The modern debate around scientific structuralism has revealed the need to reassess the standing and role of both structure and objects in the metaphysics of physics. Ontic structural realism recommends that metaphysics be purged of objects. Nonetheless, its proponents have failed to specify what it means for properties to be relational and structural, and, consequently, to show how the elementary objects postulated by our best theories can be re-conceptualized in structural terms or altogether eliminated. In this paper, I draw from (...) modern physics in order to untangle various types of relational properties and propose a definition for structural properties. (shrink)

I argue that the Holonomy Interpretation, at least as it has been presented in Richard Healey’s Gauging What’s Real, faces serious problems. These problems are revealed when certain approximations and idealizations that are innate in the original formulation of the Aharonov-Bohm effect are thrust aside; in particular, when the temporal dimension is taken into account. There are two ways in which time re-appears in the picture: by considering complete solutions to the original problem, where the magnetic flux is static, and (...) by examining the effects of time dependent magnetic fluxes. Both cases expose explanatory gaps in the Interpretation, as well as conflicts between it and customary ideas about relativistic locality and local action on which the Interpretation depends. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Journal of Ancient History Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 1 Seiten: 134-178.

Entre 2010 et 2011, une fouille d’urgence a été menée sur la pente Sud de la colline de Viklèsà l’Est de l’acropole d’Amathonte, et a révélé un type de réservoir d’eau alimenté depuis la surface ; découverte à ce jour unique à Chypre. Ce dispositif est constitué d’une citerne creusée dans le rocher et partiellement construite, reliée, par un passage voûté, à un puits d’accès servant également pour puiser. Ce réservoir, d’une capacité de 30 m 3environ, devait desservir les besoins (...) en eau non pas d’un habitat, comme c’est souvent le cas, mais des espaces funéraire, cultuel ou économique implantés sur la colline de Viklèsdans l’Antiquité. Dans cette étude est présenté le mobilier archéologique mis au jour — céramique, lithique, figurines de terre cuite et ossements — qui atteste une occupation continue du lieu, allant de la fin de l’époque archaïque à la fin de l’époque protobyzantine, date d’abandon définitif de l’utilisation de la citerne. (shrink)

To single one out of the infinitely many, empirically indistinguishable gauge potentials of classical electrodynamics, and to deem it `more real' than the rest is not trivial. Only two routes are open to one who might attempt to do so. The first leads to a slippery slope: if one singles out a potential solely by requiring it to admit well behaved propagations, and on the strength of this behavior one subscribes to its reality, one inevitably subscribes to the reality of (...) infinitely many. As for the second, it seems to be barred from the beginning. But if, for reasons of metaphysical economy, one insisted on taking it, it would lead to a `truncated theory' that is physically and empirically inferior to the complete. (shrink)

Στις κβαντικές θεωρίες πεδίου, οι οποίες στην πιο ολοκληρωμένη τους μορφή εκφράζονται μέσω του μαθηματικού φορμαλισμού που ονομάζεται δεσμίδες ινών (fibre bundles), χρησιμοποιούνται εκτενώς η έννοια της συμμετρίας και η αλληλένδετη με αυτήν έννοια της διατήρησης. Ο στόχος του παρόντος άρθρου είναι η αποσαφήνιση του όρου συμμετρία, όπως αυτός εμφανίζεται στο εν λόγω πλαίσιο, καθώς και η εξέταση του ρόλου κάποιων συγκεκριμένων μαθηματικών δομών , οι οποίες εμφανίζονται ως αποτέλεσμα της χρήσης των συμμετριών, στην επιστημονική εξήγηση των φαινομένων που περιγράφονται (...) από τις κβαντικές θεωρίες πεδίου. (shrink)

Scientific understanding comes in different kinds, and each kind comes in degrees. Two of these kinds are revealed by the examination of a recent episode from the history of physics: the making of the theory of strong interactions. The first of these kinds of understanding is associated with the realization that some mathematical formalism or theory may have a fruitful application to physical phenomena. This is what I call prior understanding. Yet another kind is associated with the development of the (...) mathematical formalism into a physical theory that purports to be mathematically consistent and empirically complete –at least in the domain of its applicability. This second kind I call internal understanding. None of these two kinds is conferred by explanations; both are associated with what some authors have called genuine or scientific understanding; and both are epistemically relevant in that they are required for the achievement of some of science’s epistemic aims. (shrink)

