New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Reading List: Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, Code

By Gordon Hull

I made myself wait until I was settled into the summer to read Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan’s Code: From Information Theory to French Theory.  It was absolutely worth the wait. Code offers a look into the role of cybernetic theory in the development of postwar French theory, especially structuralism and what Geoghegan calls “crypto-structuralism.”  The story starts in the progressive era U.S., with the emergence of technocratic forms of government and expertise “against perceived threats of anarchy and communism” and the “progressive hopes to submit divisive political issues for neutral technical analysis” (25).  This governance as depoliticization then generates the postwar emphasis on cybernetics and information theory.  Along the way, it picks up and reorganizes psychology and anthropology in figures like Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, as the emerging information theory disciplines are given extensive funding by “Robber Baron philanthropies” (and later, covertly of course, by the CIA).  This then sets the stage for postwar cybernetic theory and the careful cultivation (again, substantially by philanthropies and the CIA) of intellectuals like Roman Jakobson and Lévi-Strauss.

This is not a story I’d heard before – and I get the impression that almost no one has, at least not in philosophy, which is why this book is so important – and the details are fascinating.  It makes a compelling case for the need for those of us who work on the post-war French to get a handle on cybernetic theory in particular, especially because of the link to structuralism (more on that in a moment).  It calls to mind some of Katherine Hayles’ work – I’m thinking of How we Became Posthuman and My Mother Was a Computer – that probably needs rereading in this context.

Migrants are the bravest people in the world

By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

The best teacher I’ve ever had in my life was my history teacher in my first year at the Lycée Claude Monet in Paris: Monsieur (Denis) Corvol. Aged 14, I had just arrived from Brazil to spend two years in France with my parents, who were on an extended research leave from their positions as medicine professors in São Paulo, Brazil. I barely spoke French upon arrival, and to say that the first months were tough is an understatement. Many of the teachers seemed to be particularly harsh on me, and one (the math teacher) said in front of everyone in class: “if you can’t solve this problem, and you obviously don’t speak French very well, I wonder what you are doing in this class”.

But there was Monsieur Corvol, whose unorthodox teaching methods included talking about a variety of topics that seemed to have no connection whatsoever with the content we were supposed to be learning (the French Revolution and so forth – for that, he told us to go read the textbook on our own). (Years later I realized he was some sort of Habermasian, emphasizing inter-subjective communication and rational discourse.) When I arrived, he spent some two or three classes talking about Brazil -- what a remarkable country it was, how much the French could learn from Brazil -- in an obvious maneuver to make me feel more welcome, and to invite my classmates to engage with me in more positive ways.

From time to time I remember Monsieur Corvol with much fondness; many of the things I heard from him for the first time still reverberate with me. One of them, which I am reminded of now with the ongoing disaster of the migrant crisis in Europe, was: “Migrants are the bravest people in the world.” Migrants are the people who have the courage to fight for a better life in a new, unknown, possibly inhospitable country; for that, they must be resourceful and determined. Lucky is the country that can count on the drive and ambition of migrants, as a wonderful recent campaign in the UK has also highlighted. The 800 people who died in the Mediterranean Sea, many of whom children, should be remembered as among the bravest people in the world.

Conceptual genealogy for analytic philosophy - Part II.4: Foucault on archeology and genealogy

By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

I am now back to working on my conceptual genealogy project; this post is the fifth installment of a series of posts on the project.  Part I is here; Part II.1 is here; Part II.2 is here; Part II.3 is here; a tentative abstract of 2 years ago, detailing the motivation for the project, is here. 

In this section, I pitch genealogy against its close cousin archeology in order to argue that genealogy really is what is needed for the general project of historically informed analyses of philosophical concepts that I am articulating. And naturally, this leads me to Foucault. As always, comments welcome! (This is the first time in like 20 years that I do anything remotely serious with Foucault's ideas: why did it take me so long? Lots of good stuff there.)

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I hope to have argued more or less convincingly by now that, given the specific historicist conception of philosophical concepts I’ve just sketched, genealogy is a particularly suitable method for historically informed philosophical analysis. In the next section, a few specific examples will be provided. However, and as mentioned above, I take genealogy to be one among other such historical methods, so there are options. Why is genealogy a better option than the alternatives? In order to address this question, in this section I pitch genealogy against one of its main ‘competitors’ as a method for historical analysis: archeology. Naturally, this confrontation leads me directly to Foucault. 

