Barry Stocker | Bogazici University (original) (raw)

Papers by Barry Stocker

Philosophy and Society , 2024

The starting point of the paper is Derrida’s early discussion of Lévinas, focusing on the suggest... more The starting point of the paper is Derrida’s early discussion of Lévinas, focusing on the suggestion that violence is paradoxically magnified in Lévinas’s attempt to articulate ethics as first philosophy within a metaphysics ostensibly free of violence. The next step is an examination of Derrida’s thoughts on Lévi-Strauss and Rousseau in Of Grammatology. Derrida’s comments on names and violence in Lévi-Strauss establish that ethics emerges through a distinction between the “good” interior and the “bad” exterior. Derrida’s subsequent remarks on Rousseau bring up his view of pity as a pre-social morality and the emergence of a social world that enacts violence upon the fullness of nature and the spontaneity of pity within a system of organized, competitive egotism. In his engagement with Celan, Derrida explores a poetics that conveys the sense of a particular, singular self as essential to ethics—defining itself in its separation yet inevitably caught up in universality. This theme develops into an examination of mass slaughter around the Hebrew Bible story of the “shibboleth”, highlighting the violent consequences of exclusionary conceptions of identity. In The Gift of Death, Derrida discusses the relationship between Paganism, Platonism, and Christianity through Patočka’s perspective, then returns to Judaism via Kierkegaard’s discussion of Abraham and Isaac. Derrida’s reflections on secrecy, the sacred, ethical paradox, the violence of ethical absolutism, and the aporetic nature of ethical decisions converge around a discussion of political decisionism in Schmitt and the broader ethical significance of decisionism, as it also appears in Benjamin.

Itinera, Jan 8, 2024

Le Rouge et le Noir is taken as an example of a novel in which the hero, and some other character... more Le Rouge et le Noir is taken as an example of a novel in which the hero, and some other characters, experience strong tension between inner consciousness and social habits. Stendhal's novel is a particularly significant example because it is shaped by the immediate afterlife of the French Revolution and the writings of Rousseau. The revolutionary rupture with habit intersects with the themes of a consciousness looking for inner existence and the role of inner passions. The Revolution was an exception, prolonged by the rise of Bonaparte which appeals to a hero frustrated by the habitual conformity of anti-revolutionary France after the fall of Bonaparte. He seeks a great career, and he seeks grandeur in love, always combining passions with strategy in an unstable mix. He moves from love with a comparative innocent to love with a woman who shares his obsessions though they have different objects. The final crisis of the novel leads to a breakdown of the hero's habitual self, in an ending in which passions becomes both destructive violence and an idyllic solitary resignation. The journey into an interiority, through exceptional breaks with habit finds a culmination. This achievement rests on Stendhal writing in a world after Rousseau and understanding the full extent of this requires a rounded understanding of Rousseau, along with his context.

If there is a question of what liberty is then liberty should be argument, provocation and the ae... more If there is a question of what liberty is then liberty should be argument, provocation and the aestheticisation of perspective. There is an art of politics as there is a style of living and technique of existence explored by Foucault in The Hermeneutics of the Self. If parrēsia is part of the government of self and others in antiquity, we can see it present in the aesthetic subjectivity and Enlightenment reason of modernity. The aesthetic subjectivity and the Enlightenment reason have precedents in antique parrēsia and style of living, which acquire new meaning in Foucault’s discussion of Enlightenment and the modern. Foucault’s thoughts Parrēsia is at the centre of a modern ethos of Enlightenment and aesthetic subjectivity. Risk taking speech, reason in argument and respect for the aesthetic nature of individual perspective are the desirable aspects of modern politics. He does not look for a return to parrēsia in modern politics, but we can think of his extensive discussions of parrēsia as an invitation to think about politics in terms of a public speech which communicates inner truths regardless of danger and death, distinct from any search for consensus about truth or public reason. The emphasis on inner truth in parrēsia does suggest a convergence with the aestheticised subjectivity Foucault discusses in the modern world.

The aesthetic and poetic run through Foucault’s work in ways which add to the understanding of li... more The aesthetic and poetic run through Foucault’s work in ways which add to the understanding of liberty, but often in ways which require some effort at making the explicit implicit. The aesthetic in Foucault is often a way of showing as well as, or even instead, of showing which itself says something about the aesthetic. A very telling example comes at the end of Chapter IX of Birth of the Clinic ‘The Visible Invisible’: ‘Death left its old tragic heaven and became the lyrical core of man: his invisible truth, his visible secret’ (1973, 172). The chapter title and the quotation hint at Foucault’s interest, in Merleau-Ponty’s work in his last years, on a phenomenology of interplay between visibility and invisibility. What the quotation also suggests is Foucault’s concerns with the changing status of tragedy and the aestheticism necessary to comprehend human existence and lived experience. This carries on in later work in which ancient care of the self is discussed in terms of the aesthetics of existence and styles of living; and in this way as connected with more recent forms of aestheticism. What Foucault suggests in this quotation is that the lyricism of existence is not a matter of some purely subjectivist sensationalist aesthetic. The aesthetics of life is deeply connected in the late eighteenth century with an awareness of death in medical science, which was key to seeing the human body more as a unified organism and less as a combination of discrete medical dysfunctions. Foucault suggests elsewhere in the book that we put this in the context of Friedrich Hölderlin’s play The Death of Empedocles, along with later discussion of death in Nietzsche and Heidegger. Suprisingly Foucault does not bring in Hegel in this context, but he was undoubtedly aware of the role of death in Hegel’s philosophy, most famously in the discussion of master and slave in the Phenomenology of Spirit.

