Violence and Historicity: Derrida’s Early Readings of Heidegger

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Naas
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Species Difference ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Language History ◽  
Special Place ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

With the recent publication of Jacques Derrida’s seminar of 1964–65, Heidegger: The Question of Being and History, it has become abundantly clear that when the full history of Derrida’s half-century-long engagement with Heidegger is finally written a special place will have to be reserved for the question of history itself, and especially the question of history or historicity in its irreducible relationship to language and to violence. In this essay, I look at just a few key passages from “Violence and Metaphysics,” first published in 1964, and Derrida’s seminar on Heidegger from that same year in order to try to isolate what appears to be an important transitional moment in Derrida’s rethinking of the questions of language, violence, and history, in large part, it seems, thanks to, or accompanied by, Heidegger. Indeed, while Derrida’s engagement with Heidegger over the next four decades will go on to include questions of technology, the animal, species difference, sexual difference, and so on, the relationship between language, history, and violence that came to draw his attention in the early 1960s and that would be crucial to what Derrida will go on to call deconstruction will continue to haunt him, as I will suggest in conclusion, right up to his very last seminar, The Beast and the Sovereign, in 2002–2003.

On the Lives of Modern State Law

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Samera Esmeir
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Modern State ◽  
State Law ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Intimate Life ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Key Questions

Modern state law is an expansive force that permeates life and politics. Law's histories—colonial, revolutionary, and postcolonial—tell of its constitutive centrality to the making of colonies and modern states. Its powers intertwine with life itself; they attempt to direct it, shape its most intimate spheres, decide on the constitutive line dividing public from private, and take over the space and time in which life unfolds. These powers settle in the present, eliminate past authorities, and dictate futures. Gendering and constitutive of sexual difference, law's powers endeavor to mold subjects and alter how they orient themselves to others and to the world. But these powers are neither coherent nor finite. They are ripe with contradictions and conflicting desires. They are also incapable of eliminating other authorities, paths, and horizons of living; these do not vanish but remain not only thinkable and articulable but also a resource for the living. Such are some of the overlapping and accumulative interventions of the two books under review: Sara Pursley's Familiar Futures and Judith Surkis's Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria. What follows is an attempt to further develop these interventions by thinking with some of the books’ underlying arguments. Familiar Futures is a history of Iraq, beginning with the British colonial-mandate period and concluding with the 1958 Revolution and its immediate aftermath. Sex, Law, and Sovereignty is a history of “French Algeria” that covers a century of French colonization from 1830 to 1930. The books converge on key questions concerning how modern law and the modern state—colonial and postcolonial—articulated sexual difference and governed social and intimate life, including through the rise of personal-status law as a separate domain of law constitutive of the conjugal family. Both books are consequently also preoccupied with the relationship between sex, gender, and sovereignty. And both contain resources for living along paths not charted by the modern state and its juridical apparatus.

scholarly journals The Concept in Life and the Life of the Concept: Canguilhem’s Final Reckoning with Bergson

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
History Of Biology ◽  
French Philosophy ◽  
Special Place ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Living Being

Foucault famously divided the history of twentieth-century French philosophy between a “philosophy of experience” and a “philosophy of the concept,” placing Bergson in the former camp and his teacher Canguilhem in the latter. This division has shaped the Anglophone reception of Canguilhem as primarily a historian and philosopher of biology. Canguilhem, however, was also a philosopher of life and a careful reader of Bergson. The recently-begun publication of Canguilhem’s Œuvres complètes has revealed the depth of this engagement, and a re-reading of Canguilhem’s final major statement on Bergson, the 1966 essay “The Concept and Life,” has thus become necessary. The basic problem of that essay is the relationship between knowledge and life in the history of biology and philosophy, with a special place for Bergson. Canguilhem’s strong criticism of him turns, however, on a misquotation. In claiming that Bergson fails to account for the struggle of the living being to maintain a species form, Canguilhem misconstrues the crucial Bergsonian distinction between vital order and geometrical identity; he thus misses the importance that Bergson accords to general biological tendencies, rather than to the generality of the species. Despite the differences on display in the 1966 essay, it will be argued that Canguilhem’s earlier remarks on Bergson show a surprising convergence in the underlying aim of each thinker’s biological philosophy: the call for a new ontology that grasps the ordered and intelligible character of life without relying on a principle of identity.