Charlie Hebdo and the intolerant Enlightenment

By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

[UPDATE: It seems that my post is being interpreted by some as a criticism of  the Charlie Hebdo collaborators. Nothing could be further from the truth; I align myself completely with their Enlightenment ideals -- so I'm intolerant too! -- and in fact deem humor to be a powerful tool to further these ideals. Moreover, perhaps it is worth stressing the obvious: their 'intolerance' does not in any way justify their barbaric execution. It is not *in any way* on a par with the intolerance of those who did not tolerate their humor and thus went on to kill them.]

I grew up in a thoroughly secular household (my father was a communist; I never had any kind of religious education). However, I did get a fair amount of exposure to religion through my grandmothers: my maternal grandmother was a practicing protestant, and my paternal grandmother was a practicing catholic. In my twenties, for a number of reasons, I became more and more drawn to Catholicism, or at least to a particular interpretation of Catholicism (with what can be described as a ‘buffet’ attitude: help yourself only to what seems appetizing to you). This led to me getting baptized, getting married in the Catholic church, and wearing a cross around my neck. (I have since then distanced myself from Catholicism, in particular since I became a mother. It became clear to me that I could not give my daughters a catholic ‘buffet’ upbringing, and that they would end up internalizing all the dogmas of this religion that I find deeply problematic.)

At the same time, upon moving to the Netherlands in the late 90s, I had been confronted with the difficult relations between this country and its large population of immigrants and their descendants sharing a Muslim background, broadly speaking. At first, it all made no sense to me, coming from a country of immigrants (Brazil) where the very concept of being a ‘second-generation immigrant’ is quite strange. Then, many years ago (something like 13 years ago, I reckon) one day in the train, I somehow started a conversation with a young man who appeared to be of Arabic descent. I don’t quite recall how the conversation started, but one thing I remember very clearly: he said to me that it made him happy to see me wearing the catholic cross around my neck. According to him, the problem with the Netherlands is the people who have no religion – no so much people who (like me at the time) had a religion different from his own.* This observation has stayed with me since.

Anyway, this long autobiographical prologue is meant to set the stage for some observations on the recent tragic events in Paris. As has been remarked by many commentators (see here, for example), the kind of humor practiced by the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists must be understood in the context of a long tradition of French political satire which is resolutely left-wing, secular, and atheist. Its origins go back at least to the 18^th century; it was an integral part of the Enlightenment movement championed by people like Voltaire, who used humor to provoke social change. In particular in the context of totalitarian regimes, satire becomes an invaluable weapon.

Conceptual genealogy for analytic philosophy - Part II.2: Canguilhem on genealogy of scientific concepts

By Catarina Dutilh Novaes

This is the third installment of my series of posts with different sections of the paper on conceptual genealogy that I am working on. Part I is here; Part II.1 is here; a tentative abstract of 2 years ago, detailing the motivation for the project, is here. 

I now turn to Canguilhem as an author exemplifying the kind of approach I have in mind when I speak of 'conceptual genealogy'. The main difference is that Canguilhem focused on scientific concepts (especially from biology and medicine), whereas I am articulating a methodology for the investigation of philosophical concepts (though of course, often the line between the two groups will be rather blurry). The same caveat of the previous installment on Nietzsche applies: this is a very brief and inevitably superficial discussion of Canguilhem's ideas, on which there is obviously much more to say.

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The thesis of the relevance of historical analysis for philosophical theorizing rests crucially on a historicist conception of philosophical concepts, namely that they are not (or do not correspond to) a-historical essences or natural kinds. However, ‘historicism’ can have different meanings (Beiser 2011, Introduction), so let me now spell out in more detail in what sense I defend a historicist conception of philosophical concepts.

The Collège International de Philosophie is in Danger of Being Closed

Many readers of this blog will be aware of the remarkable institution known as the Collège International de Philosophie, based in Paris and supported by the French government since 1983.  During its more than 30-year existence, the Collège has offered an extraordinary range of very high-quality free and public programs in France and around the world. It is, as such, one of the world's foremost institutions dedicated to public philosophy.  

Sadly, the Collège now stands days away from being forced to close because the funds to support its operations have not been paid. As is detailed here, the Collège has been the subject of a number of discussions concerning its maintenance since 2012, which led to its association with the new Université Paris Lumières in 2013. This administrative association was supposed to provide a sustainable home for the Collège; but the 240,000 Euros that form the Collège's annual operating budget have been withheld by the ministry responsible for the UPL and its associated elements—leaving the institution days away from bankruptcy.

