This paper proposes a new interpretation of Gadamer’s problematic appropriation of Platonic metaphysics. It argues that Gadamer, attempting to respond to the challenge posed by Heidegger’s interpretation of Platonic metaphysics and of its role in the history of Being (Seinsgeschichte), downplayed the transcendence of Platonic Forms. Gadamer achieves a reconfiguration of this transcendence and its transposition into what I call here a plane of immanence through two hermeneutic gestures: 1) interpreting Forms in light of Greek mathematics and especially in light (...) of the structure of the sum-number; 2) introducing temporality and historicity in the Medieval doctrine of transcendentals by giving priority to the Beautiful over the Good. I contend that, Platonically speaking, this amounts to the rejection of νοήσις in favor of διάνοια, and that this raises issues concerning the problem of finitude and the potential limits of linguisticality (Sprachlichkeit). (shrink)

Cette étude cherche à rendre compte d’un trait particulier et pratiquement inobservé dans la fondation gadamérienne de l’herméneutique philosophique. Si l’on connaît bien le rôle du platonisme — et plus spécifiquement du dialogue platonicien — parmi les sources au sein desquelles Gadamer a puisé pour formuler le caractère dialogique du comprendre, on a rarement noté que la phénoménologie du dialogue sur laquelle s’appuie une telle fondation s’inscrivait en faux par rapport à son modèle sur un point bien précis : l’ironie, (...) qu’elle soit socratique ou platonicienne. Nous proposons ici que pour bien expliquer la relation trouble que la fondation dialogique de l’herméneutique gadamérienne entretient avec l’ironie socratico-platonicienne, il faille concevoir le platonisme de Gadamer à la lumière d’une certaine forme d’aristotélisation, par laquelle la philia et la phronêsis aristotéliciennes sont en quelque sorte projetées sur le modèle platonicien du dialogue. (shrink)

Among the educative games of Plato’s Cretan city, choral performances have a prominent role. This paper examines the function of play (παιδιά) in the choral education in virtue in Plato’s Laws. I reconstruct the notion of play as it is elaborated throughout this dialogue, and then show how it contributes to solving the problem of virtue acquisition in the Athenian’s account of moral education through songs and dances. I argue that play in the Laws is best understood as an imitative (...) activity that is intrinsically pleasurable, ordered by rules and patterns of repetition, and undertaken for its own sake by a player whose psychic condition is childish. Thus interpreted, we are in a better position to see why choruses must be engaged in playfully. Because the self-likening process (ὁμοίωσις) choral performances aim at requires pleasure and because pleasure normally obtains when there is a concordance between one’s character and the imitations, virtue acquisition is best secured if the imitations of virtue in choruses are performed or spectated playfully. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of love in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. I argue that an essential aspect of Cyrus’ knowledgeable rule is a specific understanding of eros and a corresponding strategy to cope with the power of love. Specifically, I contend that by exploiting a common Greek distinction between the beloved and the lover, he articulates the view that lovers are subjects or even slaves to their beloved who deceive themselves into thinking that their attraction and the ensuing behaviors are voluntary. (...) Accordingly, Cyrus attempts to avoid falling in love and to rule as a universally beloved leader. Reflecting on the implications of this solution, I finally suggest that Xenophon wishes to show the limits of Cyrus’ solution. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of the function of genre in Gadamer’s hermeneutics by examining his treatment of Plato’s political writings in the context of the “utopian genre.” I argue that Gadamer’s reading of Plato informs us on the hermeneutics of genre, which is otherwise undiscussed in Truth and Method. First, I reconstruct the utopian genre as Gadamer treats it in a 1983 lecture hitherto neglected. Second, I expand Gadamer’s “logic of question and answer” by drawing on the notion of (...) genre as articulated by E.D. Hirsch and show that attention to genre is not only compatible with Gadamerian hermeneutics, but also productive. Finally, I demonstrate that an application of this concept of genre to the case of Plato’s political philosophy reveals a problem in Gadamer’s interpretation, namely a certain confusion between dialogue and utopia, and propose two ways of explaining this confusion and thus of resolving the aporia. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of the function of genre in Gadamer’s hermeneutics by examining his treatment of Plato’s political writings in the context of the “utopian genre.” I argue that Gadamer’s reading of Plato informs us on the hermeneutics of genre, which is otherwise undiscussed in Truth and Method. First, I reconstruct the utopian genre as Gadamer treats it in a 1983 lecture hitherto neglected. Second, I expand Gadamer’s “logic of question and answer” by drawing on the notion of (...) genre as articulated by E.D. Hirsch and show that attention to genre is not only compatible with Gadamerian hermeneutics, but also productive. Finally, I demonstrate that an application of this concept of genre to the case of Plato’s political philosophy reveals a problem in Gadamer’s interpretation, namely a certain confusion between dialogue and utopia, and propose two ways of explaining this confusion and thus of resolving the aporia. (shrink)

