Bernard Stiegler's account of technology as constitutive of the human as such is without precedent. However, Stiegler's work must also be understood in terms of its explicit appropriations from the thought of Jacques Derrida. An important, yet overlooked, context for framing Stiegler's relation to Derrida is the question of nonhuman life thought in terms of différance . As I argue, Stiegler's account does not unfold the most profound implications of Derrida's understanding of nonhuman life as différance . While Stiegler describes (...) human life as prosthetic and in default of origin, there is no treatment of the way in which nonhuman life is also aporetic and constituted in terms of its relatedness to exteriority. I conclude with a reconsideration of Stiegler's work from the perspective of Derrida's richer account of nonhuman life as différance in order to bring to light an anthropocentric aspect of Stiegler's work. (shrink)

Derrida always stressed the importance of his engagement with Heidegger and often returned throughout his life to different aspects of Heidegger’s thought. With the recent publication of his 1964-65 course, Heidegger: The Question of Being and History greater insight is now possible into the exact terms of Derrida’s early engagement with Heidegger and the significance he would accord it in the major works of 1967 and beyond. With the reception of this text just beginning, many lines of interpretation are being (...) unfolded. However, one aspect not yet addressed in this early reception which will be crucial for approaching and orienting this work is the theme of auto-affection. The concept of auto-affection is important for assessing Derrida’s Heidegger course for two reasons. Firstly, Derrida understands auto-affection to be Heidegger’s most radical figuration of temporality in the period of Being and Time. Secondly, tracing Derrida’s early focus on auto-affection in Heidegger can provide an important context for understanding the initial development of what would become a prominent theme in Derrida’s own work. My argument in this paper is structured in three sections. In the first, I give a brief introduction to Derrida’s course. I then present the theme of auto-affection in this course and demonstrate its central importance. In conclusion, I show how Derrida’s treatment of this theme in the context of his early Heidegger engagement can be seen to look forward to his employment of auto-affection in Speech and Phenomena. (shrink)

In his recent book The Open: Man and Animal, Giorgio Agamben examines the relation between the essence of the human and the living in Martin Heidegger’s thought. Focusing on the treatment of this relation in Heidegger’s 1929/30 lecture course “The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics,” Agamben argues that the dimension of the open, which is central to Heidegger’s understanding of the human essence, can be seen as implicitly dependent upon Heidegger’s account of the essence of animality. In this essay, I argue (...) that Agamben’s reading is insufficient because it has not taken full account of the specifically temporal character of the openness proper to Heidegger’s understanding of the human essence. In conclusion, I present an alternative account of the way in which Heidegger framed his descriptions of animality in the 1929/30 lecture course as articulating the openness characteristic of human being. (shrink)

Charles Bambach’s recent book Heidegger’s Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks traces the themes of rootedness and the earthly in Heidegger’s thought. Focusing on the role of these themes in the major works of the 1930’s, Bambach offers an account of Heidegger’s relation to contemporaneous conservative and National Socialist ideologies. In this review article, I question the fundamental presupposition guiding Bambach’s approach and present specific reservations regarding his use of untranslated material from Heidegger’s Nietzsche lecture courses.

