- Philosophy, Classical Philosophy, Philosophy as a way of life, Critical Theory, Michel Foucault, Ancient Philosophy, and 25 morePlato, Ancient Greek Philosophy, Francis Bacon, Montaigne, Pierre Hadot, Virtue Ethics, Jacques Lacan, Albert Camus, Frankfurt School, 19th and 20th-century European philosophy, European philosophy, Philosophical Scepticism, Stoicism, Roman Stoicism, Psychoanalysis, Rhetoric, Classical Greek Philosophy, Hellenistic Philosophy, Roman Philosophy, Lacanian psychoanalysis, National Socialism, Political Economy of Authoritarianism, Wolfgang Streeck, Zeev Sternhell, and Nietzscheedit
- Matthew Sharpe teaches and writes on philosophy, Stoicism, critical and psychoanalytic theory, and the ideas of the far and extreme Right.edit
The publication of a new translation of Epictetus' Encheiridion (Manual or Handbook) with a scholarly introduction represents by itself a real event for people interested in Stoic philosophy. Compiled by the Roman Stoic's student, Arrian,... more
The publication of a new translation of Epictetus' Encheiridion (Manual or Handbook) with a scholarly introduction represents by itself a real event for people interested in Stoic philosophy. Compiled by the Roman Stoic's student, Arrian, this little book has played an outsized role in the history of Stoicism, up to the present day. It was beloved already in late antiquity, amongst Neoplatonists and the Church fathers (54 [1]). Subsequent Christian authors paid it the highest tribute of all: not simply that of flattery, with the Encheiridion becoming a genre adapted by authors from Augustine to Erasmus, but through some monastics actually reproducing the pagan text, replacing the name of "Socrates" with that of "Saint Paul", and packaging it as a guide to the holy life (55). Epictetus's text's rediscovery in the renaissance saw Latin translations by Niccolo Perotti (1450), Angelo Poliziano (1479), and several later humanists. Epictetus' recommendations of practical philosophical
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Author's draft only [ of review essay for Stoicism Today] on Christopher Gill's Learning to Live Naturally: Stoic Ethics and its Modern Significance (Oxford University Press, 2023). Gill's groundbreaking book is arguably the most... more
Author's draft only [ of review essay for Stoicism Today] on Christopher Gill's Learning to Live Naturally: Stoic Ethics and its Modern Significance (Oxford University Press, 2023). Gill's groundbreaking book is arguably the most important scholarly book on Stoic ethics which has been written for a generation. After and including in the exhaustive reconstruction of Stoic ethics in parts 1 and 2, Learning to live Naturally is dialectical, and presents a sustained apology for Stoic ethics. It aims to establish Stoicism's credentials in dialogue with academic work on virtue ethics, as well as in the light of contemporary ecological debates. With decisive recourse to Cicero and the doxographic sources, Gill shows how Stoicism is deeply misunderstood as egoistic and unsociable. Indeed, in his reconstruction, it provides a profoundly humane, coherent ethical perspective which avoids tensions in Aristotle's position (on the happiness-virtue relationship, and relation between the theoretical-practical virtues) whilst sharing his naturalistic conception of ethics, and which can provide better responses to criticisms of virtue ethics than better-known forms of neoAristotelianism. The review examines the book's exegeses of Stoic ethics (1), Gill's presentation of Stoic ethics as a more attractive and coherent form than the regnant neoAristotelianisms (2), before closing remarks critically examine Gill's intervention in the debate surrounding Stoic naturalism, prompted by Julia Annas' work (!993).
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This paper [*post-print only, links to published version below] addresses John M. Cooper's critique, and related critiques, of Pierre Hadot's conception of philosophy as a way of life for collapsing the distinction between philosophy and... more
This paper [*post-print only, links to published version below] addresses John M. Cooper's critique, and related critiques, of Pierre Hadot's conception of philosophy as a way of life for collapsing the distinction between philosophy and religion, via the category of "spiritual exercises". The paper has two parts. Part 1, a pars destruens, will show how Hadot presents three cogent rebuttals of these charges, with which he was familiar as early as the 1980s, following the publication of the first edition of his 1981 collection, Exercises spirituels et philosophie antique. In part 2, a pars construens, putting aside the vexed category of "religion", we will examine how Hadot reconsiders the place of the sacred in ancient philosophy, positioning the latter as not the attempt to rationally dispel any sense of the sacred in the world, but to relocate it from within the sanctioned cultic places and temples of traditional Greco-Roman religion to within the inner life of the godlike sage.
* For published version, see <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F2077-1444%2F14%2F8%2F998&data=05%7C01%7Cmatthew.sharpe%40acu.edu.au%7C572cc1b746cc4cad7cbe08db94084afc%7C429af009f196448fae7958c212a0f2ce%7C0%7C0%7C638266535561505036%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=L1N%2B2Z0PCh2A0DZ2PiDrry%2BSLSQuu9WISI68mUADVaU%3D&reserved=0>
* For published version, see <https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F2077-1444%2F14%2F8%2F998&data=05%7C01%7Cmatthew.sharpe%40acu.edu.au%7C572cc1b746cc4cad7cbe08db94084afc%7C429af009f196448fae7958c212a0f2ce%7C0%7C0%7C638266535561505036%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=L1N%2B2Z0PCh2A0DZ2PiDrry%2BSLSQuu9WISI68mUADVaU%3D&reserved=0>
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[Draft of keynote address for “Philosophy as a Way of Life in Hyper-Connected Age”22-24/7/2023, Xi’an, China] This paper contends that to talk of Stoicism as a way of living with digital hyperconnectivity has to involve more than just... more
[Draft of keynote address for “Philosophy as a Way of Life in Hyper-Connected Age”22-24/7/2023, Xi’an, China] This paper contends that to talk of Stoicism as a way of living with digital hyperconnectivity has to involve more than just the canny prescription of exercises ("life hacks") for addressing some of the distressed and fearful symptoms of the over-investment in others’ opinions and being prompted to endlessly compare ourselves with others, that social media usage promotes. It has to involve a fundamental reorientation of values, asking people to find their primary source of worth not in what myriad virtual others think of them, but in their own actions and intentions. From a Stoic perspective, a person need not literally unplug from all devices and internautic platforms. But they need to philosophically unplug their sense of self and worth—of what they think they need to live well—from the values effectively coded into social media, which turn the wheels in the engines of “the attention economy”, at human costs we are increasingly cognisant of. Rather than making our senses of our own selves turn upon others’ views of us, from the outside, we should let the world turn as it will, but do things which serve our communities, which foster virtues in others, and which cultivate the virtues in ourselves. And rather than supposing that online “connectivity” could ever be more than one more tool to use in service of independently conceived values, but the indispensable, inevitable means or even actualisation of excellence, happiness, flourishing, sociability, and salvation--as the hype surrounding the net suggests--Stoicism as a way of living with digital hyperconnectivity proposes a thoughtful, critical reservation (hypexairêsis).
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This essay takes it bearings from Hadot’s singling out of the moment of German idealism, and the foundation of the modern research university (first of all, that of Berlin in 1809), as especially significant in the history of the eclipses... more
This essay takes it bearings from Hadot’s singling out of the moment of German idealism, and the foundation of the modern research university (first of all, that of Berlin in 1809), as especially significant in the history of the eclipses and recurrences of PWL in the West. Proffered as a draft for an as-yet-unwritten, decisive chapter on the history of PWL [to be delivered in Lisbon at "Mapping PWL" event), it closely examines the texts by Schleiermacher, Fichte, Humboldt and Schelling that Hadot mentions en passant in “Enseignement ancient et moderne de la philosophie” (Hadot 2020, 149-178; cf. 305-322). These texts represent studies of great significance for the history of PWL, the paper suggests, insofar as they are philosophical reflections on the university, its necessity and its purpose, as well as metaphilosophical reflections more specifically on philosophy, its nature and role, within the universities. In part 2, we will show how Hadot’s claim that these texts inaugurate a subordination of philosophy to the state, even in its qualified form, needs to be revised. What stands out is rather the attempt, sketched already in Kant (1794), of trying to grant philosophy a new autonomy within the modern university, as the sole faculty ideally governed by reason alone, not by external authorities. In part 3, we will critically pursue Hadot’s comments linking the advent of the modern research university with the construction of philosophy as a system. Our argument contra Hadot is that the classical idealistic texts on the university also each envisage philosophy as implicating a form of pedagogy and Bildung, and with Hadot, that this Bildung is nevertheless subordinated to the pursuit of systematic, pure, or absolute knowledge in ways which pave the way to today’s almost-unchallenged expectations around what "serious philosophy" must always be (that is, theoretical, written, publishable in peer reviewed formats). In conclusion, we proffer three observations raised by our analysis, concerning Hadot’s presentation of the idea of university philosophy as one the one hand a philosophy of civil servants, teaching other civil servants, and how it relates to the longer history of, and continuing contemporary research on, PWL.
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This paper [draft only for book chapter, do not cite, but pls feel free to contact with comments*] challenges the standard image of Stoicism as a pitiless philosophy of self-perfection, enshrining what Martha Nussbaum calls a "radical... more
This paper [draft only for book chapter, do not cite, but pls feel free to contact with comments*] challenges the standard image of Stoicism as a pitiless philosophy of self-perfection, enshrining what Martha Nussbaum calls a "radical detachment" from others. After examining Nussbaum's critique of the Stoics in "Pity and Mercy: Nietzsche's Stoicism" (part 1), we present the counterevidence attesting to the primacy of other-relatedness in Stoicism, in their accounts of the emotions and virtues (part 2). Part 3 presents the theoretical basis for a more adequate account of Stoic sociability, in the doctrine of oikeiosis, drawing on the work of figures led by Reydams-Shils and Johncock. On this basis, in part 4, we revisit the question of Stoicism's supposed detachment, arguing that the Stoics' devaluation of externals, to 'beneath good and evil', is carried out precisely in order to make possible more generous, sociable relations to others untroubled by such destructive affects as envy, jealousy, anger, hatred, and spite. *Feedback welcome at my email address msharpe@deakin.edu.au.
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[Draft only for Stocism Today] After around a decade of unlooked-for popular growth, it may no longer be too soon to say that we could be approaching "peak Stoic". The reader in search of practical guidebooks on "how to live like a Stoic"... more
[Draft only for Stocism Today] After around a decade of unlooked-for popular growth, it may no longer be too soon to say that we could be approaching "peak Stoic". The reader in search of practical guidebooks on "how to live like a Stoic" is faced with an embarrassment of riches. But does the focus on self-care minimize ancient Stoicism's deeply social ontology, which is foregrounded in the Hellenistic sources as well as a text like Cicero's De Finibus? Will Johncock's Beyond the individual examines this question, and seeks to recover a sense of Stoicism which doesn't exclude the practical, but which responds more completely to the ancient sources. In this way, the book proffers a needed challenge to some images of Stoicism within and outside the academy today.
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Event advertisement with website links (inc. ticketing), for online Zoom colloquium on philosophy as a way of life bringing together scholars from around the globe including John Sellars, Stephen Grimm, Marta Faustino, Laura Mueller,... more
Event advertisement with website links (inc. ticketing), for online Zoom colloquium on philosophy as a way of life bringing together scholars from around the globe including John Sellars, Stephen Grimm, Marta Faustino, Laura Mueller, Massimo Pigliucci, and others. At present maximum 120 places, so if interested please use the website to sign on.
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Aristotle and the Stoics agree on a lot. Above all, for both, virtue is the primary thing a person needs to be happy. But they also differ in key ways. Aristotle thinks external things like fame, power, money, and looks are also goods... more
Aristotle and the Stoics agree on a lot. Above all, for both, virtue is the primary thing a person needs to be happy. But they also differ in key ways. Aristotle thinks external things like fame, power, money, and looks are also goods that a person will need. The Stoics disagree. Moreover, they each conceive virtue, or the virtues, differently. For Aristotle, virtue is about choosing a "mean" (meson) between extremes, in terms of the emotions we feel, and the actions we undertake. For the Stoics, it involves forms of episteme about what to select and avoid. Taking the case of courage, this short piece (draft for Stoicism Today) examines the differences, and looks at the five forms of courage Chrysippus identified in contrast to Aristotle on andreia.
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Translators' commentary on Pierre Hadot's 1959 "Heidegger and Plotinus" . The original article appeared in Critique, June 1959, as a reflective review essay by the young Hadot of recent French, English, and German-language works... more
Translators' commentary on Pierre Hadot's 1959 "Heidegger and Plotinus" . The original article appeared in Critique, June 1959, as a reflective review essay by the young Hadot of recent French, English, and German-language works published at that time on Heidegger and Plotinus. The commentary examines Hadot's assessment in this piece of the comparisons, at the level of metaphilosophy, and differences, at the level of metaphilosophy, between Heidegger and Plotinus. We then examine Hadot's later article on "Being" as an infinitive in the Neoplatonic commentary on Plato's Parmenides, before turning to Hadot's reflections on the relationship between his own formative conception of philosophy, his ongoing study of competing forms of mysticism, and Heidegger's thought of Being.
Translation of Pierre Hadot's 1959 "Heidegger and Plotinus" with commentary by Matthew Sharpe & Matteo Stetter. The original article appeared in Critique, June 1959, as a reflective review essay by the young Hadot of recent French,... more
Translation of Pierre Hadot's 1959 "Heidegger and Plotinus" with commentary by Matthew Sharpe & Matteo Stetter. The original article appeared in Critique, June 1959, as a reflective review essay by the young Hadot of recent French, English, and German-language works published at that time on Heidegger and Plotinus. The commentary examines Hadot's assessment in this piece of the comparisons, at the level of metaphilosophy, and differences, at the level of metaphilosophy, between Heidegger and Plotinus. We then examine Hadot's later article on "Being" as an infinitive in the Neoplatonic commentary on Plato's Parmenides, before turning to Hadot's reflections on the relationship between his own formative conception of philosophy, his ongoing study of competing forms of mysticism, and Heidegger's thought of Being.
Review of: "Philosophy as a Way of Life as a Pathway to Recovery for Addicted Individuals"
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In his magisterial Ars Erotica, a text examining "the history of erotic theory in the world’s most influential premodern cultures,” Richard Shusterman acknowledges what he owes to Michel Foucault's later works on the history of sexuality... more
In his magisterial Ars Erotica, a text examining "the history of erotic theory in the world’s most influential premodern cultures,” Richard Shusterman acknowledges what he owes to Michel Foucault's later works on the history of sexuality amongst the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as his differences from Foucault’s work. This paper, by first (I) returning to History of Sexuality II, The Use of Pleasure, examines these differences (II), marking out the extent of Shusterman’s contribution, when it comes to understanding the ancient Mediterranean pagans’ experiences and discourses, surrounding sex, its practices, and its pleasures
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[Script of talk at Contemplative Studies Centre, Melbourne, April '22] The talks starts by staging the view that ancient philosophies could not have been “contemplative”, since we "know" today that philosophy involves forms of reasoning... more
[Script of talk at Contemplative Studies Centre, Melbourne, April '22] The talks starts by staging the view that ancient philosophies could not have been “contemplative”, since we "know" today that philosophy involves forms of reasoning unrelated to such experiences. By citing just one small sample from across three philosophical schools, it calls this putative certainty into question. Then, it challenges the supposition that the Greeks and Romans’ conceptions of logismos or ratiocination must have been the same as ours, stressing the way that the philosophers saw this capacity, our most divine or godlike, as a means to “harmonise” ourselves with the larger whole, not put us at a cold, calculating distance from reality. This excursion into first philosophy provides the setting for a cultural-historical claim: that Greek and Roman philosophy did not so much break with earlier forms of culture and experience we consider “religious”, as operate a rationalizing relocation of the sacred, from external “temples” to within the soul of the seeker after wisdom. The talk will then examine how ancient philosophical contemplation was configured in relation to celebrations of the leisured life. The relationship between celebrations of such otium and specifically contemplative practices is complex. A member of the male elite could withdraw from public affairs and cultivate tranquility through forms of exercise and living which were not distinctly contemplative. At the same time, leisure was recognized as a precondition for theoria in Aristotle (and contemplation was celebrated for being the most “leisured” form of human activity). Moreover, in all of the schools, developing an understanding of physics or metaphysics--which would enable the philosopher to envisage with their mind’s eye (nous, in Plato and Aristotle) the generative principles and interconnectedness of the parts of the whole--was held to produce tranquility. Such an expanded philosophical purview relativizes our ordinary, anxiety-inducing attachments, “cleans[ing] away the mire of the terrestrial life”, as Marcus Aurelius says (Meds. VIII, 47). The paper closes by stressing the extent to which contemplative knowing represents, at its deepest level, a mode of knowing in which the knower and her activity is included in the object known, as one part or expression of the larger Whole. This is captured in the Platonist recourse to a language of love to describe philosophy or the pursuit of wisdom.
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In this essay [author's draft of piece to appear in Studies in Pedagogy], sketch a third possibility between teaching PWL solely as history of philosophy, and the fascinating recent attempts by scholars to experiment with introducing... more
In this essay [author's draft of piece to appear in Studies in Pedagogy], sketch a third possibility between teaching PWL solely as history of philosophy, and the fascinating recent attempts by scholars to experiment with introducing modes of teaching and assessment which would reactivate ancient spiritual exercises within the modern university. This third way takes for granted that, for the foreseeable future (and if academic philosophy widely survives in the 21st century), it will do so as a primarily theoretical discipline. Nevertheless, insights from PWL’s re-conception of philosophy as a situated, social as well as ethical activity can and ideally should be integrated into modern syllabi. This can be done by introducing and teaching capstone unit(s) for advanced students which would reflect critically on what it is to be an academic philosopher today: and the ways that philosophy is institutionalized as a professional discipline in neoliberal universities creates pressures towards particular forms of intellectual and ethical vice and sophistry. Based on a course taught at the author’s home university, it examines how Plato’s Republic, Bacon’s Novum Organum, and Kivisto’s Vices of Learning prompt students, respectively, to consider the place of the philosopher in the “city”, their own (and all our) propensities towards forms of epistemic bias and partiality, and the ways that institutionalized competition for status can promote forms of pride, vanity, and misanthropy in scholars. Encountering and discussing these texts, it is argued, can prepare students for the realities of philosophizing in the professional universities of the 21st century, helping them to identify ways philosophers can go wrong, and helping them to identify chastened, more Socratically self-aware ways of thinking, reading, arguing, and understanding what philosophers do.
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Review [author's draft only--do not cite] book by Ilsetraut Hadot, in Ian Drummond's translation from the 2014 original, undertakes to give a summary of the state of the art in research on the life of Simplicius, his commentaries on... more
Review [author's draft only--do not cite] book by Ilsetraut Hadot, in Ian Drummond's translation from the 2014 original, undertakes to give a summary of the state of the art in research on the life of Simplicius, his commentaries on Epictetus' Encheiridion, Aristotle's De Anima and Categories, together with Simplicius' lost texts, and the influence of his texts in the Christian, Arabic and humanistic traditions. Especial focus falls on the question of the authorship of the De Anima commentary, and the provenance of the text's account of the soul (Hadot arguing for Simplicius' debts to Damascius).
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This paper (draft of upcoming chapter for discussion) takes up F. Gros's call in the notes to Hermeneutics of the Subject (HS, xxix, n. 21) for a reconsideration of the Hadot-Foucault difference concerning how to read the ancients in... more
This paper (draft of upcoming chapter for discussion) takes up F. Gros's call in the notes to Hermeneutics of the Subject (HS, xxix, n. 21) for a reconsideration of the Hadot-Foucault difference concerning how to read the ancients in light of the availability of these wonderful lectures on ancient thought. Important lectures in the HS show that the place to draw the line between the two figures's readings of the ancients is not around an engagement with philosophical physics which Hadot suggested Foucault was unable to accommodate. HS shows de facto that Foucault could and indeed did address what Hadot calls the "cosmic dimension" in ancient philosophy. Instead, this paper argues, the difference between the two thinkers' readings of Hellenistic-Roman philosophical self-care (or self-transformation) point back to Foucault's periodization of a post-classical "golden age" of care of the self, in light of the decisive role he assigns to the "Platonic model" of cultura animi. Foucault becomes committed, the paper argues, to insulating the Stoic texts from any accord with the Platonic model linking care of the self with access to the divine. This leads to textual difficulties. Hadot, who does not share this periodization and whose stance towards Platonism is very different from his friend's, feels no such commitment and faces no cognate difficulties when it comes to assessing Stoic physics.
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Is the Stoic sage a possible or desirable ideal for contemporary men and women, as we enter into difficult times? Is he, as Seneca presents him in Constancy of the Sage, the very best person for a crisis? In order to examine these... more
Is the Stoic sage a possible or desirable ideal for contemporary men and women, as we enter into difficult times? Is he, as Seneca presents him in Constancy of the Sage, the very best person for a crisis? In order to examine these questions, Part 1 begins from what Irene Liu calls the "standard" modern conceptions of the sage as either a kind of epistemically perfect, omniscient agent, or else someone in possession of a specific arsenal of theoretical knowledge, especially concerning the physical world. We contest this contentious conception of the sage for being inconsistent with the Stoic conceptions of wisdom, the technai and knowledge which can be gleaned from the doxographic sources. In Part 2, we suggest that the wisdom of the Stoic sage reflects the Stoics' "dispositional" conception of knowledge, their substantive conception of reason (Logos), and their sense of philosophy as above all an "exercise" or askêsis of a craft or technê for living. It is embodied in an ongoing exercise of examining one's impressions for consistency with what one already knows, looking back to the natural prolêpseis with which all people are equipped. In Part 3, we show how only this account of the wisdom of the sage, at the epistemic level, enables us to understand how, in the non-doxographic texts led by Seneca's De Constantia Sapientiae, the sage is celebrated above all for his ethical characteristics, and his ability to bear up in a crisis. Concluding reflections return to our framing concern, as to whether philosophy as a way of life, and the ancient ideal of the sage, can speak to us today not only as scholars, but as individuals called upon to live in difficult times. We suggest that they can and should remain sources of orientation, contestation, and inspiration.
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Conclusion [preprint-draft only] to Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions (M. Sharpe & M. Ure, Bloomsbury July 2021). The opening poses the continuing metaphilosophical question of what philosophy could be, in a... more
Conclusion [preprint-draft only] to Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions (M. Sharpe & M. Ure, Bloomsbury July 2021). The opening poses the continuing metaphilosophical question of what philosophy could be, in a period where the natural and human sciences have declared their independence from their historical, disciplinary 'alma mater'. Next, we summarize our findings concerning the declines and rebirths of the ancient idea of philosophy as a way of life, and its predominant features (with reference to an account identifying ten features of this paradigm, and twelve forms of intellectual and spiritual exercises). The picture as we present it is more complex than sometimes envisaged. We then examine recurrent criticisms of the idea of philosophy as a way of life: that admitting spiritual exercises (Hadot) or technologies of the self (Foucault) means that the specificity of philosophy, as against rhetoric or 'religion', is lost; that any post-Hadotian approach leads to a relativistic historicization of philosophical discourses; that philosophical self-cultivation must be egoistic or apolitical; and that post-Socratic philosophical self-care is passion- and life-denying. We close by examining philosophy as a way of life today, and its prospects within academic settings, and beyond them in phenomena like modern Stoicism as academic philosophy continues to experience stressors and marginalization in the period of marketization.
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This article, produced here in authors' (M. Stettler & M. Sharpe) preprint version (AV/PPV), has been accepted for publication in Classical Receptions journal, published by Oxford University Press. The article provides a critical... more
This article, produced here in authors' (M. Stettler & M. Sharpe) preprint version (AV/PPV), has been accepted for publication in Classical Receptions journal, published by Oxford University Press. The article provides a critical rejoinder, informed by classical scholarship on the self, to Giorgio Agamben’s interpretation of the Hadot-Foucault dialogue, which appeared in the pivotal ‘Intermezzo’ of The Use of Bodies. In Part 1, we provide a close reading of Agamben’s claims about Hadot’s alleged misreadings of Foucault on the ancients and on subjectivity more widely. We demonstrate how, far from rebutting Hadot, these claims end up confirming the latter’s positions on Foucault malgré Agamben. In Part 2, we draw on classicist Christopher Gill’s notion of the ‘objectivist-participant’ self in Greco-Roman Antiquity, to argue that the deepest stakes of the debate between Foucault and Hadot do not implicate Hadot’s incompetence. They concern Foucault’s unease, as well as Agamben’s misunderstanding, of the objective and participative dimensions of ancient conceptions of selfhood. In Part 3, we contest the recurrent tendency of commentators to assume latent carry-overs of Hadot’s early religiosity in his later works on Greek and Roman philosophy and spiritual exercises as reflecting the long shadow of Christianity in postmodern thought.
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This paper [preprint version to appear in Journal of Value Inquiry, 2021] brings Julia Annas' work on virtues as skills to the interpretation of Pierre Hadot's metaphilosophical claims concerning the philosophies of antiquity. i argue... more
This paper [preprint version to appear in Journal of Value Inquiry, 2021] brings Julia Annas' work on virtues as skills to the interpretation of Pierre Hadot's metaphilosophical claims concerning the philosophies of antiquity. i argue that Annas' account of virtues as skills, especially as she develops it in Intelligent Virtue (2011), can help us to understand the contested role of what Hadot terms 'spiritual exercises' within the ancient philosophies. Seeing the spiritual exercises, via Annas, as exercises in the habituation to, and constant reanimation of skill-like virtues allows us to combat repeated charges that Hadot's claims concerning these exercises imply a vision of the ancient philosophies that is not intellectualist enough, undervaluing the place of rational argumentation in these philosophies. The paper has three main parts, followed by concluding considerations. Part 1 introduces Hadot's claims about the spiritual exercises in ancient philosophical texts, and the key criticism these claims have faced: namely, that Hadot's spiritual exercises are not intellectualist enough to be considered seriously as components of ancient philosophies. Part 2 examines Julia Annas's evolving ideas of the virtue as skills in light of the opposing kind of criticism her work has faced: namely, that Annas' account of skills (and thus the virtues) is too intellectualist. Part 3 contends that Annas' virtues-as-skills idea, as developed in Intelligent Virtue, provides exactly the right kind of framework-neither too intellectualist nor not intellectualist enough-to demystify what Hadot calls, with explicit qualifications, "spiritual exercises" as exercises of philosophically-informed ethical habituation.
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Appendices to upcoming Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions (with Michael Ure). The book argues that there are twelve species of spiritual and intellectual exercises at stake in PWL, and Appendix 1 tabulates their... more
Appendices to upcoming Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions (with Michael Ure). The book argues that there are twelve species of spiritual and intellectual exercises at stake in PWL, and Appendix 1 tabulates their presence, transformations, and absences in the schools and figures we examine, from Socrates to Nietzsche. Appendix two builds upon an analytic grid of ten features of PWL, organised on a pedagogical, rhetorical, and normative level. The table records the developments of each of these ten features and three levels, once more, in the schools and figures we examine. As such, these tables and diagrams will give interested readers a sense of the findings our our study.
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Starting with Francis Bacon's thoughts in a letter to Lancelot Andrewes on the force of examples in consolation, this draft presentation (keynote for Brisbane Stoicon-X) is one part of a large project on Stoicism and helping people facing... more
Starting with Francis Bacon's thoughts in a letter to Lancelot Andrewes on the force of examples in consolation, this draft presentation (keynote for Brisbane Stoicon-X) is one part of a large project on Stoicism and helping people facing different forms of bullying. Australian and overseas statistics suggest that workplace, school, and online bullying is a growing problem costing economies (literally) billions, institutions countless lost hours, and too many families broken lives. How can Stoic philosophy help bullying targets who typically report a cocktail of mixed emotions: fear, anger, grief, anxiety, disillusion, mistrust, melancholia, isolation, and more, given that there seems such a dearth of material out there on this problem, relative to its scale? Here as elsewhere, philosophical argument by itself will not be sufficient. Examples, as Bacon's letter crisply analyses, speak to the imagination and affects, as well as the intellect; show that targets are not alone, and that what they are experiencing is sadly too common in the human comedy; and enable people to see that others have borne and forborne more than they are facing. The paper closes by reflecting on the limits of this technique; the Stoic philosopher who wishes also to be a therapist will need more in her kitbag than a catalogue of tales of mighty dead who have endured bullying, like Shakespeare's Cranmer. But she will also surely need that catalogue.