scholarly journals The Spiritual Exercises and Illuminism in Spain: Dominican Critics of the Early Society of Jesus

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-402
Author(s):  
Terence O’Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Spiritual Exercises ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Divine Guidance

The recovery of important historical texts in the last half century has provoked a reevaluation of the features of Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises that have been described as “mystical” (especially their contemplative dimension and their implicit pneumatology), inviting us to reconsider the history of their composition and first reception, including the relationship between the spirituality of Ignatius to which they give expression, and the teachings of the illuminists or alumbrados. This article furthers this discussion by examining criticisms directed against the Spiritual Exercises during the last decade of Ignatius’s life by two Spanish Dominicans, Melchor Cano and Tomás de Pedroche, who found parallels between the Exercises and the theology of the illuminists. These criticisms were serious enough to affect the received interpretation of what we now call the mystical aspects of the Exercises leading up to its codification in the Official Directory of 1599, particularly regarding the place, if any, of contemplation in the lives of the laity, the role of consolation in prayer, and the experience of direct divine guidance.

scholarly journals Language history from below: Standardization and Koineization in Renaissance Italy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Brown
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Language History ◽  
Major Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
Renaissance Italy ◽  
Exclusive Processes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Complex Question

AbstractThe paper returns to the complex question of the sociolinguistic history of Italy during the Renaissance. The traditional historiography of the Italian language adopts a teleological perspective, often defining the codification of Italian in 1525 with the publication of Pietro Bembo’s Prose della volgar lingua. This approach means that less attention has been devoted to other processes of language change, as well as less focus on areas outside Tuscany. Using the major historical grammars of Italian, I highlight cases of variation which emphasize the non-uniformitarian nature of the standard. One major process while the standard was evolving was the formation of a koine or ‘common language’. This was the main feature of language change throughout much of north Italy. Recent research into the histories of non-Italo Romance varieties have suggested that standardization and koineization are not mutually exclusive processes. Rather, they are best characterised by a ‘top-down’ vs. ‘bottom-up’ approach respectively, with many points of intersection. The paper transposes these notions onto the sociolinguistic landscape of Renaissance Italy, allowing for further insight into how Italian was codified in particular, and the relationship between standards and koines more generally.

Singes humanisés, humains singés

2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Herzfeld ◽  
Patricia Van Schuylenbergh
Keyword(s):  
Animal Species ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Careful Study ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Animal Kingdom ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
Human Uniqueness ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Collective Representations

This article explores certain collective representations related to the great divide between human and animal. But rather than engage on the reassuring path of inventorying human uniqueness, it mobilizes various places where humans and the ambassadors of four particular species – chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla and orang-outan – meet, and exchange habits and skills. A careful study of the few historical milestones in the history of the relationship between humans and the great apes allows us to highlight the limitations of the Western dualistic division of the animal kingdom into poles that radically separate the human species from the other animal species. In the space where humans and apes come together, the apes show a form of ‘becoming-human’ that echoes the ‘becoming-animal’ outlined by Deleuze & Guattari. The primates in fact adopt the customs, capabilities and lineaments of human ethos, thus blurring the often too linear boundaries between human and animal, and calling into question the rigidity of several great oppositions that structure our thinking and discourse: nature and culture, wild and domestic, bestial and human.

Homer i jego czasy

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Patzek
Keyword(s):  
Greek Literature ◽  
Special Place ◽  
Heroic Epic ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

A great introduction to reading the Iliad and the Odyssey. The author introduces her readers to the basic issues discussed and pointed out by Homerian critics: the problem of the poems' authorship, their special place in the history of Greek literature on the verge of oral and literal culture, the relationship between the heroic epic and historical realities. The author writes gracefully and knowledgeably within the spheres of critical-literary, religious-historical, and archaeological issues.