In this essay, I argue that the scope of Heidegger’s dialog with Hölderlin in Contributions to Philosophy is wider than has often been acknowledged. Traditionally, accounts of this relation have focused solely on tracing Heidegger’s appropriation of Hölderlin’s “flight and arrival of the gods.” In addition to this theme, the relation between Heidegger’s Hölderlin and the project of Contributions should also be framed in light of the specific understanding of attunement which Heidegger developed in his 1934-35 Hölderlin lecture courses. From (...) the perspective opened by this reading, I bring into question and offer an alternative to a widely accepted interpretation of Contributions’ structural composition. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s 1953 lecture “The Question Concerning Technology” has been one of the most influential texts in English language philosophy of technology. However, within this field Heidegger’s understanding of technology is widely seen to be a conventional essentialist account of technological phenomena. In this essay, I argue that a close reading of what Heidegger exactly demarcated as the essence of technology can be seen to limit the degree to which Heidegger’s understanding of technology should be interpreted as a traditional form (...) of technological essentialism. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1989, Martin Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy has continued to produce animated debate with regard to the radical sense of futurity which defines and structures this text. In this essay, I first draw into question the common Nietzschean framing of this futurity and argue that the temporality of this futurity should be interpreted within the context of Heidegger's often overlooked descriptions of this coming time as granted by the last god. It is this anticipated gift that can (...) be seen to constitute the hermeneutic center around which the whole of Contributions is composed. In the final section, I then offer a critique of Heidegger's account of the relation between his last god and its granted time in terms of the givenness of a gift. (shrink)

It is well known that Heidegger described his Nietzsche lecture courses as confrontations with National Socialism. Traditionally, this sense of resistance was seen firstly in the fact that Heidegger read Nietzsche at the level of metaphysics and explicitly rejected those ideological appropriations which attempted to reduce Nietzsche’s philosophy to the level of biologism or mere Weltanschauung. This essay argues that the way in which Heidegger framed his interpretation of will to power in his first and second Nietzsche lecture courses can (...) be seen to contain a more explicit critique of the contemporaneous “official” Nietzschebild than has customarily been said. (shrink)

Most accounts of Heidegger’s relation to Nietzsche have traditionally focused on his famous Nietzsche lecture courses or upon his brief yet highly significant references to Nietzsche in Being and Time. However, with recent English translations of key lecture courses from Heidegger’s early Freiburg period it has become clear that during this time another distinct phase of Heidegger’s long and complex relation to Nietzsche can be identified. In this essay, I first chronicle Heidegger’s earliest references to Nietzsche in the period from (...) 1909–1916. I then turn to Heidegger’s early Freiburg lecture courses and demonstrate that the proximity between Nietzsche and Heidegger’s understanding of phenomenology in this period was much greater than has traditionally been said. In conclusion, I argue that one of the most important examples of Heidegger’s appropriation of Nietzsche in this period can be seen in the concept of destruction which played a central role in Heidegger’s account of phenomenological methodology. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s 1953 lecture “The Question Concerning Technology” has been one of the most influential texts in English language philosophy of technology. However, within this field Heidegger’s understanding of technology is widely seen to be a conventional essentialist account of technological phenomena. In this essay, I argue that a close reading of what Heidegger exactly demarcated as the essence of technology can be seen to limit the degree to which Heidegger’s understanding of technology should be interpreted as a traditional form (...) of technological essentialism. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the question of divinity provides an important context for reading Heidegger’s initial two Nietzsche lecture courses (1936–37). First,I demonstrate how this often overlooked background can shed light upon the way in which Heidegger understood the meanings of will to power and eternal recurrence in this period. Second, I argue that the related themes of need (Not) and necessity (Notwendigkeit) in these lectures can be seen as an important framework for understanding the relation between Heidegger’s (...) early Nietzsche engagement and his Contributions to Philosophy (1936–38). (shrink)

Foundational theories of mental content seek to identify the conditions under which a mental representation expresses, in the mind of a particular thinker, a particular content. Normativists endorse the following general sort of foundational theory of mental content: A mental representation r expresses concept C for agent S just in case S ought to use r in conformity with some particular pattern of use associated with C. In response to Normativist theories of content, Kathrin Glüer-Pagin and Åsa Wikforss propose a (...) dilemma, alleging that Normativism either entails a vicious regress or falls prey to a charge of idleness. In this paper, I respond to this argument. I argue that Normativism can avoid the commitments that generate the regress and does not propose the sort of explanation required to charge that its explanation has been shown to be problematically idle. The regress-generating commitment to be avoided is, roughly, that tokened, contentful mental states are the product of rule-following. The explanatory task Normativists should disavow is that of explaining how it is that beliefs and other contentful mental states are produced. I argue that Normativism, properly understood as a theory of content, does not provide this kind of psychological explanation, and therefore does not entail that such explanations are to be given in terms of rule-following. If this is correct, Normativism is not the proper target of the dilemma offered by Glüer-Pagin and Wikforss. Understanding why one might construe Normativism in the way Glüer-Pagin and Wikforss must, and how, properly understood, it avoids their dilemma, can help us to appreciate the attractiveness of a genuinely normative theory of content and the importance of paying careful attention to the sort of normativity involved in norm-based theories of content. (shrink)