These remarks towards the end of Birth of the Clinic make clear the centrality of tragedy in Foucault’s thought. The understanding of the tragic aspect of Foucault’s thought, has so far been very limited. It is, however, very significant in understanding Foucault as a thinker about liberty, as it is concerned with the relation of the individual to external forces, political and otherwise.

One way in which negativity as embodied suffering appears in Foucault is through punishment, whet... more One way in which negativity as embodied suffering appears in Foucault is through punishment, whether in the horror of the execution of Damiens that opens Discipline and Punish, or the non- spectacular disciplining of the body in the prison. This contrast can be followed in Foucault, back to the way he thinks of madness in relation to Nietzschean theory of tragedy in History of Madness, or followed forward in the place compelled veridical speech has in later lectures. The transition from an antique tragic understanding of madness to an understanding of madness as unreason, anticipates the transition from spectacular to disciplinary punishment. It can also be seen in the ancient Athenian transition from a mythical understanding of justice to a a focus on veridical speech. In all cases, there is a rationalistic negation of mythical violence. The spectacular violence of public execution, the awareness of madness as a form of reason outside normal experience, the idea of divine intervention in trial by contest in archaic Greece are all examples of mythical forces negating normal experience of the conscious world. Disciplinarity, biopolitics, legal and psychiatric veridical speech are all forms of negation of myth and of the body. The body, and mind, are subjected to more internal negation compare with the external nature of violence in the mythically oriented world. This is combined with themes of self-care, aesthetics of existence, singularity. and the modern as subjective, in Foucault which offer possible alternatives to negativity.

Vico’s achievement has a reading of Homeric epic and an understanding of its historical context a... more Vico’s achievement has a reading of Homeric epic and an understanding of its historical context at its heart. Vico pioneered the idea that the Iliad and the Odyssey owe more to oral tradition than any single writer, even claiming that there was no individual Homer, only a tradition of bards grouped together as ‘Homer’. This is itself a significant anticipation of a later eighteenth century interest in folkish traditions in literature. His work as a whole anticipates both the rationalism of Enlightenment and the Romantic idealisation of myth. Vico’s anticipations and underlying influence has been largely hidden from view, but there are significant exceptions which lead to an appreciation of his place.

This paper does not offer a new liberty oriented theory of interstate relations. It offers some t... more This paper does not offer a new liberty oriented theory of interstate relations. It offers some thoughts about the parameters of any liberty oriented theory, which plays full regard to the tragic aspects of political and social existence in relation to the tragedies0 of individual human lives. It argues that tensions between states are endemic and always have the potential for violence. Violence can be restrained by an internationalist or cosmopolitan understanding of law. This does not have to mean transnational or global institutions, and these are possibilities rejected by some liberty oriented thinkers. The perspective of this paper is that humanity is inevitably divided between political communities and that rationalistic top down homogenising transnational or global institutions are bad for human flourishing. The perspective is also that absolute sovereignty is bad both at the transnational and national levels. A liberty oriented view is best expressed through multiple sources of sovereignty, which to some degree are co-ordinated at the transnational level, but to some degree always challenge the co-ordination in a constantly evolving network of centres of sovereignty. The main purpose of this paper is to look at the tragic roots of the understanding of individual freedom, conflict and interstate relations, looking at how this evolves over time and is best understood from perspectives which maximise tragic tensions and the energy of individual human activity, seeking the struggles and the laws which best feed on and intensify tensions in creative energy and positive activity.

The idea of agon, of struggle, is fundamental to Foucault’s ethics and to his politics. His two ... more The idea of agon, of struggle, is fundamental to Foucault’s ethics and to his politics. His two most obvious predecessors on this issue are Nietzsche and Machiavelli. Unfortunately he is inclined to take Machiavelli as ‘Machiavellian’ in the familiar sense, and does not seem to notice Machiavelli the Republican idealist and the admirer of conflict within a political community, as a strengthening of republican self-government, behind the cynical rhetoric of The Prince. Foucault does not say a great deal directly about Nietzsche, and does not need to since everyone understands the connection. His account of ethics and politics in his texts on the Ancient world (History of Sexuality Volumes II & III, Hermeneutics of the Subject, The Government of Self and Others, Fearless Speech), can be taken as formed in an implicit transformation of Nietzsche’s view of the master-slave relation in antiquity, as established in the Genealogy of Morality.