For time-independent fields the Aharonov-Bohm effect has been obtained by idealizing the coordinate space as multiply-connected and using representations of its fundamental homotopy group to provide information on what is physically identified as the magnetic flux. With a time-dependent field, multiple-connectedness introduces the same degree of ambiguity; by taking into account electromagnetic fields induced by the time dependence, full physical behavior is again recovered once a representation is selected. The selection depends on a single arbitrary time (hence the so-called holonomies (...) are not unique), although no physical effects depend on the value of that particular time. These features can also be phrased in terms of the selection of self-adjoint extensions, thereby involving yet another question that has come up in this context, namely, boundary conditions for the wave function. (shrink)

This document records the discussion between participants at the workshop "Philosophy of Gauge Theory," Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 18-19 April 2009.

Conformément au protocole défini avec les autorités chypriotes, une opération d’étude et de fouille de la zone du bassin naturel, à l’emplacement supposé du port interne d’Amathonte, a débuté en 2014. Une première campagne de fouilles s’est tenue du 15 septembre au 10 octobre 2014. Elle fut précédée d’une enquête géomorphologique au printemps de la même année. La seconde fouille a eu lieu du 31 août au 25 septembre 2015. Des campagnes intermédiaires d’étude du matériel, essentiellement sur le...

Ή επιφανειακή έρευνα πού αποσκοπούσε στην ανεύρεση εργαστηρίων παραγωγής αμφορέων στην Δυτική Κρήτη, μας επέτρεψε νά διακρίνουμε 4 τύπους αμφορέων ρωμαϊκής περιόδου. Τήν άνθιση πού παρατηρούμε στην παραγωγή καί εξαγωγή του κρητικού κρασιού, μαρτυρούν επίσης καί οί αρχαίες πηγές. Έκτος από μιά πρώτη τυπολογία θά βρούμε επίσης καί μιά λεπτομερή περιγραφή των εργαστηριακών εγκαταστάσεων καί τής κεραμεικής παραγωγής πού βρέθηκαν κατά τή διάρκεια τής ανασκαφής στό Καστέλλι Κισσάμου.

Dans une première partie sont présentés les résultats d'une troisième et dernière campagne de prospection en Crète, consacrée à la partie orientale de l'île : deux ateliers ampho- riques ont été découverts, à Trypitos et à Lagada, et l'on dispose d'éléments suffisants pour localiser d'autres ateliers à Makry Ghialos, Aghios Nikolaos et Hiérapétra. Dans une seconde partie, nous essaierons de tirer quelques enseignements à l'issue de ces prospections qui ont permis de découvrir une vingtaine d'ateliers dans l'ensemble de l'île, avec (...) huit types amphoriques assurément crétois. Ces ateliers domaniaux sont liés à des villas qui exploitent la vigne à des fins d'exportations massives. Situé près d'un lieu d'embarquement qui permette un chargement facile des innombrables amphores destinées au commerce lointain, l'atelier répond aussi aux besoins de la villa en céramique commune et fine ainsi qu'en éléments architectoniques (briques, tuiles, hypocaustes, σφήνες). On en retire l'impression d'une vitalité économique à partir du Ier s. av. n. è., au moment où le vignoble italien semble connaître une certaine stagnation au profit des crus provinciaux. (shrink)