How did Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher, become a nineteenth-century German Marxist? It is on its face an unlikely development. Karl Marx was a fiery revolutionary theorist who heralded the imminent demise of capitalism, while Spinoza was a contemplative philosopher who preached rational understanding and voiced skepticism about open rebellion. Further, Spinoza criticized all teleological ideas as anthropomorphic fantasies, while Marxism came to be associated expressly with teleological historical development. Yet socialists of the German nineteenth century were consistently drawn (...) to Spinoza as their philosophical guide. Tracie Matysik shows how the metaphorical meeting of Spinoza and Marx arose out of an intellectual conundrum about the meaning of activity. How is it, exactly, that humans can be fully determined creatures - creatures in nature and governed by causal laws of nature - and also able to change their world? To address this seeming paradox, many revolutionary theorists scrapped the idea of activity as something autonomous humans do when they assert themselves against nature and its causal laws. Thinking with Spinoza, they came to think of activity instead as relating - as the state of relations between humans and between humans and the non-human world. Matysik follows these Spinozist-socialist intellectual experiments in the meaning of activity that unfolded across the nineteenth century, drawing lessons from them that may be meaningful for the environmental-justice issues confronting the contemporary world. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the prospects for an account of good argument that takes the character of the arguer into consideration. We conclude that although there is much to be gained by identifying the virtues of the good arguer and by considering the ways in which these virtues can be developed in ourselves and in others, virtue argumentation theory does not offer a plausible alternative definition of good argument.

_Critical Thinking_ is a much-needed guide to thinking skills and above all to thinking critically for oneself. Through clear discussion, students learn the skills required to tell a good argument from a bad one. Key features include: *jargon-free discussion of key concepts in argumentation *how to avoid confusions surrounding words such as 'truth', 'knowledge' and 'opinion' *how to identify and evaluate the most common types of argument *how to spot fallacies in arguments and tell good reasoning from bad *topical examples (...) from politics, sport, medicine, music *chapter summaries, glossary and exercises _Critical Thinking_ is essential reading for anyone, student or professional, seeking to improve their reasoning and arguing skills. (shrink)

Wrestling with the Angel is a meditation on contemporary political, legal, and social theory from a psychoanalytic perspective. It argues for the enabling function of formal and symbolic constraints in sustaining desire as a source of creativity, innovation, and social change. The book begins by calling for a richer understanding of the psychoanalytic concept of the symbolic and the resources it might offer for an examination of the social link and the political sphere. The symbolic is a crucial dimension of (...) social coexistence but cannot be reduced to the social norms, rules, and practices with which it is so often collapsed. As a dimension of human life that is introduced by language--and thus inescapably "other" with respect to the laws of nature--the symbolic is an undeniable fact of human existence. Yet the same cannot be said of the forms and practices that represent and sustain it. In designating these laws, structures, and practices as "fictions," Jacques Lacan makes clear that the symbolic is a dimension of social life that has to be created and maintained and that can also be displaced, eradicated, or rendered dysfunctional. The symbolic fictions that structure and support the social tie are therefore historicizable, emerging at specific times and in particular contexts and losing their efficacy when circumstances change. They are also fragile and ephemeral, needing to be renewed and reinvented if they are not to become outmoded or ridiculous. Therefore the aim of this study is not to call for a return to traditional symbolic laws but to reflect on the relationship between the symbolic in its most elementary or structural form and the function of constraints and limits. McNulty analyzes examples of "experimental" (as opposed to "normative") articulations of the symbolic and their creative use of formal limits and constraints not as mere prohibitions or rules but as "enabling constraints" that favor the exercise of freedom. The first part examines practices that conceive of subjective freedom as enabled by the struggle with constraints or limits, from the transference that structures the "minimal social link" of psychoanalysis to constrained relationships between two or more people in the context of political and social movements. Examples discussed range from the spiritual practices and social legacies of Moses, Jesus, and Teresa of Avila to the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière. The second part is devoted to legal and political debates surrounding the function of the written law. It isolates the law's function as a symbolic limit or constraint as distinct from its content and representational character. The analysis draws on Mosaic law traditions, the political theology of Paul, and twentieth-century treatments of written law in the work of Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, Pierre Legendre, and Alain Badiou. In conclusion, the study considers the relationship between will and constraint in Kant's aesthetic philosophy and in the experimental literary works of the collective Oulipo. (shrink)