Foucault's use of the term 'style of living' with reference to antique ethics, and sexuality, has... more Foucault's use of the term 'style of living' with reference to antique ethics, and sexuality, has been frequently misunderstood; and the role of ontology has largely been overlooked. Style of living, or aesthetics of existence, in Foucault, does not referred to unconstrained subjectivity, acting from pure arbitrariness. Foucault's account embeds style and aesthetics in the ontology of nature, and in social ontology. He refers directly to the guiding role of natural existence for antique thought about ethics, and style of living. He refers directly to the ontological basis of style of living, along with structure, knowledge, and instrumentality. The social ontology Foucault builds up refers to a civic public life of parrhesia, free speaking, as a part of the style of living; and develops and account of care of the self, which puts the self in social and public context. Care of the self promotes the pleasure, and health, of the self, while constraining it with regard to the consequences of acts for the self, and with regard to status in the social world.

Foucault does not have an explicit theory of liberty, and accordingly he does not have an explici... more Foucault does not have an explicit theory of liberty, and accordingly he does not have an explicit account of where he is looks for theories of liberty. We have to look the main fields in which Foucault does work related to ideas of liberty. Seven major fields are discussed here: aesthetics, discourse, the self, law, sovereignty, institutions, political economy. These are not of course completely distinct fields of inquiry, in general, and certainly not in Foucault's writing. This is an arrangement particularly suited to the fields Foucault covers. Aesthetics comes first, because there are ways in which Foucault begins with aesthetics and stays with it in later work. History of Madness, his first major work, is in part, a prolongation of, and reflection on, Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy. The direct references to Nietzsche and to tragedy are brief but significant. At one end are the references to Nietzsche and modern art in the Marquis de Sade, Van Gogh, and Antonin Artaud, so Nietzsche as part of the modern thought which brings back the experience of madness after its exile from reason in the early modern era. At the other end are references to the tragedies of 'classical France' (the seventeenth century), which set up a contrast between the exclusion of madness in Jean Racine and the place of madness within ancient Greek tragedy. This develops a component of liberty, the sense of inner space, the inner self

This article examines Foucault's thought about parrhesia. Foucault discussed the importance in At... more This article examines Foucault's thought about parrhesia. Foucault discussed the importance in Athenian democracy, and in antiquity as a whole, of the kind of speech which has deep connections with democracy and equality between citizens. He also points out that it came into conflict with Athenian tradition and the views of the democratic majority, in its commitment to fearless honesty.

An account of the most significant elements of Derrida’s ethical thought, drawing on the desert o... more An account of the most significant elements of Derrida’s ethical thought, drawing on the desert of the Hebrew Bible, which Derrida associates with a moral law that is ethically troubling. Partly with reference to Kierkegaard’s account of the story of Abraham and Isaac, Derrida examines how ethical law can become subordination to the sovereignty of the power apparently at the source of ethics which may then destroy moral law. The political equivalent of this is the decision proposed by Carl Schmitt, drawing on Kierkegaard. Derrida’s famous statement that ‘deconstruction is justice’ is the recognition that justice, and ethics in general, is caught between the formality of law and the violence of the sovereign power. One outcome of this is sacrifice as substitution, where ethics becomes recompense for violation through sacrifice. Sacrifice is the offering of a substitute. The substitution becomes repeated and itself is then the source of violence contravening some sense of ethics. Derrida’s attempts to escape from these deserts include a poetics which recognises the subjective and the aesthetic in the interpretation of law. It also includes the development of a form of sacrifice which is the individual responding to violation in an individualised way which cannot be substituted.

The chapter begins with what Nietzsche contributes to the philosophy of his novel through his rem... more The chapter begins with what Nietzsche contributes to the philosophy of his novel through his remarks on Stendhal and Dostoevsky, along with his view of how the novel emerges from the death of tragedy in antiquity. These thoughts are considered as what opens the way for Lukacs. Lukacs is mostly considered for his Romantic work on the novel, though his Marxist phase is also considered. His view of the novel as a fall from epic unity between individual, and the world is emphasised along with other historical aspects.

Angelaki, 1997

Keith Ansell��Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker (Cambridge: Cambridge U... more Keith Ansell��Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) hb: 0��521��41722��8. pb: 0��521��42721��5. Paul Patton, ed., Nietzsche, Feminism and Political Theory (London: Routledge. 1993) 0��4150��8256��0. Lester M. Hunt, Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue (London: Routledge, 1993) 0��4150��9580��8. David Owen, Maturity and Modernity. Nietzsche, Weber, Foucault and the Ambivalence of Reason (London: Routledge, 1994) 0��4150��5398��6. Peter Lassmann and Ronald Spiers ...

Angelaki, 1996

Recently the theme of political crisis , has been raised. The crisis is taken to be that there is... more Recently the theme of political crisis , has been raised. The crisis is taken to be that there is a growing gap between citizens and party politics. Representative institutions have become remote from the concerns of the people. Their claim to represent is therefore at risk. A culture of political participation is becoming marginalised, so that the definition of citizens as belonging to a political community is losing its reality. A history can be traced of humanity defined by the existence of communities of political interest. What can be discerned in this history is that ...