Faisant suite à celles réalisées en Crète occidentale (BCH 113 [1989], p. 551-580), l'Éphorie des Antiquités d'Hérakleion et l'École française d'Athènes ont mené en collaboration en 1989 des recherches sur les ateliers de fabrication d'amphores de Crète centrale, dont l'activité s'échelonne entre l'époque hellénistique et l'époque impériale. On a ainsi localisé de nouveaux ateliers et réexaminé des ateliers déjà connus à Hérakleion, Chersonisos, Tsoutsouros (Inatos), Kératokambos et Dermatos. L'étude typologique permet d'affirmer que différents types d'amphores pouvaient être fabriqués dans le (...) même atelier. On a identifié trois nouveaux types, qui ont coexisté en Crète centrale avec tous les autres types déjà connus. L'étude concerne également d'autres productions des mêmes ateliers (vases, tuiles, etc.) et aborde quelques aspects techniques (supports de vases, ratés de cuisson, parois vitrifiées de fours). (shrink)

The celebrated author of _Gender Trouble_ here redefines Antigone's legacy, recovering her revolutionary significance and liberating it for a progressive feminism and sexual politics. Butler's new interpretation does nothing less than reconceptualize the incest taboo in relation to kinship -- and open up the concept of kinship to cultural change. Antigone, the renowned insurgent from Sophocles's _Oedipus,_ has long been a feminist icon of defiance. But what has remained unclear is whether she escapes from the forms of power (...) that she opposes. Antigone proves to be a more ambivalent figure for feminism than has been acknowledged, since the form of defiance she exemplifies also leads to her death. Butler argues that Antigone represents a form of feminist and sexual agency that is fraught with risk. Moreover, Antigone shows how the constraints of normative kinship unfairly decide what will and will not be a livable life. Butler explores the meaning of Antigone, wondering what forms of kinship might have allowed her to live. Along the way, she considers the works of such philosophers as Hegel, Lacan, and Irigaray. How, she asks, would psychoanalysis have been different if it had taken Antigone -- the "postoedipal" subject -- rather than Oedipus as its point of departure? If the incest taboo is reconceived so that it does not mandate heterosexuality as its solution, what forms of sexual alliance and new kinship might be acknowledged as a result? The book relates the courageous deeds of Antigone to the claims made by those whose relations are still not honored as those of proper kinship, showing how a culture of normative heterosexuality obstructs our capacity to see what sexual freedom and political agency could be. (shrink)

The celebrated author of _Gender Trouble_ here redefines Antigone's legacy, recovering her revolutionary significance and liberating it for a progressive feminism and sexual politics. Butler's new interpretation does nothing less than reconceptualize the incest taboo in relation to kinship -- and open up the concept of kinship to cultural change. Antigone, the renowned insurgent from Sophocles's _Oedipus,_ has long been a feminist icon of defiance. But what has remained unclear is whether she escapes from the forms of power (...) that she opposes. Antigone proves to be a more ambivalent figure for feminism than has been acknowledged, since the form of defiance she exemplifies also leads to her death. Butler argues that Antigone represents a form of feminist and sexual agency that is fraught with risk. Moreover, Antigone shows how the constraints of normative kinship unfairly decide what will and will not be a livable life. Butler explores the meaning of Antigone, wondering what forms of kinship might have allowed her to live. Along the way, she considers the works of such philosophers as Hegel, Lacan, and Irigaray. How, she asks, would psychoanalysis have been different if it had taken Antigone -- the "postoedipal" subject -- rather than Oedipus as its point of departure? If the incest taboo is reconceived so that it does not mandate heterosexuality as its solution, what forms of sexual alliance and new kinship might be acknowledged as a result? The book relates the courageous deeds of Antigone to the claims made by those whose relations are still not honored as those of proper kinship, showing how a culture of normative heterosexuality obstructs our capacity to see what sexual freedom and political agency could be. (shrink)

Morality and the invention of feminine desire -- Sexuality versus recognition : feminine desire in the ethical order -- The purest poem : Heidegger's Antigone -- From Oedipus to Antigone : revisiting the question of feminine desire -- Family politics/family ethics : Butler, Lacan, and the thing beyond the object.

