Why was Hufeland’s work on Macrobiotics so successful? It can neither keep its promise to prolong people’s lives nor does it contain any new information (the proposals are indeed most traditional). The article suggests a double answer: Looking back to antiquity was fashionable at the time, and Hufeland managed to combine classical elements with the late 18th century discourse. Second, Hufeland’s point was the holeness of human existence. In his eyes, health is not only a question of the body, but (...) also of character and soul. This concept seems to cope with some deplorable defects of modern medicine. (shrink)

Traditionally, emancipatory politics is a question of knowing which parts of society are capable of counting for something, and which ones are not. Formulating the question of emancipatory politics in terms of existence, more specifically, in terms of “political subjects who are not social groups but rather forms of inscriptions of the count of the uncounted” , means acknowledging that the proper place for emancipatory politics is the very terrain in which the system of domination operates, a system that radical (...) political theorists characterize as a system of placement, identification, or counting. At present, however, this question of counting the uncountable, crucial for emancipatory politics, cannot be raised at all to the extent that globalization means that everybody is always already included, the exclusion of the uncounted is necessarily obscured, indeed, it has become invisible. Beginning with a discussion on an enigmatic remark: “the infinitization of the value of the subject”, taken from Lacan’s Seminar The Four Fundamental concepts of Psycho-analysis, this paper examines a conceptual shift in the articulation of the relation between the subject and the figures of the Other in an epoch of the Other which does not exist. Taking as her point of departure Lacan’s theory of the cut, the author shows how, in an era of the “generalized metonymization”, only an act constitutes a way out of a discourse that knows no closure. (shrink)

Seen from the perspective of the inconsistency of the Other, the post-truth era can be considered to be an era emerging from a crisis in belief in the existence of the Other, which is to be taken in a twofold sense: as a belief in the Other of the Other, that is, the Other of Law, and a belief in the Other considered as the subject supposed to know. Insofar as the contemporary subject does not want to know anything about (...) this “condition of belief” without which no knowledge, and therefore no truth, are possible, the crisis of belief affect both, the Other and the subject. This can be seen in the fact that the failing belief in the Other and knowledge, considered as a distinctive feature of our profoundly unbelieving times, is accompanied by an unprecedented rise in anxiety at the social level, as contemporary subjects who do not believe in the (existence of the) Other are singularly defenceless before the irruption of the real. With truth losing its power to name the real, the subject itself as a singular response to the real is becoming ever more precarious. Which is why, when faced with the erratic irruption of the real, contemporary subjects are condemned to a desperate search for certainties. (shrink)

Prispevek obravnava nekatere pojme politične filozofije Clauda Leforta. Pokazati želi, da za rekonstrukcijo politične filozofije, ki se je loteva Lefort, ni toliko konstitutiven njen prelom z znanstvenim diskurzom, ampak vse prej pojem simbolnega, ime za družbeno, ki je zavezano razliki in delitvi.

The objective of the present essay is to show that the traditional dilemma of philosophy, namely, does science think or does not think, has today become the problem that science itself has to solve. To assert that science thinks means first that science, when it thinks, constructs its object in an always specific manner; second, in construing its object, it adds to it the real, i.e., a reference, external to the scientific construction itself, which science then discovers as the basis (...) and source of its construction. This article argues that it is for strictly scientific reasons that science is today faced with the task of affirming itself as a domain of thought in both aforementioned meanings. Affirming the view that science thinks is a scientific struggle for the existence of politics of emancipation. (shrink)

In medieval medical anthropology, emotions are closely tied up with humoral pathology, e.g. joy with blood, anger with yellow bile, and sorrow with black bile. The face and body are external signs of a person's constitutional emotionality. Health is based on mental stability: Rage should be channelled into something constructive; love-sickness can even cause death. The use of drugs must respect emotional side effects: While some herbs and gems can brighten the mind, others cause sadness und discomfort. Inadequate emotions not (...) only cause mental illnesses, but can also be mental illnesses in themselves, e.g. raving madness or deep depression. Thus, calming and cheering psychotherapy complements dietary, physical, medicinal, and surgical treatment. (shrink)