The relationship of the scleractinian corals to the rugose corals

Paleobiology ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 6 (02) ◽  
pp. 146-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Critical Points ◽  
Scleractinian Corals ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Early Triassic ◽  
Rugose Corals ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Biologic Factors

The Mesozoic-Cenozoic coral Order Scleractinia has been suggested to have originated or evolved (1) by direct descent from the Paleozoic Order Rugosa or (2) by the development of a skeleton in members of one of the anemone groups that probably have existed throughout Phanerozoic time. In spite of much work on the subject, advocates of the direct descent hypothesis have failed to find convincing evidence of this relationship. Critical points are:(1) Rugosan septal insertion is serial; Scleractinian insertion is cyclic; no intermediate stages have been demonstrated. Apparent intermediates are Scleractinia having bilateral cyclic insertion or teratological Rugosa.(2) There is convincing evidence that the skeletons of many Rugosa were calcitic and none are known to be or to have been aragonitic. In contrast, the skeletons of all living Scleractinia are aragonitic and there is evidence that fossil Scleractinia were aragonitic also. The mineralogic difference is almost certainly due to intrinsic biologic factors.(3) No early Triassic corals of either group are known. This fact is not compelling (by itself) but is important in connection with points 1 and 2, because, given direct descent, both changes took place during this only stage in the history of the two groups in which there are no known corals.

Investigating the Relationship Between Self-Esteem and Stigma Among Young Adults With History of Suicide Attempts

Crisis ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 265-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meshan Lehmann ◽  
Matthew R. Hilimire ◽  
Lawrence H. Yang ◽  
Bruce G. Link ◽  
Jordan E. DeVylder
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
High Risk Population ◽  
High Functioning ◽  
People With Mental Illness ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract. Background: Self-esteem is a major contributor to risk for repeated suicide attempts. Prior research has shown that awareness of stigma is associated with reduced self-esteem among people with mental illness. No prior studies have examined the association between self-esteem and stereotype awareness among individuals with past suicide attempts. Aims: To understand the relationship between stereotype awareness and self-esteem among young adults who have and have not attempted suicide. Method: Computerized surveys were administered to college students (N = 637). Linear regression analyses were used to test associations between self-esteem and stereotype awareness, attempt history, and their interaction. Results: There was a significant stereotype awareness by attempt interaction (β = –.74, p = .006) in the regression analysis. The interaction was explained by a stronger negative association between stereotype awareness and self-esteem among individuals with past suicide attempts (β = –.50, p = .013) compared with those without attempts (β = –.09, p = .037). Conclusion: Stigma is associated with lower self-esteem within this high-functioning sample of young adults with histories of suicide attempts. Alleviating the impact of stigma at the individual (clinical) or community (public health) levels may improve self-esteem among this high-risk population, which could potentially influence subsequent suicide risk.

Misreading Egypt

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Schotter
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Experimental Film ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Sergei Eisenstein ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Modern Technologies

The first chapter of Hieroglyphic Modernisms exposes the complex history of Western misconceptions of Egyptian writing from antiquity to the present. Hieroglyphs bridge the gap between modern technologies and the ancient past, looking forward to the rise of new media and backward to the dispersal of languages in the mythical moment of the Tower of Babel. The contradictory ways in which hieroglyphs were interpreted in the West come to shape the differing ways that modernist writers and filmmakers understood the relationship between writing, film, and other new media. On the one hand, poets like Ezra Pound and film theorists like Vachel Lindsay and Sergei Eisenstein use the visual languages of China and of Egypt as a more primal or direct alternative to written words. But Freud, Proust, and the later Eisenstein conversely emphasize the phonetic qualities of Egyptian writing, its similarity to alphabetical scripts. The chapter concludes by arguing that even avant-garde invocations of hieroglyphics depend on narrative form through an examination of Hollis Frampton’s experimental film Zorns Lemma.

Meat without Animals: Outcast Objects and the Improvement of London

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Geier
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
Meat Production ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Covers the long history of the Smithfield animal market and legal reform in London. Shows the relationship of civic improvement tropes, including animal rights, to animal erasure in the form of new foodstuffs from distant meat production sites. The reduction of lives to commodities also informed public abasement of the butchers.

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