This paper examines Gerhard Krüger's interpretation of Plato in light of Martin Heidegger's Destruktion of the Greeks and critique of Platonism. I argue that Krüger's new reading of Plato should be understood as a critique of Heidegger's understanding of Platonism, and thereby as a broader critique of Heidegger's thoughts on Western metaphysics and the history of Being (Seinsgeschichte). The force and originality of Krüger's response to Heidegger consist in the fact that Krüger's Plato anticipates Heidegger's critique of Platonism. Krüger thus (...) contends that Plato (1) does not allow the understanding of truth as correctness (Übereinstimmung) to supplant the understanding of truth as disclosedness (Unverborgenheit), (2) understands and displays philosophy's dependence upon prereflexive attunements (Stimmungen); (3) appreciates the intricate relation between Being and temporality. In sum, Krüger's Plato is not guilty of Seinsvergessenheit, and rather opens up new ways for an authentic meditation on Being and on the human way toward an understanding of Being. (shrink)

Résumé Cet article cherche à poser à nouveau l’épineuse question de l’« antimodernisme » dans la philosophie politique contemporaine. Nous proposons à cette fin d’expliquer la critique que fait le philosophe français Alain Renaut d’un des plus grands pionniers du renouveau contemporain de la philosophie politique, Leo Strauss, et d’exposer par la suite une réplique possible à cette critique, reconstituant ainsi un dialogue qui ne put véritablement avoir lieu. Nous cherchons à montrer qu’à terme, la critique de Renaut est en (...) bonne partie injuste et, conséquemment, que la posture « antimoderne » de Strauss n’est peut-être pas aussi « intenable » qu’il le laisse entendre. -/- Abstract This article aims to recover the thorny question of « antimodernism » in contemporary political philosophy. For this purpose, we propose to explain French philosopher Alain Renaut’s critique of one of the greatest pioneers of the contemporary recovery of political philosophy—Leo Strauss—and to expose a possible reply to this critique, aiming thus at the reconstitution of a dialogue that could not really have taken place. We try to show that, ultimately, Renaut’s critique is to a great extent unfair and then, that Strauss’s « antimodernist » stance is not as « untenable » as it is believed to be. (shrink)

Among the educative games of Plato’s Cretan city, choral performances have a prominent role. This paper examines the function of play (παιδιά) in the choral education in virtue in Plato’s Laws. I reconstruct the notion of play as it is elaborated throughout this dialogue, and then show how it contributes to solving the problem of virtue acquisition in the Athenian’s account of moral education through songs and dances. I argue that play in the Laws is best understood an imitative activity (...) that is intrinsically pleasurable, ordered by rules and patterns of repetition, and undertaken for its own sake by a player whose psychic condition is childish. Thus interpreted, we are in a better position to see why choruses must be engaged in playfully. Because the self-likening (ὁμοίωσις) process choral performances aim at requires pleasure and because pleasure normally obtains when there is a concordance between one’s character and the imitations, virtue acquisition is best secured if the imitations of virtue in choruses are performed playfully. (shrink)