Sophocles' Antigone is a touchstone in democratic, feminist and legal theory, and possibly the most commented upon play in the history of philosophy and political theory. Bonnie Honig's rereading of it therefore involves intervening in a host of literatures and unsettling many of their governing assumptions. Exploring the power of Antigone in a variety of political, cultural, and theoretical settings, Honig identifies the 'Antigone-effect' - which moves those who enlist Antigone for their politics from activism into (...) lamentation. She argues that Antigone's own lamentations can be seen not just as signs of dissidence but rather as markers of a rival world view with its own sovereignty and vitality. Honig argues that the play does not offer simply a model for resistance politics or 'equal dignity in death', but a more positive politics of counter-sovereignty and solidarity which emphasizes equality in life. (shrink)

Argues for the importance of the neglected theme of slavery in Antigone.

This paper reads Antigone from the perspective of the Chorus. Whereas most interpreters read Antigone from the perspective of Creon and Antigone’s respective laws, I maintain that the protagonists represent laws that are distinctly apolitical. Alternatively, I argue that the Chorus make the polis—past, present, and future—the center of their thought and action and are therefore uniquely political. Through close attention to the Chorus’s composition as a body that is both one and many at the same time, (...) and by tracing their evolving position throughout the action of the drama and in their choral odes, I argue that they model a reflective and political orientation to judgment rooted in plurality, tradition, and innovation. (shrink)

This paper uses E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End to help articulate what I describe as a moral pluralist approach to moral conflict. Moral pluralism, I argue here, represents a way of responding to the moral conflicts we encounter in our lives, rather than the mere acknowledgment of their inevitability, as suggested by value pluralists like Isaiah Berlin. The tragic view of moral conflict epitomized by Sophocles’ Antigone and endorsed by most theories of value pluralism, tells us that we (...) must choose between moral commitments and reconcile ourselves to the moral regrets that inevitably follow from moral choice. The moral pluralist view, in contrast, suggests that we should seek means, however imperfect, of satisfying conflicting moral commitments and minimizing causes for moral regret. That view, I argue, drives the words and actions of Forster’s heroine in Howards End, Margaret Schlegel. Confronted with a battle between a willful patriarch and a self-righteous sister, a conflict that maps neatly onto the central conflict in Sophocles’ tragedy, Margaret refuses to take sides without refusing to make moral choices. And in doing so, she comes to exemplify an unexpected kind of moral heroism. (shrink)

This article examines Hegel's treatment of Antigone and of women in the Phenomenology of Spirit. I differ from many other scholars in arguing that Antigone ought to be understood as like the Hegelian slave—both were dominated and oppressed, but, through that very domination and oppression, they subverted the master and ultimately made as significant a contribution to culture as he did. Antigone represents a form of individualism which, unlike liberal individualism, is compatible with the Sittlichkeit that Hegel (...) wants to achieve for the modern world. Despite the fact that many of Hegel's views on women are not acceptable, he nevertheless has some things to say that can be of value for feminists. Certainly, his views are not as objectionable as the ones he seems to hold in the Philosophy of Right, and the latter should not be projected back into the Phenomenology. (shrink)

Memorialization in the form of the architectural statue can suggest that our stance towards the past is concrete while memorials in the form of repeated social activity represent reconciliation with the past as a continual process. Enacted memorials suggest that reconciliation with the past is not itself a thing of the past. Each generation must grapple with its inherited memories, guilt, and grief and self-consciously take its own stance towards that which came before it. This article considers Dominik Smole’s post (...) World War II rewrite of Antigona as an enacted memorial within the context of socialist Yugoslavia. The practice of restaging Antigona in Slovenia may be seen as the practice of meta-memorialization, which routinely returns to the past while openly weighing the dangers of awakening the unburied dead against the dangers of letting the unaddressed conflicts of the past sleep. (shrink)