Angelaki, May 1, 1999

Fear and Trembling (Kierkegaard's Writings^ VI) deals with the possibility of decision. The ... more Fear and Trembling (Kierkegaard's Writings^ VI) deals with the possibility of decision. The possibility of decisions depends on the absolute possibility of making a decision. The absolute possibility is in opposition to the contingency of decisions. As the absolute it is beyond any contingent representation, so Fear and Trembling attempts to represent the unrepresentable and itself deals with the dilemma of the event of presentation. The possibility of decision is the possibility of deciding on'laws of representation and writing, ...

Encyclopedia of Anthropology

Philosophy and Society , 2024

Itinera, Jan 8, 2024

Angelaki, 1997

Angelaki, 1996

Angelaki, May 1, 1999

Encyclopedia of Anthropology

The work of the 18th century Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico includes a major focus on t... more The work of the 18th century Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico includes a major focus on the role of Homeric epic in interpreting societies where law has not fully developed as a public institution applying to all citizens. Vico advances the view that poetry, whether as Homeric epic or in a more general sense, has less importance in societies where rationality and law ground institutions and condition public language. In the transition from 'heroic' to 'human' stages of history, both violence and imagination are subordinated to universal justice and the use of reason. Vico presents a version of the 'death of art' thesis to be found in later philosophers including Hegel, Nietzsche, Adorno and Danto. This paper will clarify all these points in putting forward an argument about what the 'death of art' means in different thinkers and what Vico has to contribute to understanding the place of the aesthetic in social philosophy. Vico both suggests an early version of the death of art thesis, while also showing that the decline of art leads to social disintegration.

In the twentieth century discussion of liberty, in its more political aspects, are to a very sign... more In the twentieth century discussion of liberty, in its more political aspects, are to a very
signifiant degree shaped by a double process in the development of liberalism. First the emergence, dating back to the late nineteenth century of a kind of liberalism which departed from earlier forms of liberalism in giving a more active role to the state, and seeking some middle way between the limited government impulses of earlier liberalism and socialism of a state orientated kind. Second the emergence of movement to prolong and continue the earlier form of liberalism, in association with a rejection of socialism, certainly where that refers to state enforced laws and policies, and a critical attitude to the tendencies to compromise with socialism. This debate became associated with the distinction Isaiah Berlin made in the 1950s between positive and negative liberty in his essay ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, which itself built on late eighteenth and early to mid- nineteenth century discussions of the relation between the liberty of the ancients and the liberty of the moderns, a debate that also intertwined with debates about natural law and moral liberty. Other parts of this project locate Foucault’s thought, particularly in its historical aspects, within these discussions, so the paper will now move straight onto Foucault’s engagements with twentieth century liberalism, which will itself require some reference to his work on the liberalism of the Enlightenment.
Foucault’s account of neoliberalism has two parts, or two themes, the European and the US. The European aspect; focused on the University of Freiburg, is referred to as Ordoliberalism, while the American aspect, focused on the University of Chicago, is referred to as anarcholiberalism. The term Ordoliberalism is not Foucault’s invention, but a reference back to a term invented by Hero Moeller in 1950 to refer to ideas put put forward in the journal ORDO-Jahrbuch for die Ordnung von Wirthschaft und Gesellschaft (Yearbok of Economic and Business Order), so we could cal this Order Liberalism. We will maintain reference to Ordoliberalism which is quite widespread in English, though surely either Ordoliberalismus or Orderliberalism is more correct in not mixing English and German .
2 Foucault on Two Types of Liberalism
The term suggests that the question of the ordering of the economy or the order within
which the economy operated is central, and Foucault is picking up on this with regard to the elements of the order which owe something to conscious political will expressed through state laws and public policy.

The novels of Jane Austen in relation to the ethics of Kierkegaard. Some consideration of ethics ... more The novels of Jane Austen in relation to the ethics of Kierkegaard. Some consideration of ethics in Aristotle, the Scottish Enlightenment and Hegel.

Arendt’s thought defends the existence and irreducibility of political community as part of any ... more Arendt’s thought defends the existence and irreducibility of political community as part of any human community. There is no possible depoliticised utopia of technocratic planners or of spontaneous orders, which evades the need for a political sphere. That is a sphere that mixes competition for power and the pursuit of political values, and that is an inevitable part of any human community. The political sphere is one of selection with regard to membership of political elites in different political currents, and in the overarching political elite of state institutions. Arendt provides a framework for social justice which is much more engaged with the nature of politics as contestatory and as oriented towards the conquest of power, than the Rawls approach of public reason, or other approaches to political foundations such as discursive rationality in Habermas. The advantage of Arendt’s approach is that is does not need to presume a perfectly rational basis for distributing economic goods or a perfectly rational basis for political judgement. Even if we just take those rationalistic approaches as guiding ideals, they lead to theory unable to deal with the spontaneity necessary to a dynamic economic order, or the agonism necessary to pluralist political life. Political justice is partly established through the competitive means of selecting a genuine political élite, and detached from possession of economic goods. There cannot be a complete separation between political elites and economic elites. Members of the political elite are likely to be economically privileged as political actors, and have have advantages in becoming economic actors. We should not seek a rationalistic determination of economic distribution or of the arguments of politics. We should seek a framework that is both sustainable and adaptive, an evolutionary framework, where rules are clear and known but can be debated and changed. The political elite has been tested in the competitive nature of elections, and is not able to direct all economic goods towards itself. Arendt shows how there can be a framework, rules, institutions and elite formation which are open to spontaneity and conflict.

