Ville Louekari | University of Helsinki (original) (raw)
Doctoral student at EuroStorie CoE (Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives) at University of Helsinki
MA in Modern European Philosophy (Distinction), in CRMEP (Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy), 2017-18
B.A. In University of Helsinki in Social and Moral Philosophy
Address: Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland
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Papers by Ville Louekari
The aim of the present dissertation is to offer a new reading of the role of the body in Hegel’s ... more The aim of the present dissertation is to offer a new reading of the role of the body in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. I will focus on passage §312, which immediately precedes the discussion on Physiognomy and Phrenology. I will read this passage in the context of the chapter on Reason. The idea of Reason is, I argue, to search for an organic whole, a shape (Gestalt) in nature. A self-developing, independent Gestalt is found instead in the human body. I will analyse how the human body, however, fails as a Gestalt, and how this failure is at the same time a failure of an organicist world-view.
The challenge will be to analyse the nature of the Hegelian body, while recognizing that Hegel himself does not analyse it further. I will ask if the Hegelian body is that of psychoanalysis, by referring to Lacan’s theory of the formative function of the Gestalt of the body. I claim that the Hegelian body is similar but ultimately incompatible with the Lacanian one. I will find a striking similarity however with Deleuze’s and Guattari’s idea of a body without organs. I will look at the Hegelian body through the analysis of bodies without organs in A Thousand Plateaus.
Finally, the ambition will be to problematize Deleuze’s and Guattari’s idea of a body without organs by seeing it all too compatible with Hegel’s analysis of the phrenologist’s body. I will also argue that Hegel’s analysis of the human body in §312 has an important historical dimension, which we have to take into account when we discuss the ethics of a bodies without organs on the one hand, and the nature of the Hegelian body on the other.
The aim of the present dissertation is to offer a new reading of the role of the body in Hegel’s ... more The aim of the present dissertation is to offer a new reading of the role of the body in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. I will focus on passage §312, which immediately precedes the discussion on Physiognomy and Phrenology. I will read this passage in the context of the chapter on Reason. The idea of Reason is, I argue, to search for an organic whole, a shape (Gestalt) in nature. A self-developing, independent Gestalt is found instead in the human body. I will analyse how the human body, however, fails as a Gestalt, and how this failure is at the same time a failure of an organicist world-view.
The challenge will be to analyse the nature of the Hegelian body, while recognizing that Hegel himself does not analyse it further. I will ask if the Hegelian body is that of psychoanalysis, by referring to Lacan’s theory of the formative function of the Gestalt of the body. I claim that the Hegelian body is similar but ultimately incompatible with the Lacanian one. I will find a striking similarity however with Deleuze’s and Guattari’s idea of a body without organs. I will look at the Hegelian body through the analysis of bodies without organs in A Thousand Plateaus.
Finally, the ambition will be to problematize Deleuze’s and Guattari’s idea of a body without organs by seeing it all too compatible with Hegel’s analysis of the phrenologist’s body. I will also argue that Hegel’s analysis of the human body in §312 has an important historical dimension, which we have to take into account when we discuss the ethics of a bodies without organs on the one hand, and the nature of the Hegelian body on the other.