Anhand der Erinnerungskultur der NS-Psychiatrieverbrechen in den ersten Nachkriegsjahrzehnten wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie sich Erinnern und Gedenken gestalten lassen. Erinnern, Gedenken und Bewusstsein stehen in dynamischer Beziehung zueinander: Je nach Perspektive, ob der des Opfers oder des Täters, war das, was erinnert, wessen gedacht und was bewusst wurde bzw. unbewusst bleiben musste, sehr unterschiedlich. Durchgesetzt hat sich das Täter-Opfer-Narrativ der deutschen Nachkriegs-Psychiater, das die verstörende Realität, als Wissenschaft, als Institution und als Individuen so willfährig für ein verbrecherisches Regime gewesen (...) zu sein, verleugnen wollte. An dieser spezifischen »Erinnerungskultur« wird gezeigt, dass Erinnern und Gedenken Konstruktionen aus der Jetztzeit über die Vergangenheit sind und von der jeweiligen Gegenwart des Erzählenden geformt werden. Eine Aufführung der »Antigone« in der Erlanger psychiatrischen Anstalt 1946 wird als Rahmen gewählt, um die sich aus der Erinnerungskultur der NS-Psychiatrieverbrechen ergebenden ethischen Fragestellungen auf einer anderen Ebene zu betrachten. (shrink)

Love and loyalty, hatred and revenge, fear, deprivation, and political ambition: these are the motives which thrust the characters portrayed in these three Sophoclean masterpieces on to their collision course with catastrophe. Recognized in his own day as perhaps the greatest of the Greek tragedians, Sophocles' reputation has remained undimmed for two and a half thousand years. His greatest innovation in the tragic medium was his development of a central tragic figure, faced with a test of will and character, risking (...) obloquy and death rather than compromise his or her principles: it is striking that Antigone and Electra both have a woman as their intransigent 'hero'. Antigone dies rather neglect her duty to her family, Oedipus' determination to save his city results in the horrific discovery that he has committed both incest and parricide, and Electra's unremitting anger at her mother and her lover keeps her in servitude and despair. These vivid translations combine elegance and modernity, and are remarkable for their lucidity and accuracy. Their sonorous diction, economy, and sensitivity to the varied metres and modes of the original musical delivery make them equally suitable for reading or theatrical peformance. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that Antigone talks about the transgression of the edict and about her death as an issue within the politics of Thebes. As Antigone’s appropriation of key-words such as φίλος, έχθρός, φιλία, δίκη, ἄρχεΐν and νόμος shows, the heroine displays a political understanding of her own acts in several passages of the play. In my reading, Antigone’s political representation of her deeds is deeply rooted in her view of death as a free choice.

This paper reads Sophocles' " Antigone " contextually, as an exploration of the politics of lamentation and larger conflicts these stand for. Antigone defies Creon's sovereign decree that her brother Polynices, who attacked the city with a foreign army and died in battle, be dishonoured - left unburied. But the play is not about Polynices' treason. It explores the clash in 5th century Athens between Homeric/elite and democratic mourning practices. The former memorialize the unique individuality of the dead, (...) focus on the family's loss and bereavement and call for vengeance. The latter memorialize the dead's contribution to the immortal polis and emphasize the replaceability of those lost. Each economy of mourning sees the other as excessive and politically unstable. The remainders of both, managed by way of exception institutions such as tragedy and the Dionysian Festival, continue to haunt us now. (shrink)

This chapter brings together the two sets of concerns, the first clustering around ethics and sexual difference, the second around race, slavery, and colonialism. The author suggests that, for Derrida, each of these concerns implicates the other, and to the extent that this is true, his reflections on Hegel's Antigone have not been read as carefully as they need to be. At the same time, the author says that Derrida has not read Sophocles as well or as closely as (...) he might have done. The claim is rather to read Hegel, who himself, as many have pointed out, could be called to account for not reading Sophocles closely, for not even wanting to do so, for appropriating Antigone only as a pretext, using her as fodder for his dialectical machine–and that is precisely the issue at stake here. (shrink)

The Phoenician Women, Euripides' peculiar retelling and refashioning of the Theban myth, offers a portrait of Antigone before she becomes the actor we mostly know today from Sophocles' play. In this under-studied Greek tragedy, Euripides portrays the political and epistemological dissolution that allows for Antigone 's appearance in public. Whereas Sophocles' Antigone appears on stage ready to confront Creon with her appeal to the universal unwritten laws of the gods and later dissolves into the female lamenting a (...) lost womanhood, Euripides' Antigone experiences the opposite journey, thereby offering insights into the conditions that allow for her exposure in the political arena. A speech by Eteocles at the center of the play questions the existence of absolutes, calls injustice beautiful, and opens the door for Antigone 's entrance into the public sphere. With this speech Eteocles challenges us to consider the conditions of political openness in the modern age. (shrink)