There is a petition circulating where people can offer support for the Collège—below the fold you can find, with his permission, Gabriel Rockhill's translation of the original French text (which also details the situation that the Collège is facing, and its accomplishments and history, a bit further than my remarks above).

Join, or Die: Neoliberalism, Epistemontology, Social Harmony and the (Invisible) Invisible Hand

There's been a good bit conversation recently about the merits and demerits of "public philosophy" and, as someone who considers herself committed to public philosophy (whatever that is). I'm always happy to stumble across a piece of remarkably insightful philosophical work in the public realm.  Case in point:  Robin James (Philosophy, UNC-Charlotte) posted a really fascinating and original short-essay on the Cyborgology blog a couple of days ago entitled "An attempt at a precise & substantive definition of 'neoliberalism,' plus some thoughts on algorithms." There, she primarily aims to distinguish the sense in which we use the term "neoliberalism" to indicate an ideology from its use as a historical indicator, and she does so by employing some extremely helpful insights about algorithms, data analysis, the mathematics of music, harmony, and how we understand consonance and dissonance.  I'm deeply sympathetic with James' underlying motivation for this piece, namely, her concern that our use of the term "neoliberalism" (or its corresponding descriptor "neoliberal") has become so ubiquitous that it is in danger of being evacuated of "precise and substantive" meaning altogether.  I'm sympathetic, first, as a philosopher, for whom precise and substantive definitions are as essential as hammers and nails are to a carpenter. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I'm sympathetic with James' effort because as Jacques Derrida once said "the more confused the concept, the more it lends itself to opportunistic appropriation."  Especially in the last decade or so, "neoliberalism" is perhaps the sine qua non term that has been, by both the Left and the Right, opportunistically appropriated.

James' definition of neoliberalism's ideological position ("everything in the universe works like a deregulated, competitive, financialized, capitalist market") ends up relying heavily on her distinction of neoliberalism as a particular type of ideology, i.e., one "in which epistemology and ontology collapse into one another, an epistemontology." In sum, James conjectures that neoliberal epistemontology purports to know what it knows (objects, beings, states of affairs, persons, the world) vis-a-vis "the general field of reference of economic anaylsis."

A Sophist Works the Paris Cafés

Justin Smith explains.

Sartre and the myth of the Nobel Prize money

Facebook discussion of Eric's post allowed the surfacing of what I believe is a myth (in the sense of "falsehood"), that in 1975 Sartre asked for the Nobel Prize money for the award he refused in 1964, but was turned down.

Male Lactation in the History of Feminism (Diderot, De Grouchy...)

"Je sais qu'il y a eu des hommes qui ont fait jaillir le lait de leurs mamelles" [that is, "I know that there have been men who have brought forth milk from their breasts."]--Diderot (1754) Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature PENSÉES SUR L'INTERPRÉTATION DE LA NATURE, 56. [I thank Charles T. Wolfe for locating the passage; and his general insistence that Diderot (recall) ought not be neglected.--ES]

This post was inspired by reading some unpublished papers by Sandrine Berges, who is a leading authority on the political philosophy of Wollstonecraft and Sophie de Grouchy. Prof. Berges points out that in contrast to Rossseau and Wollstonecraft, De Grouchy rejects the close link between birthing and nursing in her (1797) Letters on Sympathy, which De Grouchy attached to her translation of Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments. De Grouchy's move opens up the possibility of recognizing nursing as a distinct and politically significant activity that can be valued (morally, politically, and economically) by society within the division of labor. In fact, if Diderot is right, nursing need not be a gender-specific activity. Motherhood, thus, need not confine women to domestic careers.

