Herein is reproduced the text of the address of Jean-Marie Muller during the General Assembly of Iraqi groups dedicated to non-violence which took place in Erbil on 9 and 10 November 2009. Jean-Marie Muller defines six prospective forms of action for the non-violent movement in Iraq: training, information, sensitization, education, protest, and non-violent direct action.

This article posits a number of theoretical pointers towards a conceptual clarification of the concept of non-violence, in particular in relation to notions of conflict, pact, mediation, compromise, strength, benevolence, and truth. It sets them against the concept of violence and the behaviours which are associated with it, and is based on the thought of M. K. Gandhi and E. Weil. Finally it presents some pointers towards a strategy for non-violence and explains the sense of the principle of non-cooperation.

This paper raises the question whether language and violence are internally connected. It starts from the experience of violence and from its theoretical interpretation as violence in the context of political forms of life which are challenged by complaints about violence. Such forms of life have to confront this issue because they are supposed to be responsive to claims and demands of others who articulate violence as an experience of violation. Whether a kind of responsive ethos may be based on (...) the suspected inner connection between language and violence is being discussed at the end. (shrink)

This paper raises the question whether language and violence are internally connected. It starts from the experience of violence and from its theoretical interpretation as violence in the context of political forms of life which are challenged by complaints about violence. Such forms of life have to confront this issue because they are supposed to be responsive to claims and demands of others who articulate violence as an experience of violation. Whether a kind of responsive ethos may be based on (...) the suspected inner connection between language and violence is being discussed at the end. (shrink)

Dieser Essay untersucht den inneren Zusammenhang zwischen Sprache und Gewalt einerseits, Ethik und Politik andererseits. In diesen Hinsichten werden sowohl fatalistische als auch naiv-optimistische Positionen zurückgewiesen, insofern sie der Erfahrung nicht angemessen Rechnung tragen, wie wir der Gewalt auf der Suche nach einem lebbaren Leben ausgesetzt sind.

Laughter is a significant topic for Renaissance and seventeenth‐century philosophers. Still, the latter rarely approved of laughter but endorsed it as useful mockery for theological or philosophical purposes. Benedict Spinoza’s view of laughter stands out as an exception to this attitude as well as to previous and later ones. Spinoza differentiates between mockery and laughter, denounces the former as evil, and characterizes the latter as “pure joy”: laughter is about oneself rather than another and originates in noticing something good, rather (...) than base or ugly. In contrast to melancholy, cheerfulness is “always good” and is a precondition of our liberation as it furthers the use of reason. Not only is Spinoza’s view original, but it is an important source of the eighteenth‐century notions of good‐natured laughter and good humor through a more than probable influence on their proponent, the Earl of Shaftesbury. Whilst Spinoza’s view of cheerfulness is briefly addressed in recent studies, his view of laughter goes unnoticed in most commentaries and is misrepresented in humor studies. Contrary to what is assumed in the philosophy of laughter, I argue that the most important defense of laughter comes not from a British Enlightenment thinker, but from the Dutch Jewish seventeenth‐century philosopher. (shrink)

Das vorliegende Buch präsentiert eine phänomenologische Analyse der verschiedenen Formen zwischenmenschlicher Gewalt und ihrer oft unterbelichteten Beziehungen. Auf der Grundlage einer Transformation der Phänomenologie und im Rekurs auf den aktuellen Diskurs der Gewaltforschung entwickelt es einen methodologischen Rahmen für eine nicht-reduktive Analyse von Gewalt, der in angewandten phänomenologischen Fallstudien erprobt wird. -/- Gewalt war bislang vorwiegend in den Human und den Sozialwissenschaften ein zentrales Thema, wurde aber nur allzu selten zum Gegenstand genuin philosophischer Reflexion. Um dieses Desiderat aufzugreifen und die (...) Bedeutung philosophischer Reflexion für den Diskurs über Gewalt zu demonstrieren, entwickelt das vorliegende Buch einen phänomenologischen Ansatz zur Analyse zwischenmenschlicher Gewalt. Seine Intention besteht darin, ein Korrektiv zu den konventionellen, allzu einseitig verfahrenden instrumentalistischen, essentialistischen oder funktionalistischen Erklärungen von Gewalt vorzulegen. -/- Im Anschluss an eine kritische Reflexion auf zentrale Aporien des Gewaltdiskurses, denen es sich zu stellen gilt, integriert der Autor relevante Theoreme klassischer Phänomenologie mit neueren Ansätzen in einen umfassenden Analyserahmen. In drei „Fallstudien“ wird dieser Rahmen in konkreten Phänomenanalysen angewandt und der ihm zugrunde liegende weite Gewaltbegriff auf die Probe gestellt. Das Buch schließt mit einem Entwurf einer „relationalen Phänomenologie“, die es erlaubt, die vielfach unterbelichteten bzw. ausgeblendeten Beziehungen zwischen den verschiedenen Formen von Gewalt ins Auge zu fassen. (shrink)

Starting from Rousseau’s paradoxical assertion in Emile – “I hate books”– this chapter explores Rousseau’s critical theory of books. The first part of the chapter analyses Rousseau’s sociological and pedagogical approach to the acts of publishing and reading books. The social use of books is considered in relation to Rousseau’s critique of the arts and sciences, while the pedagogical approach focuses on the books that Emile is supposed to read. The second part of the chapter examines Rousseau’s practice of philosophical (...) argumentation in relation to his theory of speech and writing. Special attention is given: a) to the development of a “style of argumentation” that combines the expression of subjective sentiment and the discussion of arguments, and b) the importance of the relationship between Rousseau’s text and its readers or addressees with respect to his conception of philosophical truth. (shrink)

The article analyses the main characteristics of dialogue seen as a political dimension of language starting from Eric Weil and Hannah Arendt. The importance of the topic is given by the difficulties of political debates that deal with the existential problems of people who live in multicultural and multi-religious societies. Our choice for Arendt and Weil finds justification in the genuine effort made by the two philosophies to turn dialogue into the true condition of possibility for political action. For this (...) purpose, we return to the approach of dialogue as virtue in Eric Weil and as expression of the human world in Hannah Arendt to show that in these “dark times” the “courage of reason” is required to overcome violence through comprehension and reasonable action. (shrink)

The category of Action, being the last of the material categories predicted by Eric Weil in his Logique de la Philosophie, constitutes the discursive center of our time, subjecting all other discourses to the idea of a history reoriented by the formal category of Meaning, in which violence proves to be insensate and the individual revolt loses its reason for being. It becomes clear, then, that such a perspective supposes the progressive decline of the warlike politics, to allow the history (...) of an effective freedom. However, notwithstanding the many improvements, this equation is not only slow to materialize, as our age is increasingly marked by uncontrolled and uncontrollable violence. How should we understand this state of affairs? The hypothesis we intend to stress is that Action presupposes a set of conditions that makes it particularly vulnerable either to the generalized incomprehension of its ends or to the intervention of other categorical discourses with their alternative worldviews. To this end, we analyze extensively the logic of the category and of the attitude that it involves, stressing the constitutive fragility of its rationality, which requires, as a sine qua non condition, what we suggest being a democracy of meaning. (shrink)