The Phoenician Women, Euripides’ peculiar retelling and refashioning of the Theban myth, offers a portrait of Antigone before she becomes the actor we mostly know today from Sophocles’ play. In this under-studied Greek tragedy, Euripides portrays the political and epistemological dissolution that allows for Antigone’s appearance in public. Whereas Sophocles’ Antigone appears on stage ready to confront Creon with her appeal to the universal unwritten laws of the gods and later dissolves into the female lamenting a lost (...) womanhood, Euripides’ Antigone experiences the opposite journey, thereby offering insights into the conditions that allow for her exposure in the political arena. A speech by Eteocles at the center of the play questions the existence of absolutes, calls injustice beautiful, and opens the door for Antigone’s entrance into the public sphere. With this speech Eteocles challenges us to consider the conditions of political openness in the modern age. (shrink)

Sophocles' Antigone contains the first recorded instance of the word αὑτ ό νομος, the source for our word “autonomous”. I argue that reflection upon the human aspiration toward autonomy is central to that work. I begin by focusing on the difficulty readers of the play have determining whether Antigone's actions in the play should be considered autonomous and then suggest that recognizing this difficulty is crucial to a proper understanding of the play. The very aspects of Antigone's (...) character that seem to militate against understanding her actions within the play as autonomous—her rejection of life, her intimacy with death and the way she seems defined by her incestuous heritage— serve to illustrate the inherently problematic character of a moral ideal that we can provisionally call Antigone's autonomy. I show how the movement of the play can be understood in terms of Antigone's progress from what Kant would characterize as a heteronomous representation of her irremissible duty to bury her dead brother, to a self-conception defined by a recognition and embrace of her autonomy understood as, in Kant's words, “a respect for something entirely different from life”. Antigone's autonomy is exemplified by her choice to be dead, the choice to bear the burden of responsibility to her own. This choice, I argue, must be understood as the choice of herself as defined by her obligation to her own. Sophocles' Antigone suggests that the moral ideal Antigone represents is unliveable, but that this ideal is nonetheless essential to human moral aspiration. (shrink)

이 글은 안티고네가 구현한 인륜성과 그것의 보편적인 가치 지향성에 대해 논하는 것을 주요한 과제로 삼는다. 이를 위해 우리는 인륜성에 관한 깊이 있는 철학적 해명으로서 헤 겔의 개념을 주목하고 그의 견해를 비판적으로 참고함으로써 안티고네와 크레온의 비극을 조명해볼 것이다. 그 과정에서 필자가 집중해보고 싶은 문제는 신의 법과 인간의 법, 가족 과 국가, 여성과 남성 간의 대립 구도가 갖는 의미와 한계에 관한 질문이다. 먼저 우리는 안티고네의 행위가 여성으로서의 의무를 이행하는 일이면서 동시에 ‘인간으로서의 보편적 인 도리’를 다하는 일임을 논할 것이다. 그것의 핵심적인 근거는 사자의 (...) 장례가 가족의 의 무이자 여성의 소관이라는 헤겔의 설명에 대한 재고를 통해 밝혀질 것으로 기대된다. 또한 우리는 크레온의 ‘독단성과 임의성’에 대해 논하고 그의 명령이 담고 있는 반인륜성에 대 해서도 다루어볼 것이다. 이와 관련하여 ‘반역자의 시신 매장 금지’라는 크레온의 명령이 신법에 대한 인법의 침해로 해석될 수 있는지를 조심스럽게 질문해보겠다. 그 외에도 우리 는 안티고네의 죽음이 갖는 의미를 짚어보고 그것이 부당한 권력을 향한 일종의 ‘저항’으 로 해석될 수 있음을 밝힐 것이다. 끝으로 안티고네의 인륜적 주장을 여성의 목소리로만 이해하는 것을 넘어서 어떤 다른 방식의 접근과 해석이 가능한지를 생각해볼 것이다. 이 문제와 관련하여 필자는 가부장제 하에서 여성이 겪는 아이러니와 그러한 굴레에도 불구 하고 안티고네가 이뤄낸 ‘정치적 참여’를 주목한다. 이를 통해 우리는 고대 그리스 사회에 서 안티고네가 여성으로서 보편적인 가치에 대한 신념을 드러낸 독자적인 인물임을 확인 할 것이다. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the work of Russian philosopher and cultural researcher Helen Petrovsky. The focus of the article is her original way of working, which consists in expanding the possibilities of philosophical analysis through reference to the practice of contemporary arts. Where art reveals its technique, Helen Petrovsky sees an opportunity to find a mechanism corresponding to this method in the sphere of thinking, a version of the Kantian Witz. The example of Helen Petrovsky's analysis of painting and (...) photography shows that her attention is focused on signs-affects, stains, traces, imprints of the external (nature or society), which are in conflict with human abilities of perception and understanding. Here the side of the image that remains outside the representation manifests itself. Turning to Lacoue-Labarthe's mimetology and Mondzain's interpretation of the icon allows us to see more clearly the Russian scholar's original way of working. Her critical gaze reanimates the "logic of the tragic" (Lacoue-Labarthe) as the culturally displaced basis of cognition (Oedipus' line) and judgment (Antigone's line). The collective affectivity and modern technologies with which Helen Petrovsky works allow us today to see Greek tragedy not so much as a cultural value, but as an alternative practice of thinking immanent to the problems of contemporary society. (shrink)