Nietzsche on war and philosophical writing

Nietzsche suggests in Thus Spoke Zarathustra that he only loves that which is written in blood. T... more Nietzsche suggests in Thus Spoke Zarathustra that he only loves that which is written in blood. This is a statement inviting investigation of blood as an object of discussion and as a matter of style. A study of the thematic role of violence, rhetorical violence, and the violence of argumentative strategies is a therefore an appropriate response. Going back to The Birth of Tragedy, the Apolline might appear to be more peaceful than the Dionysian, but is itself Homeric, and is itself based on a struggle with the Dionysian which finds one expression in the ‘Doric state’, that is hyper militarised Sparta. Comparing The Birth of Tragedy with On the Genealogy of Morals, the Homeric nobility at least superficially gets the exemplary role in that later text, so it is the ‘Apolline' world of Achilles and the other Greek heroes, which appears to be exemplary. Nietzsche disconnects tragedy from Athenian democracy, but in his reading of tragedy is against a hierarchical orderly world with the aristocracy on top. The value of aristocratic agon is itself disturbing to an aristocratic social order when pursued with sufficient rigour. The idea of contractual justice is questioned by Nietzsche when he famously suggests that the state was created by a nomadic ‘blonde beast’ attacking sedentary people. That could be taken as celebratory of aristocratic élan, but it also undermines normal understanding of the legitimation of the state, and of what might offer legitimacy to aristocratic domination in any context. Nietzsche himself sometimes refers to the state as a parasitic entity at war with culture, which certainly puts any celebratory reading of the state as conquest passage under question. The uncertainties which arise in trying to harmonise remarks which suggest admiration for cultural aristocracy, or Homeric heroes, or war, into a clear system of values, should lead us to be sceptical of any straight forwardly noble warrior readings. Zarathustra loves the warrior, he does not want to be the warrior. The Nietzsche virtue of writing in blood is itself the violence of the hierarchy of value, and violence on the violence imposed by that hierarchy. The violent rhetoric with which Nietzsche sometimes apparently endorses aristocratic violence and extreme privilege is intertwined with these thematic issues, which can only be understood through a rhetorical or stylistic examination of these passages and their context, which is the examination of writing in blood. References: Birth of Tragedy (I, 4); Thus Spoke Zarathustra (I, 8), (I, 10); On the Genealogy of Morality (II, 17).

Hegel's early writings on religion and Christianity, particularly The Positivity of the Christian... more Hegel's early writings on religion and Christianity, particularly The Positivity of the Christian Religion contain discussion of law, religion, and the state, which anticipate political theory work on liberalism, communitarianism, egalitarianism, and libertarianism, drawing on earlier discussions of liberty, law, and religion in different political regimes, particularly as undertaken by Montesquieu, though Hegel does not often refer directly to him. What Hegel adds to the discussion and which can be useful for current discussions is a sense of tension within regimes and between different kinds of regime, which casts the greatest possible light on the nature of those regimes, and which incorporates a sense of change and historical process into political thought and thought about political regimes.

The issue of European frontiers is apparent at present in the following ways: the frontiers of th... more The issue of European frontiers is apparent at present in the following ways: the frontiers of the European Union in relation to European nations outside itself; the frontiers of Europe as a continent; the frontiers between transnational and national sovereignty; the frontiers of citizenship and residence rights in relation to migrants. The current situation poses both challenges and positive possibilities for a tradition of philosophical thinking about Europe that goes back to the German Idealists, with roots in Enlightenment and earlier thought. Recent discussion of Europe within philosophy have included extensive reference to Arendt on refugees, Derrida on hospitality, and Habermas’ version of a normative foundation for the European Union, largely understood as a constitutional enterprise.The discussion of refugees and hospitality is a way of framing the migration issue, while the discussion of normative foundations is a way of framing sovereignty issues. The paper will build on, and attempt to go beyond, these investigations by considering the persistence of violence at the frontiers of the European Union. The appearance of René Girard’s work on the military theorist Clausewitz, suggests a way of framing the resistance to transnational sovereignty and migrant rights with regard to the persistence of mimetic violence, in its concentrated military forms, as well as its more dispersed general social, cultural and anthropological forms, which were considered by Girard in earlier work that should be reassessed with regard to his latest work. The militarisation of the response to non-European immigration, the growth of tension with Russia, a European nation, in pushing European countries towards security based co-operation even while trans-national sovereignty becomes more questioned, the persistence of violent frontier disputes in the post-Soviet parts of Europe, and tendencies towards political violence in Greece resulting from a European based debt crisis, all suggest that the more ethical and constitutional hopes for Europe cannot make progress without more attention to the mimetic logic, which becomes political violence, and even war, when it is not adequately recognised whether in philosophical texts or everyday discourse. The paper will investigate Girard’s relevance to these questions, and the limits of his emphasis on mimesis, and reflect on how other philosophical approaches to violence should be considered in the light of Girard’s contributions and its limits. Foucault and Schmitt will be the major points of reference here with regard to their thoughts about violence and about Europe. In both their references to Europe and to violence, sovereignty is at issue. In Foucault, sovereignty is understood in a dispersed way in the totality of power relations, while in Schmitt sovereignty is given a more legalistic context, but nevertheless with an understanding of the mobility and dispersal of issues of political sovereignty. On the basis of Girard’s most recent work and how we might understand it in relation to Schmitt and Foucault, the paper will build up a framework for understanding the frontier issues of Europe, along with the violence intertwined with them, and will attempt to suggest ways forward.

