Following some of the main arguments Derrida develops in ‘White Mythology’, in this article I propose an unexplored dialogue between Derrida and Althusser considering the use and the place that each of them gives to metaphor in their philosophical strategies. I give special attention to some rather isolated passages of ‘Elements of Self-Criticism’ and ‘Lenin and Philosophy’, where Althusser, against all evidence, seems to be quite aware of the importance of metaphor and mataphorization in every philosophical practice. As Balibar has (...) argued, contrary to the metaphysical tradition, metaphor would not be the opposite but what anticipates the concept. In this sense, it is possible to observe how Althusser’s work has continuously put into practice – as the singular signature of his theoretical practice – something that I call the ‘detour of metaphor’ as a necessary ‘deviation’ for the production of new concepts. Without any evidence that Althusser may have known Derrida’s essay, I show how Althusser’s own theoretical work, one in which ‘metaphor’ as a philosophical theme appears to be rather anecdotic, is unexpectedly close to Derrida’s own positions concerning the margins of philosophy and its ‘outside’, the relation to the metaphysical tradition, and the importance of strategy in philosophy. (shrink)

An exploration of the central role of indirect modes of expression in ancient China.In what way do we benefit from speaking of things indirectly? How does such a distancing allow us better to discover--and describe--people and objects? How does distancing produce an effect? What can we gain from approaching the world obliquely? In other words, how does detour grant access? Thus begins Francois Jullien's investigation into the strategy, subtlety, and production of meaning in ancient and modern Chinese aesthetic and (...) political texts and events. Moving between the rhetorical traditions of ancient Greece and China, Jullien does not attempt a simple comparison of the two civilizations. Instead, he uses the perspective provided by each to gain access into a culture considered by many Westerners to be strange--"It's all Chinese to me"--and whose strangeness has been eclipsed through the assumption of its familiarity. He also uses the comparison to shed light on the role of Greek thinking in Western civilization. Jullien rereads the major texts of Chinese thought--The Book of Songs, Confucius's Analects, and the work of Mencius and Lao-Tse. He addresses the question of oblique, indirect, and allusive meaning in order to explore how the techniques of detour provide access to subtler meanings than are attainable through direct approaches. Indirect speech, Jullien concludes, yields a complex mode of indication, open to multiple perspectives and variations, infinitely adaptable to particular situations and contexts. Concentrating on that which is not said, or which is spoken only through other means, Jullien traces the benefits and costs of this rhetorical strategy in which absolute truth is absent. (shrink)

Four species of fish (Danio rerio, Xenotoca eiseni, Carassius auratus and Pterophyllum scalare) were tested in a detour task requiring them to temporarily abandon the view of the goal-object (a group of conspecifics) to circumvent an obstacle. Fishes were placed in the middle of a corridor, at the end of which there was an opaque wall with a small window through which the goal was visible. Midline along the corridor two symmetrical apertures allowed animals to access two compartments for (...) each aperture. After passing the aperture, fishes showed searching behavior in the two correct compartments close to the goal, appearing able to localize it, although they had to temporarily move away from the object's view. Here we provide the first evidence that fishes can solve such a detour task and therefore seem able to represent the “permanence in existence” of objects, which continue to exist even if they are not momentarily visible. (shrink)