Fantastic Antigones : The Tragic Legacy of Trans Grief.

What constitutes an adequate basis for feminist consciousness? What values and concerns are feminists to bring to bear in challenging present standards of well-being and articulating alternative visions of collective life? This essay takes a close and critical look at these questions as they are addressed in the work of political theorist Jean Elshtain. An outspoken defender of "pro-family feminism," Elshtain has urged contemporary feminists to reclaim the "female subject" within the private sphere. Enormous problems attend Elshtain's counsel and these (...) have as much to do with the political implications of her argument as with her reading of the Sophoclean tragedy Antigone. With an eye towards foregrounding what some of these problems are, this essay elaborates an alternative reading of Sophocles' Antigone and moves from that exposition to an examination of why it is that Elshtain's claims and conclusions are politically unsound and unsustainable. (shrink)

This paper, responding to recent work by Tony Burns, has two main interpretive purposes first, to explain in what sense Aristotle's natural justice is natural, yet variable; and second, to explain why Aristotle interpreted Antigone's defence as an appeal to natural law (rather than, say, to particular unwritten law). This requires a careful untangling of Aristotle's usage of 'natural' in several different senses, both descriptive and normative. In short, it is normatively natural for humans to excel at what is (...) distinctive of their descriptive nature. Since human descriptive nature is flexible, so is what is normatively natural for humans. And it is a matter of natural justice that one must not be hindered from or punished for doing what is normatively natural. This Aristotelian line of thought is then briefly explored as it reappears in Edmund Burke's discussion of natural law. (shrink)