Smith's discussion of colonialism in Wealth of Nations, begins with a discussion of Greek and the... more Smith's discussion of colonialism in Wealth of Nations, begins with a discussion of Greek and then Roman colonialism, before moving onto a more detailed discussion of of early modern European colonialism. The discussion of antique colonialism itself distinguishes between Greek and Roman examples, so belongs with a discussion of the differences between Greece and Rome in Enlightenment literature which includes Vico and Hegel.

OF PAPER FOR ADAM SMITH PANEL PLURALISM AND CONFLICT: DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE BEYON RAWLS AND CONSEN... more OF PAPER FOR ADAM SMITH PANEL PLURALISM AND CONFLICT: DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE BEYON RAWLS AND CONSENSUS CONFERENCE AT FATIN UNIVERSITY, ISTANBUL June 4 TH TO 6 TH , 2013

Kierkegaard with deep interest, but this paper will not try to construct the exact details of tha... more Kierkegaard with deep interest, but this paper will not try to construct the exact details of that influence. The paper will be concerned with a more general comparison of the Tractatus with some texts by Kierkegaard, in order to work out underlying philosophical connections, independently from questions of influence. The aim is to add to the understanding of both Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein by examining where there are Kierkegaardian elements in Wittgenstein. These might or might not result from direct influence; they might arise from shared influences, they might arise by accident 1 .

Philip Pettit has put forward a version of republic theory drawing on the historical work of Quen... more Philip Pettit has put forward a version of republic theory drawing on the historical work of Quentin Skinner along with that of J.G.A. Pocock and Maurizio Virilio. Pettit frames republicanism in misleading ways as is particularly evident with regard to his view of Machiavelli. He ignores Machiavelli's strong preference for a republic over a monarchy, and the underlying reasons for this in Machiavelli's respect for popular participation in politics and the benefits of political conflict. The whole republican tradition is much more concerned with participation and conflict than Pettit acknowledges.

There should be a place for republican libertarian theory, or libertarian republicanism, for thre... more There should be a place for republican libertarian theory, or libertarian republicanism, for three sets of reasons. The first group of reasons is historical, the second group is taxonomical. The third group of reasons refer to the implications of recent libertarian thinking. Historical reasons include the following considerations. A large part of the classical liberal tradition from Locke to Mill is concerned with developing ancient republican ideas of liberty, in the context of a world of growing and increasingly complex commerce and civil society. This suggests that it is a mistake to ignore the possibility of

Hegel's philosophy of literature, in the Aesthetics and other texts, gives no extended discussion... more Hegel's philosophy of literature, in the Aesthetics and other texts, gives no extended discussion of the novel. Hegel's predecessor Friedrich Schlegel had produced a philosophy of literature with a central position for the novel. Schlegel's discussion of the novel is based on a view of Irony which allows the novel to be the fusion of poetry and philosophy. Hegel retained a placed for art, including poetry, below that of philosophy. The Ironic conception of the novel has themes, which also appear in Hegel, of the unity of opposites. However, for Hegel Irony does not allow the unity of artistic form and does not allow art to be guided by law and science. Therefore Hegel's philosophy of literature owes much to Schlegel but needs to attack Irony and minimise the role of the novel. Irony is criticised as a purely negative position of a 'beautiful soul', which cannot act and in its absolutely subjective resistance to evil in the world becomes evil itself. Hegel gives great importance to Epic which foreshadows the emergence of philosophy in its unity, but it is a unity based on conflicting individuality and lawlessness. In the modern world Heroic lawlessness can only be approached as nostalgia, the novel cannot integrate individuality and law, only religion and philosophy above aesthetics, including the novel.