Der Beitrag geht, sich auf die Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten und die Kritik der praktischen Vernunft beziehend, der Frage nach, ob es möglich ist, Kants praktische Philosophie, jenseits des Dilemmas abstrakter moralischer Universalismus vs. Rechte des Partikulären als Ansatz einer Theorie des subjektivierten Handelns zu begreifen. Das heisst eines Handelns, in dem das Individuum nicht nur im "Dienste der Güter" bzw. seiner empirisch-pathologischen Interessen und Neigungen steht. In der Beantwortung dieser Frage wird die Aussage des kategorischen Imperativs "ich soll (...) so oder so handeln, ob ich gleich nichts anderes wollte" im ersten Schritt als eine Forderung verstanden, die nicht einfach nichts Empirisches zu wollen verlangt, sondern das Wollen an ein Nichts als Etwas bindet. Im zweiten Schritt wird dann gezeigt, dass am Ort dieses Nichts als Etwas das Vernunftfaktum als abgründiger Grund eines Handelns steht, das mit dem Anspruch auftritt, für niemanden zu gelten, wenn es nicht bedingungslos für alle geltend gemacht werden kann. (shrink)

A partir la thèse avancée par Monique David-Ménard, selon laquelle l’entendement réussi là où la raison échoue, il s’agit d’examiner la révolution kantienne dans la manière de penser. Pour tirer les conséquences du renversement dans la pensée mis en oeuvre par la philosophie kantienne, l’auteur interroge la constitution de la réalité dans la perspective transcendantale comme double opération avec le non-savoir portant respectivement sur le sujet et le noumène. Sur le fond de cette interrogation, il montre que la réalité à (...) laquelle a affaire la philosophie kantienne n’est ni la réalité objective constituée, ni la réalité hallucinée du désir de la raison transgressant les limites de la connaissance, mais à une réalité subjectivée, constituée par la mise en scène de la double destitution : celle de la réalité phénoménale et celle de la raison. C’est sur ce point que peut s’établir une alliance militante entre la philosophie et la psychanalyse, alliance dont l’enjeu principal, pour l’une comme pour l’autre, consiste justement en ceci que chacune, pour son propre compte, pense la réalité comme une telle scène du Deux. (shrink)

Članek utemeljuje trditev, da za transcendentalno teorijo objektivnosti nista značilni le občost in nujnost, ampak tudi refleksivnost. Teorija objektivnosti se vselej tudi že obrača nazaj nase in določa pomen lastne določitve objektivnega spoznanja. Samonanašalnost spoznavne konstitucije objekta pa se izraža v nujnosti zveze med realnim nasprotjem in dialektičnim nasprotjem. Skozi to razmerje spoznanje ni le določeno kot objektivno, ampak je vselej tudi že naddoločeno kot uspeh. Pomen konstitucije spoznavnega objekta je uspeh, analiza Kantove fasciniranosti z nevarno bližino uma in norosti (...) pa pokaže, da misli njegova filozofija uspeh kot dejanje, s katerim se uspe um razmejiti od lastne norosti. (shrink)

This article aims at clarifying the status of the Idea in two of Badiou's recent works: Second manifeste pour la philosophie and L'hypothèse communiste. Badiou sets out from the assumption that the operation with the Idea implies an affirmation of the materialism of a philosophy that is under the conditon of four generic procedures. In his attempt to elaborate Badiou's materialism of the Idea, the author does not turn to Plato, as one would expect, but, rather, to Kant's theory of (...) ideas such as it is presented in the Transcendental Dialectics of the first Critique. In so doing, the author seeks to develop Kant's idea in terms of the act. Posing the question of the Idea in terms of the act has at least two advantages: it shows how the pure reason separates itself from the Thing in itself that affects it while allowing for its appearance in the world. (shrink)

Analysing the role of Kant’s third and final Critique, the _Critique of Judgement_, in the system of Kant’s three Critiques (_Critique of Pure Reason_, _Critique of Practical Reason_, _Critique of Judgement_), the paper posits that with the conclusion of the system of critiques in the third _Critique_, Kant succeeds in presenting it as a point of a transfinitisation of knowledge within the critiques’ system.