The article recasts the pre-history of philosophy as it is understood by G. W. F. Hegel, so as to examine what a “Lyrical Presentation of History” might have been. The essay argues that Hegel’s treatment of history at the end of his Lectures on Aesthetics suffers from an inattention to the specific philosophical content of modern lyrical poetry, which can be located in his claim that lyrical poetry is primarily concerned with the subject. In contrast, the author argues that Hegel’s (...) account ought to have led him to hold that lyrical poetry is primarily concerned with subjective, alienated worlds, which he calls “counterworlds”. The essay ends with a brief treatment of three poems by Paul Celan to show how this shift in the meaning of lyrical poetry would have led Hegel to give greater weight to lyrical poetry in his theory of history. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the figure of the end of the world in the final lecture of Derrida’s The Beast and the Sovereign seminar series (the last seminar series he gives). The author argues that Derrida uses the final line of a Paul Celan poem (“The world is gone. I must carry you.”) as a valedictory refrain in order to show the political and existential stakes of his ontological investigations. The article situates these stakes within Derrida’s fictionalism, his belief that (...) (1) ideal entities are irreal but also (2) the way in which the meanings of ideal entities work is like the way that the meaning of fictional discourse works. Using Derrida’s own example of Celan, as well as examples from Benjamin Britten and Skeeter Davis, the author argues for the importance of aesthetic experience in tying together these political, existential, and ontological themes. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the way in which Plato’s Sophist rethinks his lifelong dialogue with Heraclitus. Plato uses a concept of logos in this dialogue that is much more Heraclitean than his earlier concept of the logos. I argue that he employs this concept in order to resolve those problems with his earlier theory of ideas that he had brought to light in the Parmenides. I argue that the concept of the dialectic that the Stranger develops rejects, rather than (...) continues, the idea reached at the end of the Theatetus that knowledge has to be grounded in a nous aneu logou (a non-logical, divine intellect) even while the Stranger appropriates the concerns that lead to his conclusion. Ultimately, I suggest that my differentiation of the later Plato’s appropriation of the tradition from Aristotle’s appropriation of that tradition is closely related to the re-thinking of the full sense of logos in the later Heidegger on Heraclitus and on Parmenides. I end by suggesting that the question that Plato and Heraclitus pose to us is to ask what such a divine logos tells about human ways of knowing. (shrink)

In what follows, I outline the role that pedagogical concerns play in how Derrida structures his Theory and Practice seminars. Framing my discussion with Foucault’s criticism of Derrida’s pedagogy as overly textual and quasi-despotic, I show how Derrida accepts elements of that criticism in his description of his pedagogy. Moreover, by treating these seminars as model exercises for students rather than as a philosophical text advancing a thesis, we can identify connections with Derrida’s commitment to a more radically democratic institutional (...) politics, insofar as the supposed “limitless sovereignty” of the quasi-despotic pedagogue is a self-conscious fiction, deployed strategically to challenge other forms of sovereignty. In this way, Derrida draws a parallel between his own textual and pedagogical practices and those of Heidegger, an attempt both to open his practice up to genuine interruptions and gaps and to contest the neoliberal “disruptions” of the academy. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Meaning of the World in Heidegger Immortality The World of the Man‐Child Knocked Up Stillbirth After You, the World Will Always Be Empty Notes.

I examine the contribution that the first part of Maurice Blancot's recit Death Sentence makes to his understanding of the relationship between philosophy and literature. I use a reading of the Kantian, transcendental account of literature in “How is Literature Possible” as the starting point for an analysis of the way in which Blanchot uses secrets in describing J.'s death in Death Sentence, linking secrecy up with the imaginary, ambiguity and dissimulation. The purpose for this refinement is to challenge the (...) philosophical tradition's self-understanding, particularly as exhibited in Hegel. This challenge is seen by reading the account of grief in the first part of Death Sentence as a parody of Hegel's interpretation of Antigone. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI ask whether there is a place for apparently displeasurable experiences in a hedonistic aesthetics. Building on an ambiguity in Mohan Matthen's account of facilitating pleasures, I examine how avant-garde artists can use the ‘perverse’ or ‘difficult’ pleasures to force cognitions that are critical in the Marxist sense.