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"Contents" and "Introduction" of upcoming work *Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions* (with M. Ure). This work aims to be the first synoptic account tracking the dimensions and directions of this notion of... more
"Contents" and "Introduction" of upcoming work *Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions* (with M. Ure). This work aims to be the first synoptic account tracking the dimensions and directions of this notion of philosophy from the ancients, medievals, renaissance, early moderns, the enlightenment, and the 19th century. The introduction explains the rationale for the book, the principal philosophical and methodological debts especially to the work of Pierre Hadot, our working synthetic notion of spiritual and intellectual exercises, a consideration of PWL as an approach to the history of philosophy, the ten features of the notion of PWL we use to chart the history, and a synopsis of the chapters.
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"Contents" for The Selected Writings of Pierre Hadot: Philosophy as Practice, co-translated by M. Sharpe and F. Testa, with a Foreword by A. Davidson and D. Lorenzini, (to be) published June 2020.
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Updated diagram summarising findings from advanced/honors course on representations of characteristic epistemic errors, vices (deep-set faults), and sophistry in Plato (Rep.), Aristotle (NE, SR), Francis Bacon (AL, NO), and early modern... more
Updated diagram summarising findings from advanced/honors course on representations of characteristic epistemic errors, vices (deep-set faults), and sophistry in Plato (Rep.), Aristotle (NE, SR), Francis Bacon (AL, NO), and early modern works on scholarly vices (Kivisto). The first-left column itemises the Baconian idols, which in contemporary lingo would be called 'cognitive biases' of inquirers as such, and particular characteristic kinds of inquirers. The fourth or right-hand column adduces structural factors influencing inquirers, and selecting for forms of epistemic conduct, including errors and vices/faults, given the institutionalisation of the pursuit of knowledge as [a] competitive field[s] contesting scarce status and economic goods. The characteristic errors and faults/vices in the central columns are divided according to discovery, demonstration, discussion/defence, and communication of knowledges, following a useful distinction in Bacon and others. There is hence some, but not exact correlation between the idols and external factors in columns 1 and 4 and the errors and vices in the central columns.
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Draft of chapter 3 of Philosophy as a Way of Life Primer (with M. Ure, for 2020), addressing the Stoics, that school which above all we tend to associate with philosophy as a manner of living tout court. Part 1 addresses the Stoic... more
Draft of chapter 3 of Philosophy as a Way of Life Primer (with M. Ure, for 2020), addressing the Stoics, that school which above all we tend to associate with philosophy as a manner of living tout court. Part 1 addresses the Stoic conception of wisdom, as both knowledge of things human and divine, and an art (techne) of living. Part 2 addresses the Stoics; Socratic lineage: dialectic, the emotions, and the sufficiency of virtue. Part 3 looks at Musonius and Seneca, focusing in the former on his conception of the place of exercises in philosophy, and in the latter, on his consolations. Part 4 looks at Epictetus, the Roman Socrates (and the Roman Diogenes) and his conception of the disciplines of philosophical practice; Part 5 looks at Marcus Aurelius's Meditations as hypomnemata with an especial focus on the place of physics in Marcus' conception of the philosophical art of living.
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Part 1 of this chapter (preprint for Kurt Lampe and Janae Scholtz eds. *French and Italian Stoicisms* (in press)) examines the bases and sources of Hadot’s approach to ancient philosophy as a way of life (manière de vivre, mode/genre de... more
Part 1 of this chapter (preprint for Kurt Lampe and Janae Scholtz eds. *French and Italian Stoicisms* (in press)) examines the bases and sources of Hadot’s approach to ancient philosophy as a way of life (manière de vivre, mode/genre de vie), situating it in relation to Thomas Bénatouil’s distinction between two traditions in the twentieth-century French receptions of Stoicism. Part 2 addresses Hadot’s reading of the Roman Stoic Epictetus, which provides what he terms the “key” to his conception of Stoicism as a lived philosophy: the notion of three exercise-topics or “disciplines” (those of action, assent, and desire) aligned with the three parts of Stoic philosophical discourse (those of ethics, logic, and physics). Part 3 examines Hadot’s reading of Marcus Aurelius in this light, attentive particularly to Hadot’s remarkable development of the notion of “lived physics” as he finds it in the Meditations.
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Draft for comments of chapter 6 of upcoming book on Philosophy as a Way of Life from Socrates to Today, with M. Ure (Monash). Examines Petrarch, Montaigne and Lipsius as belonging within, and each reworking, a lineage of... more
Draft for comments of chapter 6 of upcoming book on Philosophy as a Way of Life from Socrates to Today, with M. Ure (Monash). Examines Petrarch, Montaigne and Lipsius as belonging within, and each reworking, a lineage of metaphilosophical thought looking back to the Greeks and Romans rediscovered by the humanists. In this lineage, philosophy as a set of practices is conceived as the means of the cultivation of intellectual and civic virtues, a medicine or therapy of the soul and guide for life. It as such enshrines a wide variety of rhetorical and argumentative strategies, and recommends exercises to transform the person of the philosopher, through rehabituation and the cultivation of an enlarged perspective.
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David Fiordalis’ collection Buddhist Spiritual Practices: Thinking with Pierre Hadot on Buddhism, Philosophy and the Path (hereafter BSP) represents an invaluable contribution in what promises to be a fruitful emerging research field. BSP... more
David Fiordalis’ collection Buddhist Spiritual Practices: Thinking with Pierre Hadot on Buddhism, Philosophy and the Path (hereafter BSP) represents an invaluable contribution in what promises to be a fruitful emerging research field. BSP was conceived by David Fiordalis and the late Luis Gómez, the then Academic Director at Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages, following a dedicated conference on Hadot and the study of Buddhism in 2015 (BSP, ix). The volume builds upon groundbreaking work by scholars such as Matthew Kapstein, Georges Dreyfus, Patrick Ussher and Vincent Eltschinger (as well as several of its contributors) in exploring the implications the revolutionary metaphilosophical work of French philologist and philosopher Pierre Hadot for comparative philosophical approaches to Buddhist thought, and indeed for engagements with other nonwestern philosophical traditions.
Research Interests: Comparative Religion, Comparative Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy, Buddhist Studies, Michel Foucault, and 13 morePhilosophy of Culture, Tibetan Buddhism, Intercultural Philosophy, Philosophy as a way of life, Pierre Hadot, Care of the Self, Ethics of Care of the Self, Spiritual Exercices, Philosophy as a Form of Life, Philosophy As a Spiritual Exercise, Philosophy As a Way of Life Pierre Hadot, Madyamaka Buddhism, and Late Michel Foucault
Draft long version, and now the draft of shorter version of paper delivered at Stoicon, 2019, in Athens, for those interested (the shorter paper will appear shortly in Modern Stoicism). What is the role of comedy in Stoicism, or... more
Draft long version, and now the draft of shorter version of paper delivered at Stoicon, 2019, in Athens, for those interested (the shorter paper will appear shortly in Modern Stoicism). What is the role of comedy in Stoicism, or philosophy as a way of life? Why do some presentations of the view from above have an inescapably comic angle? Why does Hadot recur so centrally to Lucian of Samosata, this comic poet, in his analysis of this ancient exercise of the view from above? How does Lucian deploy the exercise in his satirical dialogues, and how does it compare and contrast with Stoic uses, and preeminently those in Marcus Aurelius? What role then could comedy have in "making progress", where philosophy is considered as a way of life? Do philosophers need to learn how to laugh, if they are to 'climb' towards wisdom, as against some semblance of the same? And could this have something to do with why Lucian's self-defence before Philosophy Herself is carried out on the Athenian Acropolis?
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Draft of my "Introduction" to *Pierre Hadot: Selected Essays. Philosophy as Practice*, translated with Dr. Federico Testa (for Bloomsbury, 2020). The piece situates Hadot's work and its different academic and wider receptions, before... more
Draft of my "Introduction" to *Pierre Hadot: Selected Essays. Philosophy as Practice*, translated with Dr. Federico Testa (for Bloomsbury, 2020). The piece situates Hadot's work and its different academic and wider receptions, before setting out our selection relative in particular to the criticisms of Hadot's work from figures such as Cooper, Inwood, Flynn, and others, and the perspective of Hadot's relations with the later Foucault. Each chapter is then briefly analysed, and closing remarks discuss the translation and express our profound gratitude to Ilsetraut Hadot for her translating and editorial assistance, Michael Chase for his translating advice, and others for their different contributions.
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Professor Juliusz Domański’s French-language writings are led by the two, equally remarkable studies, La philosophie, Théorie ou manière de vivre? Les Controverses de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance of 1996, and Le Texte comme présence:... more
Professor Juliusz Domański’s French-language writings are led by the two, equally remarkable studies, La philosophie, Théorie ou manière de vivre? Les Controverses de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance of 1996, and Le Texte comme présence: Contribution à l’histoire de la réflexion sur le texte et le livre (in French, 2017). It is these texts that I shall consider in due course here. But I have been further tasked by the event organisers with some propaedeutic tasks: firstly, to introduce you to the state of the literature on philosophy as a way of life (Part 1) that Professor Domański’s works both in fact contribute to, as I shall argue; and secondly, to situate the specific contribution within that field represented by La Philosophie (Part 2). A third task which I have assigned to myself, as a small gesture of gratitude, will be to think with Professor Domański’s Le texte comme présence beyond its own terms (recounted in Part 3), to consider the kinds of “presence” of the author we find in the work of one figure the book mentions en passant, Michel de Montaigne, and another that it does not, unless I am mistaken: the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius (Part 4).
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This paper (for upcoming collection, ed. E. Kramer et al on philosophy of culture) begins by looking at the critique of “humanism” proffered by Martin Heidegger, which profoundly shaped the French thought of the 1960s and ‘70s, and... more
This paper (for upcoming collection, ed. E. Kramer et al on philosophy of culture) begins by looking at the critique of “humanism” proffered by Martin Heidegger, which profoundly shaped the French thought of the 1960s and ‘70s, and through them, the globalization of “French theory” since (Part 1). Then I will proffer a critique of this vision by drawing firstly on philosophy as a way of life (PWL) as a way of looking at the history of ideas, very different from that of Heidegger (Part 2), and secondly, drawing out the cultural and philosophical forms that the PWL approach lights up in the figures of the renaissance, led by Petrarch, Erasmus, or Montaigne, a period mostly omitted from philosophy syllabi today (Part 3). Concluding remarks concern what such an approach, in contrast to the post-Heideggerian approaches, suggests about possible reforms to philosophy, if it is to contribute more robustly to contemporary education and culture.
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Draft for comments of chapter 4 of upcoming coauthored book on Philosophy as a Way of Life (with M. Ure), hopefully appearing in 2020. Part 1 looks at the different forms of scepticism that emerged out of the Platonic milieu; 2 looks at... more
Draft for comments of chapter 4 of upcoming coauthored book on Philosophy as a Way of Life (with M. Ure), hopefully appearing in 2020. Part 1 looks at the different forms of scepticism that emerged out of the Platonic milieu; 2 looks at Cicero's persona and conception of philosophy; 3 addresses Plotinus' philosophical mysticism as a bios; and 4 looks at Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy as a transitional text at the end of antiquity, which brings together many of the ancient spiritual exercises before opening out onto the purview of theology.
This paper* starts from the contention that Pierre Hadot's unusually divided reception reflects the different dimensions of Hadot's own scholarly profile. Hadot's largely favourable reception amongst historians of ideas responds to the... more
This paper* starts from the contention that Pierre Hadot's unusually divided reception reflects the different dimensions of Hadot's own scholarly profile. Hadot's largely favourable reception amongst historians of ideas responds to the philological dimension of his work, but misses the implicit normativity involved in his recovery of the sense of ancient philosophy as a way of life. Analytic critics have registered but contested this normativity in ways that arguably also misrepresent his work. This paper contends that both receptions of Hadot have missed what can be called Hadot's unique philosophical problematic: uncovering through the ancient sources a kind of phenomenology of how a person would perceive and evaluate the world who had, counter-factually, attained a wholly enlightened, wholly "sage" mode of living. This phenomenology of sagesse, which is predicated on a metaphysical agnosticism, proves closer to the last Foucault than Hadot sometimes suggested: albeit embodying an aesthetics of "the whole," over against Foucault's aesthetics of (human) existence.
* This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article in April 2018, published by Taylor & Francis in Angelaki, whose published final version is available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0969725X.2018.1451475
* This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article in April 2018, published by Taylor & Francis in Angelaki, whose published final version is available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0969725X.2018.1451475
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Short text written for the 'Modern Stoicism' website, where it appeared Dec. 1 2018 (https://modernstoicism.com/pierre-hadots-stoicism-by-matthew-sharpe/). The piece examines four key influences on Hadot's reading of the Stoics: Ludwig... more
Short text written for the 'Modern Stoicism' website, where it appeared Dec. 1 2018 (https://modernstoicism.com/pierre-hadots-stoicism-by-matthew-sharpe/). The piece examines four key influences on Hadot's reading of the Stoics: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ilsetraut Hadot, Paul Rabbow, and Victor Goldschmidt. Next, it presents a reading of what Hadot took from each of these antecedents. I focus on two key, as yet untranslated pieces on Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius in the 1970s wherein Hadot's Stoicism effectively 'became what it would be' in The Inner Citadel (1992/1998) and other, more renowned texts on ancient philosophy as a way of life.
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The paper (Foucault Studies, 25 [see link to site*]) builds upon a growing body of critical research on the proliferating use of bibliometrics as a means to evaluate academic research, but brings to it a specifically Foucauldian,... more
The paper (Foucault Studies, 25 [see link to site*]) builds upon a growing body of critical research on the proliferating use of bibliometrics as a means to evaluate academic research, but brings to it a specifically Foucauldian, genealogical approach. The paper has three parts. Part 1 situates bibliometrics as a new technology of neoliberal, biopolitical governmentality, alongside the host of other 'metrics' (led by biometrics) that have emerged in the last two decades. Part 2 analyses bibliometrics' antecedents in prior notational practices in the Western heritage, highlighting how forms of noting have almost always had political valences, tied to projects either of control or, with Bayle and the philosophes, of subversion. Part 3 delineates the specific features of bibliometrics as a new form of notation, highlighting the latest forms of academic subjectivity bibliometrics suppose and increasingly are summoning into being.
* https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/article/view/5578/6221
* https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/article/view/5578/6221
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Revised draft of chapter for 2018 collection on philosophical self-cultivation. The chapter follows the structure of Hadot's book on Seneca, examining in turn: firstly, her account of what she terms the "paraenetic" dimension to Seneca's... more
Revised draft of chapter for 2018 collection on philosophical self-cultivation. The chapter follows the structure of Hadot's book on Seneca, examining in turn: firstly, her account of what she terms the "paraenetic" dimension to Seneca's self-conception as a philosophical "spiritual director"; secondly, her account of the antecedents of this philosophical persona and practice in preclassical and classical culture; and then thirdly her remarkable account of the diagnostic and prescriptive details of Seneca's spiritual direction, including in the Letters to Lucilius.
Review essay on Juliusz Domanski's untranslated but important text, La Philosophie, Théorie oui manière de Vivre? The essay hopes to make available to English-language readers, at second hand, Domanski's analyses of the metaphilosophical... more
Review essay on Juliusz Domanski's untranslated but important text, La Philosophie, Théorie oui manière de Vivre? The essay hopes to make available to English-language readers, at second hand, Domanski's analyses of the metaphilosophical texts of the classical authors (1), the early Church fathers (2), the scholastics, who mostly subordinate philosophy, alongside the liberal arts, to higher studies (3), the counter-strains of medieval metaphilosophy (mediaeval-monastic and 'Averroist') which keep alive the ancient 'practicist' sense of the goal of philosophy (4), then the renaissance humanists led by Petrarch and Erasmus, who reanimate the classical sense of philosophia (5). Particularly the work of (3), (4) and (5) represent an important contribution to scholarship on philosophy as a way of life and its modern eclipse, given the focus in Hadot, Foucault, Sellars and others on the ancients. Concluding remarks (6) highlight the significance of the text and raise brief qualifications.
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Rafael Yglesias’s Fearless, adapted for film by Peter Weir, stages a striking ethical reflection on the nature of the best human life. Section 1 looks at the film’s portrayal of Max Klein, an ordinary man with a fear of flying who becomes... more
Rafael Yglesias’s Fearless, adapted for film by Peter Weir, stages a striking ethical reflection on the nature of the best human life. Section 1 looks at the film’s portrayal of Max Klein, an ordinary man with a fear of flying who becomes “fearless” after surviving a domestic airline crash. Max exhibits a profile of supererogatory virtues recalling those of the classical sage (honesty, lucidity, cosmic perspective, generosity), yet section 2 argues that Fearless as a whole presents a powerful criticism of such a “fearless” life. Echoing criticisms of the invulnerability of the sage in Michel de Montaigne and Martha Nussbaum, Fearless’s true 'hero' is its less ostentatious heroine: Max’s wife, Laura.
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Socrates Reborn? Philosophy, after the disciplines Review essay: Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle: Socrates Tenured: The Institutions of 21st-Century Philosophy (London, New York: Rowman & Littlefield 2016) to appear in Arena Journal,... more
Socrates Reborn? Philosophy, after the disciplines
Review essay: Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle: Socrates Tenured: The Institutions of 21st-Century Philosophy (London, New York: Rowman & Littlefield 2016)
to appear in Arena Journal, 2017 (in press)
Review essay: Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle: Socrates Tenured: The Institutions of 21st-Century Philosophy (London, New York: Rowman & Littlefield 2016)
to appear in Arena Journal, 2017 (in press)
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This paper looks closely at three untranslated papers Pierre Hadot wrote which directly address criticisms Nussbaum, Cooper, Williams et al have made (and which are examined in part 1) concerning the idea of philosophy as a way of life,... more
This paper looks closely at three untranslated papers Pierre Hadot wrote which directly address criticisms Nussbaum, Cooper, Williams et al have made (and which are examined in part 1) concerning the idea of philosophy as a way of life, including noncognitive exercises or technologies of self-formation. "La Philosophie Antique: Une Éthique ou une Pratique?'; 'Les Divisions des Parties de la Philosophie dans Antiquité', and 'Philosophie, Dialectique, Rhétorique dans L’Antiquité', we argue in the paper's second part, demonstrate that Hadot defended the inescapably vital role of philosophical argumentation in the ancient schools— while proposing that the ancient philosophers also recommended extracognitive 'spiritual exercises' to facilitate students’ living certain kinds of lives. Hadot indeed severally stresses, especially in 'Philosophie, Dialectique, Rhétorique', just how important practices of dialogue were throughout the classical period.
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This paper examines the seemingly unlikely rapport between the ‘Christian existentialist’, radically Protestant thinker, Søren Kierkegaard and French classicist, historian of philosophy, Pierre Hadot. The mediating figure between the two... more
This paper examines the seemingly unlikely rapport between the ‘Christian existentialist’, radically Protestant thinker, Søren Kierkegaard and French classicist, historian of philosophy, Pierre Hadot. The mediating figure between the two authors (cf. Irina 2012), is Socrates and his famous irony. In order to appreciate Kierkegaard’s rapport with Hadot, we first of all consider Hadot’s treatment of the enigmatic ‘old wise man’ central to Kierkegaard’s authorship. (Part 1) We set up Hadot’s Socrates, mediated by his reading of Kierkegaard's, against the more anerotic portrait readers can find in John M. Cooper’s recent work on philosophy as a way of life. Part II of the essay turns to Hadot’s own work. It argues that the shape of Hadot’s ‘authorship’, including his understated classical
style, can be understood by way of Kierkegaard’s notion of indirect communication, a point he avows. Our concluding remarks, in the spirit of Kierkegaard, pinpoint the fundamental difference between the two thinkers--another small mirror of that larger divide perhaps only irony can bridge, Athens and Jerusalem,
style, can be understood by way of Kierkegaard’s notion of indirect communication, a point he avows. Our concluding remarks, in the spirit of Kierkegaard, pinpoint the fundamental difference between the two thinkers--another small mirror of that larger divide perhaps only irony can bridge, Athens and Jerusalem,
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This paper, part of a special edition of Sophia on Ann Murphy's groundbreakling work on violent metaphors in continental thought. offers a critical response to the claims of Sivin and Lloyd (2002) then Mattice (2014) to the effect that... more
This paper, part of a special edition of Sophia on Ann Murphy's groundbreakling work on violent metaphors in continental thought. offers a critical response to the claims of Sivin and Lloyd (2002) then Mattice (2014) to the effect that classical Greek philosophy was characterised by a preponderance of violent or polemical metaphors. I argue that the medical metaphor was more prominent, and that it was sophists like Thrasymachus, Callicles and Protagoras (as depicted at least by Plato) who tendentially equated discourse with war.
Research Interests: Metaphilosophy, Comparative Philosophy, Martha Nussbaum, Philosophy as a way of life, Pierre Hadot, and Narratology Literariness Literary Linguistics Stylistics and Pedagogy Critical Discourse Analysis Gender and Writing Literary Translation Studies Lingusitics and Philosophy Metaphor Cognition Pragmatics Text Linguistics Corpus Stylistics
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Paper [draft form] for OUP 2016 collection edited by Alberto Vanzo et al, defending the very idea that ancient philosophy can be read according to the rubric of 'philosophy as a way of life' most famously associated with Pierre Hadot's... more
Paper [draft form] for OUP 2016 collection edited by Alberto Vanzo et al, defending the very idea that ancient philosophy can be read according to the rubric of 'philosophy as a way of life' most famously associated with Pierre Hadot's work. The four critiques of this metaphilosophical and philological rubric the chapter considers are these. Firstly, ancient philosophy as 'philosophy' just did not or could not have involved anything like the ‘spiritual practices’, ‘technologies of the self’, or 'technai of living' that the Hadots, Foucault, and Sellars ostensibly describe for us in their work on the ancient philosophers, aiming at curing subjects’ unnecessary desires or bettering their lives. (2) Secondly (and as such), any such metaphilosophical sense of putative ‘philosophy’ unacceptably downplays the defining role of ‘hard intellectual analysis’, ‘serious philosophical reasoning’ or ‘rigorous argument’ , collapsing ‘philosophy’ into religion, or mysticism, or psychology, or psychotherapy, or ‘chicken soup for the soul’. (3) Thirdly, Hadot et al’s claims that ancient philosophy was not restricted to the business of theory-construction, but embraced ‘a much broader range of activities aimed at securing wisdom and happiness by a variety of means including but not restricted to rational inquiry’ are accordingly false as historical claims about ancient philosophy and philosophers. And (4) fourthly, to the extent that we must (despite (3)) admit that some ancient thinkers did unmistakably engage in or recommend extra-cognitive forms of transformative practice, these thinkers were not true or important philosophers; or else they belonged to late antiquity, when philosophy in its true, definitively rational-theoretical forms had gone into decline, giving way to the age of faith. The key text critically considered in detail, as exemplifying these kinds of criticisms, is John M. Cooper's Pursuits of Wisdom.
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This paper (Journal Early Modern Studies, in press, Oct. 2015) examines the apology for the life of the mind Francis Bacon gives in Book I of his 1605 text The Advancement of Learning. Like recent work on Bacon led by the ground-breaking... more
This paper (Journal Early Modern Studies, in press, Oct. 2015) examines the apology for the life of the mind Francis Bacon gives in Book I of his 1605 text The Advancement of Learning. Like recent work on Bacon led by the ground-breaking studies of Corneanu, Harrison and Gaukroger, I argue that Bacon’s conception and defence of intellectual inquiry in this extraordinary text is framed by reference to the classical model, which had conceived and justified philosophising as a way of life or means to the care of the inquirer’s soul or psyche. In particular, Bacon’s proximities and debts to the Platonic Apology and Cicero’s defence of intellectual pursuits in martial Rome are stressed. We note also the acuity and eloquence of Bacon’s descriptions of the intellectual virtues and their advertised contributions to the theologically and civically virtuous life.
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Review/survey of date of the anglophone-only literature on philosophy as a way of life, with accompanying bibliiography featuring hyperlinks to all entries (293 as of Mar 1, '23), compiled for translation (into Chinese). Contents 1.... more
Review/survey of date of the anglophone-only literature on philosophy as a way of life, with accompanying bibliiography featuring hyperlinks to all entries (293 as of Mar 1, '23), compiled for translation (into Chinese).
Contents
1. On Hadot and the idea of philosophy as a way of life
- On Hadot’s life and conception of PWL
- On PWL, the place of theory/discourse, and the spiritual exercises
- On John M. Cooper and PWL
- On Michel Foucault, Hadot, and Care of the Self
2. PWL as history of Western philosophy, ideas, and religion
- Applications of PWL to Western philosophers and philosophical ideas and movements
- Applications of PWL to Abrahamic Monotheisms
3. Cross cultural, nonWestern and comparative philosophies
- PWL and Buddhist texts and figures
- PWL, Confucianism, and other nonWestern traditions
4. Contemporary applications of PWL in philosophy, pedagogy, and the wider world
- Spiritual exercises today
- PWL & pedagogy
- PWL, contemporary politics and social movements
- PWL, ecology, and contemporary crisis
- PWL, contemporary theology and pastoral care
- PWL and contemporary academic philosophy, philosophy practice
- PWL & management
- PWL, medical, psychotherapeutic, counselling, and social work practice
Author's attempt to compile, with links, a comprehensive list of academic publications on philosophy as a way of life, to assist researchers in the field. Given that there are over 240 entries, there are bound to be omissions. Note also that many entries could be included under more than one heading, and that the headings and subheadings chosen are also contestable and heuristic. For omissions or corrections, please contact me on msharpe@deakin.edu.au, so I can correct these as soon as possible (probably monthly.
Contents
1. On Hadot and the idea of philosophy as a way of life
- On Hadot’s life and conception of PWL
- On PWL, the place of theory/discourse, and the spiritual exercises
- On John M. Cooper and PWL
- On Michel Foucault, Hadot, and Care of the Self
2. PWL as history of Western philosophy, ideas, and religion
- Applications of PWL to Western philosophers and philosophical ideas and movements
- Applications of PWL to Abrahamic Monotheisms
3. Cross cultural, nonWestern and comparative philosophies
- PWL and Buddhist texts and figures
- PWL, Confucianism, and other nonWestern traditions
4. Contemporary applications of PWL in philosophy, pedagogy, and the wider world
- Spiritual exercises today
- PWL & pedagogy
- PWL, contemporary politics and social movements
- PWL, ecology, and contemporary crisis
- PWL, contemporary theology and pastoral care
- PWL and contemporary academic philosophy, philosophy practice
- PWL & management
- PWL, medical, psychotherapeutic, counselling, and social work practice
Author's attempt to compile, with links, a comprehensive list of academic publications on philosophy as a way of life, to assist researchers in the field. Given that there are over 240 entries, there are bound to be omissions. Note also that many entries could be included under more than one heading, and that the headings and subheadings chosen are also contestable and heuristic. For omissions or corrections, please contact me on msharpe@deakin.edu.au, so I can correct these as soon as possible (probably monthly.