The concept of nihilism plays an interesting role in Richard Rorty's oeuvre. On the one hand, Rorty barely refers to the concept; on the other, Rorty's critics pejoratively characterize his pragmatism as nihilistic. This chapter seeks to clarify Rorty's position. It suggests that Rorty avoids the concept in order to get away from the conceptual baggage that accompanies the existential sense of the term. Rorty neither endorses the idea that human lives are meaningless nor thinks that abandoning the Platonic quest (...) for truth diminishes our capacity to experience meaningful lives. By challenging these assumptions, Rorty can then be seen as a thinker who may have much more to say about the modern challenges to human meaning than meets the eye. In this light, the chapter presents three cases that explore Rorty's contributions to our understanding of existential nihilism. It also suggests contemporary research approaches to Rorty and nihilism. (shrink)

Intentional collective action -- Collective moral responsibility -- Collective guilt -- Individual responsibility for (and in) collective wrongs -- Collective obligation, individual obligation, and individual moral responsibility -- Individual moral responsibility in wrongful social practice.

Eight philosophers discuss the works of the best-selling novelist and graphic novelist, including The Graveyard Book, Coraline and Good Omens and reveal their thoughts on the intersection of fantasy and reality and whether the unknown is as ...

From the immemorial humans have lived together in groups. What it means to be a human being has no other basis than the interactions that take place in these groups. Politics then is the shaping of the necessary fact of social interaction. This volume concerns itself with the role of the individual in this social and political order. Including selections from both classical writers such as Plato, and contemporary scholars such as George Kareb, Michael Sandel, and Donna Haraway, the work (...) examines one of the most fundemental questions of human society: what part do individual desires and concerns play, and what part should they play, in political society? How can we negotiate the relation between individuals and society, between the will of one and the mandate of the multitude? Strong's lengthy introduction provides an excellent framework that serves to unify these semial writings. (shrink)

Although many of the congenital syndromes that used to be lethal no longer are, they are still routinely referred to as “lethal anomalies.” But the label is not only inaccurate, it is also dangerous: by portraying as a medical determination what is in fact a judgment about the child's quality of life, it wrests from the parents a decision that only the parents can make.

This paper explores a philosophical praxis of paying attention, and the importance of bodily comportment, in human-animal interactions. It traces some of the beginnings of the notion of attentiveness as it has arisen in contemporary Western environmental and animal ethics, and its further development into both a philosophical approach and actual practice as a kind of interspecies etiquette. It is informed by the kinds of comportments of openness and responsivity found in diverse examples of practical phenomenology. Through a wide-ranging interdisciplinary (...) discussion, I suggest that a praxis of attentiveness can inspire practical applications of ethical interactions between species. (shrink)