Nietzsche's view of art is always presented in relation to naturalistic-phyisological explanation... more Nietzsche's view of art is always presented in relation to naturalistic-phyisological explanations. This is just as true of The Birth of Tragedy as of Human, All Too Human and any of the later texts. The Birth of Tragedy is full of assumptions from Schopenhauer that Nietzsche later rejected. However, the basic distinction in The Birth of Tragedy is between the Apollinian and the Dionysian, and that is explained as a distinction between dreams and dance, as physical natural events. Schopenhauer argues for an idealistic metaphysics of universal will; Nietzsche shares this position in

This book explores the aesthetics of the novel from the perspective of Continental European philo... more This book explores the aesthetics of the novel from the perspective of Continental European philosophy, presenting a theory on the philosophical definition and importance of the novel as a literary genre. It analyses a variety of individuals whose work is reflected in both theoretical literary criticism and Continental European aesthetics, including Mikhail Bakhtin, Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. Moving through material from eighteenth century and ancient Greek philosophy and aesthetics, the book provides comprehensive coverage of the major positions on the philosophy of the novel. Distinctive features include the importance of Vico’s view of the epic to understanding the novel, the importance of Kierkegaard’s view of the novel and irony along with his other aesthetic views, the different possibilities associated with seeing the novel as ‘mimetic’ and the importance of Proust in understanding the genre in all its philosophical aspects, relating the issue of the philosophical aesthetics of the novel with the issue of philosophy written as a novel and the interaction between these two alternative positions.

1. Introduction. From Analysis to Form

This chapter investigates major aesthetic approaches to the philosophy of the novel and develops distinct approaches to be used in the book. The distinction between Analytic and Continental European philosophical approaches is established. The Analytic approach is largely explored with reference to Peter Lemarque. Its limitations are defined through a discussion of Lemarque’s approach to Roland Barthes as a literary critic. The nature of ethics and literature as an approach to the novel is identified and its limitations are discussed. Martha Nussbaum is selected as an example of ethical philosophical criticism at its best. Her approach and its limitations are discussed in relation to poetics, erotics and ethics, focusing on her reading of Jacques Derrida.

2. Epic in Aristotle and Vico

Epic is discussed as a forerunner to the novel. Aristotle’s comments on Homeric epic in the Poetics and Rhetoric are fully explored, to establish a view of what epic is and its relation to public forms of speech. Giambattista’s New Science is discussed with regard to its philosophy of history, its account of poetry and the central role it gives to Homeric philosophy. This is discussed as partly the product of a growing novelistic culture in Vico’s time and as applying to main aspects of the novel including its relation both to epic discourse and the more variable discourse of everyday life.

3. Idealism and Romanticism

The literary aesthetics of the eighteenth century is discussed with regard to the growth of the novel as a literary genre, noting it that is not incorporated much into aesthetics. It is in the late eighteenth century that Romantic philosophers such as Friedrich Schlegel begin to develop a philosophy of the novel based on its appeal to subjectivity and unstable perspectives, summed up in the term ‘irony’. Hegel’s reaction to Schlegel and less elevated role for the novel is explored along with related aspects of his literary aesthetics. This chapter then covers the role of nature, particularly as known to chemistry as a model for understanding and appreciating the novel, or at least setting up the possibility of doing so.

4. Kierkegaard, Irony and Subjectivity

Søren Kierkegaard is discussed as the first philosopher to develop an understanding of the novel at length. Four of his texts are considered: From the Papers of One Still Living, The Concept of Irony, Either/Or, A Literary Review. The first is considered for its account of Danish novels in a world of unpredictability and subjectivity. The second is considered for its view of Socratic irony and dialogue, Romantic irony and novels, along with Hegel’s criticisms. The third is considered for its accounts of tragedy and opera, as deeply connected with novelistic aesthetics, as well as the Romantic novelistic structure of Either/Or. The fourth is discussed for its view of the place of the novel in the political and social understanding of the time.

5. Lukács on Subjectivity and History (Introduced Through Nietzsche)

The chapter begins with what Nietzsche contributes to the philosophy of his novel through his remarks on Stendhal and Dostoevsky, along with his view of how the novel emerges from the death of tragedy in antiquity. These thoughts are considered as what opens the way for Lukács. Lukács is mostly considered for his Romantic work on the novel, though his Marxist phase is also considered. His view of the novel as a fall from epic unity between individual, and the world is emphasised along with other historical aspects.

6. Bakhtin, Ethics and Time

Bakhtin is discussed with regard to the antique and medieval precursors for the novel, pluralism of voices, carnival, temporal analysis and approach to Dostoevsky. François Rabelais is discussed as the source of the transformation of the carnivalesque into novel. The ethical and political aspects of Bakhtin’s commitment to plurality of voices and registers are considered. The relation of his literary analysis with his view of the distinction between Orthodox and Catholic churches is discussed, along with his Russian populist leanings

7. Mimesis, Humanism and Time

Erich Auerbach is considered as a theorist of mimesis and of the decline of Europe, influenced by Vico. His more humanist view is compared with the anti-humanism of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, to the extent that they see the current civilisation as doomed and lacking in ideals. This Marxist view is compared with more conservative and liberal views of the growth of state power. Adorno and Benjamin are compared as more nihilistic and more religious thinkers. Their views of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century novel are discussed.