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[Draft only of text, revised for upcoming publication] The new Albert Camus collection, Speaking Out: Lectures and Speeches, 1937-1958, builds on the collections, Camus at Combat, 1944-47 (published 2007) and Algerian Chronicles... more
[Draft only of text, revised for upcoming publication] The new Albert Camus collection, Speaking Out: Lectures and Speeches, 1937-1958, builds on the collections, Camus at Combat, 1944-47 (published 2007) and Algerian Chronicles (published 2014), in giving English-language readers greater access to Camus as un homme politique. The collection includes some thirty-four public speeches and letters Camus wrote between 1945, with the end of the struggle against Hitlerism, and two years before his death in January 1960. The sequence is also “prefaced” by the 1937 speech that the young author, still a member of the Parti communiste Algérien delivered on “The New Mediterranean Culture” in Algiers. Of the lectures and speeches included, unless I am mistaken, less than ten, including “Are We Pessimists?”, “Bread and Freedom”, “On the Future of Tragedy”, as well as Camus’ 1957 lecture at Upsala (here entitled “The Artist and his Age”), will be known to Camus’ anglophone readers from the 1962 collection, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, published in the wake of the author’s death, Camus’ Lyrical and Critical Essays (published 1968) and Algerian Chronicles. This leaves over twenty hitherto-untranslated texts in Speaking Out, including significant political-philosophic statements such as Camus’ “The Crisis of Man” (1946), “Time of the Murderers” (1949), and “The Future of European Civilization” (1955). There is thus great interest and importance in this new volume of translations, for ongoing debates surrounding not only Camus himself, but the history of the political Left in the 20th century.
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In this paper*, I argue that Albert Camus ought to be numbered as one of the few thinkers of the last century who, whilst not advocating for a wholesale contemplative withdrawal impossible in later modernity, sought to preserve a sense of... more
In this paper*, I argue that Albert Camus ought to be numbered as one of the few thinkers of the last century who, whilst not advocating for a wholesale contemplative withdrawal impossible in later modernity, sought to preserve a sense of the merits and necessity of otium or scholia in the good life and society. Part 1 of the paper, "Solitaire", examines Camus' encounters with, and sympathetic responses to, different historical avatars of the vita contemplativa. What is focal here, firstly, is Camus' ongoing engagements with classical Greek thought and culture as a counterbalance to modern, post-Hegelian historicisms. Secondly, we examine the analysis of Camus' conception of "the life of the artist" in The Myth of Sisyphus, as such a modern form of the vita contemplativa which responds to the absence of the theological-metaphysical presuppositions of earlier forms of this possibility. Part 2, "Solidaire", then turns to Camus' mature, postwar philosophy of artistic creation in The Rebel and "Creating Dangerously", his Nobel Prize address, in light of Sartre et al's Marxissant criticisms of his work. We argue that it is in these comparatively-under-considered but vital Camusian texts, we find Camus' sustained, mature reflection on the limits, place and need for contemplative modes of activity, carried out in terms of his symmetrical criticisms of artistic formalism and realism. Concluding remarks situate Camus' defence of a "right to solitude" in any good society in the lineage of the ancient model of the mixed life or vita mixta.
*[[Author's copy, preprint, prefinal changes--do not cite]
*[[Author's copy, preprint, prefinal changes--do not cite]
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This paper, JCS 2019 (published Nov-Dec 2020) examines the relationship between philosophy and evil, inspired by Camus' questioning in The Rebel (1951), and Plato's troubling consideration in the Republic (491d): 'Do not the most gifted... more
This paper, JCS 2019 (published Nov-Dec 2020) examines the relationship between philosophy and evil, inspired by Camus' questioning in The Rebel (1951), and Plato's troubling consideration in the Republic (491d): 'Do not the most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become preeminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority …?" Part 1 generates a working definition of evil, through dialectical engagement with the literature on the philosophy of evil. Evil is defined as "actions, however motivated, which intentionally, with knowledge and foresight, set out to cripplingly harm or destroy one or more other moral agents, physically, psychologically and/or existentially, for no publicly defensible reason," where the last clause is both new and (I suggest) important. Part 2 looks at some examples where leading philosophers have advocated for such actions, on the basis of philosophical principles, and reflects on what kinds of philosophical premises must be accepted, and what philosophical resources ignored or attacked, for this to become possible. These are the provisional conclusions of this inquiry, recognising that the subject is dark, and one's own limitations always apparent:
1. Evil involves the knowing desire to cause crippling life-, meaning-, or world-destroying harm to (an)other morally salient being(s), for no publically justifiable reason(s);
2. Not all philosophy “is” evil, or forms or justifies evil beliefs, motivations, or actions (thankfully, manifestly, and of course!);
3. Philosophy’s training of people to challenge their own and others’ beliefs, as well as the immoderate beliefs at play in strong passions (including hatred), can play a small but vital role in challenging the intellectual preconditions and rationalizations of forms of evil;
4. Some philosophies nevertheless have formed and rationalized evil-generative beliefs, motivations, and actions, including justifying the very worst historical evils, which makes a metaphilosophical reflection on this subject morally serious;
5. The only justifications evil agents can seek for their actions must be supramoral, calling into question ordinary beliefs, and as such they will tend to be “philosophy-like” or “pseudo-philosophical”, if not formally philosophical;
6. Evil-justifying beliefs such as those positing malign invisible conspiracies which must be combatted, like philosophical visions, posit hidden causes and principles shaping apparent actions and events which call into question standard opinions and perceptions, and to this extent also are pseudo-philosophical (but see 3);
7. We should be very careful about attempts to deny 4, including by suppressing reference to disturbing passages in renowned philosophers, lest this action inadvertently participates in one dimension of evil, the need to publically deny its existence or possibility;
8. The denial that any putative philosophy that propounds evil-generative beliefs or prescriptions can be “philosophical” is understandable, but insufficient;
9. Philosophy’s search for hidden causes, natures, structures and functions that explain reality as we ordinarily experience it, outside or “above” the “city” of most human life presents a vocational hazard that philosophers should guard against: that of looking down with scorn, contempt, or even hatred of non-philosophers;
10. looking down with scorn, contempt, or even hatred of non-philosophers is one possible evil-generative belief, or it can cross-pollinate other evil-generative beliefs appealing to other, non-philosophical morality-trumping reasons to scorn, hate, and thus potentially justify cripplingly harming others;
11. a metaphilosophy which does not address the relationship between philosophy and evil, as Plato did by including Callicles and Thrasymachus amongst Socrates’ interlocutors, will be decisively incomplete.
1. Evil involves the knowing desire to cause crippling life-, meaning-, or world-destroying harm to (an)other morally salient being(s), for no publically justifiable reason(s);
2. Not all philosophy “is” evil, or forms or justifies evil beliefs, motivations, or actions (thankfully, manifestly, and of course!);
3. Philosophy’s training of people to challenge their own and others’ beliefs, as well as the immoderate beliefs at play in strong passions (including hatred), can play a small but vital role in challenging the intellectual preconditions and rationalizations of forms of evil;
4. Some philosophies nevertheless have formed and rationalized evil-generative beliefs, motivations, and actions, including justifying the very worst historical evils, which makes a metaphilosophical reflection on this subject morally serious;
5. The only justifications evil agents can seek for their actions must be supramoral, calling into question ordinary beliefs, and as such they will tend to be “philosophy-like” or “pseudo-philosophical”, if not formally philosophical;
6. Evil-justifying beliefs such as those positing malign invisible conspiracies which must be combatted, like philosophical visions, posit hidden causes and principles shaping apparent actions and events which call into question standard opinions and perceptions, and to this extent also are pseudo-philosophical (but see 3);
7. We should be very careful about attempts to deny 4, including by suppressing reference to disturbing passages in renowned philosophers, lest this action inadvertently participates in one dimension of evil, the need to publically deny its existence or possibility;
8. The denial that any putative philosophy that propounds evil-generative beliefs or prescriptions can be “philosophical” is understandable, but insufficient;
9. Philosophy’s search for hidden causes, natures, structures and functions that explain reality as we ordinarily experience it, outside or “above” the “city” of most human life presents a vocational hazard that philosophers should guard against: that of looking down with scorn, contempt, or even hatred of non-philosophers;
10. looking down with scorn, contempt, or even hatred of non-philosophers is one possible evil-generative belief, or it can cross-pollinate other evil-generative beliefs appealing to other, non-philosophical morality-trumping reasons to scorn, hate, and thus potentially justify cripplingly harming others;
11. a metaphilosophy which does not address the relationship between philosophy and evil, as Plato did by including Callicles and Thrasymachus amongst Socrates’ interlocutors, will be decisively incomplete.
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[AAM version of accepted 2021 paper] Albert Camus repeatedly denied the label “existentialist”, and pointed to his formative experiences of natural beauty and his early introduction to classical Greek thought as determinative of his... more
[AAM version of accepted 2021 paper] Albert Camus repeatedly denied the label “existentialist”, and pointed to his formative experiences of natural beauty and his early introduction to classical Greek thought as determinative of his philosophy. Pierre Hadot, famous for his post-1970 work on philosophy as a way of life in classical antiquity, continued throughout his life to work on the history of Western conceptions of nature. In Le voile d’Isis, building on his lifelong researches, Hadot excavated a second strain of Western attitudes towards nature, alongside the instrumental or “Promethean” approach dominant in modernity: this is that of the contemplative Orphic perspective, closely tied in antiquity to philosophical regimens of spiritual exercises to transform philosophers’ ways of seeing. This paper will argue that Camus and Hadot should be read as two 20th century “Orphic” figures in this sense, in a way that at once singles them out against almost all other European contemporaries, as well as speaking to our ecological concerns today. Yet the only published comparative piece on the two thinkers to date misses this shared contemplative, Orphic core to their positions. This paper aims to redress this shortcoming in the reception of the two figures.
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Shortened version of lecture given at Pondicherry Central University, September 2020, to the Existentialism and Literature E-Lecture series. The paper first addresses Camus' criticisms of existentialism, which he reads as a form of... more
Shortened version of lecture given at Pondicherry Central University, September 2020, to the Existentialism and Literature E-Lecture series. The paper first addresses Camus' criticisms of existentialism, which he reads as a form of secularized Christianity, but without grace. Secondly, it makes the claim that, beyond the captivating drama of "absurd creation" in Myth of Sisyphus, there are at least three other, intersecting models for understanding literary and artistic creation in Camus' work. These culminate in the calling of 'witnessing' we see in the Nobel Prize Banquet Speech.
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Preprint of piece for Modern Stoicism/How to be a Stoic, appearing Jan 4, 2020, marking 60th anniversary of Camus' death. The paper examines Camus's debts to Stoic philosophy and metaphilosophy, beginning with his reading of Epictetus in... more
Preprint of piece for Modern Stoicism/How to be a Stoic, appearing Jan 4, 2020, marking 60th anniversary of Camus' death. The paper examines Camus's debts to Stoic philosophy and metaphilosophy, beginning with his reading of Epictetus in hospital in 1930 facing possible death due to Tuberculosis. It also traces Camus's independently-developed ideas proximate to Stoic claims, and how they draw upon his upbringing and experiences: "What we have aimed at here is to show how Camus, as well as a political thinker and actor, was also a philosopher in the ancient mould who conceived and tried to live an examined life profoundly close to, and influenced by, the model of the ancient Stoics: one characterised by inner discipline, attention to the present moment, openness to natural beauty, indifference towards externals, awareness of the limitations of human understanding and the inevitability of death, and a profound sense of sympathetic solidarity with others."
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Albert Camus' Hellenism is set up by him as a knowing challenge to 19th century German thought, led by Hegel's speculative idealism. Camus never takes the transcendental turn. His position centrally involves an appreciation of the... more
Albert Camus' Hellenism is set up by him as a knowing challenge to 19th century German thought, led by Hegel's speculative idealism. Camus never takes the transcendental turn. His position centrally involves an appreciation of the inhuman dimension of the natural world, which we respond to in the experience of beauty. Nature's transcendence of human purposes and categories places limits, for Camus, on claims to human power. In these ways, this chapter argues that he is in an interesting, divergent precursor to the kinds of claims made by Quentin Meillassoux in After Finitude. Camus wishes to synthesise a modern sense of the non-providential order of nature, consistent with the sciences, with a classical sense of nature's contemplative wonder, a distinct and striking position.*
*Preprint of chapter in Why Things Break? edited by Ann McCulloch and Ron Goodrich.
*Preprint of chapter in Why Things Break? edited by Ann McCulloch and Ron Goodrich.
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The chapter [preprint from Phenomenology and Forgiveness, ed. M. La Caze] has two main parts. Part One looks at Camus’s argument that totalitarian regimes universalize a sense of guilt in their populations, surveilling subjects and... more
The chapter [preprint from Phenomenology and Forgiveness, ed. M. La Caze] has two main parts. Part One looks at Camus’s argument that totalitarian regimes universalize a sense of guilt in their populations, surveilling subjects and removing all presumption of innocence, creating a "universe of trial" without possible reprieve. It then exposes Camus’s wider argument that the twentieth-century totalitarian notion of “objective guilt” secularizes the Augustinian solution to the problem of evil, by blaming it upon innate human sinfulness. Part Two turns to La Chute (The Fall). It examines how the monologue of Jean-Baptiste Clamence in this novella is shaped by a possibility that he glimpses but cannot accept. This is the possibility of a forgiveness that would also be the precondition for relations with others that escape the dialectics of master and slave, guilt and reprisals, and which is more positively staged in the short story “La Pierre Qui Pousse” (“The Growing Stone”) that closes L’Exil et le Royaume (Exile and the Kingdom) (Camus 1962, 159–212). In our Concluding Remarks, we draw out three features of Camus’s philosophy of forgiveness, as they emerge from Camus’s later texts, if only by a via negativa.
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In this chapter [draft only-for upcoming collection edited by Peter Francev, Maciej Kaluza et al with Brill, 2020] I explore the claim that Camus's philosophical persona, as philosopher-litterateur-politique, looks back to the philosophes... more
In this chapter [draft only-for upcoming collection edited by Peter Francev, Maciej Kaluza et al with Brill, 2020] I explore the claim that Camus's philosophical persona, as philosopher-litterateur-politique, looks back to the philosophes of the French enlightenment . This claim is explored especially in relation to Camus’ oft-maligned pensée de midi (Part 1) which I would propose is central to Camus's contribution to later modern political philosophy. The primary contribution of the chapter (Part II) is then to look through such a ‘Camusian’, neoclassical lens at an enigmatic, vital 18th century figure: the philosophe Denis Diderot, whom Jonathan Israel has recently situated as a figurehead of “the radical enlightenment”. However that may be, the paper shows how Diderot represents one modern figure Camus might have appealed to, in due measure, in his own search for antecedents to his “midday thought”, with its recourse to rebellion (as against revolution) as révélatrice of orienting values; its principled universalism and opposition to absolute forms of rule; its central appeal to the moral sentiments, principally including indignation at injustice; its accounts of human nature and natural limits; and its classical, cyclical sense of history. The wider stake here is the claim, which is contested, that neither Camus' urgent critique of modern political messianisms, nor his ardent philhellenism, should close our eyes to the distinctly modern dimensions of his singular work.
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This chapter for Adam Goldwyn and James Nikopoulos ed. *Brill's Companion to Classical Reception in International Modernism and the Avant Garde* looks at Camus' philhellenism, arguing that it is both what shapes his thought, and makes it... more
This chapter for Adam Goldwyn and James Nikopoulos ed. *Brill's Companion to Classical Reception in International Modernism and the Avant Garde* looks at Camus' philhellenism, arguing that it is both what shapes his thought, and makes it singular in the post-war French scene. In four parts, it looks at Camus' early "Greece of the flesh", rooted in his upbringing and education; Camus' critique of political messianisms or theologies, based in his appeal to classical mesure, and a moderate philosophical scepticism; Camus' "virtue ethics" and his critique of heroism, fidelity, and authenticity as ideals (as "secondary virtues") in particular; then Camus' cultivation of literature, "style," and philiosophical self-writing in the Carnets as a way of life.
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Albert Camus can be meaningfully read as an agent-focussed virtue ethicist, as David Sherman has suggested.* Yet moving beyond Sherman’s version of this claim, we show here how Camus accepts four definitive parameters of the classical... more
Albert Camus can be meaningfully read as an agent-focussed virtue ethicist, as David Sherman has suggested.* Yet moving beyond Sherman’s version of this claim, we show here how Camus accepts four definitive parameters of the classical authors’ conception of the virtues—the last of which in addition takes him beyond today’s recognised virtue ethics. Firstly, he understands the virtues as lasting, beneficent dispositions to think, feel, and act in certain ways. Secondly, he conceives the virtues as mastering the untethered passions: the sources of epistemic partiality and behavioural excess [démesure]. Thirdly Camus conceives of the virtues (led by his versions of the four cardinals: courage, mesure, justice and a directive “lucidity”) as necessary accomplishments if people are to live fulfilled lives. Finally, Camus appreciated that such self-mastery can only be achieved through an “ascesis” or “a difficult science of living”, and through the imitation of the kind of exemplars he holds up before us in his literary fiction.
*This is a non-formatted version of the paper that appears in Philosophy Today, (Volume 61:3, Summer 2017, pp. 679-708), online first, October 2017. Please refer to original published version.
*This is a non-formatted version of the paper that appears in Philosophy Today, (Volume 61:3, Summer 2017, pp. 679-708), online first, October 2017. Please refer to original published version.
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David Oelhoffen’s 2014 film Far From Men (Loin des Hommes) departs from the letter of Camus’ 1957 story, “The Guest/Host”. Yet it does remarkable cinematic justice to its spirit, and to the last, often maligned 'Algerian' Camus.... more
David Oelhoffen’s 2014 film Far From Men (Loin des Hommes) departs from the letter of Camus’ 1957 story, “The Guest/Host”. Yet it does remarkable cinematic justice to its spirit, and to the last, often maligned 'Algerian' Camus. Oelhoffen’s Daru and the Arab character Mohamed, it is suggested, represent embodiments of Camus’ idealised Algerian 'first men', in the vision Camus was developing in Le Premier Homme. Part 1 frames the film in light of Camus’ “The Guest/Host”. Part 2 frames Camus’ story in light of Camus’ agonised struggle to come to terms with the Algerian situation. Part 3 makes the case that Oelhoffen’s departures from Camus’ original story present in cinematic form Camus’ ideal of a post-colonial solidarity between peoples, predicated on the overcoming of all arche-ideological fantasies of untainted prelapsarian community.
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Contribution [draft form] for Thomas Nys (ed.) Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Evil. The paper looks at Camus' lifelong engagement with theodicy, from his Diplomes thesis on Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism, to La Chute/The... more
Contribution [draft form] for Thomas Nys (ed.) Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Evil. The paper looks at Camus' lifelong engagement with theodicy, from his Diplomes thesis on Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism, to La Chute/The Fall and the short story "Le Renégat'/'The Renegade". Part 1 addresses Camus' critiques of Augustine's solution to the problem of evil, notably dramatised in La Peste/The Plague. Part 2 addresses Camus' genealogy of the 'secularised theodicies' of the totalitarian regimes in L''Homme Révolté/The Rebel. Part 3 looks at Camus' account of the psychological bases of the perverted longing for domination evinced in these regimes in La Chute and Le Renégat.
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This paper argues that Albert Camus's 1947 novel La Peste and 1948 drama L'Etat de Siège, both allegories of totalitarian power using the figure of the plague (Part I), anticipate Foucault's celebrated genealogical analyses of modern... more
This paper argues that Albert Camus's 1947 novel La Peste and 1948 drama L'Etat de Siège, both allegories of totalitarian power using the figure of the plague (Part I), anticipate Foucault's celebrated genealogical analyses of modern power (Part II). Indeed, reading Foucault after Camus highlights a fact little-remarked in Discipline and Punish: namely, that the famous chapter on the 'Panopticon' begins by analysing the measures taken in early modern Vincennes following the advent of plague. Part III argues that, although Camus was an inspiration for the anti-Stalinism of the nouveaux philosophes, he does not accept their or like criticisms of the total bankruptcy of the modern cultural and political worlds as necessarily producing totalitarian crimes. Indeed, Part IV highlights how Camus defends modern, descriptive scientific rationality against its totalitarian distortions, alongside 'the power of passion, doubt, happiness, and imaginative invention'. These are positions, balancing cultural pessimism, which Part V contends suggest Camus's continuing poignancy and relevance in the period after post-structuralism (Camus, 1952: 301).
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Nobel Prize winning author Albert Camus situates his meditations in both the opening and closing essays in his 1937 collection Noces by referring to the classical Eleusinian mysteries centring around the myths of Dionysus and the... more
Nobel Prize winning author Albert Camus situates his meditations in both the opening and closing essays in his 1937 collection Noces by referring to the classical Eleusinian mysteries centring around the myths of Dionysus and the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. Noces’ closing piece ‘The Desert’ directly evokes the two levels of initiation involved in the classical Eleusinian cult in a way which prompts us to reframe the preceding essays beginning at Tipasa as akin to a single, initiatory trajectory. The kind of ‘love of life’ the opening ‘Nuptials at Tipasa’ had so marvellously celebrated, we are now informed, is not sufficient by itself. The entire round of these four essays, whose framing suggest four seasons (Spring in Tipasa, Summer at Algiers, then Autumn in Florence), seem intended by Camus to enact just what the title, Noces, suggests in the context of the mysteries: namely, that hieros gamos or sacred union of man with nature or the gods at the heart of the ancient cults, not excluding the nocturnal gods and with them, the realities of transience, suffering, and mortality.
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This paper [authors' preprint] argues that Gyorgy Lukács' postwar critique of the forms of irrationalism characterising reactionary and proto-fascist thinking in Destruction of Reason carries forward a critique of bourgeois philosophy... more
This paper [authors' preprint] argues that Gyorgy Lukács' postwar critique of the forms of irrationalism characterising reactionary and proto-fascist thinking in Destruction of Reason carries forward a critique of bourgeois philosophy looking back to Lukács' critique of "The Antinomies of Bourgeois Thought" in History and Class Consciousness. Part 1 examines Lukács' claims in History and Class Consciousness that Kantian philosophy and the oppositions it sets up-between theoretical and practical reason, science and morality, triumphant understanding and the unavailability of the totality and opacity of the "thing-in-itself"-reflect in the contemplative sphere the concrete contradictions of bourgeoiscapitalist society. Part 2 shows how Lukács' account of the genesis of modern philosophical "irrationalism" in Schelling directly situates this as arising out of the "problem of the irrational" reflected in the antinomies of Kantian critical philosophy, by positing an intellectual intuition putatively capable of transcending the limits of finite understanding and granting access (for an elite few) to an "abyssal" suprarational Ground of experience. In the concluding Part 3, we contend that, as Destruction of Reason tracks the devolution of philosophical irrationalism into far-Right ideology in the 20 th century, the 1933 essay "Grand Hotel Abyss" critiques the recurrent gesture of radical intellectuals to funnel their dissatisfaction at capitalist reification into exotic invocations of "spiritual crisis" which leave the political-economic dimensions of capitalist societies unexamined, because they lean on the same irrationalist premises established in Schelling's irrationalist response to the antinomies of bourgeois thought. In the contemporary situation, as the far Right reemerges, and academic social critique continues to draw on premises drawn from irrationalism, Lukács' position assumes new pertinence.
[Full text in published form at https://ojs.ifch.unicamp.br/index.php/teoriacritica/article/view/5207]
[Full text in published form at https://ojs.ifch.unicamp.br/index.php/teoriacritica/article/view/5207]
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Longer (c. 2000w) review, based on earlier article in The Conversation, on Wolin's book, Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology. Explores some of the main claims of this work of intellectual history, and offer some... more
Longer (c. 2000w) review, based on earlier article in The Conversation, on Wolin's book, Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology. Explores some of the main claims of this work of intellectual history, and offer some commentary on the text and the debates. Argues that Wolin's book should create real debate, given the significance of Heidegger in shaping 20th century European thought, and the contemporary political conjuncture.
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This paper [authors' copy, preprint, to appear in Socialism and Democracy], coauthored with Matthew King (Deakin University), excavates three lesser-known 20th century critical analyses of fascist ideology by leading thinkers that... more
This paper [authors' copy, preprint, to appear in Socialism and Democracy], coauthored with Matthew King (Deakin University), excavates three lesser-known 20th century critical analyses of fascist ideology by leading thinkers that contradict Adorno and Horkheimer's influential conception of fascism in Dialectic of Enlightenment, which anticipated and contributed to shaping subsequent post-structuralist theorizing. These analyses situate fascism as not too rationalist, but ideologically irrationalist; not as the culmination in extremis of a monologic modernity, but the attempt to fabricate alternative anti-liberal modernities; and not inevitable or normative in any way, but as one possible product of specific socioeconomic and political conditions. The first of these accounts (Part 1) is Herbert Marcuse's 1933 critique of what he terms the "heroic-folkish realism" of Nazi thought in figures such as Krieck, Köllreutter, van den Bruck, Schmitt, and others in "The Struggle Against Liberalism in the Totalitarian Theory of the State". With Gyorgy Lukács's 1952 The Destruction of Reason (Part 2), in contrast, we find both an analysis which traces fascist irrationalism back to a lineage of irrationalist thought hailing from the early 19th century, and a Marxist materialist account of the conditions of its emergence and popularisation. Finally, Bloch’s analysis in The Heritage of our Times of the defining features of fascist ideology’s attack on the “Ratio” (Part 3) is coupled to an analysis which goes beyond that of Lukács of the socioeconomic conditions, of the greatest potential present relevance, which explains why particular “non-synchronous” strata of populations (those who fear being left behind, having previously been relatively privileged) are susceptible to Far Right mobilization which passes.
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Draft of translator's introduction to Nietzsche, Philosopher of Reaction: Towards a Political Biography, a translation of a short text by the late Italian scholar, historian of ideas and philosopher, Domenico Losurdo which will appear... more
Draft of translator's introduction to Nietzsche, Philosopher of Reaction: Towards a Political Biography, a translation of a short text by the late Italian scholar, historian of ideas and philosopher, Domenico Losurdo which will appear later this year or early 2023 with Historical Materialism. Losurdo's work originally appeared in Italian in 1997 bearing the title Nietzsche: Per una biografia politica (Roma: Manifesto Libri, Orme, 1997). Five years later, in 2002, Losurdo would publish his far longer study, Nietzsche, il ribelle aristocratico: Biografia intellettuale e bilancio critic (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2002). Losurdo's great book on Nietzsche represents arguably the most significant challenge to regnant liberal, postmodernist, and feminist interpretations of the latter's work, by recourse to the methodologies of contextualising intellectual history and critical hermeneutics. Yet, despite the book's immense scholarship, weight of evidence, and intellectual significance, it would take nearly two decades for Nietzsche, il ribelle aristocratico to appear in English translation by Gregor Benton in the Historical Materialism series at Brill. Sadly, Losurdo himself would not live to see its appearance in print, passing away in June 2018. The reader of his shorter, earlier extended essay on the German philosopher of the Second Reich will however get a very clear picture of Losurdo’s larger interpretive orientation. The striking challenge his reading of Nietzsche represents to many better-known works published or translated in the Anglosphere over the last five decades is also trenchantly clear in the less than 100 pages of this work. The aim of making this work available to anglophones was to make Losurdo’s critical work, on this philosopher who continues to animate such different cohorts as academic left-liberals and far right activists, accessible to many more people, and facilitate more balanced debates surrounding everything Nietzsche thought, wrote, and has wrought. [Author's copy, do not cite]
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Longer version of ideas which have become a symposium paper to appear in Critical Research on Religion on Ernst Bloch and Franz Neumann, two thinkers of the Left, who--despite Bloch's utopianism--do not take the libertarian or anarchist... more
Longer version of ideas which have become a symposium paper to appear in Critical Research on Religion on Ernst Bloch and Franz Neumann, two thinkers of the Left, who--despite Bloch's utopianism--do not take the libertarian or anarchist turn but consider the question of what place law could have in better societies, less inclined to division, alienation and (as it seems) authoritarian collapse than those which have emerged out of the last four decades of neoliberal hegemony. The paper examines six points of comparison between Bloch and Neumann, focusing on the history, nature, possibilities and limitations of the rule(s) of law(s). These simultaneously represent points of constructive contrast to other strands of theorizing on the academic, post-Nietzschean/Heideggerian Left over the last decades. On the horizon of these comparisons (vi) is the subject of political hope--that optimism of the will that Gramsci famously said should accompany a pessimism of the intellect.
