Why philosophize about comedy? What is the use of investigating the comical from philosophical and psychoanalytic perspectives? In The Odd One In, Alenka Zupancic [haceks over both cs] considers how philosophy and psychoanalysis can help us understand the movement and the logic involved in the practice of comedy, and how comedy can help philosophy and psychoanalysis recognize some of the crucial mechanisms and vicissitudes of what is called humanity. Comedy by its nature is difficult to pin down with concepts and (...) definitions, but as artistic form and social practice comedy is a mode of tarrying with a foreign object--of including the exception. Philosophy's relationship to comedy, Zupancic [haceks over both cs] writes, is not exactly a simple story. It could begin with the lost book of Aristotle's Poetics, which discussed comedy and laughter. But Zupancic [haceks over both cs] draws on a whole range of philosophers and exemplars of comedy, from Aristophanes, Molière, Hegel, Freud, and Lacan to George W. Bush and Borat. She distinguishes incisively between comedy and ideologically imposed, "naturalized" cheerfulness. Real, subversive comedy thrives on the short circuits that establish an immediate connection between heterogeneous orders. Zupancic [haceks over both cs] examines the mechanisms and processes by which comedy lets the odd one in. Alenka Zupancic [haceks over both cs] is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Slovene Academy of Sciences, Ljubljana. She is the author of The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two. (shrink)

The classic formula of disavowal given by Octave Mannoni, “I know well, but all the same,” undergoes interesting and far-reaching permutations in today’s social context. When it comes to dealing with and (not) responding to various crises, we usually point the finger at deniers and their “irrational” attitudes. However, far more common and socially problematic is the attitude that combines full recognition and denial in the same movement. Moreover, knowledge of a problem not only goes seamlessly with ignoring it but (...) seems to make ignoring it possible in the first place. Saying that “we know well” often enables us to ignore the real of that knowledge. Disavowal thus takes a doubly perverse turn, which is the focus of the analysis in this article. (shrink)

Series Foreword vii Introduction: The Event “Nietzsche” 2 I Nietzsche the Metapsychologist 30 “God Is Dead” 34 The Ascetic Ideal 46 Nihilism . . . 62 . . . as a “Crisis of Sublimation”? 72 II Noon 86 Troubles with Truth 90 From Nothingness Incorporated . . . 124 . . . via Double Affirmation . . . 132 . . . to Nothingness as Minimal Difference 150 Addendum: On Love as Comedy 164 Notes 183.

This article deals with the way in which Michel Foucault first introduced the notion of ‘biopolitics’ through the referential frame of sexuality and psychoanalysis. It focuses on the concept that is utterly and conspicuously missing from Foucault's account, in The History of Sexuality, of the psychoanalytic take on sexuality — namely, the unconscious. It argues that this omission has important and far-reaching consequences for the concept of biopolitics as such.

There exists a strange proximity between the seemingly opposed genres of comedy and the uncanny. In attempting to establish what constitutes their common ground and what distinguishes them, the paper examines the status and the functioning of "nothing" in one and in the other, as well the way "nothing" relates to the question of the real. It puts forward the thesis according to which the uncanny relies on the realism of desire, with its logic of constitutive lack (as transcendent nothing), (...) whereas comedy implies a rather different form of realism, namely the realism of the drive, with its logic of constitutive dislocation (as immanent nothing). (shrink)

As much as humanity has always been driven by the idea of conquering death, it is also haunted by the impossibility of dying completely; that is, by a possible persistence and recurrence of somethi...

Conspiracy theories are interesting phenomenon that cannot simply be treated as insignificant or marginal. Of late, some of the most bizarre conspiracy theories have been making their way into the mainstream public space, and into official politics. The most striking case is probably the connection between QAnon and the person and politics of Donald Trump. The article first analyses some of the reasons for some conspiracy theories becoming mainstream, and then proceeds to examine three crucial aspects of conspiracy theories: the (...) category of the big Other as big Manipulator, the passion for interpretation, and the inner link between making sense and enjoyment. (shrink)

Avtorica se v svojem prispevku loteva hkrati najšibkejše in najmočnejše točke ideologije, sklicevanja na »očitno«, »evidentno«, pri čemer »očitno« vselej zastira mesto, kjer je ideologija najbolj ranljiva — na kar je v svoji analizi delovanja ideologije opozoril že Althusser. Althusser ideologijo sicer poskuša misliti kot diskurz, toda njegova teorija ideologije vseskozi niha med dvema točkama, med ireduktibilnostjo ideologije in idejo »epistemološkega reza«, skratka, med tem, kar je in med tem, kar ni več ideologija. Na tej točki, kjer se Althusser znajde (...) v slepi ulici, si lahko pomagamo z Lacanovo teorijo štirih diskurzov, pri čemer nam diskurz Univerze ponuja »matem« tega, kar je neka osnovna ideološka operacija. (shrink)

Tekst ponuja interpretacijo kontra verze Kant—Constant. Kontroverze, ki jo je začel Constant v svojem spisu iz leta 1797, Des Reacton politiques, Kant pa seje nanjo odzval s kratkim tekstom "O domnevni pravici lagati iz človekoljubja", ki nosi isto letnico. Vprašanje "pravice do laži" zadeva tako problematiko prava kot problematiko etike, in v zadevnem tekstu se ga avtorica loteva z obeh perspektiv.

Tekst razčlenjuje specifiko mesta, na katerega je sam Kant postavil tretjo Kritiko in opozarja na nekatere paradokse, ki iz takšne umestitve izhajajo. V prvem delu je Kritika razsodnosti obtav-navana kot notranja meja na eni strani teoretične in na drugi strani praktične filozofije. V drugem delu gre za razčlembo specifičnega diskurza, ki ga Kant vpelje z govorom v modusu »als ob«. Tretji del pa izpostavlja nekatere paradokse Kantove teorije lepega.

Aucune notion déterminée de bien ne peut constituer le point de départ de l'éthique, le bien ne peut être que ce qui résulte de l'éthique. Car l'éthique diffère dans son essence du légal, elle est une production du bien et non pas son application. " Agis de telle sorte que la maxime de ta volonté puisse en même temps toujours valoir comme principe d'une législation universelle. " Quel est le réel que nomme cette foi, quel est le désir qu'elle peut (...) susciter, quel est l'objet qu'elle fixe au désir? Aucun. Tout le problème et tout l'intérêt de l'éthique kantienne est là : si l'on prend pour point de départ une loi qui n'est justement pas une qui nomme le Bien ou le Mal ni une loi qui pourrait immédiatement activer notre "faculté de désirer ", comment parvenir au réel de la liberté, où le situer, comment le repérer? Voilà la question. (shrink)

This paper explores some of the crucial ontological implications of the psychoanalytic theory of sexuality in its Freudo-Lacanian orientation. As irreducible to different sexual practices and contents, the concept of sexuality obtains conceptual weight that makes it particularly relevant for philosophical ontological thinking. Starting from the hypothesis that something about sexuality is constitutively unconscious - that is to say, existing only in the form of the unconscious - the paper points at the singular short-circuit of the epistemological and ontological level (...) which is at work in psychoanalytic theory, and which cannot be neglected in philosophical examination of the relation between knowledge and being. nema. (shrink)