The present paper motivates one possible answer to Kant’s question, “What remains of the Enlightenment?” by reinterpreting the relation between Foucault and critical tradition from Kant to the Frankfurt School. The Enlightenment has left us with “normative superstition,” or a healthy form of skepticism about the justification of modern institutions and ideals. Along these lines, I adopt an interpretation of Foucault that diverges from the standard view. I argue that he shares with his detractors a common heritage of this “critical (...) attitude,” placing him squarely in line with Kant, Hegel, and critical theory generally. If it is possible to view this critical attitude as an expression of Enlightenment-oriented views, then there are reasons to believe that his so-called “postmodernism” is nothing more than hyper-modernism. The lines of this last argument have been made elsewhere, notably in Robert Pippin’s important work, but there is a need to situate Foucault in the unfolding narrative of modernity, rather than label him a hostile opponent to it. In my view, the “Foucault addiction” now so popular is consistent with the critical tradition and the aim of this paper is to develop this claim. (shrink)

The Holocaust throws the study of the history of philosophy into crisis. Critiques of Western thinking leveled by such thinkers as Adorno, Levinas and, more recently, postmodern theorists have suggested that Western philosophy is inherently totalizing and that it must be read differently or altogether abandoned after Auschwitz. This article intentionally rereads Aristotle and Hegel through the shattered lens of the Holocaust. Its refracted focus is the question of ontological identity. By investigating the manner in which the totalizing dimensions of (...) Aristotle’s thinking are both eclipsed and implicitly endorsed by Hegel’s appropriation of Aristotle’s conception of God, and further by following the surplus of Hegel’s (mis)interpretation back into the heart of Aristotle’s ontology where we find a more open conception of ontological identity, we come to recognize not only the dangers endemic to certain strands of traditional philosophical thinking, but also the resources this tradition itself brings to bear on the attempt to think ontological identity after Auschwitz. (shrink)

This paper explores how Pope Francis’ critique of “the technocratic paradigm” in Laudato Si’ can contribute to an environmental ethics governed by asymmetries of power and agency. The technocratic paradigm is here theorized as linked to forms of anthropocentrism that together engender a dangerous alliance between the powers of technology and technologies of power. The meaning and import of this view become clearer when the background of these ideas gets excavated in the works of Romano Guardini. The contemporary manifestation of (...) Guardini’s warnings appears in the form of myriad environmental injustices wrought by structures of power linked to technology. To counter such injustices, we must discern which types of technologies to develop and how to limit technocratic approaches for the sake of other values. The integral ecological outlook favored by Francis may be interpreted as a kind of eco-politics, or even, controversially, an eco-technology, with the cultivation of technologies of contemplation. Applying Peter Sloterdijk’s conceptions of anthropotechnics and monogeism to the Ignatian Exercises animating the Jesuit Francis’ work, we can see how such technologies hold potential for Catholicism to collaborate better with secular strategies in relating to Earth’s agency in a new eco-politics. Such an eco-politics could furnish an alternative to bio-politics, especially if governed by aspects of the Franciscan form-of-life identified by Giorgio Agamben. Such a project ultimately moves us beyond Laudato Si’ and the work of Romano Guardini, pointing up the limitations of Laudato Si’ in engaging the agency of the Earth. (shrink)