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[Author's draft*] This chapter first stages the experiment of a reader new to Nietzsche who reads the final sections of Beyond Good and Evil's opening five non-aphoristic sections. We propose that she would have no doubt that the... more
[Author's draft*] This chapter first stages the experiment of a reader new to Nietzsche who reads the final sections of Beyond Good and Evil's opening five non-aphoristic sections. We propose that she would have no doubt that the philosopher was a radically aristocratic rebel, looking to reinstate rank order, through all means necessary (including "hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in breeding and educating" (BGE 203)) against the decadent modern age whose egalitarianism had led to "the deterioration of the European race" (BGE 62 end). We then examine Kaufmann's reading of Nietzsche, attentive to his selective gentrifying omissions or misrepresentations of Nietzsche's ample political statements in BGE and other post-1883 texts. We then examine Nietzsche's opposition to "the democratic movement" which has inherited Christianity's egalitarian fostering of "failures" and "those who suffer from life as from a disease" (BGE 62),, clarifying that Nietzsche is a metapolitical thinker: where his "gentle" liberal and postmodern defenders would see his cultural foci as the license to pretend he did not harbor the epochal ambitions he repeats, for overcoming modern egalitarianism, and with it Judaeochristian morality, the opposite is closer to the truth. In his commentaries on everything from Wagner to the universal laws of the modern sciences (BGE 22), he never for long loses sight of their alleged expression of metapolitical attitudes to existence with intramundane political implications. Nietzsche, who lived through the culture war in Bismarck's Germany, was a culture warrior in a sense we still live with today, in figures from Jordan Peterson leading farther Right. [*Draft chapter for Matthew McManus, ed. Nietzsche and the Politics of Reaction: Essays on Liberalism, Socialism, and Aristocratic Radicalism]
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Diagramatic representation of the view of irrationalism and its relationship to Nazism in Lukacs' monumental Destruction of Reason (with a view to upcoming event of Feb. 2-4 with Adrian Johnson, Ishay Landa, Mariana Texeira and others),... more
Diagramatic representation of the view of irrationalism and its relationship to Nazism in Lukacs' monumental Destruction of Reason (with a view to upcoming event of Feb. 2-4 with Adrian Johnson, Ishay Landa, Mariana Texeira and others), showing how his account of the (d)evolution of this tradition is shaped by historical, economic, apologetic, German-national, intellectual/scientific factors). The production of ideas (and even more so their reception) are overdetermined by many factors for Lukacs (a Marxist, after all) in a way which forestalls criticisms that he "blames philosophy" for Nazism;. As the diagram inventories heuristically, these factors include the postwar crisis and widespread despair which made the demagogic popularization of irrationalist, vitalist and racialist elements possible by Hitler, Rosenberg et al as the basis of a mass movement. The horizontal arrow represent the general direction of sociopolitical overdetermination, the vertical arrow represents chronology, the downwards diagonal arrow pointing to 1933 needs no explanation.
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Author's draft of paper appearing on ABC online on the need to understand extreme right ideology, in order to prevent its further rise in Australia. Draws on the distinction between fascist "negations", ideology, and forms of mode and... more
Author's draft of paper appearing on ABC online on the need to understand extreme right ideology, in order to prevent its further rise in Australia. Draws on the distinction between fascist "negations", ideology, and forms of mode and organization to identify different features of extreme right politics, and the ways they can appeal to different target demographics: alienated young men, political conservatives, the religious, and the intelligentsia.
Research Interests:
Draft of 2000 word Kurt Anderson's Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, A Recent History, Anderson's attempt to understand what he terms business's "forty-year-winning streak" in shaping American political economy to levels of... more
Draft of 2000 word Kurt Anderson's Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, A Recent History, Anderson's attempt to understand what he terms business's "forty-year-winning streak" in shaping American political economy to levels of socioeconomic inequality unseen since the Great Depression and the "gilded age". Anderson traces this movement back to the "Powell Memo" of 1971 calling for a four-front struggle to counter the post-New Deal gains made by "the labor unions, civil rights groups, and the public interest law firms", spanning economic-financial, legal, cultural and political dimensions. The body of the work traces this struggle through the 70s (Part 2), 80s (Part 3), and after 1990 (Part 4), as well as compiling a formidable dossier of political-economic datapoints (at esp. “The Decade When Everything Changed and Our Present Was Created: 57 Data Points”, pp. 118-122; “Nobody but the Rich (and Nearly Rich) Got Richer: 27 Ways the Pie is Cut Differently Now”, at pp. 292-295).
Research Interests:
[Preprint copy only] The events of the last decades have seen neoliberalism, despite its boosters’ famous promises, spectacularly fail to deliver a peaceable, pluralistic ‘end of history’. Economic 'deregulation' has instead created the... more
[Preprint copy only] The events of the last decades have seen neoliberalism, despite its boosters’ famous promises, spectacularly fail to deliver a peaceable, pluralistic ‘end of history’. Economic 'deregulation' has instead created the conditions of social alienation, insecurity, and inequality which have paved the way instead since 2010 to today’s widespread political and cultural reaction, and the increasing willingness of voters globally to support authoritarian ethnonationalist candidates, even as they contest the basic legitimacy of constitutional, parliamentary modes of governance. This historical sequence, I argue, re-raises questions at the heart of the research program of the first generation of the Frankfurt School, before its rerouting into forms of cultural pessimism with The Dialectic of Enlightenment, and then the cultural, communicative, and recognitive turns. What is the recurrent historical connection between capitalism and forms of far-right politics, which much of post- and non-Frankfurt School critical theory is unable to robustly conceptualise, following the ascendancy of discourses on instrumental reason, the cultural industry, 'modernity', occidental metaphysics, and totalitarianism? Why did critical theory, even within the Frankfurt School, turn away from political economics, exactly preceding and then through much of the recent decades in which, as Wendy Brown and others have argued, neoliberalism set out expressly to destroy homo politicus, and replace this figure with homo economicus? Why has the touted liberation of the economy or of the rights to economic accumulation freed from public regulation, not produced wider forms of political liberation, but cradled forms of Caesarism and virulent cultural reaction? This paper [draft only = author's version of manuscript accepted for publication in 2021/22, to appear with revised title and responses to reviewers] addresses these questions by reexamining the Pollock-Neuman debate of the 1940s about the connection between capitalism and National Socialism. It argues that in form, bases, and content, Neumann's conception of 'totalitarian monopoly capitalism' to describe far right ethnonationalisms was both more accurate historically concerning Nazism, and more prescient subsequently, to understand today's rise of new forms of Bonapartism or authoritarian ethnonationalism.
Research Interests:
Preprint of extended review essay* of Domenico Losurdo;'s Friedrich Nietzsche: Aristocratic Rebel, translated by Gregory Benton (2019/20). Part 1 examines Losurdo's interpretation of Nietzsche as "the greatest reactionary among... more
Preprint of extended review essay* of Domenico Losurdo;'s Friedrich Nietzsche: Aristocratic Rebel, translated by Gregory Benton (2019/20). Part 1 examines Losurdo's interpretation of Nietzsche as "the greatest reactionary among philosophers, and the greatest philosopher among reactionaries." It details Losurdo's specific unifying and contextualising methodologies which re-place Nietzsche in his times and context, and read him as a coherent philosophical thinker, not inconsistent provocateur or conceptual artist, willing to think through to its roots what it would mean to overcome Judaeochristian morality. Part 2 looks at how Losurdo's reading of Nietzsche, and the distinctions he makes between Nietzsche' s different texts and developments, enables us to at once comprehend and challenge hegemonic liberal Nietzsche interpretations. By reading the whole of Nietzsche's corpus, and paying Socratic attention to the distinctions the German philosopher himself introduces, Losurdo shows the need to proceed carefully before asserting Nietzsche’s anti-Germanism (excluding Nietzsche 1 (of Birth of Tragedy), and in no way relevant to 20th century debates), his 'feminism' (contradicted by his hostility, especially in the later works, to women's movement, as well as his echoing standard misogynist tropes of the period) his anti-Statism (always qualified, never anti-military), his famous anti-Christianity (not in the early period, never politically unconditional), as well as his celebrated, putative, post-Kaufmanian “individualism” and an "aestheticism" tied to traditional understandings linking "otium et bellum" (leisure and war). Finally, Losurdo gives a discerning reading of Nietzsche's complex relationship with the people of the Torah who gave us both the masterly books of the Kings and the egalitarian "slave" morality of the prophets, presaging Jesus, Paul, and modern progressivist nihilism. Closing remarks show how, as well as reestablishing Nietzsche's continuing influence on the Far Right, reading Nietzsche with Losurdo can help students understand many of the core convictions of the latter: that the poor, unfortunate and weak, like violence and exploitation, will always be with us, so it is unnatural to support progressive political change (2.5-6, ch. 12); that herd animals profit from being ruled harshly, even by Napoleon-like Caesarist figures (BGE, 199; GS 40);; that educating the masses too much is unwise if one wants a well-ordered, hierarchical society (12.4); that concessions to welfare from below do not satisfy but will only stimulate further demands; that demands for [social] justice, rooted in pity or compassion, are fictions which always and only express envy and resentment against “the strong” (7.11; 8.1; 14.3; 21.1-4); that low voter turnout in representative elections should lead to the limiting of the franchise or suspension of the constitution (9.1); that social conflict and even war should sometimes be welcomed as a means to harden and make the way straight for the master[s] who can best advance society (later period, 11.5); and that rather than holding onto illusory “life-denying” ideals, one should have the honesty to confront these harder truths without apology or a guilt reflecting slavish values (10.5).
[*preprint only-accepted for publication with Critical Horizons, 20/21]
[*preprint only-accepted for publication with Critical Horizons, 20/21]
Research Interests:
1. Aims and caveats, fascism, far right [FR], and the specific “ideas” problem* 2. six good reasons why we have neglected fascist and FR ideas, and their attractions to some, and 10 better reasons why we shouldn’t 3. The two-way... more
1. Aims and caveats, fascism, far right [FR], and the specific “ideas” problem*
2. six good reasons why we have neglected fascist and FR ideas, and their attractions to some, and 10 better reasons why we shouldn’t
3. The two-way interchange between intellectuals and fascism (cui bono?)
4. Which ideas, which sciences, which intellectuals (can FR integrate)?
5. Intellectuals in the beginning (of fascism, like presently), and in its radicalization, not in its domestication.
6. Ten things we can learn.
* My aim is: not to give a complete, incontestable account of “fascism”; not to claim that today’s far right movements are the same as each other cross-nationally, or entirely the same as interwar fascism, in terms of their social, ideological, political features; not to give a complete, incontestable account of this “far right”, whose minimal or maximal features are all subject of scholarly dispute; not to give a complete account of FR’s causes, why it is happening now? In what follows, I am accepting Roger Griffin’ et als idea of a “fascist minimum” as involving “palingenetic ultra-nationalism” as a means to designate “far right” political agents, which I’ll also call “neo-fascist” and "authoritarian ethnonationalist", recognizing that there is great definitional disagreement. As will be clear, it is important also to note that in the US, France, Germany, these movements are in the “pre-” phase, having not attained power. I will claim that at this stage in any movement ideas are especially important and flluid, as party/ies/groups which want to overthrow an order they claim to be without legitimacy, since advocates don’t yet face the demands of actually governing, at the same time as they need to recruit new people by packaging ideas for different audiences. I take "intellectuals" here to name people, within and outside universities, whose efficacy comes in the production of texts and ideas to persuade others, and note that are also levels of intellectuality, from the Chans up to Alain de Benoist et al. Within the far right, there are in addition a spectrum of positions, from what are called “classical liberal” (and libertarian) ideas to open ethnonationalism, even Neonazism. However, even the attitudes expressed amongst the less intellectual strata reflect in baser and more brutal ways high-end ultranationalistic palingenetic and associated neofascist tropes.
See for example a blog post linked by Mike Cernovich of the “alt-lite”, that “the most effective way to get immense personal power is to exhibit the “dark triad” of personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy”. We can dispute whether this is "fascist", but it certainly, if acceded to, can push a person into that ideological space.
2. six good reasons why we have neglected fascist and FR ideas, and their attractions to some, and 10 better reasons why we shouldn’t
3. The two-way interchange between intellectuals and fascism (cui bono?)
4. Which ideas, which sciences, which intellectuals (can FR integrate)?
5. Intellectuals in the beginning (of fascism, like presently), and in its radicalization, not in its domestication.
6. Ten things we can learn.
* My aim is: not to give a complete, incontestable account of “fascism”; not to claim that today’s far right movements are the same as each other cross-nationally, or entirely the same as interwar fascism, in terms of their social, ideological, political features; not to give a complete, incontestable account of this “far right”, whose minimal or maximal features are all subject of scholarly dispute; not to give a complete account of FR’s causes, why it is happening now? In what follows, I am accepting Roger Griffin’ et als idea of a “fascist minimum” as involving “palingenetic ultra-nationalism” as a means to designate “far right” political agents, which I’ll also call “neo-fascist” and "authoritarian ethnonationalist", recognizing that there is great definitional disagreement. As will be clear, it is important also to note that in the US, France, Germany, these movements are in the “pre-” phase, having not attained power. I will claim that at this stage in any movement ideas are especially important and flluid, as party/ies/groups which want to overthrow an order they claim to be without legitimacy, since advocates don’t yet face the demands of actually governing, at the same time as they need to recruit new people by packaging ideas for different audiences. I take "intellectuals" here to name people, within and outside universities, whose efficacy comes in the production of texts and ideas to persuade others, and note that are also levels of intellectuality, from the Chans up to Alain de Benoist et al. Within the far right, there are in addition a spectrum of positions, from what are called “classical liberal” (and libertarian) ideas to open ethnonationalism, even Neonazism. However, even the attitudes expressed amongst the less intellectual strata reflect in baser and more brutal ways high-end ultranationalistic palingenetic and associated neofascist tropes.
See for example a blog post linked by Mike Cernovich of the “alt-lite”, that “the most effective way to get immense personal power is to exhibit the “dark triad” of personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy”. We can dispute whether this is "fascist", but it certainly, if acceded to, can push a person into that ideological space.
Research Interests:
A 2000 word review of Domenico Losurdo's Nietzsche, Aristocratic Rebel (Brill 2020, Haymarket 2021) to appear in Marx & Philosophy. The review examines Losurdo's key aims, claims, and methods, and situates the text in light of other... more
A 2000 word review of Domenico Losurdo's Nietzsche, Aristocratic Rebel (Brill 2020, Haymarket 2021) to appear in Marx & Philosophy. The review examines Losurdo's key aims, claims, and methods, and situates the text in light of other readings of Nietzsche, especially those hailing from Kaufman and post-structuralism.
Research Interests:
What is Socratic irony, or Derrida's conception of irony, if one could operate in the latter's oeuvre? This paper** critically revisits the issues of the philosophy and politics of deconstruction by revisiting his key claims in the... more
What is Socratic irony, or Derrida's conception of irony, if one could operate in the latter's oeuvre? This paper** critically revisits the issues of the philosophy and politics of deconstruction by revisiting his key claims in the foundational early piece, "Plato's Pharmacy" (in Part 1). It then argues two things (in Part 2). First, Derrida's "Pharmacy", appearances notwithstanding, is marked by a remarkable 'apoetic' failure to consistently remark the difference between Plato and his (multiple) masks, and as such to treat the Platonic dialogues as, precisely, mimetic dialogues, as against founding texts of an epochal 'platonism'. Second, drawing on Benardete, Zuckert, Rosen and others, I argue that this is because Derrida's text fails to remark the tension or differences between theoretical and political life, and the role it plays in shaping Plato's ways of writing. Derrida accordingly does not see that Socrates is a pharmakos to the men of Athens, before (and a long way) from his becoming the putative father of "platonism" or a "metaphysics of presence". It is Heidegger's "metapolitical", preSocratic conception of philosophy that guides Derrida's hand here, I conclude, and leads to these decisive shortcomings in Derrida's provocative and influential text.
[**preprint of amended, extended and retitled text to appear in 2021 with Rev. Pol., respecting GOA].
[**preprint of amended, extended and retitled text to appear in 2021 with Rev. Pol., respecting GOA].
Research Interests:
Presentation at November 2019 Deakin event on Eurasianism and the Globalization of the Far Right: There is good reason to consider the work and ideas of first generation Frankfurt School thinkers in the context of an examination of... more
Presentation at November 2019 Deakin event on Eurasianism and the Globalization of the Far Right:
There is good reason to consider the work and ideas of first generation Frankfurt School thinkers in the context of an examination of critical responses to the return of the “populist”, “neo” or “postfascist Right”. This is that their own theoretical developments from around 1930, and the larger research program of the School, was diverted by the ascendancy of Hitler and the Third Reich. Increasingly, these thinkers were drawn to inquire urgently about the economic, social and ideological preconditions for this rise, the popular and psychological bases of fascist support, and the nature and features of this form of reactionary political radicalism. A second reason for the particular interest of these thinkers in the present conjuncture is that the Frankfurt School was conceived on a socialist and materialist, post-Marxist program. One of the great paradoxes of the last decades of what is called the neoliberal era on the Left, or that of “globalism” in the Alt-right, is that it has seen the most marked increase in economic inequality globally, and as such a fantastic intensification of the power of an ever smaller group of economic elites (the fabled “1%”, etc.). Nevertheless, at the same time, politics has increasingly become preoccupied by exclusively “cultural” concerns: interminable cultural wars of ‘mutually assured outrage’ pitting forms of progressive, mostly urban-based identity movements (concerned with race, gender and sexuality) and ecological activists against neoliberal, neoconservative, and now openly antiliberal or ‘Alt-right’ forms of reaction, including what proponents call ‘white’ or ‘European’ ‘identitarian’ movements, appealing via compliant media (and now social media) notably to lower middle class urban audiences, as well as the typically more socially conservative rural vote.
Faced with the return of the Far Right, firstly in Europe throughout the 1990s, and increasingly robustly after 11 September 2001 and the 2007-2008 GFC, there seem good reasons to contest the ascendancy of any ‘culture only’ approach to understanding our political moment: a focus on language, discourse, signifiers, identities, representation, texts, to the exclusion of economic, political and social factors. Faced with today's increasingly dark conjuncture, there is a simple explanatory need that arises when we ask the why now? question concerning how Donald Trump could have made it near the White House, except to try to buy or sell it. Why also does pointing out Trump's real institutional and moral infamies only seem to animate him and his "base", when only fifty years ago Nixon by contrast felt obliged to leave the White House? So, again: why such a change, so quickly? Could it be only “cultural” in nature, without referring to the changed material conditions that face Americans, Australasians and Europeans, in which economic sovereignty has increasingly been stripped from governments through the internationalization of markets, the power of capital to simply “flee” (or “downgrade”) any nation that makes progressive social reforms is an open secret, unionization is at historic lows, relatively stable manufacturing jobs have been relocated en masse to lower-wage ‘developing’ countries, social and educational services have been privatized and hollowed out whilst their recipients have faced decades-long campaigns to present them as an unacceptable cost burden, wage share in national GDPs has declined (and the share of the middle classes in this share has declined), there has been a vast intergenerational wealth transfer away from the young, including in this country, at the same time as multiculturalism has advanced at historically rapid rates, in alliance with the new imperatives of economic globalization? Don't these new time demand interdisciplinary collaborative research programs, of the kind Horkheimer initially envisaged?
There is good reason to consider the work and ideas of first generation Frankfurt School thinkers in the context of an examination of critical responses to the return of the “populist”, “neo” or “postfascist Right”. This is that their own theoretical developments from around 1930, and the larger research program of the School, was diverted by the ascendancy of Hitler and the Third Reich. Increasingly, these thinkers were drawn to inquire urgently about the economic, social and ideological preconditions for this rise, the popular and psychological bases of fascist support, and the nature and features of this form of reactionary political radicalism. A second reason for the particular interest of these thinkers in the present conjuncture is that the Frankfurt School was conceived on a socialist and materialist, post-Marxist program. One of the great paradoxes of the last decades of what is called the neoliberal era on the Left, or that of “globalism” in the Alt-right, is that it has seen the most marked increase in economic inequality globally, and as such a fantastic intensification of the power of an ever smaller group of economic elites (the fabled “1%”, etc.). Nevertheless, at the same time, politics has increasingly become preoccupied by exclusively “cultural” concerns: interminable cultural wars of ‘mutually assured outrage’ pitting forms of progressive, mostly urban-based identity movements (concerned with race, gender and sexuality) and ecological activists against neoliberal, neoconservative, and now openly antiliberal or ‘Alt-right’ forms of reaction, including what proponents call ‘white’ or ‘European’ ‘identitarian’ movements, appealing via compliant media (and now social media) notably to lower middle class urban audiences, as well as the typically more socially conservative rural vote.
Faced with the return of the Far Right, firstly in Europe throughout the 1990s, and increasingly robustly after 11 September 2001 and the 2007-2008 GFC, there seem good reasons to contest the ascendancy of any ‘culture only’ approach to understanding our political moment: a focus on language, discourse, signifiers, identities, representation, texts, to the exclusion of economic, political and social factors. Faced with today's increasingly dark conjuncture, there is a simple explanatory need that arises when we ask the why now? question concerning how Donald Trump could have made it near the White House, except to try to buy or sell it. Why also does pointing out Trump's real institutional and moral infamies only seem to animate him and his "base", when only fifty years ago Nixon by contrast felt obliged to leave the White House? So, again: why such a change, so quickly? Could it be only “cultural” in nature, without referring to the changed material conditions that face Americans, Australasians and Europeans, in which economic sovereignty has increasingly been stripped from governments through the internationalization of markets, the power of capital to simply “flee” (or “downgrade”) any nation that makes progressive social reforms is an open secret, unionization is at historic lows, relatively stable manufacturing jobs have been relocated en masse to lower-wage ‘developing’ countries, social and educational services have been privatized and hollowed out whilst their recipients have faced decades-long campaigns to present them as an unacceptable cost burden, wage share in national GDPs has declined (and the share of the middle classes in this share has declined), there has been a vast intergenerational wealth transfer away from the young, including in this country, at the same time as multiculturalism has advanced at historically rapid rates, in alliance with the new imperatives of economic globalization? Don't these new time demand interdisciplinary collaborative research programs, of the kind Horkheimer initially envisaged?
Research Interests:
Reading (draft only of accepted paper) of Deleuze's Nietzsche and Philosophy, in the light of the generation of post-post-structuralist writings of Ishay Landa, Don Dombowsky, Ronald Beiner, William H.F. Altman and Geoffrey Waite, which... more
Reading (draft only of accepted paper) of Deleuze's Nietzsche and Philosophy, in the light of the generation of post-post-structuralist writings of Ishay Landa, Don Dombowsky, Ronald Beiner, William H.F. Altman and Geoffrey Waite, which take seriously Nietzsche as a political philosopher in the grand (post-Platonic) style, not an apolitical individualist. Given the increasing use of Nietzsche again to justify far right political prescriptions and programs, the essay analyses: how does Deleuze's landmark book address the issue of Nietzsche’s far right appropriations and the textual bases for these appropriations, from German through Italian, Romanian, Belgian, Russian, French, American and even Australian far right thinkers, historically and today? Therefore how, if at all, can Deleuze’s exuberant celebration of Nietzsche’s work be squared with any meaningfully post-enlightenment, Leftist position, beyond a quasi-libertarianism with few concrete institutional implications? Part 1 analyses what we call "four causes" operating in Deleuze, to avoid raising the political implications of Nietzsche's radical anti-egalitarianism; and Part 2 analyses how the fallacy of equivocation operates in Deleuze's reading of the eternal recurrence which enable him to at once invoke and not invoke the eugenic program of the 'new party of life' in Nietzsche's later work. Conclusions reflect on what a critical confrontation with Nietzsche might mean in the time of Trump et al, and the reemergence of authoritarian ethno-nationalism. We finish with Thomas Mann.
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Longer version of review of Adam Knowles' Heidegger's Fascist Affinities: A Politics of Silence, appearing in Marx & Philosophy, March-April 2020. The essay divides and examines Knowles' key claims concerning Heidegger as a thinker, and... more
Longer version of review of Adam Knowles' Heidegger's Fascist Affinities: A Politics of Silence, appearing in Marx & Philosophy, March-April 2020. The essay divides and examines Knowles' key claims concerning Heidegger as a thinker, and practitioner, of philosophical and political silence, as well as his assessments of the significance of the Black Notebooks for understanding Heidegger's legacy. We recount Knowles' genealogical claims situating Heidegger's valorisation of the wordless German peasantry within contemporary Volkisch and National Socialist thought, his reading of Heidegger's conceptions of silence as they develop from Sein und Zeit into his reading of silence as the "steresis" of speech in his 1930s lectures on Aristotle, and Knowles' arguments concerning Heidegger's metapolitical debts to the "Greeks". Closing critical remarks question aspects of Knowles' presentation, the place of Greek thought in his attempts to come to terms with Heidegger's politics and the politics of his silences, as well as the absence of a sustained consideration of traditions of philosophical esotericism in play in Heidegger's modes of "worded silence".
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This paper [preprint version, final text in Critical Horizons, 2020] has two central parts. In Part 1, we situate Dugin’s interpretation of Heidegger in relation to the better known, broadly left-liberal approaches to interpreting... more
This paper [preprint version, final text in Critical Horizons, 2020] has two central parts. In Part 1, we situate Dugin’s interpretation of Heidegger in relation to the better known, broadly left-liberal approaches to interpreting Heidegger’s thought, stressing Dugin’s unusual focus on the German thinker’s “middle” or Nazi-era texts, and showing how this periodizing optic affects Dugin’s culminating reading of Sein und Zeit and its key axiological notion of authenticity (Part 1). Part 2 examines Dugin’s appropriation of Heidegger’s radically pessimistic, trans-epochal critique of Western thought, centering around his striking reading of the esoteric notion of “the fourfold” or das Geviert. In this account, the essence of reality itself, the “crosshairs” of the fourfold, is provocatively depicted by Dugin as war, Polemos, Kampf, or Krieg, following the Heidegger of 1933-36. In a move which echoes Heidegger’s own post-1938 relativizations of all distinctions between Nazism, liberalism and socialism—as well as the Shoah and mechanized agriculture—we examine how the Russian thinker ends by obviating any distinctions between liberal or democratic and totalitarian regimes, war and peace, and genocide and consumerism. The entire Western legacy, from Plato to NATO (sic.), must be overcome in the “another beginning” destined for the new Russia, if it has the ears to hear. The concluding remarks consider the implications of our analysis in terms of the politics of Heidegger reception, on one hand, and Dugin’s reception, on the other.
*Critical Horizons, 2020 (in press).
*Critical Horizons, 2020 (in press).
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*In this presentation, drawing on the groundbreaking historical research of Julian Göpffarth, we look at Heidegger's uptake by leaders within the Alternative für Deutschland, PEGIDA, and European Identitarian movement as a directive... more
*In this presentation, drawing on the groundbreaking historical research of Julian Göpffarth, we look at Heidegger's uptake by leaders within the Alternative für Deutschland, PEGIDA, and European Identitarian movement as a directive "spiritual King" (Martin Sellner). This prompts metapolitical reflections on why Far Right groups recur to Heidegger, despite his known Nazism; and finally, an analysis of three senses of "metapolitics" (a terms Heidegger coined in the Black Notebooks) in his work which enable his use by not on the New Identitarian Right, but also his continuing authority within elements of the New Left; whether the NR takes Heidegger's total critique of the West to license an effort to "remake' it, stronger and purer this time; the NL uses the same narrative to vindicate a radical challenge or undoing of Western thought in the light of colonial-imperial crimes. Concluding remarks reflect on this unusual scenario.