The framing problematic of this dissertation is the political and epistemological relationship between metropolitan theory and post-colonial narrative. By providing multiple determinations to that problematic, I seek to situate the inventions of post-colonial identity. Using "detour" both as a privileged figure of contemporary theory and as the lived socio-historical experience of post-colonials, I examine the theoretical and political consequences using the former to translate the latter. Placing my own discourse at the limits of theory, I show that the predicament (...) in which contemporary theory finds itself is a result of the reduction of narrative to theory . ;I stage the negotiation between metropolitan theory and post-colonial narratives as an allegory of the post-colonial predicament. Finally, through a critique of certain post-colonial theorists , I plot the limits of the post-colonial space in the First World. I conclude that to invent the post-colonial space as a signifying space, we need to develop a poetics of retour which will be as complex and as ambiguous as the poetics of detour that the post-colonials have been living, narrating, and theorizing. ;Chapter I sets the theoretical context for posing the problem of post-colonial self-fashioning. In Chapter II, I sketch the trajectory of post-colonial detour through a close reading of V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men. In Chapter III, I interrogate Homi Bhabha's theory of cultural hybridity as a version of the poetics of detour. In Chapter IV, I offer a characterization of the predicament of theory. In the final chapter, I discuss the uses of theory by post-colonial intellectuals and offer a critique of their politics of cultural description and self-description. I argue that post-colonial theorists have evaded the question of inventing the post-colonial space as a signifying space by rewriting the narrative of their detour as a narrative of diplacement, as immigritude. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that while on a Dummettian theory of meaning the justified logic is intuitionist, as its constants are governed by harmonious rules of inference, the situation is reversed on Huw Price's bilateralist account, where meanings are specified in terms of primitive speech acts assertion and denial. In bilateral logics, the rules for classical negation are in harmony. However, as it is possible to construct an intuitionist bilateral logic with harmonious rules, there is no formal argument against intuitionism (...) from the bilateralist perspective. Price gives an informal argument for classical negation based on a pragmatic notion of belief, characterised in terms of the differences they make to speakers' actions. The main part of this paper puts Price's argument under close scrutiny by regimenting it and isolating principles Price is committed to. It is shown that Price should draw a distinction between A or ¬A making a difference. According to Price, if A makes a difference to us, we treat it as decidable. This material allows the intuitionist to block Price's argument. Abandoning classical logic also brings advantages, as within intuitionist logic there is a precise meaning to what it might mean to treat A as decidable: it is to assume A ∨ ¬A. (shrink)

"Detours" explores the reception of Kant's works in Vienna, Austria and Eastern Europe from a historical point of view and focuses on six topics: Kant and Censorship, Kant and Karl Leonhard Reinhold, who was the first Kantian born in Vienna and became a precursor for German and Austrian Kant reception in Jena, Kant and Eastern Europe, Kant and his Poets, Kant and Phenomenology and Kant and the Vienna Circle. In this way, the ambivalent perception of Kant in Austria becomes clearer: (...) On the one hand Kant was censored and criticized harshly but on the other hand Kant's philosophy was studied actively in the "underground.". (shrink)

Although in most situations approaching desired end-states entails decreasing distance between oneself and an object, and avoiding undesired end-states increases such distance, in some cases distancing can also be a means to approach a given goal. We highlight examples involving responses to obstacles to achievement and self-control dilemmas, showing that motivational direction is not equivalent to the motivational strategy involved when people pursue their goals.

Taking its point of departure from Jullien’s primary claim in The Silent Transformations that ancient Greek ontology propels European thought into ‘the vertigo of the event,’ the article turns toward a European thinker whom Jullien does not mention in this context, namely Walter Benjamin, and asks whether his work, too, succumbs to this vertigo. The choice of Benjamin as a ‘test case’ is governed by two factors: while his work is widely associated with notions of the event, there is little (...) recognition of the degree to which he was engaged with the Daodejing (in translation) from the early 1910s to the late 1930s. Divided into four chronologically ordered sections, each of which is prefaced by a claim advanced in The Silent Transformations, the article shows how Benjamin’s concepts of transition, effective non-action (under the term ‘proletarian general strike’), mimesis, ‘the second technology,’ and Jetztzeit (‘now-time’) are all traversed by a mediated conception of the Dao. The primary question around this re-evaluation of his work, guided by the idea of ‘the silent transformations’ that Jullien adopts from Wang Fuzhi, is whether the theory of revolution Benjamin developed in the 1930s can be characterized as Daoist or, better yet, Marxist-Daoist. (shrink)

