in life, and oversee their elected representatives. His (...) educational vision aimed to instantiate a progressive social climate only dreamed of by utopists such as Thomas More, James Harrington and Louis-Sébastian Mercier. This book offers a critical articulation of the philosophy behind Jefferson's thoughts on education. Divided into three parts, chapters include an analysis of his views on elementary and higher education, an investigation of education for both the moral-sense and rational faculty, and an examination of education as lifelong learning. Jefferson's educational rationale was economic, political and philosophical, and his systemic approach to education conveys a systemic, economic approach to living, with strong affinities to Stoicism. Thomas Jefferson's Philosophy of Education will be key reading for philosophers, historians and postgraduate students of education, the history of education and philosophy. (shrink)

Les Eléments de théologie de Proclus constituent un monument philosophique radicalement singulier tant par son architecture propre que par la façon dont la tradition l'a revisité. Ordonnant, sous une forme géométrique, les principes de la métaphysique néoplatonicienne, ils ont à la fois constitué celle-ci en système et opéré comme le principal relais de sa transmission aux pensées byzantine, arabe et occidentale. Ce sont ces effets d'héritage et d'adaptation que les textes ici réunis visent à évaluer. Du Liber de causis à (...) Hegel en passant par Thomas d'Aquin, Dietrich de Freiberg, Giordano Bruno, les Platoniciens de Cambridge et Leibniz, se reconstitue ainsi une a grande chaîne des "êtres", réarticulée par la chaîne des raisons, et à chaque fois revivifiée par celle de la transmission. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Catholic Social Teaching in Global PerspectiveRon MercierCatholic Social Teaching in Global Perspective Edited by Daniel Mcdonald, SJ Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2010. 218 pp. $26.00The collection of essays in Catholic Social Teaching in Global Perspective, the second in a Gregorian University series, responds to a question posed to its authors: “How can you reflect on your particular continent and its ‘culture’ in order to best apply... CST [Catholic social (...) teaching] in your area of the world?” (x). Although the responses of the various authors to that challenge are uneven, the deliberate emphasis on a cultural-critical approach makes this [End Page 211] volume noteworthy and a significant contribution to the discussions in the field.Thomas Hughson’s introductory essay frames the task provocatively. Exploring the work of Bernard Lonergan and Robert Doran on culture, he takes aim at the ways in which “common good” and “Catholic social teaching” too often serve as categorical realities, as if they had a universal and absolute meaning applicable to any concrete situation. He recasts CST by placing it in dialogue with contemporary currents in philosophy and social science and notes both the broader meaning and the fluidity of social justice within CST. He develops what he calls a “modified eudemonistic perspective... to highlight incompleteness in social justice and a common good taken by themselves” (25). This calls for a “reflexive culture,” along the lines of the “transcendental humanism” in Benedict XVI’s Caritas in veritate. While the emphasis on “human flourishing” certainly has a long history in the tradition, Hughson’s approach empowers local communities to make CST their own as a mode of discerning what fosters or undermines human flourishing. For too long CST “has ignored how movement toward just social practice depends on two factors, reflexive culture ‘from above’ and popular culture ‘from within’ practicality” (22). This perspective links well with the insights and concerns of liberation theology, notably its ecclesiology, and helps clarify the meaning and potential of CST.Several essays in the volume pick up this theme even as they explore the many prisms through which one can understand “culture.” David Kaulemu reflects on the African situation in ways similar to Paulinus Odozor and Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, calling for “moral/cultural/spiritual efforts to accompany our political and economic reforms” (37). He explores cultural resources for and barriers to human flourishing in an African context. Agnes Brazal (East Asia) and Joseph Jadhav (India) write in a similar vein: Brazal on the relationship between the role of “harmony” in an East Asian world view