*Presentation at After Liberalism event, Nov 20, 2019, Deakin ADI
*Presentation at After Liberalism event, Nov 20, 2019, Deakin ADI
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The turning point or (using Plato's term) periagoge between Strauss and Arendt, this chapter argues (from Burns & Connelly eds., 2010), lies firstly in their respective readings of 'Platonic political philosophy'. For both, Plato's... more
The turning point or (using Plato's term) periagoge between Strauss and Arendt, this chapter argues (from Burns & Connelly eds., 2010), lies firstly in their respective readings of 'Platonic political philosophy'. For both, Plato's philosophy is the decisive turning point in the history of Western philosophy, and the politics of philosophy. The issue, as we will examine, is that whereas for Strauss Plato lays down something like the timeless parameters of 'the political', for Arendt something much closer to a philosophical 'darkening of the polis' in the light of the higher Truth, is inaugurated by Plato. The different consequences of this divergence are manifold: it pushes Arendt towards her broadly Aristotelian praise for the political life over that of theory; whereas Strauss's thought is characterized by its Platonism, in the distinct way he and his students understand this term.
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Contribution to upcoming volume on the Fried-Faye exchange concerning Heidegger and politics (Confronting Heidegger, eds. G. Fried & R. Polt). The live stake in confronting Heidegger in the light of everything we know in 2019, it... more
Contribution to upcoming volume on the Fried-Faye exchange concerning Heidegger and politics (Confronting Heidegger, eds. G. Fried & R. Polt). The live stake in confronting Heidegger in the light of everything we know in 2019, it contends, principally includes how Heidegger's work should be conceived and taught to the next generations, given what this generation of the scholarly community, as against previous post-war generations, know of the complete works. It is primarily with that “futural” aim in view that the following critical considerations are tendered:
• the first, concerning claims that Heidegger, after resigning the Rectorship then after the war, can plausibly be thought of as an “anti-Nazi” thinker (Part II);
• the second, concerning the claims Heidegger’s mature thinking makes about the history of Western philosophy, and what the uncritical acceptance of this metanarrative serves to omit, distort, or prejudice students against (Part III);
• and the third, too briefly, on Heidegger’s persona as a philosopher, given the continuing anxieties academic philosophers face about our place in the “contest of the faculties”, and the democratisation and technicization of education (Part IV).
• the first, concerning claims that Heidegger, after resigning the Rectorship then after the war, can plausibly be thought of as an “anti-Nazi” thinker (Part II);
• the second, concerning the claims Heidegger’s mature thinking makes about the history of Western philosophy, and what the uncritical acceptance of this metanarrative serves to omit, distort, or prejudice students against (Part III);
• and the third, too briefly, on Heidegger’s persona as a philosopher, given the continuing anxieties academic philosophers face about our place in the “contest of the faculties”, and the democratisation and technicization of education (Part IV).
Research Interests:
An adequate critical understanding of Heidegger’s teaching and speeches in the period of 1933–1935 requires attention to how they resonate within at least five different Kämpfe the philosopher was engaged in, while remembering that at... more
An adequate critical understanding of Heidegger’s teaching and speeches in the period of 1933–1935 requires attention to how they resonate within at least five different Kämpfe the philosopher was engaged in, while remembering that at this time Heidegger chose to delineate "the essence of truth" as Kampf (Heidegger 2010, 72–73):
1. Within academic philosophy, a struggle against neo-Kantianism, vitalisms, Husserlian phenomenology and Christian theology; and in political theory, Otto Koellreutter, Carl Schmitt and other aspirant Nazi theorists [K1];
2. Within the university, a struggle of ontological philosophy to reclaim ascendancy, by claiming grounding priority, over the other ‘ontic’ disciplines of the social and natural sciences (by securing an imputed object domain, Beyng and its History, inaccessible to these sciences) [K2];
3. Within NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) elites, a struggle for his vision of National Socialism against other Nazi-aligned philosophers or ideologues (Ernst Kriek, Alfred Baeumler, Oswald Spengler, Hans Günther, Alfred Rosenberg, etc.) [K3];
4. Within the new regime, the struggle to reclaim spiritual leadership for the university itself, in light of the advent of mass, urbanised society and the growth of technical education [K4];
5. Within Europe, the struggle for the renewed self-assertion of the Germans as the ‘metaphysical people’ (Heidegger 2000, 41), with the ‘same “ethnicity [Stammesart]’ (Heidegger 2015, 43) and linguistic provenance, allegedly, as the archaic Greeks [K5].
In this critical theoretic lens, this paper looks at Heidegger's advanced seminars of 1934-35 on Hegel, situating them, and Heidegger's key thesis that "the State is the Being of the Volk", especially in relation to contemporary Nazi attempts to present "the people" as the "fountainhead" of the State (Neumann, 1942, 66) following the consolidation of the Gleichschaltung in 1933-34.
1. Within academic philosophy, a struggle against neo-Kantianism, vitalisms, Husserlian phenomenology and Christian theology; and in political theory, Otto Koellreutter, Carl Schmitt and other aspirant Nazi theorists [K1];
2. Within the university, a struggle of ontological philosophy to reclaim ascendancy, by claiming grounding priority, over the other ‘ontic’ disciplines of the social and natural sciences (by securing an imputed object domain, Beyng and its History, inaccessible to these sciences) [K2];
3. Within NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) elites, a struggle for his vision of National Socialism against other Nazi-aligned philosophers or ideologues (Ernst Kriek, Alfred Baeumler, Oswald Spengler, Hans Günther, Alfred Rosenberg, etc.) [K3];
4. Within the new regime, the struggle to reclaim spiritual leadership for the university itself, in light of the advent of mass, urbanised society and the growth of technical education [K4];
5. Within Europe, the struggle for the renewed self-assertion of the Germans as the ‘metaphysical people’ (Heidegger 2000, 41), with the ‘same “ethnicity [Stammesart]’ (Heidegger 2015, 43) and linguistic provenance, allegedly, as the archaic Greeks [K5].
In this critical theoretic lens, this paper looks at Heidegger's advanced seminars of 1934-35 on Hegel, situating them, and Heidegger's key thesis that "the State is the Being of the Volk", especially in relation to contemporary Nazi attempts to present "the people" as the "fountainhead" of the State (Neumann, 1942, 66) following the consolidation of the Gleichschaltung in 1933-34.
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This chapter (accepted form) introduces postmodern epistemology by focusing on Lyotard’s now- canonical “report on knowledge”, The Postmodern Condition. It does this since, although some of Lyotard's concerns and categories are unique to... more
This chapter (accepted form) introduces postmodern epistemology by focusing on Lyotard’s now- canonical “report on knowledge”, The Postmodern Condition. It does this since, although some of Lyotard's concerns and categories are unique to this vital text, his position stakes out the broader lineaments of an epistemological perspective shared by many “postmodernist” authors working in philosophy, the humanities, and the social sciences since the early 1980s . In section 1 , I examine the social and historical bases of Lyotard’s claims concerning “knowledge in highly advanced societies.” In section 2 , I turn to his claims about the alleged proliferation of “language games” in these societies. In section 3 , I look specifically at Lyotard’s “applied” claims concerning the “scientific language game,” undermining its claims to epistemic difference and superiority over “traditional” or “narrative” forms of knowledge. Section 4 then looks at the resulting epistemic relativism Lyotard defends in The Postmodern Condition : an “agonistics” (16) which assigns positive value to the “paralogical” disruption of existing forms of consensual knowledge, over traditional epistemic norms like truth, verisimilitude, simplicity, falsifiability, etc. (60– 67). In section 5 , I look at one instance of what a postmodern, paralogical “applied epistemology” looks like: the famous case of Pierre Rivière as analyzed by Michel Foucault in the early 1970s. Closing remarks inventory Left and Right criticisms of postmodernism as epistemology and worldview. As befits the collection*, the writing here aims to be legible by undergraduate students as well as established scholars.
* (accepted version of chapter in David Coady and James Chase (eds., Routledge Companion to Applied Epistemology [August 2018])
* (accepted version of chapter in David Coady and James Chase (eds., Routledge Companion to Applied Epistemology [August 2018])
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This article [preprint version only, see published version with Philosophy & Rhetoriic*) analyzes Heidegger’s rhetoric in his most famous political address, the Rektoratsrede, which he delivered at the University of Freiburg on 27 May... more
This article [preprint version only, see published version with Philosophy & Rhetoriic*) analyzes Heidegger’s rhetoric in his most famous political address, the Rektoratsrede, which he delivered at the University of Freiburg on 27 May 1933. After I set out the political and philosophical kairos of the Rektoratsrede by drawing on Heidegger’s contemporary lectures, letters, and Ponderings, in part 2 I use classical rhetorical resources and Heidegger’s philosophy of temporality in Sein und Zeit (1927) to analyze the arrangement of his speech. In part 3, I examine two key NationalSocialist terms in the speech’s climax. In part 4, I consider Heidegger’s elocutio—his artful use of charged figures of speech and thought in the Rektoratsrede—in more detail. Concluding remarks reflect on the value and limits of the analysis in the context of debates about Heidegger’s politics and its imbrication with his thought.
*http://muse.jhu.edu/article/696157
*http://muse.jhu.edu/article/696157
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Jacques Lacan and Leo Strauss are two of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the last century. Both are celebrated or reviled for their distinct modes of interpreting texts; both are accused by critics of themselves... more
Jacques Lacan and Leo Strauss are two of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the last century. Both are celebrated or reviled for their distinct modes of interpreting texts; both are accused by critics of themselves practicing 'esoteric' modes of speaking and writing. Both engaged with what Strauss called 'fundamental alternatives': poetry versus philosophy, philosophy versus revealed religion, comedy versus tragedy, the ancients versus the moderns, and Eros and the Law. Both knew the eccentric Alexandre Kojeve, and gave seminars on Plato's Symposium proposing a non-metaphysial reading of Platonism and Platonic Eros, in 1959-60, then 1960-61. Lacan even recommends in the early 1950s that his students read Strauss' Persecution and the Art of Writing, as an aid to understanding the formations of the unconscious. Yet hitherto. Jean-Claude Milner is the one author who has considered the proximities and differences between the two thinkers. These differences pivot around psychoanalysis' status as an eminently later modern endeavor, and Strauss' famous criticisms of modernity. This draft chapter, written for an upcoming volume on Leo Strauss in conversation with other thinkers (with SUNY, 2019/20, ed. J.Bernstein & J.Schiff), aspires to present a propaedeutic to any future comparative study of the two 20th century figures.
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This paper* stages an argument in five premises: 1. That the insight to which post-structuralist ethics responds—which is that there is an 'unmistakable particularity of concrete persons or social groups'—leads theorists who base their... more
This paper* stages an argument in five premises: 1. That the insight to which post-structuralist ethics responds—which is that there is an 'unmistakable particularity of concrete persons or social groups'—leads theorists who base their moral theory upon it into a problematic parallel to that charted by Kant in his analysis of the sublime. 2. That Kant's analysis of the sublime divides its experience into what I call two 'moments', the second of which involves a reflexive move which the post-structuralists are unwilling to sanction in the ontological and/or ethical realm, even if they are performatively committed to doing it. 3. That, drawing on the parallel established in 1, it could be argued that the same reflexive move as Kant describes in the second 'moment' of the sublime is also at the heart of our moral experience, wherein we are faced by the Otherness of concrete Others. This amounts to the argument that asking Others to follow an impersonal or 'dumb' law which fails to do justice to their noumenal Otherness is at the same time the only possible way to respect this Otherness. 4. (This premise seeks to provide a confirmation of 3) That what game theory shows us is that, at the limits of our ability to calculatively predict the conduct of other subjects, the only 'rational' thing to do is precisely to presume the pre-existence of impersonal social norms regulating our own conduct and that of others. 5. (The Conclusion) That, accordingly, to borrow a formulation from Slavoj Zizek, respect for the Other is always respect for their 'castration'—that is, respect for their capacity to follow norms that do not directly do justice to their concrete particularity (which is impossible) but which, in this very 'dumbness', let this Otherness indirectly show itself. In the conclusion, I reflect on what this argument does, and upon its limits—that is, what it does not.
* (2001)
* (2001)
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This (2009) paper examines the theoretical ideas of Friedrich von Hayek, arguably the key progenitor of the global economic orthodoxy of the past two decades. It assesses Hayek’s thought as he presents it: namely as a form of liberalism.... more
This (2009) paper examines the theoretical ideas of Friedrich von Hayek,
arguably the key progenitor of the global economic orthodoxy of the past two decades. It assesses Hayek’s thought as he presents it: namely as a form of liberalism. Section I argues that Hayek’s thought, if liberal, is hostile to participatory democracy. Section II then argues the more radical thesis that neoliberalism is also in truth an illiberal doctrine. Founded not in any social contract doctrine, but a form of constructivism, neoliberal thought at its base accepts the paradoxical
need to “discipline subjects for freedom”, given human beings' natural propensities to forms of 'inefficient' communal solidarity. The argument is framed by reference to Aristophanes’ great comedy, The Birds, whose off shore borderless utopia, which the hero flees from vexatious democracy to, ironically prefigures the dream of neoliberal social engineers and their supporters.
arguably the key progenitor of the global economic orthodoxy of the past two decades. It assesses Hayek’s thought as he presents it: namely as a form of liberalism. Section I argues that Hayek’s thought, if liberal, is hostile to participatory democracy. Section II then argues the more radical thesis that neoliberalism is also in truth an illiberal doctrine. Founded not in any social contract doctrine, but a form of constructivism, neoliberal thought at its base accepts the paradoxical
need to “discipline subjects for freedom”, given human beings' natural propensities to forms of 'inefficient' communal solidarity. The argument is framed by reference to Aristophanes’ great comedy, The Birds, whose off shore borderless utopia, which the hero flees from vexatious democracy to, ironically prefigures the dream of neoliberal social engineers and their supporters.
Research Interests: Neoliberalism and Hayek
This paper looks at Heidegger's political philosophy as articulated in classes and seminars in the decisive years 1933-35. It does this in light of Camus' famous wartime "Letters to a German Friend" and his mature critique of fascism.... more
This paper looks at Heidegger's political philosophy as articulated in classes and seminars in the decisive years 1933-35. It does this in light of Camus' famous wartime "Letters to a German Friend" and his mature critique of fascism. Part 1 looks at Camus' account of fascism as prioritising the values of nationalism and self-sacrifice, to the exclusion of all other classical and modern virtues. It uses this rubric to consider Heidegger's central notion in the years of the kairos that Germans needed to comport themselves decisively towards the Geschehen or "proper happening" of Germany's unique, salvific spiritual mission. Part 2 looks at Camus' account of fascism as a dynamic regime, founded in a nihilistic ontology of permanent struggle, which ceaselessly needs to create new enemies in order to vindicate its existence. It uses this rubric to consider Heidegger's 1933-34 remarks on the essence of Truth as 'Kampf', and the need of a Volk to struggle against external and inner enemies, "lest existence becomes apathetic". In conclusion, we reflect on some of the stakes of the paper, in terms of Camus and Heidegger reception.
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This piece aims to provide a synoptic introduction to Boer's claims in the five volumes of Marxism and Theology. Obviously, such an account must miss many important nuances across the host of critical readings Boer assembles, guided by... more
This piece aims to provide a synoptic introduction to Boer's claims in the five volumes of Marxism and Theology. Obviously, such an account must miss many important nuances across the host of critical readings Boer assembles, guided by his broadly Jamesonian manner of reading the texts with a view to their biblical and theological claims. Nevertheless, by aiming at a synoptic view of a truly compendious contribution to scholarship, it is hoped that the piece will provide assistance to readers, and encourage them to test their own intuitions and thoughts against the original texts. The final part of the article stands back from this ''standing back'': and asks questions concerning Boer's treatments of biblical criticism, with and/or against theology; and concerning the role of what might be called (even despite Boer's own protests) a kind of ''secularised'' Calvinism in Boer's work and its interest in a post-Marxian politics of grace. We live in a period where there has been growing talk of a 'return to religion.' 1 Often however, the phrase condenses strikingly different claims and phenomena: from the growth of forms of Pentecostalism in the global South, or the rise of militant forms of
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On prosperity and financialisation, two phenomena of later modern, financialised capitalism
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An attempt to chart the finite number of possibilities available to respond to the proposition that Heidegger was a National Socialist, and that this represented a philosophical, lasting commitment. The idea looks back to the idea of... more
An attempt to chart the finite number of possibilities available to respond to the proposition that Heidegger was a National Socialist, and that this represented a philosophical, lasting commitment. The idea looks back to the idea of topoi in the Roman rhetorical texts, wherein there are a limited number of forensic tropes available to the defense advocate. It also responds to reading the literature on the Heidegger question, in which all positions staged are found, either singly or in combination, amongst advocates of what Losurdo has called "the hermeneutics of [MH's] innocence".
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Summary diagram of Heidegger's political philosophy in three periods, trying to locate key "zones of decision" in his ongoing struggle, concerning the "da" and meaning of being, destiny, the volk, race, technology, Nietzsche, Germany,... more
Summary diagram of Heidegger's political philosophy in three periods, trying to locate key "zones of decision" in his ongoing struggle, concerning the "da" and meaning of being, destiny, the volk, race, technology, Nietzsche, Germany, then the Shoah. The three periods are, as far as I have been able to discern, 1933-36 (ontologicopolitical activism), 1936-1943, (metaphysicohistorical catastrophism), then post-43/45 (ontologico-world-historical exoneration). Aimed at students and people interested in the question of whether or how a "great thinker" becomes, and remains, a National Socialist across the full span of the latter's rise and ontic-political downfall.
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Part 1 introduces Sheehan’s 2015 polemic against Faye’s 2005 book, Heidegger, l’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie: Autour des séminaires inédits de 1933-1935. Part 2 introduces the problem with Sheehan’s call to dismiss the book... more
Part 1 introduces Sheehan’s 2015 polemic against Faye’s 2005 book, Heidegger, l’introduction du nazisme dans la philosophie: Autour des séminaires inédits de 1933-1935. Part 2 introduces the problem with Sheehan’s call to dismiss the book out of court: he simply does not consider the central seven out of nine of Faye’s chapters, those on Heidegger's National Socialist speeches, lectures, and subtitular seminars; of course, the main reason for Faye's works importance, given the state of the literature in 2005. Part 3 reveals four illustrative instances of what Sheehan’s criticism of Faye conceals, namely Faye’s disclosures concerning the most militant lectures and seminars published only after 1998. Part 4 more adequately reconstructs Faye’s itinerary, its strengths and arguable limitations, and shows how several of Sheehan’s particular charges against him are overwrought. Then, Part 5 addresses Sheehan’s 2016 reply to Pegny, Rastier, Fritsche et al, noting that it too fails to address the core claims of Faye’s book.
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Rumors surrounding the Hebraic-American classical philosopher Leo Strauss’ supposed influence on leading neoconservative politicians and commentators make reconsidering Leo Strauss’ thought and legacy a philosophical task of the first... more
Rumors surrounding the Hebraic-American classical philosopher Leo Strauss’ supposed influence on
leading neoconservative politicians and commentators make reconsidering Leo Strauss’ thought and legacy
a philosophical task of the first political importance today. A host of articles have appeared by students
and (more recently) books by Stephen Smith (2006), Heinrich Meier (2006) and Catherine and Michael
Zuckert (2006). This essay is proffered as a critical contribution, by a non-Straussian student, to this literature.
Its methodology and justification is to return to and reconsider Strauss’ earliest works, on the
‘political theology’ of Benedict de Spinoza. The paper argues two theses. The first is that the popular depiction
of Strauss as an esoteric Nietzschean hiding behind a ‘noble’ classical or theological veneer importantly
misses the mark. The second is that Strauss’ early work shows his proximity, via Jacobi, to the
Heideggerian disclosure of the groundless grounds of philosophical reason, given which one must extrarationally
choose reason over faith. One striking implication of this argument, in the contemporary political
climate, is to underscore the unlikely convergence between the philosophical sources of neoconservative
and the ‘post-structuralist’ thought associated with much of the intellectual left in France and the Anglophone
world. Yet in contrast to the widespread image of Strauss, I argue that the mature Strauss’ continuing
commitment to this decisionistic framework is in fact most clear is his ‘exoteric,’ public statements on religion
– i.e. it is not the ‘esoteric’ purloined letter Strauss’ critics seek out. The reason for Strauss’ continuing
public advocacy of the impossibility of reason’s disproving faith, I propose, highlights the primarily political
(versus philosophical) nature of this turn: in Strauss’ conservative acceptance of the political necessity of
religion for social order, framed in terms of a revised commitment to the ‘medieval’ (versus modern) enlightenment
of Maimonides and Farabi.
leading neoconservative politicians and commentators make reconsidering Leo Strauss’ thought and legacy
a philosophical task of the first political importance today. A host of articles have appeared by students
and (more recently) books by Stephen Smith (2006), Heinrich Meier (2006) and Catherine and Michael
Zuckert (2006). This essay is proffered as a critical contribution, by a non-Straussian student, to this literature.
Its methodology and justification is to return to and reconsider Strauss’ earliest works, on the
‘political theology’ of Benedict de Spinoza. The paper argues two theses. The first is that the popular depiction
of Strauss as an esoteric Nietzschean hiding behind a ‘noble’ classical or theological veneer importantly
misses the mark. The second is that Strauss’ early work shows his proximity, via Jacobi, to the
Heideggerian disclosure of the groundless grounds of philosophical reason, given which one must extrarationally
choose reason over faith. One striking implication of this argument, in the contemporary political
climate, is to underscore the unlikely convergence between the philosophical sources of neoconservative
and the ‘post-structuralist’ thought associated with much of the intellectual left in France and the Anglophone
world. Yet in contrast to the widespread image of Strauss, I argue that the mature Strauss’ continuing
commitment to this decisionistic framework is in fact most clear is his ‘exoteric,’ public statements on religion
– i.e. it is not the ‘esoteric’ purloined letter Strauss’ critics seek out. The reason for Strauss’ continuing
public advocacy of the impossibility of reason’s disproving faith, I propose, highlights the primarily political
(versus philosophical) nature of this turn: in Strauss’ conservative acceptance of the political necessity of
religion for social order, framed in terms of a revised commitment to the ‘medieval’ (versus modern) enlightenment
of Maimonides and Farabi.
Research Interests:
Lacan laments in *Seminar VII* the “little time” that his wider concerns allowed him to devote to comedy. Alenka Zupančič’s extraordinary *The Odd One In: On Comedy* shows the rich potential Lacan’s thought as a whole has as a means to... more
Lacan laments in *Seminar VII* the “little time” that his wider concerns allowed him to devote to comedy. Alenka Zupančič’s extraordinary *The Odd One In: On Comedy* shows the rich potential Lacan’s thought as a whole has as a means to theorise these phenomena in the dimensions of subjectivity, temporality, repetition and the drive. Here, focusing on Lacan’s (itself quite hilarious) analysis of Genet’s *Le Balcon* (and his suggestive comments on Aristophanes) in the vital *Seminar V*, we will draw out four particular claims Lacan makes concerning comedy, as a literary and theatrical genre, and the vicissitudes of human desire. Taken together, we will hope to show, they represent a typically remarkable contribution to the theory of comedy, its motives and nature, as “linked in the closest possible fashion to what can be called the connection between the self and language,” and hence to the Freudian field as reconfigured by Lacan.
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In what follows, my guiding question is: what is it about Strauss’ theoretical position that can have led to it being raised, repeatedly, in connection with the most controversial and secretive American ‘regime’ since Nixon’s? In Part 1,... more
In what follows, my guiding question is: what is it about Strauss’
theoretical position that can have led to it being raised, repeatedly, in connection with the most controversial and secretive American ‘regime’ since Nixon’s? In Part 1, I present a brief, working exposition of Strauss’ political philosophy, culminating in Strauss’ maverick reading of Plato’s Republic that Irving Kristol, amongst others, cites as decisive in his political education.14 In Part 2, I pose a critical theoretical analysis of Strauss’ philosophy, read in the ‘unnatural’ retrospective light of today’s neo-conservative ascendancy. Here I will argue that what is arguably most persuasive in Strauss’ thought — his sense of the difference between philosophyand politics, the latter having always to ‘vulgarize’ the elevated
purity of the former — also means that he could hardly be
surprised at the significant, openly illiberal ‘closing of the
Straussian mind’ evidenced in the domestic policies and political practice of George W. Bush.
theoretical position that can have led to it being raised, repeatedly, in connection with the most controversial and secretive American ‘regime’ since Nixon’s? In Part 1, I present a brief, working exposition of Strauss’ political philosophy, culminating in Strauss’ maverick reading of Plato’s Republic that Irving Kristol, amongst others, cites as decisive in his political education.14 In Part 2, I pose a critical theoretical analysis of Strauss’ philosophy, read in the ‘unnatural’ retrospective light of today’s neo-conservative ascendancy. Here I will argue that what is arguably most persuasive in Strauss’ thought — his sense of the difference between philosophyand politics, the latter having always to ‘vulgarize’ the elevated
purity of the former — also means that he could hardly be
surprised at the significant, openly illiberal ‘closing of the
Straussian mind’ evidenced in the domestic policies and political practice of George W. Bush.
Research Interests:
Four different areas of concern can be singled out within ‘ancient aesthetics’, if we take the latter term to describe ancient authors’ attempts to theoretically comprehend beauty and the arts: i. The attempt to understand beauty (to... more
Four different areas of concern can be singled out within ‘ancient aesthetics’, if we take the latter term to describe ancient authors’ attempts to theoretically comprehend beauty and the arts:
i. The attempt to understand beauty (to kalon) as an ‘objective’ quality in the world that characterises some objects, people, and nature herself;
ii. The attempt to understand what we would call the ‘subjective’ dimension involved in human responsiveness to beauty and the arts: the way that beautiful things please or move us, and the way that their effect upon us can be edifying, purifying us from negative beliefs or emotions (katharsis), or morally elevating us to be better citizens or human beings (in the context of paideia);
iii. Attempts to understand how artistic objects, from poems to sculptures, are produced: whether through madness or inspiration, or by following codifiable technical norms, and with what ends;
iv. falling between (i.) and (ii.), attempts to theorise the ethical and political significance of the arts, given their capacities to powerfully affect and transform individuals or groups.
The chapter traces these four concerns as they come in and out of focus in the prephilosophical Greeks, Pythagoras and Plato, Aristotle, and then the Hellenistics, led by the Stoics.
i. The attempt to understand beauty (to kalon) as an ‘objective’ quality in the world that characterises some objects, people, and nature herself;
ii. The attempt to understand what we would call the ‘subjective’ dimension involved in human responsiveness to beauty and the arts: the way that beautiful things please or move us, and the way that their effect upon us can be edifying, purifying us from negative beliefs or emotions (katharsis), or morally elevating us to be better citizens or human beings (in the context of paideia);
iii. Attempts to understand how artistic objects, from poems to sculptures, are produced: whether through madness or inspiration, or by following codifiable technical norms, and with what ends;
iv. falling between (i.) and (ii.), attempts to theorise the ethical and political significance of the arts, given their capacities to powerfully affect and transform individuals or groups.
The chapter traces these four concerns as they come in and out of focus in the prephilosophical Greeks, Pythagoras and Plato, Aristotle, and then the Hellenistics, led by the Stoics.