An appreciative Remark on Derrida

Thus in order to be an original, he is obliged to contribute to the ruin of a language, which a century sooner he would have helped to improve. Though such writers may be criticised, their superior abilities must still command success. The ease there is in copying their defects, soon persuades men of indifferent capacities, that they shall acquire the same degree of reputation. Then begins the reign of subtil and strained conceits, of affected antitheses, of specious paradoxes, of frivolous turns, of far-fetched expressions, of new-fangled words, and in short of the jargon of persons whose understandings have been debauched by bad metaphysics. The public applauds: frivolous and ridiculous writings, the beings of the day, are surprisingly multiplied." --Condillac, An Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, 

In Condillac the "frivolous" is that "which seems worthless" (Commerce and Government. {Condillac is one of the great eighteenth century economists.})

Let's grant his enemies that Derrida's writings and social consequences instantiate such a reign of "subtil and strained conceits, of affected antitheses, of specious paradoxes, of frivolous turns, of far-fetched expressions, of new-fangled words, and in short of the jargon." According to Condillac, "bad metaphysics" is a science that enters into the "nature and causes" of things. (2) We can make the analogy work if we allow that Derrida's followers are the product  of a scientific age (or Husserlian phenomenology). Yet, the passage from Condillac would also exonerate Derrida in a certain sense; he would be the product of a historical circumstance--he would be born too late to contribute to the improvement of his language.

Remember it, Jake, even if it is Louisiana

Louisiana has some much bizarre crap -- consider the horror show that is the K-12 voucher program, or the outrageous private prison industry -- that I'm often tempted to cite the last line of Chinatown.

But not this time, with this sordid bit of adminstrative overreach that provides another HE "canary in the coal mine" example: 

In the Summer of 2010, the administration of Southeastern Louisiana University announced the closure of its French program and the dismissal of three tenured faculty members, Margaret Marshall, Katherine Kolb and Evelyne Bornier, among the most highly regarded professors on campus. In violation of University guidelines and AAUP standards, the program closure was determined without consulting the faculty concerned. Nor did the program, in fact, close: French courses are still being taught; a French minor is still offered. In further violation of University policy and AAUP guidelines, these courses are being staffed by instructors, who, in cases of program closure are to be dismissed before tenured faculty. 

The Genealogy of Genealogy (II): Diderot and the Pursuit of Truths

Recall that in Letters to Serena (1705), Toland’s genealogical method is a debunking enterprise; it is applied only to concepts whose truth cannot be secured by natural methods of inquiry. (Toland graciously or prudentially allows that revelation may secure truth.) In Toland-style ‘genealogy’ a concept is treated "like some others in philosophy, had a beginning at a certain time, or from a certain author who was the inventor thereof, and which was favoured or opposed as peoples' persuasion, interest or inclination led them." I have been unable to find an instance where Toland applies this genealogical method to concepts whose truth, if any, can be secured by natural methods. This move was left to Diderot (also to Adam Smith, but he delayed publication of his History of Astronomy by half a century).

At the start of Diderot’s (1754) Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature, Diderot offers a ‘natural history’ of each of the individual sciences; he treats “geometry,” by which Diderot means – judging from the names he associates with it (e.g., “Bernoulli, Euler, Maupertuis, Clairaut, Fontaine, and D’Alembert”) – mathematical physics or, especially, rational mechanics, as the exemplary science. In section 5, Diderot divides the life-cycle of a science into three stages: (i) a "birth;” (ii) a period of high prestige; and (iii) a decaying period when there are diminishing returns of enquiry within it. Finally, there is (iv) the completed edifice—confusingly, already discussed in the previous section (4; all my references below are to sections).

Le Blog de Jean-Paul Sartre

Plenty of daily dread, here. [HT Dan Dennett.]

The “Claudine Tiercelin Affair” Part I: Philosophical Nationalism at the rue d’Ulm, an Open Letter from Jacques Bouveresse to Le Nouvel Observateur

[Note: This is the first of four guest posts by Mark Ohm. ]

Here is one of four follow-ups to Jon Cogburn’s link to the translation of Raphaël Millière’s wonderful essay on the recent history of analytic and continental metaphysics. As I will be writing my Master’s thesis on the revival of metaphysics in France, in addition to being committed to and proposing a number of translation projects over the next few years (including translating and editing the ATMOC mirror site), I thought that I’d share with non-Francophone readers a rather disturbing exchange that took place last summer in France, which Millière refers to in notes 154 and 157 of his essay.

For lack of a better term, I will call this the “Claudine Tiercelin Affair.” I do so not in order to project the clichéd image of France as a place that feeds on polemics and scandal, but rather because I believe that the letter, article, blog post, and interview are relevant to the numerous (and sometimes heated) discussions on New APPS and in the philosophical community more broadly over the past few years apropos the divide, sexism in the profession, the pluralist’s guide, the PGR, and, more recently and particularly, Cogburn’s posts on unearned contempt and monolingualism in the profession (or what might translate into what Bouveresse calls “philosophical nationalism”).