This paper aims to show how Heidegger and Arendt’s reappropriations of Aristotle’s thought are structured around a reinterpretation of the double definition of man as a practical being, that is, aszôon logon echonandzôon politikon. I argue that by interpreting the notions that compose and circumscribe this definition — those of life (zôê),logos, production (poiêsis), action (praxis) and contemplation (theôria), Heidegger and Arendt find the main characteristic of human beings by developing upon two distinct possibilities contained in the ambivalent Aristotelian concept (...) ofpraxis. However, they both blur the distinction between activity (energeia) and motion (kinêsis), which expose their critique oftheôriato two difficulties — one concerning the praxical character oftheôria, the other its temporality. (shrink)

What follows is an English translation of two documents pertaining to the Derrida-Gadamer encounter. The first one is the short correspondence between Jacques Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer that lasted from March 1977 to July 2000. The correspondence was written in German and French. The second one is the homage that Derrida wrote in honor of Gadamer in the wake of his passing in 2002. These two documents are now available in English for the first time.

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 4, Page 676-690, July 2022.

The concept of animal personality is based on consistent individual differences in behaviour, yet little is known about the factors responsible for such variation. Theory based on sex-specific selection predicts sexual dimorphism in personality-related traits and, in some cases, differences in trait variances between the sexes. In this study, we examined the sources of individual variation for boldness behaviour in guppies (Poecilia reticulata). We first demonstrated heightened boldness expression in males relative to females across feral wild types, artificially selected domestic (...) ‘designer’ guppies, and putative hybrids of the two. Boldness and body size covaried at the strain level but were not associated among individuals within strains. We also found high and repeatable behavioural differences among individuals (0.40 > intraclass r > 0.60) in all sex/strain groups except hybrid strain females. However, there was no evidence for the heightened inter-individual male variance anticipated for personality traits subject to certain forms of directional sex-specific selection. Domestic fish were boldest overall, and indicated the largest sex difference, which is consistent with genetic linkage between boldness and male ornamental colouration. Consistently high intrinsic variation in boldness behaviour, which extends to inbred domesticated fish, may in part underpin the invasive potential of this species. (shrink)

Despite his unassailable heritage, the passionate thinker to whom Levinas dedicated Totalité et infini has today nearly been forgotten outside France. This forgetting is the shared premise of two books published in recent years. The first is William C. Hackett and Jeffrey Hanson’s edition and translation of Wahl’s Existence humaine et transcendance : Human Existence and Transcendence, and the second is a volume of selections from Wahl’s philosophical writings edited by Alan D. Schrift and Ian Alexander Moore: Jean Wahl: (...) Transcendence and the Concrete Selected Writings. (shrink)

The purposes of writing -- The itinerary of a thought -- Vietnam : imperialism and genocide -- Czechoslovakia : the socialism that came in from the cold -- France : masses, spontaneity, party -- Kierkegaard : the singular universal -- Mallarmé : the poetry of suicide -- Tintoretto : St. George and the dragon -- The man with the tape-recorder -- Psychoanalytic dialogue -- Reply to Sartre--Pontalis -- Reply to Sartre--Pingaud -- A plea for intellectuals -- A friend of the (...) people. (shrink)

This paper examines the “biotechnology problem” in the history of molecular biology, namely the alleged reinvention of a basic academic discipline looking for the logic of life, into a typical technoscientific enterprise, closely related to agriculture, medicine, and the construction of markets. The dominant STS model sees the roots of this shift in a radical change of the regime of knowledge production. The paper argues that this scheme needs to be historicized to take into account the past in our biotech (...) present. Looking at the development of breast cancer genetic testing and GMOs as examples of mounting issues of intellectual property, risk and regulation, the paper also argues that historians of biology should pay closer attention to the political, the economical and the legal changes of the last thirty years. Solving the biotech problem requires new categories. The notion of “way of regulating” is given as an example of such notions linking the local and the global. (shrink)