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This paper responds to Donna Zuckerberg's claims in *Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age* (Harvard, 2018) that the embrace of Stoicism by some in the Alt-Right represents more than a wholesale exercise in... more
This paper responds to Donna Zuckerberg's claims in *Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age* (Harvard, 2018) that the embrace of Stoicism by some in the Alt-Right represents more than a wholesale exercise in polemical cherry=picking. To contest Zuckerberg’s critical claims on this score, the paper begins 'in the heart of darkness'. Drawing on Johann Chapoutot's invaluable work, Part 1 examines why all of the the many Nazi classicists--putative forebears of today's Alt-classicists--abhorred Stoicism as a 'Semitic' and cosmopolitan teaching (Part 1). This exercise in intellectual history allows us to pinpoint (in Part 2) what the attempt to forge an ‘Alt-Stoicism’ today must fudge, deny or ignore: namely, Stoicism’s principled universalism, blind to race or creed, as well as its egalitarian assessment of the capacities of women. Part 3 reflects on the complex question of the relationship between Stoicism and politics, querying whether Stoicism prescribes any single political stance today., and cautioning against any too-simple attempts to evaluate ancient texts in (post)modern terms We argue nevertheless that the Stoic philosophy proscribes all forms of nativism, misogyny or white supremacism: 'Alt-Stoicism' is a contradictio in adjecto .
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In this paper, I will examine the suggestive parallels or points of potential intersection between psychoanalysis and the ‘first philosopher’: two theories of eros and psuchê, one modern and one ancient. Can there be a productive... more
In this paper, I will examine the suggestive parallels or points of potential
intersection between psychoanalysis and the ‘first philosopher’:
two theories of eros and psuchê, one modern and one ancient. Can there be
a productive encounter between Socrates with his elenchus and psychoanalysis,
or are the apparent similarities only that—apparent? The stake
of the reading, as we will see, is what has been called Socrates’ atopia (literally, ‘without- place- edness’): that is, his genuine strangeness. In what follows, I will approach these subjects by focusing on a single dialogue that, as far as I am aware, no Lacanian author has analyzed in detail: Plato’s Euthyphro. This dialogue is an aporetic one. It ends, seemingly without concluding. Having enthusiastically offered to discuss with Socrates to hosion (‘piety’ or ‘what is sacred’), Euthyphro stops by
scuttling off and telling Socrates he has more important things to do. So,
the question is: What is it that Plato could want to have shown by such
an inconclusive exchange, something that might not otherwise have been
able to have been said in a treatise, or some more direct statement? I take
my title and my orientation from a classically ‘Socratic’ moment within
the text, when Euthyphro has confessed to be ‘at a loss,’ as we say.
Socrates goads him without mercy. He urges Euthyphro to mê apokrypse,
or—as it is translated by both Jowett and Harward, who add what is only
implied— “not to hide his trea sure.” It is this, “Euthyphro’s trea sure,”
which would be Socrates’ stake within the text, if there is something
more elevated going on than a demonstration of the former’s hubristic
stupidity. It is this trea sure, then, that we will be hunting after in what
follows.
intersection between psychoanalysis and the ‘first philosopher’:
two theories of eros and psuchê, one modern and one ancient. Can there be
a productive encounter between Socrates with his elenchus and psychoanalysis,
or are the apparent similarities only that—apparent? The stake
of the reading, as we will see, is what has been called Socrates’ atopia (literally, ‘without- place- edness’): that is, his genuine strangeness. In what follows, I will approach these subjects by focusing on a single dialogue that, as far as I am aware, no Lacanian author has analyzed in detail: Plato’s Euthyphro. This dialogue is an aporetic one. It ends, seemingly without concluding. Having enthusiastically offered to discuss with Socrates to hosion (‘piety’ or ‘what is sacred’), Euthyphro stops by
scuttling off and telling Socrates he has more important things to do. So,
the question is: What is it that Plato could want to have shown by such
an inconclusive exchange, something that might not otherwise have been
able to have been said in a treatise, or some more direct statement? I take
my title and my orientation from a classically ‘Socratic’ moment within
the text, when Euthyphro has confessed to be ‘at a loss,’ as we say.
Socrates goads him without mercy. He urges Euthyphro to mê apokrypse,
or—as it is translated by both Jowett and Harward, who add what is only
implied— “not to hide his trea sure.” It is this, “Euthyphro’s trea sure,”
which would be Socrates’ stake within the text, if there is something
more elevated going on than a demonstration of the former’s hubristic
stupidity. It is this trea sure, then, that we will be hunting after in what
follows.
Research Interests:
Political philosopher Leo Strauss’s extensive engagements with Aristophanes’s comedies represent a remarkable perspective in debates concerning the political and wider meaning of Aristophanes’s plays. Yet they have attracted nearly no... more
Political philosopher Leo Strauss’s extensive engagements with Aristophanes’s comedies represent a remarkable perspective in debates concerning the political and wider meaning of Aristophanes’s plays. Yet they have attracted nearly no critical response. This paper argues that for Strauss, Aristophanes was a very serious, philosophically-minded author who wrote esoterically, using the comic form to convey his conception of man, and his answer to the Socratic question of the best form of life. Part I addresses Strauss’s central reading of the Clouds, which positions this play as Aristophanes’s powerful, exoteric criticism of any purely theoretical philosophy that feels no need to explain or accommodate its pursuit to political life. Part II looks at Strauss’s remarkable reading of the Platonic Aristophanes’s central speech in the Symposium, which suggests that Aristophanes was a secret friend and admirer of philosophy conceived in the Platonic manner, as an erotic search for the truth of nature, beneath Aristophanes’s religiously pious and culturally conservative veneer. Indeed, Part III of the paper shows that Strauss’s readings of the Birds, Peace and Wasps indicate that Strauss believed that Aristophanes was such an esoteric friend to the philosophy he had lampooned in the Clouds.
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This paper [author's preprint copy only] challenges how, in two recent, powerful defence of the enlightenment against many of its recent foes (those of Jonathan Israel and Rainer Forst), Voltaire is nevertheless positioned ambivalently.... more
This paper [author's preprint copy only] challenges how, in two recent, powerful defence of the enlightenment against many of its recent foes (those of Jonathan Israel and Rainer Forst), Voltaire is nevertheless positioned ambivalently. In Israel, he is a moderate who would oppose the most radical dimensions of the enlightenment, drawn from Spinozist (not Lockeo-Newtonian) bases. In Forst, he would represent a deistic stepping back from the radical initiatives in favor of secularisation and toleration Forst sees in Bayle. As well as contesting Israel and Forst's readings of several of Voltaire's philosophical positions, the paper points to Voltaire's efforts as an author and publicist in championing the cause of toleration in particular, and reaching new reading publics in the cause of the enlightenment.
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Many of us raised in the humanities in the 1990s and 2000s were taught that 'the enlightenment' was at the root of many later modern malaises: closed to difference, becoming, the ludic, the literary, the feminine, the sensuous and... more
Many of us raised in the humanities in the 1990s and 2000s were taught that 'the enlightenment' was at the root of many later modern malaises: closed to difference, becoming, the ludic, the literary, the feminine, the sensuous and affective, its 'project' was one of naive, dangerously utopian rationalism. Rarely however were the texts of the leading philosophes taught, as these charges multiplied. This short blog entry, for the Voltaire Foundation, introduces the new book, The Other Enlightenment: Self-Estrangement, Race, and Gender, which returns to the key philosophical tales of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Diderot, in order to show how even a basic familiarity with these texts serves to discredit the postmodern consensus gentium. The book shows indeed that intercultural encounter, and the practices of critical self-estrangement and self-critique (seeing oneself anew, through the eyes of others), were central to the French philosophes, as they challenged the theological, metaphysical, and cultural authorities of their times.
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Since "the enlightenment" continues to be claimed or reviled, looking backwards polemically from today, this chapter (the first in The Other Enlightenment) practices a temporal conceit, trying to reframe the enlightenment in the light of... more
Since "the enlightenment" continues to be claimed or reviled, looking backwards polemically from today, this chapter (the first in The Other Enlightenment) practices a temporal conceit, trying to reframe the enlightenment in the light of the situation in Europe in the 16th-18th century. We present the enlightenment as responding to the decentering effects on Catholic Europe of the renaissance, reformation, the discoveries of "the new worlds", and the revolution(s) in natural philosophy, In order to begin to grasp the shapes of this response, we take a close look at Bacon and Locke's discerning analyses of the tendencies of the human mind to error, and Pierre Bayle's critical writings. It is in their Socratic, and more than Socratic, diagnoses of the limits and fallibility of the human minds that we should discern the bases of enlightenment defenses of tolerance, as well as the background for many of the lumieres' literary devices.
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Script of talk to be presented in July 2022 on the book The Other Enlightenmnent: Race, Sexuality, and Gender. This was also an opportunity to include two texts the book could not: Voltaire's L'Ingenu and his tragedy, Alzire. Starting... more
Script of talk to be presented in July 2022 on the book The Other Enlightenmnent: Race, Sexuality, and Gender. This was also an opportunity to include two texts the book could not: Voltaire's L'Ingenu and his tragedy, Alzire. Starting from these texts, the presentation explains the basic claims of the book, and their "background and significance' given the polemics surrounding "the enlightenment" which continue in the culture wars.
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This essay [author's unformatted draft] explores the way that Pierre Hadot's revolutionary work on ancient philosophy as a way of life involving the use of a variety of literary genre to effect different pedagogical and psychagogic ends... more
This essay [author's unformatted draft] explores the way that Pierre Hadot's revolutionary work on ancient philosophy as a way of life involving the use of a variety of literary genre to effect different pedagogical and psychagogic ends can be fruitfully applied to the oeuvres of the French philosophes, with a view to understanding their specific conceptions and practice of philosophy (Part 1). After examining both the elevating and downwards looking ("katascopic") dimensions of the ancient philosophical topos of the view from above (Part 2), we use Hadot's analysis of this remarkable ancient figure of thought, including in the satirist Lucian, to read Voltaire's conte philosophique, Micromégas (Part 3). Using Hadot's analysis, we will show, allows us to recover the elevating dimension of this interstellar fable, sometimes missed by commentators, tying it to Voltaire's post-Lockean, post-skeptical conception of wisdom as a form of learned ignorance. The concluding part (Part 4) considers the significance of this analysis, on one hand, in terms of debates concerning the history of philosophy as a way of life and its modern fates, and the other hand, for debates concerning how to read the texts of the French enlightenment, and understand the conception of philosophy at play in the philosophes.
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This essay (adapted from draft chapter of the upcoming book, The Other Enlightenment: Race, Gender, and Self-Estrangement) considers Diderot's wonderful "Letter on the Blind" as both an allegory and exemplar of what enlightenment was, for... more
This essay (adapted from draft chapter of the upcoming book, The Other Enlightenment: Race, Gender, and Self-Estrangement) considers Diderot's wonderful "Letter on the Blind" as both an allegory and exemplar of what enlightenment was, for this key, often-neglected philosopher. It argues that the text's encounter between the sighted narrator (***) and the blind man from Puisaux is based around the key strategy of self-estrangement Foucault observed was central to the lumieres: "… the two great mythical experiences on which the philosophy of the eighteenth century wished to found its beginning … [are] the foreign spectator in an unknown country and the man-born-blind restored to the light..." By the end of this "travelogue from the land of the blind", it is the experiences and insights of the man-born-blind and the blind mathematician Saunderson which are presented as exemplary of the new kinds of falllibiistic, critical inquiry central to Diderot. A closing excursus examines the philosophe's examination of what sociologist Heinz Leymann called "mobbing" as a counter-enlightenment epistemic practice, based in hearsay, in pointed contrast to the post-Baconian examination of the Molyneux problem which the end of Diderot's letter stages, and which Diderot maps in Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature and elsewhere.
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Draft Introduction [for comments and debate] of upcoming book The Other Enlightenment: Race, Gender, and Self-Estrangement (R&L, 2021). This book will argued the following contentions: 1. The central critical and philosophical... more
Draft Introduction [for comments and debate] of upcoming book The Other Enlightenment: Race, Gender, and Self-Estrangement (R&L, 2021). This book will argued the following contentions:
1. The central critical and philosophical exercise or practice of key thinkers of the French enlightenment was “self-estranging” or “self-othering” which was carried out in a variety of literary, poetic, dramatic, satirical and philosophical mediums.
2. This practice has different modalities:
a. exploring the intellectual, cultural, moral, aesthetic or political practices of other cultures, and presenting these to members of our in-group;
b. imagining how “we” and our customs appear through the eyes of an other; whether Persians visiting Paris (Montesquieu), American Indians or Chinese sages (Voltaire), the blind, or Tahitians (Diderot).
c. presenting the (for us) evident flaws and problems facing other individuals or groups (for example, religious intolerance) in such a way as it is clear that we share these others’ faults.
3. These modalities have critical functions, central to answering the questioning “what is enlightenment?” when it comes to the great, widely-neglected French philosophes of the 8th century, being:
a. above all, to challenge our epistemic egoism, the deeply-set individual and corporate tendencies we face, anatomized in Western thought by Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Pierre Bayle, to “relate everything to ourselves”, understanding and potentially judging everything new and different against our own taken-for-granted norms and assumptions;
b. to realize that there are other ways of thinking, being, living and acting than our own, recent or present ways, and that therefore “our” ways are not inevitable, unquestionably best, and unchangeable;
c. to realize that our own ways of thinking, being, living and acting will appear different and strange to others, who will (by comparison with their norms) be able to readily identify what in our practices are contingent, unnecessary, or even irrational;
d. to recognize that, there where we might be inclined initially to see the other as only exotic or “inferior”, they have virtues and capabilities which may in different ways be “superior” to our own, and from which we could learn;
e. to recognize our own faults, wrongs and limitations, by seeing the faults, problems and limitations facing others, and recognizing ourselves in them;
f. to as such open up the possibility of an expanded, cosmopolitan dialogue between different individuals and groups, predicated on a sense of curiosity and humility, rather than arrogance and fear.
4. That the preconditions for the development and literary-philosophical staging of enlightenment self-estrangement lie in the limited skepticism characterizing Francis Bacon’s identification of the “idols of the mind”, John Locke’s explorations of the limits of human understanding and the sources of ignorance and error, and the historically-informed criticism of Pierre Bayle.
5. That in a complex historical process which remain to be fully studied, since 1960 these critical dimensions of the enlightenment have been widely misrepresented, and the classic enlightenment texts have been neglected, by what is broadly called “postmodernism”, “post-structuralism”, or “French theory”, whose advocates therefore celebrate the practice of self-othering, and its ethics, but figure this as “anti-enlightenment”.
6. That the enlightenment practice of self-othering critique, opening onto what Genevieve Lloyd calls “a cosmopolitan ideal nourished by what can be seen as an expansive form of skepticism”, represents a cultural legacy which is increasingly needed, as virulently anti-liberal political movements on the Far Right increasingly menace the Capitols of tolerant, pluralistic forms of polity looking back to enlightenment ideals.
1. The central critical and philosophical exercise or practice of key thinkers of the French enlightenment was “self-estranging” or “self-othering” which was carried out in a variety of literary, poetic, dramatic, satirical and philosophical mediums.
2. This practice has different modalities:
a. exploring the intellectual, cultural, moral, aesthetic or political practices of other cultures, and presenting these to members of our in-group;
b. imagining how “we” and our customs appear through the eyes of an other; whether Persians visiting Paris (Montesquieu), American Indians or Chinese sages (Voltaire), the blind, or Tahitians (Diderot).
c. presenting the (for us) evident flaws and problems facing other individuals or groups (for example, religious intolerance) in such a way as it is clear that we share these others’ faults.
3. These modalities have critical functions, central to answering the questioning “what is enlightenment?” when it comes to the great, widely-neglected French philosophes of the 8th century, being:
a. above all, to challenge our epistemic egoism, the deeply-set individual and corporate tendencies we face, anatomized in Western thought by Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Pierre Bayle, to “relate everything to ourselves”, understanding and potentially judging everything new and different against our own taken-for-granted norms and assumptions;
b. to realize that there are other ways of thinking, being, living and acting than our own, recent or present ways, and that therefore “our” ways are not inevitable, unquestionably best, and unchangeable;
c. to realize that our own ways of thinking, being, living and acting will appear different and strange to others, who will (by comparison with their norms) be able to readily identify what in our practices are contingent, unnecessary, or even irrational;
d. to recognize that, there where we might be inclined initially to see the other as only exotic or “inferior”, they have virtues and capabilities which may in different ways be “superior” to our own, and from which we could learn;
e. to recognize our own faults, wrongs and limitations, by seeing the faults, problems and limitations facing others, and recognizing ourselves in them;
f. to as such open up the possibility of an expanded, cosmopolitan dialogue between different individuals and groups, predicated on a sense of curiosity and humility, rather than arrogance and fear.
4. That the preconditions for the development and literary-philosophical staging of enlightenment self-estrangement lie in the limited skepticism characterizing Francis Bacon’s identification of the “idols of the mind”, John Locke’s explorations of the limits of human understanding and the sources of ignorance and error, and the historically-informed criticism of Pierre Bayle.
5. That in a complex historical process which remain to be fully studied, since 1960 these critical dimensions of the enlightenment have been widely misrepresented, and the classic enlightenment texts have been neglected, by what is broadly called “postmodernism”, “post-structuralism”, or “French theory”, whose advocates therefore celebrate the practice of self-othering, and its ethics, but figure this as “anti-enlightenment”.
6. That the enlightenment practice of self-othering critique, opening onto what Genevieve Lloyd calls “a cosmopolitan ideal nourished by what can be seen as an expansive form of skepticism”, represents a cultural legacy which is increasingly needed, as virulently anti-liberal political movements on the Far Right increasingly menace the Capitols of tolerant, pluralistic forms of polity looking back to enlightenment ideals.
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This chapter [draft for translated collection ed. M. Faustina & F. Testa] sets out to examine the form and contents of Denis Diderot's last work, Essai sur la vie de Sénèque le philosophe, sur ses écrits et sur les règnes de Claude et de... more
This chapter [draft for translated collection ed. M. Faustina & F. Testa] sets out to examine the form and contents of Denis Diderot's last work, Essai sur la vie de Sénèque le philosophe, sur ses écrits et sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron of 1778, then 1782. It reads the text in light of Pierre Hadot's work on philosophy as a way of life, as a kind of last and singular testament to Diderot's own conception of philosophy, carried out by way of an extended apology for the Roman Stoic Seneca. As the Essai shows, Diderot remained closely aware of the ancient therapeutic, eudaimonistic and ethical callings of ancient Stoicism, using Seneca's life and work as a foil to present his own portrait to posterity. After an opening, framing examination of the singularity of the figure of the 18th century philosophe in the history of philosophy, we begin in Part 2 by looking at the striking form of Diderot's Essai. Our argument is that the Essai features a combination of at least three ancient genres of writing whose recognition via Hadot's work remakes Diderot's largely-neglected text philosophically legible for us today. Part 3 examines Diderot's complex, both laudatory and critical positioning visa -vis Seneca's Stoic philosophical discourses in the Essai, as a way of delineating Diderot's own stance and practice of philosophy. Part 4 finally looks at the question of how the philosophe relates to the sociopolitical world, arguing that it is here above all that the stance of Diderot (and Voltaire, whom his final text eulogises) differs from the ancient philosophers.
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Francis Bacon is amongst the most complex and misunderstood figures in the history of philosophy, and a figure whose work marks a turning point away from the ancient conception on natural philosophy. Part 1* here concerns Bacons'... more
Francis Bacon is amongst the most complex and misunderstood figures in the history of philosophy, and a figure whose work marks a turning point away from the ancient conception on natural philosophy. Part 1* here concerns Bacons' conception of philosophy, focussing on (a) his conception of the novum organum as a means to train new kinds of inquirers, and (b) his account of the 'Georgics of the mind' in Advancement of Learning, under the heading of moral philosophy, as illustrated in the remarkable (and pseudonymous) First Letter of Advice to Rutland. We then look (Part 2) at the conceptions of experimental inquiry developed by the Royal Society virtuosi in Bacon's wake, drawing especially on his lucid diagnosis of 'the idols of the mind' and, more broadly, on Sorana Corneanu's groundbreaking work. We finish by considering Locke's conception of the ideal inquirer in his often-neglected Conduct of the Understanding, alongside Locke's Socratic contentions concerning the limitation of the powers of the mind in book IV of Essay on the Human Understanding.
*draft material -for comments-of upcoming book on philosophy as a way of life, with M. Ure [Bloomsbury, 2020- in process]
*draft material -for comments-of upcoming book on philosophy as a way of life, with M. Ure [Bloomsbury, 2020- in process]
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This paper* is a critical response to Amy Allen's The End of Progress: Decolonising the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. We take up her book's call for a "problematizing" history which challenges "taken-for-granted"... more
This paper* is a critical response to Amy Allen's The End of Progress: Decolonising the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. We take up her book's call for a "problematizing" history which challenges "taken-for-granted" preconceptions in order to contest Allen's own representation of the thought of the enlightenment. Allen accepts that all the enlighteners agreed upon a stadial, progressive account of history, which she critiques epistemically and normatively (Part 1). But we show in Part 2, drawing on the work of Henri Vyverberg and other historians of eighteenth century ideas, that a cyclical, rise and fall account of historical succession was more prominent than the progressive narrative in leading enlighteners such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert, Condillac, Jancourt, Grimm, and Raynal, all of whom Allen does not mention. In Part 3, we show that not all thinkers of the enlightenment were pro-colonial or pro-imperialist, as Allen also presupposes in The End of Progress. By examining Abbé Raynal's History of The Two Indies in Part 3, notably its Diderotian interpolations, we show that many enlighteners propounded fierce criticisms of European colonialism and the slave trade, even calling directly for armed resistance against European infractions. In critical theorists’ search for chastened normative foundations, our concluding remarks contend, there is a need to develop more accurate, unpolemical, post-postmodern reckonings of the enlightenment.
*preprint version of paper accepted for publication in 2019/20
*preprint version of paper accepted for publication in 2019/20
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This article* claims that today’s reading of Francis Bacon’s Essayes as a solely literary text turns upon philosophers’ having largely lost access to the renaissance culture which Bacon inherited, and the renaissance debates about the... more
This article* claims that today’s reading of Francis Bacon’s Essayes as a solely literary text turns upon philosophers’ having largely lost access to the renaissance culture which Bacon inherited, and the renaissance debates about the role of rhetoric in philosophy in which Bacon participated. The article has two parts. Building upon Ronald Cranes’ seminal contribution on the place of the Essayes in Bacon’s ‘great instauration’, Part 1 examines how the subjects of Bacon’s Essayes need to be understood as Baconian contributions to ‘morrall philosophye’ and ‘civile knowledge’, rather than rhetorical or poetic exercises. In Part 2, contesting the interpretations of Crane, Fish, Ferrari and others, I will argue that the Essayes’ striking rhetorical form needs to be conceptualized in light of Bacon’s renaissance account of the ‘duty and office’ of rhetoric in any moral and civil philosophy that would look to actively cure mental afflictions and cultivate the virtuous or canny conduct it extols. Bacon’s Essayes, in this light, are best understood as a legatee and transformation of the popular early modern genre of books of apothegms and maxims designed to guide conduct.
* this is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in British Journal for the History of Philosophy, available online at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09608788.2018.1506315
* this is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in British Journal for the History of Philosophy, available online at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09608788.2018.1506315
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This paper (preprint copy, for JHP 56:3) critically examines Stephen Gaukroger's claim that "the list of prerogative or privileged instances [in Bacon's Novum Organum II]. .. serve very much the function of the topics, as conceived by... more
This paper (preprint copy, for JHP 56:3) critically examines Stephen Gaukroger's claim that "the list of prerogative or privileged instances [in Bacon's Novum Organum II]. .. serve very much the function of the topics, as conceived by Aristotle. .. and by his Renaissance followers as rhetorical guide. " Gaukroger's comparison of the prerogatives with the topics provides a basis for an inclusive account of the twenty-seven prerogative instances, including those clearly intended by Bacon as preparatory devices for retraining the mind. Reading the prerogatives backwards in light of the topics, rather than forwards in light of subsequent scientific practices, also allows us to see precisely how different the prerogative instances are from their rhetorical forbears. This approach thus allows us to accurately weigh the extent of Bacon's innovation in the theorization of discovery.
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Chapter [preprint version, do not cite] for upcoming collection on Rethinking the Enlightenment, edited by M. Lloyd and G. Boucher [draft form]. Part 1 reframes the enlightenment, looking forwards from the early modern context (in light... more
Chapter [preprint version, do not cite] for upcoming collection on Rethinking the Enlightenment, edited by M. Lloyd and G. Boucher [draft form]. Part 1 reframes the enlightenment, looking forwards from the early modern context (in light of the scientific revolution, reformation, renaissance, and discovery of the new worlds), rather than backwards, in light of the enlightenment's alleged effects in the short 20th century. Part 2 looks at Montesquieu's Persian Letters, Diderot's Letter on the Blind, and Candide, as bearing out Peter Gay's depiction of the enlightenment as a "revolt against rationalism" as much as an "age of reason". The chapter contends that these classic enlightenment texts-a million miles from postmodern endoxa about "the Enilghtenment project"-- involve artful exercises in confronting and working through the loss of Europe’s providential sense of its own uniqueness and cosmic centrality, central to the Christian epos: philosophical exercises prompting their readers to relook at their beliefs, customs and society critically, comparatively and ironically, as if from the outside: or as we might say today, “cross-cultural dialogues” pointing the way towards “a world united by its celebration of diversity, a cosmopolitan harmony orchestrated in free individuality; an open world, not of absolutes or of persecution, but of pacific and continuous dialogue".
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Draft of chapter for upcoming book on Knowledge in Modern Philosophy (Bloomsbury: ed. S. Gaukroger). Part 1 gives the Pars Destruens: Bacon's critique of existing forms of knowledge based in the famous epistemic psychology of the idols... more
Draft of chapter for upcoming book on Knowledge in Modern Philosophy (Bloomsbury: ed. S. Gaukroger). Part 1 gives the Pars Destruens: Bacon's critique of existing forms of knowledge based in the famous epistemic psychology of the idols of the mind. Part 2 presents Bacon's prescriptions for new natural histories, then the famous account of induction in Novum Organum II. Throughout, we point out the passages which challenge popular accounts of Bacon as a naive empiricist, the proponent of a "mechanical" method or philosophy, and an instrumentalist, if not a Machiavellian, about truth who thought knowledge should be sought for power alone, rather than out of "charity for man", and "humility and veneration to unroll the volume of creation." [Comments welcome esp before c. end Nov 2016].
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Draft of chapter for upcoming Crisis and Reconfigurations: 100 years since World War 1 collection. Argues that philosophical understanding (or increasingly, study and reading) of the French, British and preKantian German enlightenments,... more
Draft of chapter for upcoming Crisis and Reconfigurations: 100 years since World War 1 collection. Argues that philosophical understanding (or increasingly, study and reading) of the French, British and preKantian German enlightenments, their intellectual origins and ends, has been a retrospective victim of the European horrors set in chain by 1914, despite a growing volume of excellent, countervailing studies (by Rasmussen, Lloyd, Israel, Wade, and others) in the history of ideas.
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Presentation to be delivered, in shorter form, at Murdoch colloquium December 1, on I. images of Bacon (contemporary, his contemporaries', the romantics'), II. the profusion of images in Bacon (Matthews' "so choice and ravishing a way of... more
Presentation to be delivered, in shorter form, at Murdoch colloquium December 1, on I. images of Bacon (contemporary, his contemporaries', the romantics'), II. the profusion of images in Bacon (Matthews' "so choice and ravishing a way of words, of metaphors and allusions as, perhaps, the world hath not seen, since it was a world"), III. Bacon on images and rhetoric, IV the poetic imagination in Bacon's "hunt of Pan" (experimentation by artful inversion, translation, variation of experience) and the "prerogative instances," leading to prima philosophia; and V some implications, checks, and thoughts on this "singular instance" of "one of the strongest instances of those men who by the rare privilege of their nature are at once poets and philosophers, and see equally into both worlds." (Coleridge on Bacon)
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This is a chapter from the Brill Companion to the Reception of Cicero edited by William H.F. Altman. As the title suggests, the paper looks at the reception of Cicero in the French lumieres, led by Voltaire and Montesquieu.