Before sharing Bouveresse's letter let me provide some background on Tiercelin and what prompted Bouveresse's letter.

Translation of Raphaël Millière's "La métaphysique aujourd’hui et demain" ("Metaphysics Today and Tomorrow")

Translation (by Mark Ohm, with the assistance of Leah Orth, me, and Emily Beck Cogburn) HERE.

The paper is Millière's inaugural piece for the Atelier de métaphysique et d'ontologie contemporaines. Anyone interested in the history of metaphysics and anti-metaphysics in continental philosophy (as well as contemporary accounts of what exactly metaphysics and ontology are) will need to read Millière's canonical discussion.*

It's a very weird sensation when something you helped to translate ends up being much better English language philosophical prose than anything you've ever penned yourself.

[*The whole ATMOC project is a philosophical gem. Millière's piece is the first publication that we've translated as part of our putting up an English language mirror site HERE. This is just the very beginning of an on-going anglo-continental metaphysics collaboration, since ATMOC will start up again next spring when Millière is back from NYU.]

why did "phenomonology" start to be seen as anti-metaphysical? some hypotheses.

The folks at the ATMOC mirror site (shout out to Mark Ohm, Leah Orth, and Emily Beck Cogburn) are almost finished with our translation of Raphaël Millière's inaugural lecture.

It's a fascinating piece that would serve as an excellent first reading in an upper level undergraduate or graduate level survey course in metaphysics. One of the many interesting things in it is the discussion of anti-metaphysics movements and arguments in analytical and continental philosophy.  If one patiently examines the history of these, then many of the standard comicbook views just fall away.

The weirdest thing is that contemporary anti-metaphysical phenomenologists such as Janicaud in some ways have far more in common with early analytic philosophers such as the logical positivists, and perhaps even more so with the first generation of post-positivists such as Quine and Strawson, than they do with early phenomenologists such as Father van Breda, the founder of the Husserl archives at Lueven [the ATMOC mirror site is currently translating parts of a fascinating conference that includes a discussion between van Breda and Strawson; I'll post on that next week].

La Marseillaise

I was asked to do a short presentation yesterday for "Revolutionary Renditions," the culminating event in a spring-semester series sponsored by the International Studies program at LSU reflecting on the 2011 "Arab Spring." I chose the "duel of anthems" scene from Casablanca and commented on three aspects of La Marseillaise (in itself and as depicted in the movie) with regard to the intertwining of the affective, the semantic, and the pragmatic: 1) collective embodiment in music; 2) the temporality of revolutionary solidarity; 3) the universality of the values of the French Revolution and the “rights of man.” First the clip, then below the fold my (roughly sketched) notes for the discussion: 

Psychoanalysis and autism in France

Almost a year ago I wrote a post on the dubious scientific status of psychoanalysis. One might think that this is an old and dated Popperian question, but in view of the influential position still occupied by psychoanalysis at least in some quarters, it remains a topical issue. In effect, via the Feminist Philosophers I came across this NYT article on a documentary which heavily criticizes psychoanalytic approaches to autism in France.

According to the article, psychoanalysis remains the standard approach to autism there, but not for particularly good reasons. In fact, the results seem to be quite discouraging (for example, a much smaller percentage of children with an autism diagnosis are sufficiently autonomous to be able to attend school in France than in e.g. the UK), and yet the grip of psychoanalysis remains strong – needless to say, arguably to the disadvantage of the children in question and their caregivers.

In the Feminist Philosophers’ post there is also a link to the documentary; it is well worth watching, but also quite depressing. 

De Libera on philosophical archeology

Here is a great interview (in French) with Alain de Libera on his conception of ‘archeology’ as a philosophical enterprise. De Libera is working on a monumental ‘archeology of the subject’ (volumes I and II have already appeared, but there is more on its way), and in this interview he discusses some of the main methodological aspects of the enterprise. He contrasts his approach with Foucault’s notion of archeology (see the classic L’Archéologie du Savoir), and also with the Nietzschean notion of genealogy.