Irigaray raises the question of sexual difference. Yet there are moments at which Irigaray’s own pursuit of this question recapitulates the kind of universalism it is meant to combat. She remains ensconced in judgments that close down the attempt to think beyond sexual difference. The article pursues this line of thought particularly in relation to her figuring of Antigone, suggesting that there is a need to open up sexual difference so that it does not function as a universal discourse, (...) but is open to other kinds of difference, for example, racial difference. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is Butler's recent work on Antigone, kinship and the state. Like many advocates of radical democracy, Butler is suspicious of attempts to enlist state support for political demands, preferring politics at the level of civil society. Butler turns to the narrative of Antigone, in part, to explore just such a version of (feminist?) resistance to the state but also, crucially, to contemplate the constitutive role that Antigone (and her contemporary counterparts) represents in (...) respect of the formation of the state and politics. While sympathetic to Butler's thesis in general, in this paper, I raise three sets of questions concerning her reading of the state. First, I explore the ambiguity surrounding her conceptualization of the state. Next, I turn to the tension between the state's purported efficacy in achieving its aims and the theory of resignification that Butler deploys widely throughout her work. Finally, I look at the understated role of Creon whose failure to compel obedience from Antigone is largely occluded in Butler's re-reading of Antigone. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cynthia Willett HEGEL, ANTIGONE, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF ECSTATIC DIALOGUE In his lectures on aesthetics, Hegel argues that drama is the highest form of art. Only drama can resolve, or sublate (auflieben), an opposition between objective and subjective poles ofaesthetic experience.1 This opposition takes its penultimate form in the difference between epic and lyric poetry. Subjective feelings expressed in lyric and the objective representation ofevents in epic are (...) sublated in classical drama as ethical character and action. In this article I will examine both what Hegel does and does not say about the structure and function ofclassical drama in order to determine its role in the education of humanity, or what Hegel calls the "phenomenology of spirit." As it turns out, drama is not only a climactic moment in the development of spirit. The structure ofdrama also traces a paradigm and an historical origin for Hegel's dialectic. The ironic reversals and discoveries that emplot tragic drama also constitute dialectic. An immediate consequence of this parallel is mat, in accordance with Aristode's definition of tragic drama, dialectic demands the catharsis, or purging, of emotion from educated spirit.2 After establishing the analogy between dialectic and cathartic drama, I turn to the exemplary role that is played by Sophocles' Antigone in the Phenomenology ofSpirit. A reinterpretation of the play suggests that Hegel fails to see that emotional engagement, or the unsublated subjective feeling relegated to die lower art of lyric, in fact orients the dramatic action of Antigone. The resemblance between drama and dialectic suggests that desire can no more be purged from dialectic than from classical tragedy. As a consequence, Hegelian dialectic should be reconceived in terms of a notion of tragedy that is not cathartic but ecstatic. Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 268-283 Cynthia Willett269 In the AesUietks, Hegel places drama after epic and lyric as the third and final moment of the highest stage of art. Drama presents actions that are ethical and thus differs from the lyrical expression of feelings as well as the adventures narrated in epic (A, pp. 1158; 474). Hegel's definition of epic in terms of narration and description suggests that the language of epic functions as representation. Representational language externalizes, or objectifies, spirit's movement in a series ofevents which are related by the epic poet. This narration functions without the mediation ofa subject, which is to say without an "agent's inner will and character" (A, pp. 1160; 476). Lyric poetry, on the other hand, concerns feelings or "the inner life alone" (A, pp. 984; 254). In accordance with its subject matter, the language oflyric is not representational but expressive. Drama presents actions before an audience, such actions occurring primarily in the mode of speech (A, pp. 1159; 475). What we can characterize as the "speech-acts" performed in drama carry out intentions of, or ends soughtby, the main character. Drama advances dialectic because, as Hegel writes, "drama does not fall apart into a lyric inner life and an external sphere as its opposite, but displays an inner life and its external realization" (A, pp. 1 160; 476). First, events which occur episodically in epic attain the unity of a single action that comprises dramatic plot. Secondly, a "cleaned-up" version ofthe "chaotic" feelings expressed in lyric poetry develops into the intention of a character to adher to a universal ethical principle. It is important to emphasize that, according to Hegel, drama should not draw any of its effect from subjective emotions. Drama sublates lyrical feeling into ethical law. Only thus does drama bring together the epic-making events and lyrical subjectivity, notby wayofa mechanical synthesis, but in a metamorphosis enabling elements initially opposed to give rise to an original whole. The proximity ofdrama to dialectical thought appears in the contrast Hegel draws between dramatic action and action which is prosaic, or philosophically insignificant (A, pp. 1159; 475). Dramatic action, Hegel explains, "is notconfined to the simple and undisturbed accomplishment ofa specific aim; on the contrary, it rests entirely on collisions ofcircumstances, passions, and characters... which in turn necessitate a resolution of the conflict and discord" (A, pp. 1159; 475). On the other hand, a prosaic, or ordinary... (shrink)