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“Not just arguments but a call to a way of life – this is the vision of philosophy that is traced in this book, from Socrates to Nietzsche and Foucault. Inspired by the work of Pierre and Ilsetraut Hadot, the authors offer for the first... more
“Not just arguments but a call to a way of life – this is the vision of philosophy that is traced in this book, from Socrates to Nietzsche and Foucault. Inspired by the work of Pierre and Ilsetraut Hadot, the authors offer for the first time an alternative history that gives philosophy's transformative promise its due.”
– David Konstan, Professor of Classics, New York University, USA.
“Sharpe and Ure have undertaken a hugely ambitious task and they have completed it admirably. They have produced a rich and fascinating study of both the concept and the history of philosophy understood as a way of life. It must surely become a standard point of reference in any future discussions of this topic but it also deserves to be widely read by anyone interested in the history of philosophy and in the very concept of philosophy itself.”
– John Sellars, Reader in Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
“I highly recommend this book. It offers an extraordinarily rich and insightful dive into what it means for philosophy to be a way of life--not simply an object of abstract study. Along the way, it showcases not only many giants of philosophy, but also neglected and underappreciated figures and traditions, all with skill, subtle attention to detail, and clarity. A very impressive and important work.”
– Stephen Grimm, Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University, USA.
“Philosophy as a Way of Life is a milestone in the contemporary re-appraisal of this ancient concept. For anyone interested in the history of philosophy or the topic of metaphilosophy, this surely fills an important gap in the literature. It will provide an invaluable foundation for future research in this area.”
– Donald Robertson, Author of "Stoicism And The Art Of Happiness" and "How To Think Like A Roman Emperor"
The idea of philosophy as a 'way of life' is not a new one. From the first recorded philosophy by Plato, there has been a tradition of thinking about philosophy as pointing us towards the good life, happiness and an ethical existence. But where does this notion that philosophy has anything to offer in terms of guiding us in how to live and live well come from?
In this first ever introduction to Philosophy as a Way of Life, Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure take us us through the history of the idea from Socrates to Nietzsche and Foucault. They examine the kinds of practical exercises each thinker recommended and practiced to transform their philosophy into manners of living and acting.
Philosophy as a Way of Life also examines the recent resurgence of thinking about philosophy as a practical, lived reality and why this ancient tradition still has so much relevance and power in the contemporary world.
– David Konstan, Professor of Classics, New York University, USA.
“Sharpe and Ure have undertaken a hugely ambitious task and they have completed it admirably. They have produced a rich and fascinating study of both the concept and the history of philosophy understood as a way of life. It must surely become a standard point of reference in any future discussions of this topic but it also deserves to be widely read by anyone interested in the history of philosophy and in the very concept of philosophy itself.”
– John Sellars, Reader in Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
“I highly recommend this book. It offers an extraordinarily rich and insightful dive into what it means for philosophy to be a way of life--not simply an object of abstract study. Along the way, it showcases not only many giants of philosophy, but also neglected and underappreciated figures and traditions, all with skill, subtle attention to detail, and clarity. A very impressive and important work.”
– Stephen Grimm, Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University, USA.
“Philosophy as a Way of Life is a milestone in the contemporary re-appraisal of this ancient concept. For anyone interested in the history of philosophy or the topic of metaphilosophy, this surely fills an important gap in the literature. It will provide an invaluable foundation for future research in this area.”
– Donald Robertson, Author of "Stoicism And The Art Of Happiness" and "How To Think Like A Roman Emperor"
The idea of philosophy as a 'way of life' is not a new one. From the first recorded philosophy by Plato, there has been a tradition of thinking about philosophy as pointing us towards the good life, happiness and an ethical existence. But where does this notion that philosophy has anything to offer in terms of guiding us in how to live and live well come from?
In this first ever introduction to Philosophy as a Way of Life, Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure take us us through the history of the idea from Socrates to Nietzsche and Foucault. They examine the kinds of practical exercises each thinker recommended and practiced to transform their philosophy into manners of living and acting.
Philosophy as a Way of Life also examines the recent resurgence of thinking about philosophy as a practical, lived reality and why this ancient tradition still has so much relevance and power in the contemporary world.
Research Interests: Metaphilosophy, Philosophical Scepticism, Neoplatonism and late antique philosophy, Renaissance Philosophy, Stoicism, and 13 moreFriedrich Nietzsche, Intellectual History of Enlightenment, Socrates, Francis Bacon, Michel Foucault, Arthur Schopenhauer, Montaigne, Cynicism (Ancient Greek Philosophy), Epicureanism, Classical Greek Philosophy, Philosophy as a way of life, Pierre Hadot, and Diogenes the Cynic
Preprint of Introduction (with Maciej Kaluza and Peter Francev) to Brill's Companion to Camus. The collection brings together twenty chapters by anglophone scholars. Part 1 features considerations of Camus in dialogue with other... more
Preprint of Introduction (with Maciej Kaluza and Peter Francev) to Brill's Companion to Camus. The collection brings together twenty chapters by anglophone scholars. Part 1 features considerations of Camus in dialogue with other philosophers and philosophical authors. Part 2 involves examinations of Camus's claims on key philosophical themes and issues (including the absurd, rebellion, love, solidarity, asceticism, politics, justice, and art). This introduction addresses the metaphilosophical issues surrounding Camus's philosophical thought. We then situate Camus's thought, and this collection, in relation to contemporary events and issues, as well as the existing Camus scholarship. Summaries of each of the book's chapters follow.
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Introduction, and the final "Algerian" chapter of Camus, Philosophe: To Return to our Beginnings (Brill, 2015). The book argues that Camus is to understood as a philosopher, both in the classical lineage of philosophy as a way of life,... more
Introduction, and the final "Algerian" chapter of Camus, Philosophe: To Return to our Beginnings (Brill, 2015). The book argues that Camus is to understood as a philosopher, both in the classical lineage of philosophy as a way of life, and the enlightenment sense of a "philosophe": aiming to bring philosophical reflection and criticism to wider publics, by using literary as well as technical modes of writing.
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This article [preprint version, co-authored with Dr Kirk Turner, final publication details below] examines Jacques Lacan's sessions of Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, in which he analyzed Wittgenstein's early, classic... more
This article [preprint version, co-authored with Dr Kirk Turner, final publication details below] examines Jacques Lacan's sessions of Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, in which he analyzed Wittgenstein's early, classic work, The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Despite Lacan's and Wittgenstein's huge influence across disciplines (and the analytic-continental divide), there has been no scholarly attempt to examine Lacan's claims concerning Wittgenstein in this Seminar. This paper redresses this gap in the literature. In part 1, we place Lacan's turn to Wittgenstein in Seminar XVII in the context of his earlier, briefer engagements with Wittgenstein, Russell and Frege, and track Lacan's reconstruction of the key claims of the TLP in his Seminar. As we show, Lacan is moved to examine Wittgenstein in the Seminar firstly in order to contrast Wittgenstein's conception of truth with his own distinction between truth and knowledge. Part 2 lays out Lacan’s striking critique of the younger Wittgenstein in this light, centering around the claim that, when it is the truth of the subject and the unconscious at issue, “Wittgenstein wasn’t interested in saving the truth. Nothing can be said about it”: a position which Lacan suggests is meaningfully psychotic. The concluding remarks reflect critically on Lacan’s position, underscoring that his claims concern the logical and philosophical structure of Wittgenstein’s discourse in the TLP, as against psychobiography. We close by offering an interpretation of Lacan's further enigmatic claim that the young Wittgenstein’s effacement of the register of subjectivity from his conception of the truth uncannily mirrors the subject-position of the analyst in the Lacanian clinic. [*Version not for citation--the published version of this article is available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41282-022-00281-5]
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This chapter examines Žižek’s theorizations of ‘ideological fantasy’ and its different manifestations or veils (Žižek 1997: 1-35). We begin (part 1) by recalling the fundamental coordinates of Freud’s, then Lacan’s, conceptions of... more
This chapter examines Žižek’s theorizations of ‘ideological fantasy’ and its different manifestations or veils (Žižek 1997: 1-35). We begin (part 1) by recalling the fundamental coordinates of Freud’s, then Lacan’s, conceptions of fantasy, allowing a theoretical lineage to be established which accounts for Žižek’s coaptation and extension of what was originally a clinical term. Part 2 then turns, in this light, to Žižek’s reformulation of ‘fantasy’ in the context of a post-Marxian theory of ideology. First, we pursue Žižek’s critique of the Marxist notion of ‘false consciousness’, by way of his famous analyses of ideological cynicism, into his theory of ideological disidentification, and the function of ideological fantasy in structuring groups’ quasi-transgressive forms of jouissance. Second, we look at Žižek’s analyses of sublime objects of ideology, and the function of ideological fantasy in papering over social antagonism or ‘the Real’ by constructing narratives of the loss or theft of jouissance. As an avenue for future research, we show just how well and powerfully Žižek’s theory allows us to comprehend contemporary Right-wing populism as an ideological formation.
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Introductory survey chapter for Edinburgh Companion to Critical Theory (2016, ed. Stuart Sim) situating the uptake of Lacanian theory in terms of three FreudoMarxist trajectories: the first, the development of theories of ideology and... more
Introductory survey chapter for Edinburgh Companion to Critical Theory (2016, ed. Stuart Sim) situating the uptake of Lacanian theory in terms of three FreudoMarxist trajectories: the first, the development of theories of ideology and subjectivation; the second, the continuing need to comprehend fascism's psychological attractions; and the third, trying to generate emancipitory, normative models for critical theory. After an exegesis of Lacan; the chapter charts 'structuralist' uptakes of Lacan within the Marxian and post-Marxian lineages (Jameson, Laclau and Mouffe); Zizek's 'politics of the Real'; and Lacanian critiques of the later liberal-capitalist 'society of enjoyment'; before a critical conclusion reflecting on normative issues.
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This article presents a critical Lacanian reading of Sartre's work. This reading takes its bearings from Sartre's autobiography, Les Mots, where Sartre's later, more qualified bearing towards psychoanalysis is evident. The article is... more
This article presents a critical Lacanian reading of Sartre's work. This reading takes its
bearings from Sartre's autobiography, Les Mots, where Sartre's later, more qualified
bearing towards psychoanalysis is evident. The article is constructed around an analysis of the letters of Sartre's chapter on "Bad Faith" in Being and Nothingness, and a series of symptomatic slips around the (im)possibility of 'good faith'. The author argues that Sartre's earlier dismissal of the unconscious is itself symptomatic of a foreclosure of the symbolic order (the order exactly of 'les mots'), conceived in Lacanian terms as the order of the social pact, founded upon inter-subjective relations 'in good faith'. What is foreclosed from the terms of Sartre's existential analyses then returns in the 'metaphysical' or 'theological' terms in which Being and Nothingness is framed, despite itself, and the bleak appreciation of inter-subjectivity at the heart of the work.
bearings from Sartre's autobiography, Les Mots, where Sartre's later, more qualified
bearing towards psychoanalysis is evident. The article is constructed around an analysis of the letters of Sartre's chapter on "Bad Faith" in Being and Nothingness, and a series of symptomatic slips around the (im)possibility of 'good faith'. The author argues that Sartre's earlier dismissal of the unconscious is itself symptomatic of a foreclosure of the symbolic order (the order exactly of 'les mots'), conceived in Lacanian terms as the order of the social pact, founded upon inter-subjective relations 'in good faith'. What is foreclosed from the terms of Sartre's existential analyses then returns in the 'metaphysical' or 'theological' terms in which Being and Nothingness is framed, despite itself, and the bleak appreciation of inter-subjectivity at the heart of the work.
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This paper argues that Lacan brings to psychoanalysis a broadly 'Averroist' attitude towards monotheism which develops from, and tarnsforms, Freud's position in Totem and Taboo. For Lacan, religious texts are invaluable sources of... more
This paper argues that Lacan brings to psychoanalysis a broadly 'Averroist' attitude towards monotheism which develops from, and tarnsforms, Freud's position in Totem and Taboo. For Lacan, religious texts are invaluable sources of insight into human desire, in its imbrication wth language and Law. The essay centres around an interpretation of the infamous 'Names of the Father' seminar, and argues that Lacan there and in scattered places elsewhere positions the first Abrahamic monotheism as a most profound source (deeper than the philosophers) of insight into human subjectivity and the instance of the Law that shapes it--an argument which, it is also suggested, goes some way to explaining Freud's unmistakable attachment to the religion of his fathers.
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Since 1975, the first world has been living through a period of radical global reaction against the social democratic consensus of the middle-twentieth century. In this context, the use of Slavoj Zizek's Lacanian theory of ideology to... more
Since 1975, the first world has been living through a period of radical global reaction against the social democratic consensus of the middle-twentieth century. In this context, the use of Slavoj Zizek's Lacanian theory of ideology to critique the traditions of thought which inform this reaction becomes a vital task. In this paper, I use Zizek's Lacanian theory of ideology to critically analyse arch-reactionary Joseph de Maistre's remarkable work: particularly his 'Considerations on France'. Zizek's emphasis on the role of the Real in ideology, it is argued, allows us unique purchase on de Maistre's ideological position. It allows us to show, furthermore, how reactionary conservatism does not 'conserve' the symbolic Other of the discourse of the master, since it is animated by fear and trembling that the symbolic can no longer hold in conditions of secularisation. In this context, the proximity of de Maistre with de Sade emerges as something that goes beyond superficially similar celebrations of the role of violence in human affairs. What is minimally at stake in reactionary thought per se, this paper argues, is the attempt to reground lost authority in the unmediated Real, a procedure in which the laying down of the law verges into the need to divide and sacifice others for the Jouissance of the Other. In this way, Lacan's comment that right-wing intelectuals are knaves who, if pushed, are willing to do whatever it takes to preserve power is vindicated and elaborated. For De Maistre, the paper shows, was nothing if not a collosally royal knave!
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This paper reads Shake-speare's Midsummer Night's Dream in light of (i) Lacan's comments on comedy in the Seminars, and (ii) the formidably difficult "Agency of the Letter", on metaphor on metonymy. It argues that Puk gives... more
This paper reads Shake-speare's Midsummer Night's Dream in light of (i) Lacan's comments on comedy in the Seminars, and (ii) the formidably difficult "Agency of the Letter", on metaphor on metonymy. It argues that Puk gives imaginary-poetic figure to the 'agency of the letter in the unconscious,' presiding as the sprite does over the identity shifts and errant loves of the dreaming lovers in the central Acts. The paper concludes by reflecting on Shakespeare's preromantic notion of love as, in Lacan's words, "essentially a comic motive."
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This paper examines Lacan's historical claims about philosophy, dating back to Parmenides. It is this critical reconstruction of history of philosophy, we argue, that underlies Jacques Lacan’s polemical provocations in the mid-1970s that... more
This paper examines Lacan's historical claims about philosophy, dating back to Parmenides. It is this critical reconstruction of history of philosophy, we argue, that underlies Jacques Lacan’s polemical provocations in the mid-1970s that his position was an “anti-philosophie”. Following an introduction surveying the existing literature on the subject, in part ii, the essay present the account of classical philosophy Lacan has in mind when he declares psychoanalysis to be an antiphilosophy after 1975. It assembles his claims about the history of ideas in Seminars XVII and XX in ways earlier contributions of this subject have not systematically done. Part iii focuses upon Lacan’s remarkable reading
of Descartes’ break with premodern philosophy—but touches on Lacan’s readings of Hegel and (in a remarkable confirmation of Lacan’s “Parmenidean” conception of philosophy) the early Wittgenstein. Here we examine Lacan’s positioning of psychoanalysis as a legatee of the Cartesian moment in the history of western ideas. In different terms than Slavoj Zizek, we propose that it is Lacan’s famous avowal that the subject of the psychoanalysis is the subject first essayed by Descartes in The Meditations on First Philosophy as confronting an other capable of deceit (as against mere illusion or falsity) that decisively measures the distance between Lacan’s unique “antiphilosophy” and the forms of later modern linguistic
and cultural relativism whose hegemony Alain Badiou has decried. At the same time, it sets Lacan’s antiphilosophy apart from the Parmenidean legacy for which "thinking and being could be the same".
of Descartes’ break with premodern philosophy—but touches on Lacan’s readings of Hegel and (in a remarkable confirmation of Lacan’s “Parmenidean” conception of philosophy) the early Wittgenstein. Here we examine Lacan’s positioning of psychoanalysis as a legatee of the Cartesian moment in the history of western ideas. In different terms than Slavoj Zizek, we propose that it is Lacan’s famous avowal that the subject of the psychoanalysis is the subject first essayed by Descartes in The Meditations on First Philosophy as confronting an other capable of deceit (as against mere illusion or falsity) that decisively measures the distance between Lacan’s unique “antiphilosophy” and the forms of later modern linguistic
and cultural relativism whose hegemony Alain Badiou has decried. At the same time, it sets Lacan’s antiphilosophy apart from the Parmenidean legacy for which "thinking and being could be the same".
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Working paper for those interested in the study of apologetic sophistries surrounding celebrated thinkers who were prominent National Socialists. The example is Francois Kervegan's Le Monde 2005 piece on Schmitt. I argue this piece... more
Working paper for those interested in the study of apologetic sophistries surrounding celebrated thinkers who were prominent National Socialists. The example is Francois Kervegan's Le Monde 2005 piece on Schmitt. I argue this piece shows the role of mandarin elitism in these debates especially clearly. Kervegan argues both that if Schmitt had only written his Nazi texts, they wouldn't be worth reading, and yet, when we do read them, they remain "formidable": he is a great thinker, even when he is a Nazi, in contrast to lesser ideologues, now mostly forgotten. Kervegan also remarkably turns Jaspers' criticism of Schmitt and Heidegger's aim to take "the intellectual lead" within Nazism into a would-be argument for admiring them the more: only recognised leaders in a field would have such an aim, and recognised leaders in any field are always to be admired. Setting out "options" for how to respond to Schmitt's Nazi writings, Kervegan concludes by omitting that of reading Schmitt's Nazi texts critically, in the light of his other published texts, to critically gauge continuities and alterations. Instead, he bizarrely invokes "the movement" of thought "on the march", to continue to "use" Schmitt's texts, whilst "leaving the author to his fate", before leaving readers to discern what on earth this could exactly mean.
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The Stoic term for external things is that they are 'ta adiaphora', usually translated as 'indifferents'. But does Stoicism promote 'indifference' towards other human beings? What if the devaluation of external things Stoicism extols... more
The Stoic term for external things is that they are 'ta adiaphora', usually translated as 'indifferents'. But does Stoicism promote 'indifference' towards other human beings? What if the devaluation of external things Stoicism extols makes space, ideally, for the possibility of more generous relations with others, as explored by Seneca for instance in 'On Benefits'? That is the hypothesis this paper [draft only for Stoicism Today 2023] pursues.
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Theoretical chapter of MA thesis submitted/completed 2020 (University of Tasmania, Public Policy) on the crisis tendencies in marketised "neoliberal" higher education (HE). The notion is broadly Habermasian: the system does not produce... more
Theoretical chapter of MA thesis submitted/completed 2020 (University of Tasmania, Public Policy) on the crisis tendencies in marketised "neoliberal" higher education (HE). The notion is broadly Habermasian: the system does not produce these tendencies because it is not working, but because it is. Three such crisis tendencies are identified, in order to be applied comparatively to the Australian and German HE systems since 1980, and their contrasting symptoms of distress and pathology before and with the onset of covid-19: the contradictory pressures created by casualisation and massification (cost saving) versus pedagogiical quality and student experience; metricised commodification of research versus independent scholarship fostering diversified local research cultures (rather than single global league tables favoring elite anglophone institutions); and (at the institutional level) individualised performance management measures plus the increasing alienation of corporatised managers from academic experience, versus collegial self-governance (including through salaries for the former out of all proportion with academic labor, especially amidst the prolliferation of precaritised casual work in the sector). The thesis contends that Australian HE's vastly worse experience of covid-19 in comparison to Germany's reflects the longer-standing absence and failure "down under" of effective competing voices, drawing on older and different traditions, affecting HE policy-making since the Dawkins reforms.
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Draft of review of John W. Dean and Bob Altemeyer's 2020 book Authoritarian Nightmare: Donald Trump and His Followers. The book firstly examines why Mr Trump is who he is, on the basis of what is now known about his pre-Presidential life... more
Draft of review of John W. Dean and Bob Altemeyer's 2020 book Authoritarian Nightmare: Donald Trump and His Followers. The book firstly examines why Mr Trump is who he is, on the basis of what is now known about his pre-Presidential life (chapters 2-6). Secondly, in chapter 7-11, Dean and Altemeyer tackle why his "base" continues to adhere to Trump, despite his craven amorality and-as the authors soundly predicted in 2020-his evident willingness to overthrow constitutional government if it opposed his will. In the review I examine the key claims, focusing on the second, more impactful part of the book, and reflect on the strengths, contributions, and limits of the political psychological approach of the book.
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This talk (slides only, for public presentation at Historical Materialism event) asks why the last four decades in Australia as elsewhere have been characterised by (a) the most-far reaching economic changes affecting all strata of... more
This talk (slides only, for public presentation at Historical Materialism event) asks why the last four decades in Australia as elsewhere have been characterised by (a) the most-far reaching economic changes affecting all strata of society, yet (b) the primacy of cultural questions to political debate. This, even as inequalities in wealth, income, assets, and between the generations have reached new heights in the lucky country, alongside growing poverty, steepling private debt, and stagnating wages. The talk focuses in particular on why much elite academic theory, pilloried from the right for its putative "Marxism", has continued not to ask about political economics, and its relation to culture and politics, even as these kinds of changes globally have assisted in the rebirth of forms of illiberal ethnonationalist authoritarianisms. In this context, I bring together ideas from Gyorgy Lukacs' criticism of bourgeois intellectuals, with Barbara and John Ehrenreich's work on the "professional managerial class" to proffer the beginnings of a critical analysis of these important, but arguably under-considered phenomena.
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Consideration of what the neoliberal university is, what it ought to be, and what goals it could serve? From 2009-2010.
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This article draws on Robert Solomon's distinction between grief and mourning to examine the old question of whether Stoicism's approach to the emotions is wholly 'unsympathetic'. It argues that, if mourning, including public... more
This article draws on Robert Solomon's distinction between grief and mourning to examine the old question of whether Stoicism's approach to the emotions is wholly 'unsympathetic'. It argues that, if mourning, including public commemoration and sharing of memories, is taken to be the best means to work through grief, and come to terms in time with loss, then Seneca's Consolatio ad Marciam is clearly "pro-mourning". Marcia's grief is preventing others from even mentioning Drusus around her, after three years, and Seneca wishes to redress this failure to mourn, which can do honor to her love for her son.
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Draft, preedited, of upcoming Conversation Guide to the Classics on Voltaire's Candide, its contents, its form, its relation to Voltaire's larger work and achievements. And because Candide is right, of course, that it is necessary (il... more
Draft, preedited, of upcoming Conversation Guide to the Classics on Voltaire's Candide, its contents, its form, its relation to Voltaire's larger work and achievements. And because Candide is right, of course, that it is necessary (il faut) that we cultivate our garden, especially if we are in lockdown.
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Today, Nietzsche's philosophy continues to be appealed to by followers of Jordan Peterson and others, at times in conjunction with modern Stoicism, in connection with the reanimation of philosophy as a way of life. But is Nietzscheanism... more
Today, Nietzsche's philosophy continues to be appealed to by followers of Jordan Peterson and others, at times in conjunction with modern Stoicism, in connection with the reanimation of philosophy as a way of life. But is Nietzscheanism consistent with Stoicism, or does not Nietzsche himself suggest otherwise, both about the porch and, indeed, about all post-Socratic philosophy, at the first and last moments of his development? And if so, shouldn't we follow Nietzsche himself in differentiating his 'dynamitic' thought from that of these philosophers?
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What is it like, using Stoicism in a therapeutic setting, with people dealing with school, workplace, or online bullying? I spoke to Donald Robertson, therapist and author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor about these and other... more
What is it like, using Stoicism in a therapeutic setting, with people dealing with school, workplace, or online bullying? I spoke to Donald Robertson, therapist and author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor about these and other questions, against the background of UK Bullying week 2020 (Nov 16-20). This is part 1 of 2, documenting this extended interview, which also covered issues around trigger warnings, social media, insomnia and post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Piece for Stoicism as a Way of Life blog/mag. on Medium, ed. by Don Robertson, on the representation of James Comey in the recent teleseries, The Comey Rule. I argue that Comey, as represented, exemplifies notable stoic virtues, from... more
Piece for Stoicism as a Way of Life blog/mag. on Medium, ed. by Don Robertson, on the representation of James Comey in the recent teleseries, The Comey Rule. I argue that Comey, as represented, exemplifies notable stoic virtues, from caution and non-precipitancy in forming beliefs, via remarkable self-control (if not apatheia) in very difficult circumstances, to the core non-consequentialist position that virtue is the only good, and its own reward--even when following it will foreseeably anger proverbial and real Democrats and Republicans.
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Piece for Stoicism Today on Stoicism and bullying, online, in the workplace, and anywhere else; how to understand it, how to respond to it, and why.
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Longer version of Conversation article based upon quantitative research on frequency of thinkers' names and key ideas in article and chapter titles on database jstor between 1980-2019. The research tests the "cultural Marxism" hypothesis... more
Longer version of Conversation article based upon quantitative research on frequency of thinkers' names and key ideas in article and chapter titles on database jstor between 1980-2019. The research tests the "cultural Marxism" hypothesis which has "gone viral" in Rightist and, increasingly, more mainstream global conservative media. Contra this meme, the numbers suggest that, since the mid-1980s, academic research devoted to Marxist thinkers has been in relative decline. Nietzsche and Heidegger surpassed Marx in 1987 as the most-written on thinkers. In the 2010s Giles Deleuze has become the most written-on theorist. Neither Gramsci nor Marcuse,, the central "cultural Marxists" in the Rightist narratives rank amongst the most written-upon authors, and no Frankfurt School thinker has drawn more articles in the survey period than Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida Gilles Deleuze, or Carl Schmitt..
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Interview with Simon Drew of Practical Stoicism, from mid-March 2020, just before the COVID-19 crisis had led to shutdowns in Australia. On philosophy as a way of life, Hadot, Stoicism, and sundry subjects.
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There is a lot that we can still learn from the work of Franz Neumann (1900-1954). Such is the contention of David Kettler and Thomas Wheatland’s authoritative new study of Neumann’s intellectual life and thought, Learning from Franz L.... more
There is a lot that we can still learn from the work of Franz Neumann (1900-1954). Such is the contention of David Kettler and Thomas Wheatland’s authoritative new study of Neumann’s intellectual life and thought, Learning from Franz L. Neumann - Law, Theory, and the Brute Facts of Political Life. Neumann’s complex identity as both a thinker and activist who wrestled throughout his life with questions surrounding law, labour, rights, freedom, fascism, democracy (and how democracies fail), as well as the complex inter-relationships between the social, economic, legal and political factors that shape our societies, they contend, position Neumann as a uniquely valuable critical resource in this period of the “rise of authoritarian political leaders able to secure recognition from constituencies comprised of disillusioned publics and interested centres of power” (2). They also speak to Neumann’s exemplary status as a critical intellectual (459-464).
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Following Christian Fuchs in particular, and echoing claims in Kettler and Wheatland's authoritative study (Learning from Franz L. Neumann, 2019) this presentation argues that Neumann is a uniquely relevant theorist in the present... more
Following Christian Fuchs in particular, and echoing claims in Kettler and Wheatland's authoritative study (Learning from Franz L. Neumann, 2019) this presentation argues that Neumann is a uniquely relevant theorist in the present situation; first, as a student and adversary of Carl Schmitt, presently being evoked by thought-leaders in the populist Right (part 2); secondly, as someone whose work centrally turned around understanding the fai[ure of Weimar democracy and the rise and nature of the Nazi 'behemoth' (parts 3 and 4); and thirdly as the model of an interdisciplinary critical theorist whose intellectual practice turned upon making, as against 'metapolitically' grounding (and hence relativising), decisive political distinctions (esp. parts 5 and 6).