Something to be happy about in the whole DSK affair

This morning I came across an interesting article at the Guardian (via the Feminist Philosophers). According to the article, a small sexual revolution is taking place in France in wake of the DSK affair: women are fed up (ras le bol!) with the general attitude of tolerance towards sexual harassment and even rape. In particular, it appears now that high-placed politicians and other powerful men are treated with much too much lenience, a phenomenon that can be traced back to a long history of association of political power to sexual ‘exuberance’, to use a euphemism (many historical leaders such as Napoleon and Louis XIV had dozens, even hundreds of mistresses). Even more worrisome, and clearly related to the DSK affair, is the powerful men’s perceived ‘right’ to demand sexual favors from women of ‘lower rank’. As the article describes:

For many, the French culture of sexual conquest is a hangover from the old, monarchic traditions of the Ancien Régime: powerful men seen as having a right to exact sexual favours from subordinates and political leaders held in esteem for their libido.

Deleuze: online audio recordings of his lectures

Thanks to Farhang Erfani and his wonderful bulletin board Continental Philosophy for pointing out this page at Radio Deleuze. It provides a great interface to the collection of audio recordings of Deleuze's lectures from 1979-1987 now available for streaming from Gallica, the online service of the BNF. The acknowledgement reads: 

Tout d’abord les cours de Gilles Deleuze enregistrés à l’Université de Paris VIII, Vincennes-Saint-Denis entre 1979 et 1987. Il s’agit là d’un témoignage unique d’une pensée en train de se construire en même temps qu’un art de la pédagogie poussé à son extrême. Grâce à la générosité de la famille de Gilles Deleuze, de Hidenobu Suzuki et de Marielle Burckhalter qui ont réalisé ces captations, ce sont 400 heures d’enregistrement qui sont ainsi venues rejoindre les collections du département de l’Audiovisuel de la Bibliothèque nationale de France et qui sont aujourd’hui consultables dans Gallica grâce à leur aimable autorisation.

This is no secret, but it bears repeating that Richard Pinhas has developed a set of transcripts of Deleuze lectures, many predating the audio files mentioned above, and often with English, Spanish, and / or Italian translations of the French originals. 

Edouard Glissant has died

Word  from Paris of the death of the great writer. 

UPDATE: 3 Feb, 17:25 CST. A nice tribute in comments from Alex J. Uri of France Télévisions:

The french overseas regions and territories lose one of their worldwide known greatest writers but also professors in the US. Edouard Glissant leaves us a monumental work to explore and meditate. He preached tolerance of differences and ...became popular for his theory of "All-World". He has also contributed to make universal, culture and people of the black world. While, in the United States, we celebrate the civil rights activists, we must pay tribute to those like Glissant, who have not failed to denounce slavery and its aftermath. Alex J. URI editor in chief at France Télévisions (Direction de l'information)

Language variation and the analytic-continental divide

I’ve been quite busy lately with a lot of different things (including a most interesting workshop on the notion of form in 19^th and 20^th century logic and mathematics last week), so my blogging has not been very copious. I have, to be sure, written at least 3 or 4 blog posts in my head, but the extended mind thing is still not working as it should on the mind-world axis (^_^) (That’s a Japanese emoticon; I like them better, you don’t need to tilt your head to the side!)

Anyway, I wanted to comment on a post by Alva Noë, which Eric Schliesser brought to our attention last week. In the discussion prompted by the post, differences between analytic philosophy of language and continental philosophy of language have come up, and this is what I would like to talk about in connection with Alva’s post. He makes a good case for the claim that, when it comes to language, “it's variation all the way down, even at the level of the individual.” This is not an armchair claim, it is something established by empirical and historical studies of language (and really, that languages change all the time is something that we all ‘know’ on a phenomenological level).

I am an analytic philosopher, there’s no denying that, both with respect to methods and with respect to the literature that constitutes the background for my work. But way back, as an undergraduate, the first contact I had with philosophy of language was rather on the ‘continental’ side (as much of my undergraduate education, with its good old French, historical approach). In that context, the focus was precisely on language variation, on the perennial creative power of language to recreate and reinvent itself, while at the same time not in any way jeopardizing communication and understanding. I’m thinking specifically of Meleau-Ponty’s La Prose du Monde, but I guess similar points could be made about other authors (e.g. Heidegger).

Jason Read: Butler and Malabou on Hegel

Over at Unemployed Negativity, friend of the blog (and sometimes even co-blogger) Jason Read writes on a new book by Judith Butler and Catherine Malabou, Sois mon corps: une lecture contemporaine de la domination et servitude chez Hegel. Order the book here. Read's post is here. First two paragraphs:

In the history of philosophy there are some texts that are difficult to say anything new about. These texts are so dominated by one influential reading that it becomes difficult, even impossible, to say interpret anew. Paradigmatic in these respects is the brief section of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit known as the “master slave dialectic” or “lordship and bondage”.This section is so dominated by Kojeve’s canonical reading that is almost as if his words were already there on the pages of Hegel’s text.

