As a rational discourse philosophy can not be reduced to any cultural concern. Culture we call that civilization which became aware of its own mortality and henceforth cultivates the aesthetic pleasure of representing its ruined ideals. It is the responsibility of philosophy to think through to the end the project of modern philosophical aesthetics, thus accomplishing it. The description of the aesthetic condition shows that aisthesis does not have to provide the fake peace of consentment with the sensible but on (...) the contrary should question and discredit the aistheton that confronts us with a double bind experience. This experience stirs to life the 'minimal soul' in its pure affectibility, and at the same time threatens it with slavery and death. Therefore art has to consist in the achievement of a work, not in disguising nihilism but in carrying it out. Should philosophy accomplish a work of art? The activity of reflexivity in writing which caracterizes philosophy persists in interrogating its own singularity, thereby incessantly dispossessing itself. (shrink)