En politique, comme en poésie, les Chinois privilégient l'expression allusive, la formulation détournée. Et au face à face, ils préfèrent la subtilité d'un abord de biais. Ils "chinoisent", dit-on d'ailleurs, parce qu'on ne comprend pas comment ils procèdent. A travers l'analyse de quelques-uns des grands textes de la pensée chinoise les Entretiens de Confucius, le Mencius, etc. François Jullien montre qu'il s'agit, en fait, d'une stratégie du sens particulière, qui a son efficacité propre. Par là même, il nous conduit à (...) revenir sur quelques-uns de nos partis pris théoriques : celui notamment qui prétend cerner au plus près l'objet du discours, en tant que vérité, comme celui qui interprète le détour de la parole à partir d'un dédoublement entre la chose et l'Idée. Détours et retours : ce travail devient alors un cheminement patient, un voyage au lointain pays de la "subtilité" qui, finalement, se révèle une invitation à remonter dans notre propre pensée. (shrink)

First published in 1987, Althusser, The Detour of Theory was widely received as the fullest account of its subject to date. Drawing on a wide range of hitherto untranslated material, it examined the political and intellectual contexts of Althusser's `return to Marx' in the mid-1960s and proclamaed of a `crisis of Marxism'. It concluded with a balance-sheet of Althusser's contribution to historical materialism. In this second edition, Gregory Elliott has added a substantial postscript in which he surveys the posthumous (...) edition of the French philosopher's work. (shrink)

Sophocles’ Antigone is a play that has been analyzed by many researchers in different fields, but the subject of Antigone’s parenting has been neglected in the field of education. Antigone’s parent...

In a crucial paragraph (KrV, A 663-664 / B 691-692) of the first part of the “Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic”, Kant discusses the specific status of the principles of homogeneity, specification, and continuity. In doing so, he refers to an already proven argument and thus to other passages of the Critique of Pure Reason. In search of this argument the “Transcendental Analytic” but in particular the “first book” of the “Transcendental Dialectic” turn out to be possible reference points. Although (...) this contextualisation demands further systematic and editorial reflections, it also allows the clarification of the status of the principles and their justification in relation to a subjective deduction. Kant offers with the subjective deduction, as introduced in the “Preface” (of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason) and again in the “first book” of the “Transcendental Dialectic”, a first argumentative strategy, which differs from the objective one but provides “some objective validity” (KrV, A 664 / B 692; Kant, 1998, p. 602) and therefore has systematic importance for the principles of homogeneity, specification, and continuity. My aim is to offer immanent strategies for a justification of the principles of homogeneity, specification, and continuity in the framework of the Critique of Pure Reason. (shrink)

A collection of articles and essays, critical analyses and personal reflections of travel and tourism by a diverse group of scholars and journalists. The authors consider the ethics and racial politics of traveling and doing research abroad and the privilege allowing them to enter peoples' lives, ask intimate questions, and publish their disclosures, effectively putting them on display.

This article responds to Roland Boer’s Marxism and Theology that offers a unique contribution to understanding the current impasse in revolutionary Left politics and illustrates the importance of the numerous references to theology in Marxist literature. In this response, I focus on Boer's argument of Marxism and Judaeo-Christian theology occupying a similar contested space with respect to their uses of “political myth.” I argue that the key to Boer’s critical project is a two-pronged approach: “materializing” theology and “theologizing” historical materialism. (...) For this critical endeavor to make inroads, it relies not just on the ambivalence of political myth, but also that myths are essential to Marxist theories of emancipation, as well as to Marx’s notion of “the Aufhebung of Religion.” I focus on two figures: Ernst Bloch as a Marxist who emphasizes myth’s emancipatory qualities; and Theodor Adorno as wary of myth while adhering to the theological motif of the bilderverbot. From this analysis, we can begin to see how much Boer’s project depends on a wager on political myth itself. (shrink)