This is one reason why Judith Butler and Catherine Malabou’s exchange on “Domination and Servitude” published in French as Sois mon corps: une lecture contemporaine de la domination et servitude chez Hegel is engaging. It is a reading of this all too well known section of Hegel’s text, but one that dispenses with the preoccupations of a previous generation in order to reread Hegel. Butler and Malabou each address Hegel from their particular philosophical commitments and engagements: Butler’s intervention is framed by her reading of Hegel in The Psychic Life of Power and Malabou continues her development of plasticity in her reading of Hegel.

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UPDATE (JP): I reviewed Malabou's Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing for NDPR in Feb 2010.

 

Comte --> Levinas

In some circles being labeled a 'positivist' is among the worst kinds of insults. I assume that this is true of the (expanding?) circle of folk who engage with Levinas.

So this review amused me, and also made me wonder about the possibility of a now-invisible history from Comte (now largely unread and stereo-typed) to Levinas. I quote from Kavka's review without further comment:

"Both near the end of Levinas's second magnum opus, Otherwise than Being (1974), and in the 1951 essay cited above, Levinas placed "theology" and "religion" in contradistinction to each other. And yet to infer from this that Levinas posited some kind of religious path in which performing ethical acts led to a state of affairs in which "God is found" (313) -- much like Martin Buber, who wrote in I and Thou (1923) that "whoever goes forth to his You with his whole being and carries to it all the beings of the world finds him whom one cannot seek" -- is in my view to misunderstand Levinas. At one point (311f.), Cohen approvingly quotes the section of the 1951 essay in which Levinas distinguished between theology and religion. There is an important and unmarked ellipsis in Cohen's quote. The full quote appears below:

This tie to the other, which does not reduce itself to the representation of the Other but rather to his invocation, where invocation is not preceded by comprehension, we call religion. In choosing the term religion -- without having pronounced the word God or the word sacred -- we initially have in mind the meaning that Auguste Comte gives to this term in the beginning of his System of Positive Polity. Nothing theological, nothing mystical, lies hidden behind the analysis that we have just given of the encounter with the other (BPW, p. 8).

Chris Newfield on "The View from 2020: How Universities Came Back"

One of my favorite analysts of universities is Christopher Newfield. He's quoted in this LA Times article on the MLA conference on the topic of "bootleg universities." Here's the text of his MLA presentation on the past and future of US public universities (sans slides, unfortunately). Excerpts: 

A larger number of independent analysts began to do the math on sponsored research projects. They found that this research produced large gross income and, at the same time, net losses, once overall expenses were calculated....

The US had had an educational advantage over every other country in the world from about 1840 on – first in high school graduation rates, then in college graduation.  This was an edge in the attainment of the whole population, not just for the top 1% that went to Ivy League Plus.  Between 1980 and 2010, the US completely squandered this historic advantage. It fell behind many high-income countries, and behind some medium-income countries as well....

After a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, a major state university system revealed that savings of about a million dollars from closing humanities departments overshadowed by losses of nearly $50,000,000 annually in its sponsored research programs... 

Note: he's talking about SUNY in that last graf. 

UPDATE: Harold notes below in comments the analogy between sponsored research and football as net losses. I complete agree, and thought I would call readers' attention to the Knight Commission report on US college athletics. Here's a key graf from that report: 

With few exceptions, however, reported operating surpluses from the two marquee sports were not enough to cover the costs of an athletic department’s other sports offerings, whether it be 14 or 24 squads. The myth of the business model – that football and men’s basketball cover their own expenses and fully support non-revenue sports – is put to rest by an NCAA study finding that 93 institutions ran a deficit for the 2007-08 school year, averaging losses of $9.9 million. That was more than twice as large as the average net revenue ($3.9 million) for the 25 programs that reported an operating surplus in 2008.