and the fragmentation and hybridity engendered by globalization; Jadhav on the interplay between CST and local culture in an arid rural part of India, which has created possibilities for culturally transformative action. John Coleman’s rich and nuanced reflection on North American (especially US) culture underlines the challenges CST faces.Sandie Cornish and David Freeman (Australia) and Johan Verstraeten (EU) explore ecclesiological perspectives: how episcopal, religious, and lay groups have read “the signs of the times” in their area, though largely without a cultural-critical frame. Curiously, the volume avoids any cultural critique of the Church; the dialectic “from above” and “from below” remains ad extra, although Coleman does note how US bishops have frequently undercut their ability to engage culture by focusing narrowly on the institutional interests of the Church. [End Page 212]In sum, the volume advances the work of CST by reframing key concepts within a broader perspective, in particular one that invites voices “from below.” It exposes the reader, especially those familiar with CST, to contemporary dialogues on the ethical significance of “culture” while deepening the value of CST for contemporary reflection. Contributions from Latin America and Eastern Europe, though, would have strengthened the volume.Ron MercierSt. Louis UniversityCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Las intuiciones basadas en la perspectivade la primera persona fácilmente nospueden inducir a error sobre lo que es yno es concebible. Este punto usualmentese presenta como apoyo de posicionesreduccionistas comunes sobre el problemamente-cuerpo, pero considero que se puedeseparar de tal perspectiva. Me pareceque la fuerte apariencia de contingenciaen la relación entre el funcionamiento delorganismo físico y la mente consciente–una apariencia que depende directa oindirectamente de la perspectiva de laprimera persona– tiene que ser una ilusión.Enotraspalabras,creoquehayunaconexiónnecesariaenambasdireccionesentre lo físico y lo mental, pero (...) que nopuede descubrirse a priori. La opinión sedivide fuertemente entre la credibilidad dealgún tipo de reduccionismo funcionalista,y no examinaré mis razones para ubicarmeen el lado antireduccionista de este debate.Mi lectura del asunto es que nuestra faltade habilidad para obtener una concepcióninteligible de la relación mente-cuerpo esun signo de la inadecuación de nuestrosconceptos actuales, y que se requiere algúngrado de desarrollo.The Intuitions based on the first-personperspective can easily mislead us aboutwhat is and is not conceivable. This pointis usually made in support of familiarreductionist positions on the mind-bodyproblem, but I believe it can be detachedfrom that approach. It seems to me thatthe powerful appearance of contingency inthe relation between the functioning of thephysical organism and the conscious mind–an appearance that depends directly orindirectly on the first person– perspectivemust be an illusion. In other words, I believethatthereisanecessaryconnectioninbothdirectionsbetweenthephysicalandthemental,butthatitcannot bediscovereda priori. Opinion is strongly divided on thecredibility of some kind of functionalistreductionism, and I won’t go through myreasons for being on the antireductionistside of that debate.My reading of the situation is that ourinability to come up with an intelligibleconception of the relation between mindand body is a sign of the inadequacy of ourpresent concepts, and that some developmentis needed. (shrink)

El autor nos sitúa sumergidos en un mundo de máquinas, y presenta el tema de la ciencia llamada inteligencia artificial cuyo objetivo el estudio es el análisis del comportamiento humano y sus aplicaciones se sitúan principalmente en la simulación de actividades intelectuales del hombre. Es decir, imitar por medio de máquinas tantas actividades mentales como sea posible, y quizás llegar a mejorar las capacidades humanas en estos aspectos. El autor nos guía en un recorrido por las preguntas más actualizadas y (...) relevantes en materia de conceptos alrededor de la inteligencia artificial y aún explora la conexión y distinciones entre conciencia y mente. (shrink)

Réflexions sur la controverse saint Thomas - saint Augustin -- La vertu de patience selon saint Thomas et saint Augustin -- Note sur un texte de saint Thomas -- Prolégomènes à la prima via -- Sur la problématique thomiste de la vision béatifique -- L'esse du verbe incarné selon saint Thomas -- Eléments d'une métaphysique thomis-te de l'être.