Derrida n’entend pas simplement hériter de Hegel mais interrompre sa relève, précisant que l’enjeu est ici « énorme ». Pourquoi? Parce qu’il est question ici de la relation entre la vérité et sa transmission, entre l’enseignement et la pratique de la philosophie en Allemagne et en France, entre un système de pensée qui articule la politique, l’art, la religion et sa désarticulation contemporaine. Confronté à un texte « majeur » de la tradition philosophique, Derrida l’interrompt alors en recourant aux textes (...) mineurs, en particulier la correspondance de Hegel, qu’il détourne pour rendre possible une correspondance entre dialectique et déconstruction, mais aussi entre deux philosophes qui s’adressent toujours à un autre et sont hantés par ce tiers, fantôme ou pierre impossibles à relever. (shrink)

An exploration of the central role of indirect modes of expression in ancient China.

Delphine Abadie Malgré une historiographie riche de plusieurs orientations, les imaginaires, la recherche et les débats académiques semblent parfois demeurer enfermés dans l’exigence d’un devoir-être de la philosophie africaine tout à fait caractéristique du seul moment ethnophilosophique. Pourtant, les avenues les plus récentes en philosophie africaine partagent un ensemble de présupposés qui rendent inopérante cette confrontation stérile entre un type de philosophie qui désignerait la « véritable » manière de décoloniser les épistémologies africaines, et toutes les autres formes de la (...) philosophie en Afrique. Depuis les années 1980, on doit constater pourtant que la plupart des philosophes du continent ont emprunté des avenues qui nous éloignent de ce premier moment décolonial de l’« authenticité africaine » en internalisant les critiques développées durant les plusieurs décennies qu’a duré la fameuse querelle de la philosophie africaine. Éclairé par la distinction entre approche décoloniale et approche postcoloniale, cet article propose une relecture des chemins parcourus, des détours et des mutations opérées par la philosophie africaine telle qu’elle s’est développée dans l’espace francophone depuis les années 1940 jusqu’à nos jours. (shrink)

This chapter offers a brief analysis of the problems facing Bonnett's attempt to articulate a richer conception of thinking. Bonnett states, authentic thinking and understanding require that one become the originators and authors of their own thinking, as against merely reflecting the thoughts of others. In order to deflect the criticism that the account is promoting a self‐centred view of thinking, Bonnett introduces the concept of self referencing, which he describes as the determination to understand what one learns in terms (...) of one's own experiences. Bonnett states, the discipline and rigour of poetic thinking are rooted in the underlying sense of personal responsibility. One of the main flaws with Bonnett's account is that he simply does not engage in a careful enough reading of the philosophical accounts of thinking he draws upon, especially the Heideggerian accounts of being in the world and truth. (shrink)

John Perry offers a rethinking of Frege's seminal contributions to philosophy of language, which had a dominant influence on the subject in the twentieth century. He argues that Frege's famous doctrine of indirect reference led philosophers on a detour, and he advocates a move to a new framework for understanding reference.