Ranciere on "populism"

The column is here, in Libération, dated Monday 3 January. A few excerpts with quick translations: 

Il ne se passe pas de jour où l’on n’entende dénoncer les risques du populisme. Il n’est pas pour autant facile de saisir ce que le mot désigne. Qu’est-ce qu’un populiste ? A travers tous les flottements du mot, le discours dominant semble le caractériser par trois traits essentiels : un style d’interlocution qui s’adresse directement au peuple par-delà ses représentants et ses notables ; l’affirmation que gouvernements et élites dirigeantes se soucient de leurs propres intérêts plus que de la chose publique ; une rhétorique identitaire qui exprime la crainte et le rejet des étrangers.

Il est clair pourtant qu’aucune nécessité ne lie ces trois traits.

Not a day goes by that we don't hear someone denouncing the dangers of populism. But it's not so easy to grasp what the word means. What is a populist? Across all the drifting uses of the word, the dominant discourse seems to characterize it by three essential traits: a style of direct address to the people bypassing their representatives; the affirmation that governments and societal elites care more about their own interests than those of the public good; an identitarian rhetoric that expresses a fear and rejection of foreigners.

It's clear however that there is no necessary link of these three traits. 

......

La notion de populisme remet en scène une image du peuple élaborée à la fin du XIX^e siècle par des penseurs comme Hippolyte Taine et Gustave Le Bon, effrayés par la Commune de Paris et la montée du mouvement ouvrier : celle des foules ignorantes impressionnées par les mots sonores des «meneurs» et menées aux violences extrêmes par la circulation de rumeurs incontrôlées et de frayeurs contagieuses.

The notion of populism re-establishes an image of the people elaborated at the end of the 19th Century by thinkers such as Hippolyte Taine and Gustave Le Bon, frightened by the Paris Commune and by the growth of the workers' movement: that of ignorant crowds impressed by the squawking of "leaders" and led to extreme violence by the circulation of uncontrolled rumors and contagious frights. 

-----

Ainsi ni les «populistes» ni le peuple mis en scène par les dénonciations rituelles du populisme ne répondent-ils vraiment à leur définition. Mais peu importe à ceux qui en agitent le fantôme. L’essentiel, pour eux, est d’amalgamer l’idée même du peuple démocratique à l’image de la foule dangereuse. Et d’en tirer la conclusion que nous devons nous en remettre à ceux qui nous gouvernent et que toute contestation de leur légitimité et de leur intégrité est la porte ouverte aux totalitarismes.

Thus neither the "populists" nor the people conjured up by the ritual denunciations of populism truly correspond to their definition. But that doesn't matter to those who scare up these ghosts. The essential, for them, is to amalgamate the very idea of a democratic people with the image of the dangerous crowd. And to draw from that the conclusion that we must hand ourselves over to those who govern us and that any contestation of their legitimacy and their integrity opens the door to totalitarianism.

Foucault Studies, vol 10: Foucault and Agamben

Foucault Studies is pleased to announce the publication of issue 10

 A Special Issue on Foucault and Agamben
Guest Edited by Jeffrey Bussolini

Including five original articles and an interpretive review essay of recent publications by Agamben bearing on the work of Foucault.

The issue also includes a report from the Foucault Archives at Berkeley, a review essay of the recent translation of Michel Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France 1982-1983: The Government of Self and Others and seven new book reviews.

Link to the issue (all papers are open access).

 

Upcoming Paris talks by Manola Antonioli

Just want to call attention to upcoming talks at the Collège International de Philosophie by my friend Manola Antonioli.

Abstract of the talks: 

Le séminaire se propose de prolonger le parcours de recherche commencé l’année dernière, axé sur les perspectives de l’écologie politique et sur la nécessité d’un vaste renouvellement conceptuel qui soit en mesure de faire face aux dimensions multiples de l’urgence écologique. Il s’agira ainsi d’étudier les auteurs et les propositions théoriques et pratiques (d’ordre éthique, esthétique, philosophique et politique) qui s’efforcent de ne plus dissocier la sphère du vivant et de l’environnement naturel, la sphère technologique et industrielle et la sphère de l’esprit, de l’information, de la connaissance et des savoirs. Nous partirons plus particulièrement cette année de l’analyse des travaux de Peter Sloterdijk, Deleuze et Guattari, Bruno Latour. Nous essaierons également de réfléchir sur l’émergence d’une «  imagination environnementale  » ou d’une nouvelle sensibilité esthétique et écologique, qui s’exprime depuis quelques années dans l’art, mais aussi dans le renouvellement des figures du paysage (Gilles Clément), de la Terre et de l’analyse des rapports entre la biodiversité et la diversité culturelle.