The ‘Lima Call for Climate Action’ decision marked the conclusion of the 20th session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It expresses how the 196 UNFCCC Parties intend to negotiate the elements of a new agreement to be opened for signature in Paris at COP21. This ‘Paris Agreement’ would govern Parties starting in 2020, when the Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period ends. The new agreement would also move Parties beyond the Kyoto Protocol's (...) focus on mitigation to include adaptation, finance, technology development and transfer, and capacity building requirements. At COP20, Party delegates struggled to find consensus on how to act on the UNFCCC's core principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities’ when drafting the Call for Climate Action. In this article, we provide a detailed account of the evolution of the COP20 decision, to show how both its overall structure and specific language shifted in.. (shrink)

“The Innsmouth Look: H. P. Lovecraft’s Ambivalent Modernism” explores how horror writing responds to the anxieties and possibilities presented by historical modernity. Lovecraft, in his short story “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” translated contemporary concerns about immigration, industrialization and racial difference into a plot about a young traveler encountering a terrifying alien population in a small New England town. The essay examines the ways that this story both demonstrates how the dehumanization of the racialized “other” operated during the modern period, and (...) exposes the inherent fallacy in such objectification. Though the aliens in the story are physically distinct, and the visual difference provokes disgust and withdrawal in the narrator, this “Innsmouth look” also reveals the way the objectified other is always looking back, a subject in his or her own right. (shrink)

“The Innsmouth Look: H. P. Lovecraft’s Ambivalent Modernism” explores how horror writing responds to the anxieties and possibilities presented by historical modernity. Lovecraft, in his short story “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” translated contemporary concerns about immigration, industrialization and racial difference into a plot about a young traveler encountering a terrifying alien population in a small New England town. The essay examines the ways that this story both demonstrates how the dehumanization of the racialized “other” operated during the modern period, and (...) exposes the inherent fallacy in such objectification. Though the aliens in the story are physically distinct, and the visual difference provokes disgust and withdrawal in the narrator, this “Innsmouth look” also reveals the way the objectified other is always looking back, a subject in his or her own right. (shrink)

The motivations for rural and agricultural development in the twenty-first century are not different from previous centuries, but evolving technologies in the late twentieth century have altered many methods and institutional arrangements for accomplishing development. The internet has facilitated initiatives that in earlier decades would have required large, complex organizations in both donor and developing countries. We will compare the ethical and institutional strengths and weaknesses of two such initiatives in Malawi: a smallholder farmers organization involved in fair trade and (...) the Millennium Village Project. These are two of a large array of institutions which are currently being used to benefit smallholder agricultural producers. We will examine their relative merits through the lenses of various ethical paradigms and show that the institutional arrangements of the two programs are complimentary in the evolution of agricultural trading systems linking the global north and south. (shrink)

Tacitus traces a series of conflicts between Agrippina the Elder and her father-in-law Tiberius. After the death of her husband Germanicus in Syria, Agrippina returned to Rome with their children. Germanicus' lingering popularity with the armies and people meant that his widow Agrippina and their children enjoyed a level of popular support as well—one that eventually became a threat in Tiberius' mind. Agrippina, moreover, refused to embrace the modest, retiring role that her father-in-law expected of her. Tiberius was, moreover, ‘never (...) gentle toward the house of Germanicus’ and his concerns were augmented by the machinations of Sejanus, who reported that the people were dividing themselves into factions, some even calling themselves members of the partes Agrippinae. The combination of Agrippina's high birth—the only still-living grandchild of Augustus—and her status as widowed daughter-in-law of the emperor, therefore mother of the emperor's probable heir, along with her persistent independence and sometimes unfeminine strength of character made her seem an intolerable political threat. This paper examines the culmination of these conflicts, when Agrippina is subjected to criminal prosecution and penalty in a.d. 27 and 29 at the instigation of Sejanus, with the overt approval of Tiberius. Of primary concern is the timing and the order of the charges brought against Agrippina. (shrink)