Laying the groundwork -- Bateson and technology -- The art of living with technology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Art's DetourA Clash of Aesthetic TheoriesS. K. Wertz (bio)Both John Dewey1 and Martin Heidegger2 thought that art's audience had to take a detour in order to appreciate or understand a work of art. They wrote about this around the same time (mid-1930s) and independently of one another, so this similar circumstance in the history of aesthetics is unusual since they come from very different philosophical traditions. What was (...) it about the climate of the times that led them to such an idea? Is it still viable today? Both philosophers thought that art's audience is not in a position to immediately appreciate works of art—that we are missing something for a direct appreciation or apprehension—so we must take a detour. Why the detours and what are they? Are the detours similar? And are Dewey and Heidegger right about this? The essay that unfolds below attempts to answer these questions.First a definition is in order so we know what the term "detour" means when I use it. What is a detour? It is a deviation from a direct course or the usual procedure; a roundabout way temporarily replacing part of a route; in other words, a bypass or a roundabout way to some destination. The Little Oxford Dictionary adds a different twist on my characterization: "a course that leaves and rejoins [the] direct route."3 Applying this idea to art, we can say that a detour describes an audience who ordinarily perceives an artwork is a legitimate beginning for an appreciation of it, but that course must be bypassed for another (conception) before it can rejoin the direct route (perception). In other words, perceptions in the aesthetic experience must be aided by conceptions—a decidedly Kantian stance taken by Dewey and Heidegger. Their illustrations make my interpretation plausible.One of Heidegger's examples is Van Gogh's painting of a pair of peasant boots.4 He selects this painting to illustrate his metaphysics, which centers around the notion of "equipment." Peasant boots are equipment in [End Page 100] the sense that they are worn or used; the mere thing (like shoes or boots in a store [exhibited] or a closet [in storage]) disappears in use and becomes equipment. Between equipment and mere things—these two categories of being—are artworks. They are pictorial representations of equipment (in Heidegger's illustration; a pair of shoes as mere things could be a pictorial representation, like an advertisement, but it wouldn't be the same). Through the painted boots, a world comes into focus—a network of meaning. The world Heidegger sees in the Van Gogh painting is captured in the following descriptions: "In the vicinity of the [art]work we were suddenly somewhere else than we usually tend to be…. The art work let us know what shoes are in truth" (ATCR 233). So the nature of art is still a question about the nature of representation for Heidegger: it is what the shoes disclose to us about human existence. As he says, it is not just merely a pair of shoes portrayed but shoes "from the dark opening of the worn insides … the toilsome tread of the worker stares forth" (ATCR 232). In other words, we see the difficult labor that this particular owner toiled with in her daily chores.In Tralbaut's book, he quotes Heidegger in a caption alongside the painting: "Engraving in the intimate obscurity of the hollow of a boot is the weariness of the steps of work. The rough and solid weight of the clog tells of the slow and obstinate trudge across the fields."5 Heidegger continues in the same vein:In the stiffly rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the field-path as evening falls. In the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of... (shrink)

These days paradoxes seem to be all around us, constantly produced under the impetus of new technologies but tending to dissolve no less quickly at the instigation of these same technologies. Everything that was considered durable (concepts, organizations, ideas) tends to shift towards immediacy, as if long-term memory can and must become instantaneous memory. New technologies, especially the various networks and mobile telephones, fit less and less into established frames of reference. They go so far as to break with the (...) very notion of a frame, and thus place us in a movement of continuous and chaotic knowledge that the author has dubbed rheomorphism. The Web is increasingly oriented towards interaction among users, and the creation of rudimentary social networks that can provide content that makes good use of the network effects, with or without real visual and interactive rendering of web pages. In this sense, current websites act more as points of presence, or Web portals centred on the user rather than on traditional websites that were more or less static pages of data. (shrink)

Mutations in specific genes result in birth defects, cancer, inherited diseases or lethality. The frequency with which DNA damage is converted to mutations increases dramatically when the cellular genome is replicated. Although DNA damage poses special problems to the fidelity of DNA replication, efficient mechanisms exist in mammalian cells which function to replicate their genome despite the presence of many damaged sites. These mechanisms operate in either error‐prone or error‐free modes of DNA synthesis, and frequently involve DNA strand‐pairing reactions. Genetic (...) studies in yeast and other eukaryotes suggest that replication through DNA damage is highly regulated and catalysed by complex biochemical machineries composed of many specialised gene products. Knowledge of the molecular details by which such factors facilitate the replication of damaged DNA in mammalian cells should reveal basic rules about how DNA damage induces mutagenesis and carcinogenesis. (shrink)