Divisio:
1. introduction: 3 reasons why Neumann now
2. Schmitt and the two-sided reactionary critique of liberalism.
3. Neumann contra Schmitt: not ‘liberalism’, ‘monopoly capitalism’
4. Weimar and the Nazi behemoth as totalitarian monopoly capitalism
5. Some meta- considerations on immanent-progressive v. total-reactionary critique
6. Neumann on the conditions of political freedom
Divisio:
1. introduction: 3 reasons why Neumann now
2. Schmitt and the two-sided reactionary critique of liberalism.
3. Neumann contra Schmitt: not ‘liberalism’, ‘monopoly capitalism’
4. Weimar and the Nazi behemoth as totalitarian monopoly capitalism
5. Some meta- considerations on immanent-progressive v. total-reactionary critique
6. Neumann on the conditions of political freedom
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Edited draft [only-do not cite this version] of Introduction to upcoming special edition of Thesis Eleven on Philosophy and the Far Right. After an introduction beginning with the January 6, 2021 events on the Capitol and reflecting on... more
Edited draft [only-do not cite this version] of Introduction to upcoming special edition of Thesis Eleven on Philosophy and the Far Right. After an introduction beginning with the January 6, 2021 events on the Capitol and reflecting on the political history of philosophy as a social practice, the article presents preliminary sketches towards an interdisciplinary inquiry concerning the relationships between philosophy and the Far Right (FR). This main section of the article includes an attempt to delineate twenty argument types or topoi used by non-FR philosophers who have attempted to draw premises from philosophers involved in or invoked by the historical FR, without accepting FR political conclusions (with due thanks to Ishay Landa, Darius Khor, William H.F. Altman, Ron Beiner and Adam Knowles). We propose a scoping map (figure 1) of the roles that political science, sociology, metaphilosophy, intellectual history and political history would need to play to access different adumbrations of the phenomena at issue, if the 'maze-way' relationships between philosophy and the Far Right are to be comprehended. Before a synopsis of the articles to be included in the special edition, the article closes with the suggestion that any full inquiry on these subjects will ask philosophers to examine the material, institutional, reputational, and other forms of capital that shape our thinking and writing, and the way that these intra-institutional political data intersect with the wider political field. We also acknowledge that such an interdisciplinary inquiry is likely to involve challenges of different kinds, although Pierre Bourdieu's hyperbolic "burn this book" (1989) probably remains somewhat too strong.
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Paratactic ruminations on June 2019 visit to Auschwitz: reflections, impressions, (anonymised) conversations, Celan's Todesfugue, Trawny's "liberty to err", Hoss' memoirs, denialism, Heidegger, Martin Swords' "Birches at Birkenau", Elie... more
Paratactic ruminations on June 2019 visit to Auschwitz: reflections, impressions, (anonymised) conversations, Celan's Todesfugue, Trawny's "liberty to err", Hoss' memoirs, denialism, Heidegger, Martin Swords' "Birches at Birkenau", Elie Wiesel's La Nuit, our post-post-fascist times.
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On Nov 5, 2014, Australians witnessed arguably the only great piece of oratory delivered 'down under' for a generation: Noel Pearson's eulogy for former Labour Prime MInister, Gough Whitlam. This paper, written for a wider audience (and... more
On Nov 5, 2014, Australians witnessed arguably the only great piece of oratory delivered 'down under' for a generation: Noel Pearson's eulogy for former Labour Prime MInister, Gough Whitlam. This paper, written for a wider audience (and now lengthened to consider dispositio, Feb 2019), uses some rhetorical tools borrowed from the Romans "Gough" admired (as Pearson notes) in order to analyse the delivery, ethos, pathos, argument and style of this extraordinary speech.
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Opinion piece for ABC online, August 2018, arguing for some necessary and (cumulatively) sufficient conditions, if the term "fascism" is to keep any consistency and not become, itself, wholly polemical.
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Draft paper for 'Meditation Today--Tradition in Conversation' event (College of Divinity, Feb. 23, 2018). This paper, written for a non-specialist audience, (1) introduces Stoicism as a philosophical tradition which sees philosophy as an... more
Draft paper for 'Meditation Today--Tradition in Conversation' event (College of Divinity, Feb. 23, 2018). This paper, written for a non-specialist audience, (1) introduces Stoicism as a philosophical tradition which sees philosophy as an art of living. It then (2) examines the forms of meditation present witjin this tradition, focussing on Marcus Aurelius and differentiating Stoic from Eastern and later, monastic forms of meditation.
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What accounts for the enduring influence of Hellenistic life-philosophies -- Stoicism, Epicureanism, Scepticism, Neoplatonism, and other such movements? What is living or dead in ancient ethical philosophy today? This cross-disciplinary... more
What accounts for the enduring influence of Hellenistic life-philosophies -- Stoicism, Epicureanism, Scepticism, Neoplatonism, and other such movements? What is living or dead in ancient ethical philosophy today? This cross-disciplinary symposium encourages reflections on the long-term impact of Hellenistic ethical philosophy from antiquity up to the present. Topics under discussion will include the reception of Lucretian and Epicurean ethical and scientific ideas in the Renaissance, early modern and Enlightenment engagements with Stoicism, and the appraisal of Senecan ethics by Erasmus and Montaigne. Speakers: Ada Palmer (University of Chicago); Patrick Gray (Durham University); Diana Barnes (University of Queensland); and Matthew Sharpe (Deakin University). The symposium will consist of a series of papers followed by general discussion.
This paper was delivered at the Raise the Bar event in November 2017. It presents three arguments against the hyperbolic talk of a 'post-truth' era: politics and truth have always been uneasy bedfellows, it serves the interests of people... more
This paper was delivered at the Raise the Bar event in November 2017. It presents three arguments against the hyperbolic talk of a 'post-truth' era: politics and truth have always been uneasy bedfellows, it serves the interests of people who want to legitimise deceit to claim that deceit is now inevitable, and the idea is a hyberbole. In place of a 'post-truth' condition, what we are experiencing are two convergent crises. The first is a crisis of the old fourth estate, occasioned by the rise of the internet, with the business models it necessitates for media outlets, and social media in particular. The second is a crisis of liberal democracy, which has seen the increasing mainstreaming of forms of populism which have a deep contempt for liberal institutions, including the idea of an independent, free and fearless media.
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Shorter, published and longer unpublished talk to Australian Humanist Society in 2015. This piece reflects upon the state of humanities education at present, and the predominance of different forms of cultural pessimism. It suggests a... more
Shorter, published and longer unpublished talk to Australian Humanist Society in 2015. This piece reflects upon the state of humanities education at present, and the predominance of different forms of cultural pessimism. It suggests a link between this predominance and the culture of specialisation which insulates the humanities from the public sphere, and positions them as a sadly confused poor cousin to the natural sciences. The piece uses Bacon's reading of the fable of Orpheus in the Wisdom of the Ancients (1609) as the concluding leitfmotif: "And if such troubles last, it is not long before letters also and philosophy are so torn in pieces that no traces of them can be found but a few fragments, scattered here and there like planks from a shipwreck; and then a season of barbarism sets in, the waters of Helicon being sunk under the ground, until, according to the appointed vicissitude of things, they break out and issue forth again, perhaps among other nations, and not in the places where they were before."
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Draft transcript of talk for Melbourne Hellenic society, March 2017
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Lecture notes from course, situates Voltaire and Candide in light of early modern scepticism, biblical criticism, deism, Bayle and theodicy. May be of use to students working on the text.
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Draft of (shorter) Conversation Special on Montaigne, this version posits a few more of the presuppositions: and makes more of an argument early on for Montaigne's importance in anticipating later, more recognised philosophical... more
Draft of (shorter) Conversation Special on Montaigne, this version posits a few more of the presuppositions: and makes more of an argument early on for Montaigne's importance in anticipating later, more recognised philosophical positions. (This version is also more playful and elliptical than the published version, to appear soon).
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One response to the question "what is intellectual freedom?" for inaugural issue of the journal Continental Thought and Theory
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Magazine piece on Furedi's 'First World War: Still No End in Sight'.
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The title says it all: magazine piece arguing that Montaigne should still be read and appreciated, or else Pyrrho's hog should be, for his superior ataraxia in the storm.
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First parts of dossier (still in process) of materials now available and discussed in debates surrounding Heidegger and Nazism, which will soon include commentary on French-language texts unavailable to Anglophone readers. This dossier... more
First parts of dossier (still in process) of materials now available and discussed in debates surrounding Heidegger and Nazism, which will soon include commentary on French-language texts unavailable to Anglophone readers. This dossier is intended as a guide for students and interested researchers, in order to enable people to become informed of what is now available, since so often meaningful debate on this incredibly important subject is derailed due to the suppression, disavowal, denial, or simple non-knowledge of relevant materials by one or more parties to said debates. This material is all pre-2015, and thus pre- the Black Books: it include materials on/from the GA, and correspondence, as this material has been published and unearthed over the last two decades. Interested parties are invited to use this dossier, which is however not intended to be cited, so much as a guide to materials that should be cited.
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Lecture notes that may be of use to students new to Plato's, Aristotle's, Cicero's extant political texts, which are so different in their dramatis personae and methods from more recent political philosophers' texts: the presentation... more
Lecture notes that may be of use to students new to Plato's, Aristotle's, Cicero's extant political texts, which are so different in their dramatis personae and methods from more recent political philosophers' texts: the presentation charts 13 basic features which seem clearly to inform these texts, culminating in the philosophy-politics opposition.
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As per title, adapted from notes for my students, may be of use for students studying this speech; or alternatively, for people teaching classical rhetoric, as an example of 'the grand style' and of the artful use of so many of the tropes.
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This magazine piece reflects on the specific features of today's return to theology in the humanities, noting how (outside of the narrow field of analytic philosophy of religion) it skirts first order theological questions, and questions... more
This magazine piece reflects on the specific features of today's return to theology in the humanities, noting how (outside of the narrow field of analytic philosophy of religion) it skirts first order theological questions, and questions about theodicy. The God of the theorists, fideistic and messianic, is contrasted with the God of the philosophers of former times.
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This paper, delivered at a symposium on William H.F. Altman's books at Deakin in November 2014, sets up Altman's reading of Plato's Republic, and his wider Platonism, in the light of his wider claims concerning the reading order of the... more
This paper, delivered at a symposium on William H.F. Altman's books at Deakin in November 2014, sets up Altman's reading of Plato's Republic, and his wider Platonism, in the light of his wider claims concerning the reading order of the dialogues. This reading order posits that the late dialogues are basanistic or testing dialogues, and that the Eleatic and Athenian Stranger in the Sophist, Statesman, Laws are not Plato's spokespersons. They are rather sophists whose positions and persona are divorced from the civic spiritedness that see Socrates stay down in Athens, drinking his hemlock beneath the slopes of the Acropolis, rather than fleeing to Crete or Magnesia. I suggest that, in Altman's previous books, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Strauss are positioned as such German Strangers, progenitors of a deeply antiliberal and, surfaces aside, deeply unclassical set of positions.
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To say that the Stoics followed Plato in nominating four cardinal virtues (wisdom, justice moderation, courage) takes us only so far, For by itself, it can tell us nothing about the significant differences between the Stoic conception of... more
To say that the Stoics followed Plato in nominating four cardinal virtues (wisdom, justice moderation, courage) takes us only so far, For by itself, it can tell us nothing about the significant differences between the Stoic conception of the good life, and those of other schools, and even encourage us to uncritically suppose that these visions were "the same". In the surviving “doxographic sources” on Stoic ethics, by contrast, Diogenes Laertius, Arius Didymus (in Stobaeus), and pseudo-Andronicus, extensive lists of what are called “subordinate (hypotetagmenon)” virtues are extant, falling under the headings of the four cardinal virtues. In Diogenes Laertius, five such are listed. In Arius Didymus, some eighteen are listed (six forms of wisdom, five of courage, four forms of justice and moderation). In pseudo-Andronicus’ work On the Passions (SVF III, 266-272) we get a list of some thirty-nine, with seven forms of moderation, seven of courage, seven of wisdom, and some nine forms of justice). In what follows (draft of a paper for Modern Stoicism), I will first introduce the list of the forty-two virtues in pseudo-Andronicus and the two additional forms of justice Arius Didymus adds, with translations of these which I’ve produced with the assistance of Rob Colter, and through cross-referencing with Long and Sedley’s translations of Arius Didymus. Then I’ll offer a brief commentary. The interest in this task, I think, is just how much more detail this extensive list of virtues gives concerning “how to be a Stoic”, than when we just demarcate the four principal virtues: Stoic courage, in particular, is not the same as Aristotelian, or wider Greco-Roman conceptions. The list of virtues as it were allows us to focus in on the different challenges, objects, and situations of life which the Stoics clearly considered, remembering their claim that for every such occasion, there will be a virtue we can call upon to respond to it optimally. There are over forty such occasions or subjects for the practice of different virtues in pseudo-Andronicus. So, what the list allows us to glimpse is a very rich portrait of the different arêtai and, as it were, the way of life of the Sage, or anyone who makes a good deal of progress as a Stoic, and the differences between this way of life and other ancient visions of the same.
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Draft paper exploring how, if at all, we can square the Stoic paradoxes concerning the sage with their mutually supporting technical definitions of wisdom, philosophy, knowledge, and crafts. The paper concludes, with due caution, that... more
Draft paper exploring how, if at all, we can square the Stoic paradoxes concerning the sage with their mutually supporting technical definitions of wisdom, philosophy, knowledge, and crafts. The paper concludes, with due caution, that
1. the “received interpretation” of the sage as omniscient is implausible, undesirable, and can only answer part of the textual evidence.
2. If, following Brouwer, we approach the sage by way of the definitions of wisdom (sophia), knowledge (epistêmê), philosophy, and crafts (technai), we see that:
i. Wisdom is described as involving both (1) a belief component: “knowledge of things human and divine” and (2) a craft component (it is a “fitting craft” (επιτηδεiας τέχνης) whose object is either/both the virtue and the best life for human beings.
ii. If we follow 1(1) we see that knowledge itself for the Stoics has a belief component (1) and involves a transformed hexis in the psyche of the knower (2)
iii. If we follow 1(2) we see that the crafts are defined both in terms of systematic cognitions (1) and a transformed hexis (2), and that both of these are characterised by their stability of “constancy”.
iv. Thus wisdom involves both systematic beliefs about things human and divine, and a transformed hexis, where both are characterise by constancy, and it becomes a question of understanding how this is humanly possible.
v. The Stoics’ emphasis on the epistemic virtues of “unhastiness” and “non-precipitancy” suggest that, following Liu (Apeiron, 2008) what is at stake is a way of acquiring beliefs systematically, rather than an established, unchangeable body of systematic beliefs.
vi. Such fragments that suggest omniscience, mastery of all crafts, can be explained as paradoxes turning on exoteric (doxastic) v. esoteric (technical) meanings of terms like “rich”, “generalship”, “kingship”.
vii. And/or they are hyperbolic paradoxes aiming to attract attention/publicity and awaken curiosity in potential new students.
1. the “received interpretation” of the sage as omniscient is implausible, undesirable, and can only answer part of the textual evidence.
2. If, following Brouwer, we approach the sage by way of the definitions of wisdom (sophia), knowledge (epistêmê), philosophy, and crafts (technai), we see that:
i. Wisdom is described as involving both (1) a belief component: “knowledge of things human and divine” and (2) a craft component (it is a “fitting craft” (επιτηδεiας τέχνης) whose object is either/both the virtue and the best life for human beings.
ii. If we follow 1(1) we see that knowledge itself for the Stoics has a belief component (1) and involves a transformed hexis in the psyche of the knower (2)
iii. If we follow 1(2) we see that the crafts are defined both in terms of systematic cognitions (1) and a transformed hexis (2), and that both of these are characterised by their stability of “constancy”.
iv. Thus wisdom involves both systematic beliefs about things human and divine, and a transformed hexis, where both are characterise by constancy, and it becomes a question of understanding how this is humanly possible.
v. The Stoics’ emphasis on the epistemic virtues of “unhastiness” and “non-precipitancy” suggest that, following Liu (Apeiron, 2008) what is at stake is a way of acquiring beliefs systematically, rather than an established, unchangeable body of systematic beliefs.
vi. Such fragments that suggest omniscience, mastery of all crafts, can be explained as paradoxes turning on exoteric (doxastic) v. esoteric (technical) meanings of terms like “rich”, “generalship”, “kingship”.
vii. And/or they are hyperbolic paradoxes aiming to attract attention/publicity and awaken curiosity in potential new students.
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To understand Heidegger's lasting conception of the "inner truth and greatness" of Nazism, and how it would have looked "ontically", we need to examine his conceptions of people, state, and politics in the period of his bid for "spiritual... more
To understand Heidegger's lasting conception of the "inner truth and greatness" of Nazism, and how it would have looked "ontically", we need to examine his conceptions of people, state, and politics in the period of his bid for "spiritual leadership" under the new Reich. This draft paper critically assesses Heidegger's "political theology", doing three things most solely philosophical assessments don't: i. engaging with historical literature on Nazism and fascist intellectuals; ii. situating Heidegger's actions in terms of not one, but five "Kampfe": (a) within philosophy, (b) for philosophy over the sciences within the university (c), against other intellectuals bidding for "spiritual Fuhrung" in the Gleichschaltung; (d) for the University against massification; (e) for Germany as the "middle","metaphysical" people: and iii. using Marcuse's critical contemporary assessments of far-Right ideology as a control to evaluate what Bourdieu called "the politics of Being". The paper argues that Heidegger's thought is a textbook case of what critical Marxism called ideological mystification: "a reinterpretation of irrational pregivens as normative ones," and of particular, optative, political presciptions (for absolute personalist rule, the long-term Kampf against internal enemies, the militant self-assertion of Germany against Versailles ...) as fated, ontological deliverances from "the essence of truth".
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This article challenges the recurrent critique that Pierre Hadot's identification of ancient philosophy with the practice of spiritual exercises introduces a non-or irrational dimension into metaphilosophy. The occasion to do this is... more
This article challenges the recurrent critique that Pierre Hadot's identification of ancient philosophy with the practice of spiritual exercises introduces a non-or irrational dimension into metaphilosophy. The occasion to do this is provided by Kerem Eksen's recent reading of Descartes' Meditations as consisting of solely intellectual, rather than spiritual, exercises-since the latter, Eksen claims, involve extrarational means and ends. Part 2 presents an alternative account of the role of cognition in the ancient meditatio at issue in understanding Descartes' antecedents. This account is indebted to Michel Foucault's characterization of ancient meditation as involving two cognitive mechanisms: an appropriation of thought, and an experiment in identification. Part 3 argues that attempts such as Eksen's to depict spiritual exercises as wholly noncognitive themselves are the product of an "unexamined Cartesianism" that is fundamentally at odds with the monistic psychology of ancient Stoics like Marcus Aurelius as discussed in Hadot's studies.
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This collection of writings from Pierre Hadot (1992-2010) presents, for the first time, previously unreleased and in some cases untranslated materials from one of the world's most prominent classical philosophers and historians of... more
This collection of writings from Pierre Hadot (1992-2010) presents, for the first time, previously unreleased and in some cases untranslated materials from one of the world's most prominent classical philosophers and historians of thought.
As a passionate proponent of philosophy as a 'way of life' (most powerfully communicated in the life of Socrates), Pierre Hadot rejuvenated interest in the ancient philosophers and developed a philosophy based on their work which is peculiarly contemporary. His radical recasting of philosophy in the West was both provocative and substantial. Indeed, Michel Foucault cites Pierre Hadot as a major influence on his work.
This beautifully written, lucid collection of writings will not only be of interest to historians, classicists and philosophers but also those interested in nourishing, as Pierre Hadot himself might have put it, a 'spiritual life'.
As a passionate proponent of philosophy as a 'way of life' (most powerfully communicated in the life of Socrates), Pierre Hadot rejuvenated interest in the ancient philosophers and developed a philosophy based on their work which is peculiarly contemporary. His radical recasting of philosophy in the West was both provocative and substantial. Indeed, Michel Foucault cites Pierre Hadot as a major influence on his work.
This beautifully written, lucid collection of writings will not only be of interest to historians, classicists and philosophers but also those interested in nourishing, as Pierre Hadot himself might have put it, a 'spiritual life'.
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2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic spread globally, marked the twenty-fifth year since the publication of Pierre Hadot’s work Philosophy as a Way of Life (translated by co-author Michael Chase). In that time, what began as the... more
2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic spread globally, marked the twenty-fifth year since the publication of Pierre Hadot’s work Philosophy as a Way of Life (translated by co-author Michael Chase). In that time, what began as the research specialization of just a few scholars has become a growing area of philosophical and metaphilosophical inquiry, bringing together researchers from around the globe. Hadot’s key ideas of spiritual exercises, and the very idea of PWL, have been applied to a host of individual thinkers from across the history of philosophy: from the Hellenistic and Roman-era philosophers of direct concern to Hadot, through renaissance thinkers like Petrarch, Lipsius, Montaigne, Descartes, or Bacon, into nineteenth-century thinkers led by Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.In more recent years, more global reflections on the “very idea” of PWL have begun to emerge, as well as dedicated journal editions. In these more recent PWL studies, some of the manifold research questions have begun to be explored, which were opened up by the studies of Pierre and Ilsetraut Hadot, as well as its reception in Michel Foucault’s later work.
What implications, after all, does understanding the history of PWL, and the predominance of this metaphilosophical conception in the history of Western thought, have for how we understand the practice(s) of philosophy today? Does recovering the alternative understandings of philosophy as a practice in history necessarily lead to a criticism of contemporary, solely academic or theoretical modes of philosophizing, or is the idea of PWL one which has only historiographical force?
What implications, after all, does understanding the history of PWL, and the predominance of this metaphilosophical conception in the history of Western thought, have for how we understand the practice(s) of philosophy today? Does recovering the alternative understandings of philosophy as a practice in history necessarily lead to a criticism of contemporary, solely academic or theoretical modes of philosophizing, or is the idea of PWL one which has only historiographical force?
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... Objective, 970122 Expanding Knowledge in Philosophy and Religious Studies. Title of article,Zizek's communism and in defence of lost causes. Alternative title, “Žižek's communism” and in defence of lost causes. Author(s),... more
... Objective, 970122 Expanding Knowledge in Philosophy and Religious Studies. Title of article,Zizek's communism and in defence of lost causes. Alternative title, “Žižek's communism” and in defence of lost causes. Author(s), ... Journal name, International journal of Zizek studies. ...
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Research Interests: Law and Church and State
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Abstract The essay addresses Lacan's remarks on Descartes' theology. It argues that these remarks, which turn around an identification of the Cartesian God as an avatar of the Other `supposed to know', can only be... more
Abstract The essay addresses Lacan's remarks on Descartes' theology. It argues that these remarks, which turn around an identification of the Cartesian God as an avatar of the Other `supposed to know', can only be understood in terms of Lacan's revealing wider reading of ...
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... Title of chapter, Neuropsychoanalysis and the future of psychoanalysis. Author(s), Sharpe,Matthew. Title of book, Trauma, history, philosophy. Editor(s), Sharpe, Matthew Noonan, Murray Freddi, Jason. Date, 2007. ISBN, 9781847183781... more
... Title of chapter, Neuropsychoanalysis and the future of psychoanalysis. Author(s), Sharpe,Matthew. Title of book, Trauma, history, philosophy. Editor(s), Sharpe, Matthew Noonan, Murray Freddi, Jason. Date, 2007. ISBN, 9781847183781 1847183786. ...
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The philosophical critiques of the so-called modern or "Cartesian" subject are as well-known as they are finally self-confuting. The modern subject, it is said, is a small substantial piece of reality that has yet abrogated to... more
The philosophical critiques of the so-called modern or "Cartesian" subject are as well-known as they are finally self-confuting. The modern subject, it is said, is a small substantial piece of reality that has yet abrogated to itself the position of "the master and possessor" of Being. ...
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RefDoc Bienvenue - Welcome. Refdoc est un service / is powered by. ...
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... Title of chapter, What's left in Zizek? The antinomies of Zizek's sociopolitical reason. Author(s), Sharpe, Matthew. Title of book, Traversing the fantasy: critical responses to Slavoj Zizek. Editor(s), Boucher, Geoff... more
... Title of chapter, What's left in Zizek? The antinomies of Zizek's sociopolitical reason. Author(s), Sharpe, Matthew. Title of book, Traversing the fantasy: critical responses to Slavoj Zizek. Editor(s), Boucher, Geoff Glynos, Jason Sharpe, Matthew. Date, 2005. ...
Abstract: The reasons that Leo Strauss, the American political philosopher, is viewed as a Sphinx is discussed. Alarmism is not the best way of coming to terms with the apparently contradictory political phenomenon of 'Leo Strauss... more
Abstract: The reasons that Leo Strauss, the American political philosopher, is viewed as a Sphinx is discussed. Alarmism is not the best way of coming to terms with the apparently contradictory political phenomenon of 'Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire'. This article ...
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1. Defining fascism, defining the problem 2. six good reasons why we have neglected taking fascist ideas seriously after the war and then better reasons why we shouldn’t 3. The two-way interchange between intellectuals and fascism (cui... more
1. Defining fascism, defining the problem
2. six good reasons why we have neglected taking fascist ideas seriously after the war and then better reasons why we shouldn’t
3. The two-way interchange between intellectuals and fascism (cui bono?)
4. Which ideas, which sciences (do fascists use)?
5. Intellectuals in the pre- or beginnings (of fascism, like presently), and in its radicalization, not in its domestication.
6. Conclusions: Ten things we can learn from fascist studies research.
2. six good reasons why we have neglected taking fascist ideas seriously after the war and then better reasons why we shouldn’t
3. The two-way interchange between intellectuals and fascism (cui bono?)
4. Which ideas, which sciences (do fascists use)?
5. Intellectuals in the pre- or beginnings (of fascism, like presently), and in its radicalization, not in its domestication.
6. Conclusions: Ten things we can learn from fascist studies research.
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Copy of presentation for book forum, Nov 23, On Christopher Gill's Learning to Live Naturally: Stoic Ethics and its Modern Significance. Examines Gill's claims that Stoic virtue ethics shares basic philosophical parameters with... more
Copy of presentation for book forum, Nov 23, On Christopher Gill's Learning to Live Naturally: Stoic Ethics and its Modern Significance. Examines Gill's claims that Stoic virtue ethics shares basic philosophical parameters with Aristotelianism, that have attracted contemporary virtue ethicists such as Foot or Hursthouse. The presentation then examines Gill's claims that Stoic virtue ethics avoids inconsistencies within Aristotelian virtue ethics, around the relationships between virtue and happiness, and theoretical and practical forms of life, and--far from being less practicable than Aristotelianism--provides the theoretical bases for meaningful forms of practical deliberation and life guidance.
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Presentation for March 2023 Stoicism and Politics event, to be held by the Platonic Academy online. Draft only. What can Stoicism do in a world in which politics is increasingly devolving into friends-versus-enemies? The paper looks at... more
Presentation for March 2023 Stoicism and Politics event, to be held by the Platonic Academy online. Draft only. What can Stoicism do in a world in which politics is increasingly devolving into friends-versus-enemies? The paper looks at the Stoic exercise of self-othering, as a means to promote civility towards others, by fostering what Kant in the Critique of Judgment calls an "enlarged" perspective: "to reflect upon our own judgement from a universal standpoint (which we can only determine by shifting our ground to the standpoint of others)."