8. Mimetic Limits. Desire, Death and the Sacred

This chapter looks at how French writers of the mid-twentieth century take mimesis away from the centre of the novel. Georges Bataille puts ‘evil’ at the centre, that is the breaking of social habits to reach some deep level of desire which is enacted rather than represented. Maurice Blanchot puts death and meaninglessness at the centre of the novel, which drifts towards and between moments of emptiness and extinction. René Girard has a more Christian Huımanist view of the dangers of mimetic desire and violence, which may be resolved by moments of transcendence. The more violent and apocalyptic aspects of his views are also explored. Finally, the chapter considers how French anti-mimeticism is taken up by Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.

9. The Absolute Novel. Proust on Lost Time

Marcel Proust’s river novel, In Search of Lost Time, is considered as anovel of absolutes as advocated by the Romantics. The consideration of Proust both as a philosophically interested writer and as the object of an enormous amount of philosophical attention. How Proust’s transcendental aesthetic subjectivity connects with historical, national and European consciousness through memory. His place in the history of literature and how he writes as someone located in the history of literature always concerned with other kinds of history. The specific place of his writing in Third Republic France and the political interpretation of this include the movement from aristocratic to democratic worlds.

10. The Philosophical Novel

How the novel and philosophy may become the same and the limitations on such hopes. After a survey of examples, the chapter focuses on James Joyce’s relationship with Vico and Homer (continuing considerations in Chap. 2), Joyce’s relationship with Kierkegaard, Jane Austen’s relationship with ethics and Austen’s indirect relationship with Kierkegaard. The chapter considers both how the most obviously literary philosophical and philosophical literary works may be considered from a philosophical novel perspective, but also how a less obviously philosophical writer like Austen is full of philosophical insights. This continues considerations in the introduction on how ethics and the novel may be related.

Major texts in the history of ethics from Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Mill and Nietzsche. Cours... more Major texts in the history of ethics from Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Mill and Nietzsche. Course aims to introduce major ethical concepts and debates through examining these historical texts.

The official title for this course is 20th Century Continental ethics. It is jıst on French ethic... more The official title for this course is 20th Century Continental ethics. It is jıst on French ethics, going through Bergson, Lévinas, Foucault and Derrida

Topics covered include: philosophical method and philosophical tradition, metaphysics and empiric... more Topics covered include: philosophical method and philosophical tradition, metaphysics and empiricism, logical reasoning and transcendental arguments, interpretation and objectivity, theism and anti-theism, naming and reference, the existence of objects and being in general, belief and knowledge, perception and mind, system and scepticism, reason and paradox, world and things, phenomena and consciousness, realism and idealism, science and art, force and materiality, life and non-living objects, nature and the human world, pragmatism and transcendence. COURSE TEXTS Please make sure you use these editions and you must refer only to these editions during class discussion or in submitted work. If you have time you might find it useful to compare different translations from German, Danish and French, (or look at the original if you know the language) but only in addition to working on the editions below.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a major philosopher, and a major thinker in many fields, due to t... more Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a major philosopher, and a major thinker in many fields, due to the highly inter-disciplinary nature of his work. It is close to impossible to cover all his major contributions in many fields in one semester. The course is an attempt to look at Foucault’s core philosophical achievements as they relate to aesthetics, literary writing, ethics, power, government, society, the self, political philosophy, philosophical method, language and discourse, political speech, law and jurisprudence, and philosophy of history, amongst other things. Mostly the course concentrates on short texts in order to maximise the range of texts discussed. The course does begin with an entire book, Archaeology of Knowledge, which is the closest Foucault comes to a programmatic statement of his philosophical project (along with The Order of Discourse, which is also in the course. It is not really a complete program, but it is well worth studying in full due to its elaborate articulation of the discourse appropriate to many fields of knowledge and modes of knowing. It would be a mistake though to see it as a detached objective work in relation to knowledge. Though it may sometimes appear to be so, in reality it is one step in Foucault’s explorations of the ways in which knowledge is connected with the subject, the individual (which is trying to know), and its ways of forming a world for itself. We will try to follow Foucault’s path through the possibilities of different kinds of knowledge, object of knowledge and knowing subjects. They are also aesthetic, political, conscious interpreting individuals, caught up in forms of power, discourse, subjectivity and ethical relations, as well as self-relations. The course also ends with a book, but it is a collection of lectures rather than an integrated monograph, Fearless Speech which brings together Foucault’s thoughts towards the end of his sadly curtailed life about ancient tragedy, ancient politics, self creation, democracy, institutions, freedom and political speech. In the middle of the course ‘Truth and Juridical Form’ gives the course two weeks on Foucault’s investigations of the intersections of truth, power, law, courts, police and prisons in the relations between individuals, institutions and state sovereignty.

Michel Foucault created a body work with a number of ontologically significant themes. The theme ... more Michel Foucault created a body work with a number of ontologically significant themes. The theme perhaps most identified with Foucault over time is the elaboration of a view of discourse and knowledge. This is inevitably more than epistemology and linguistic philosophy, since ontological commitments are inevitable. The ontological commitments are certainly not an accidental consequence, since Foucault elaborates on his idea of discourse and knowledge fully in The Archaeology of Knowledge. The title itself refers to a discussion of knowledge as archaeology. This conceives of knowledge as the uncovering