Critical Intimacy: Jacques Derrida and the Friendship of Politics

2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Orford
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
History Of

Since receiving the invitation to participate in this special issue, I have been wondering about whether I can do justice in this brief space to what I have learnt from reading Derrida. And as someone who long ago began to distrust those versions of the history of ideas organized around the names of important individuals, I've also wondered about how and why I would want to link lessons to the proper name “Jacques Derrida.” Indeed the pleasure, and even the reward, I have received from reading Derrida is hard for me to separate out from the experience of living as part of a community that exists within and across the institutions I inhabit, with colleagues, students and friends. I associate Derrida with a way of life, a way of reading, writing, speaking and listening to each other, that is part of the “simple day-to-dayness” and “the intense moments of work, teaching and thinking” that constitutes this community, that allies us. I hope I can communicate a little of what reading Derrida has meant, and still does mean, to me then within this particular institutional life.

From Eyquem to Montaigne

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Desan
Keyword(s):  
Way Of Life ◽  
Place Of Residence ◽  
Familial History ◽  
Three Generations ◽  
The Status ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
History Of

Montaigne’s name constitutes the memory of the author and incarnates the history of a family and its social ascent. The Eyquems passed from the rank of wealthy bourgeois to the status of “rustic gentlemen” in three generations. In his Essays, Montaigne preferred not to mention the diverse occupations of his forebears, favoring instead the noble lands of Montaigne and considering his castle to be the unique place of residence of his ancestors. “To live nobly” represents a leitmotif and a veritable social aspiration in the Essays. Familial history is most of the time left unmentioned in favor of daily preoccupations and, above all, a way of life regulated by nobility and the knightly spirit. Montaigne learned to use his book as proof of his nobility and to turn it into an object of memory. In the Essays, he poses the problem of his new proper name “Montaigne” in its relationship to reputation.

The mirror for (artificial) intelligence in capitalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-200
Author(s):  
Phoebe V Moore
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
Historical Materialist ◽  
Workplace Relations ◽  
Everyday Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
Current Special Issue ◽  
Work And Life

‘The mirror for (artificial) intelligence in capitalism’ expands on the historical episodes outlined in the article by Engster and Moore in the current Special Issue, to develop the historical materialist critique of the history of ideas leading up to and during the eras of artificial intelligence, but also as a way to critique the contemporary moment where machines are ascribed autonomous intelligence. Specifically, the history of the ideational manufacturing of human intelligence demonstrates a pattern of interest in calculation and computation, intelligent human and machinic behaviours that are, not surprisingly, ideologically aligned with capitalism. The simultaneous series of machinic and technological invention and related experiments shows how machines not only facilitate the processes of normalisation of what is considered intelligent behaviours, via both human and machinic intelligence, but also facilitate and enable the integration of capitalism into everyday work and life. Intelligent behaviours are identified as the capacity for quantification and measure and are limited to aspects of thinking and reasoning that can provide solutions to, for example, obstacles in the production and extraction of surplus value, based on the specific postulations and assumptions highlighted in this piece. Today, ideas of autonomous machinic intelligence, seen in the ways artificial intelligence is incorporated into workplaces outlined in the sections below, facilitate workplace relations via intelligent behaviours that are assistive, prescriptive, descriptive, collaborative, predictive and affective. The question is, given these now autonomous forms of intelligence attributed to machines, who/what is looking in the mirror at whose/which reflection?

The ethos of caring within midwifery: A history of ideas study

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 808-818
Author(s):  
Åsa Larsson ◽  
Yvonne Hilli
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Research Integrity ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Ethical Guidelines ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Cultural Goods ◽  
Caring Science ◽  
History Of

Background: The midwifery profession in Sweden has a history since the early 1700s when government training for midwives began. Midwifery is historically well described, but the idea of caring within midwifery is not described. Aim: The aim was to describe the patterns of ideas of caring as they appeared in midwifery during the first half of the 20th century. Research design: This study has a hermeneutic approach and the method is history of ideas. Sources of material are taken from the journal Jordemodern (Midwifery), textbooks for midwives, and midwifery regulations. The study has a caring science perspective according to Eriksson. Ethical considerations: This study is conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines for good scientific practice issued by The Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity. The special demands on approach to the analyzed text in history of ideas have been met. Findings: Three themes were identified: Serving as a way of life, Acting in a redemptive spirit, and Having independence with heavy responsibility. The various themes are not refined, but current ideas are woven into the weave that were characteristic of midwifery during the first half of the 20th century. Conclusion: History of ideas is a fruitful method for understanding and re-finding valuable cultural goods. We can once more stress the manner of being within the midwife’s profession where inner values, ethos, shape the manner of conduct in the care of women in childbirth.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McElvenny
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This chapter sets the scene for the case studies that follow in the rest of the book by characterising the ‘age of modernism’ and identifying problems relating to language and meaning that arose in this context. Emphasis is laid on the social and political issues that dominated the era, in particular the rapid developments in technology, which inspired both hope and fear, and the international political tensions that led to the two World Wars. The chapter also sketches the approach to historiography taken in the book, interdisciplinary history of ideas.

Extinction and Thalassal Regression

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-126
Author(s):  
Philippe Lynes
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Death Drive ◽  
Organic Life ◽  
Extinction Event ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Zero Degree

This essay examines certain intersections between writing and extinction through an eco-deconstructive account of the psychoanalysis of water. Jacques Derrida has often drawn attention to the interplay between the sound ‘O,’ and ‘eau,’ in Maurice Blanchot's own proper name, as well as in his novels, récits and theoretical works; both the zero-degree of organic excitation towards which the death drive aims and the question of water. Sandor Ferenczi's notion of thalassal regression suggests that the desire to return to the tranquility of the maternal womb parallels a response to a traumatic prehistoric extinction event undergone by organic life once forced to abandon its aquatic existence. Through Gaston Bachelard's Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, however, one can double the imaginary of water along the axes of a personal death organic life defers and delays, and an impersonal extinction it cannot. Derrida's unpublished 1977 seminar on Blanchot's 1941 novel Thomas the Obscure, however, allows us to imagine an exteriority to extinction, the possibility

Reframing the Sciences of the Long Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Giuliano Pancaldi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Past Half

Here I survey a sample of the essays and reviews on the sciences of the long eighteenth century published in this journal since it was founded in 1969. The connecting thread is some historiographic reflections on the role that disciplines—in both the sciences we study and the fields we practice—have played in the development of the history of science over the past half century. I argue that, as far as disciplines are concerned, we now find ourselves a bit closer to a situation described in our studies of the long eighteenth century than we were fifty years ago. This should both favor our understanding of that period and, hopefully, make the historical studies that explore it more relevant to present-day developments and science policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50,” edited by Erika Lorraine Milam.

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