I would describe myself as an accidental humanist, if not atheist. That was very much how I felt when I found myself on June 4, 2010, standing at the podium of the sixty-ninth annual conference of the American Humanist Association. I was receiving the Humanist Pioneer Award. But what did I do to deserve the honor? The golden letters on the beautifully crafted award said: “To Wendy Liu for her pioneering work that advances Humanist values and critical thought through cross (...) cultural perspectives on American Society.” The “pioneering work” presumably meant my writings on US-China relatedtopics, especially the collection of essays on my understanding of America from a Chinese and non-religious angle. As an aspiring writer, I was happy to be recognized for anything, not to say that particular angle. But that angle, with which I stumbled my way to the San Jose conference, was not an accident. It had come a long way with me on a journey starting in Xian, China, my hometown. Talking about Xian, the terracotta warriors of Qin Shihuang, the first Emperor of China, would probably come to one’s mind. Visitors have marveled at the work of ancient artisans, especially the rendering of individual facial features of the clay soldiers in eternity. In contrast to that humanistic touch was the cruelty of Emperor Qin, who ordered that upon his death the entrance to the underground mausoleum be sealed on completion, entombing the laborers inside to keep it secret.1 This is a brief but telling picture of humanism vs. tyranny in China–the once-upon-a time China. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the deployment and the transformation of Gramsci’s notion of hegemony and the purpose it serves. I argue that, in its travel from Rome to London, this notion acquired something like a truth-value. In London the notion yielded what I call ‘hegemony thinking’: a distinctive style of thinking that focused on strategy to carry out effective political interventions. To demonstrate my claim I trace the Marxism Today discussion on the crisis of the Left and strategy in (...) the UK. In particular, I look at the engagements of the late historian Eric Hobsbawm and the cultural theorist Stuart Hall with Gramsci’s work, and examine the appropriation of the coordinates of hegemony by the entrepreneur and Blair policy advisor Geoff Mulgan. (shrink)

Although time was a predominate theme in Continental philosophy for the first half of the twentieth century, philosophical attention has increasingly shifted to space. This paper contributes to the phenomenology of space through Hans Blumenberg’s philosophical anthropology. Blumenberg elucidates the significance of phenomenological distance for the contingent existence of humans. Spanning from the experience of early human ancestors to history and epistemology, Blumenberg’s work reveals how contingency pervades human existence. Blumenberg understands names, myths, rhetoric, and metaphors as cultural techniques that (...) function as means of self-preservation by distancing an overwhelming and disorienting reality and managing the felt contingency of human existence. Developing upon Blumenberg’s insights into human contingency and distance, the paper argues that detours offer a way to address the contemporary, existential issues posed by the increasing rate of technological change and environmental problems. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur remains one of philosophy of religion's most distinctive voices. Ricoeur was a philosopher first, and while his religious reflections are very relevant to theology, Boyd Blundell argues that his philosophy is even more relevant. Using Ricoeur's own philosophical hermeneutics, Blundell shows that there is a way for explicitly Christian theology to maintain both its integrity and overall relevance. He demonstrates how the dominant pattern of detour and return found throughout Ricoeur’s work provides a path to understanding the (...) relationship between philosophy and theology. By putting Ricoeur in dialogue with current, fundamental, and longstanding debates about the role of philosophy in theology, Blundell offers a hermeneutically sensitive engagement with Ricoeur's thought from a theological perspective. (shrink)

The analysis of contemporary socio-technical processes can benefit greatly, methodologically speaking, from considering past processes and solutions. Obviously, all technological projects have a prehistory upon which they depend to a certain extent. In some cases, the prehistory might even take on the shape of a translation terrain, which technical experts employ explicitly to sidestep inexperienced nonexperts. Also, mechanisms that can best be described as a pied piper detour, rather than as an obligatory passage point, are relied on by technical (...) experts who want to exclude the views and participation of nonexperts for themselves to assume a dominating position in the Machiavellian tradition. The relevance and operation of these socio-technical mechanisms were amply illustrated in the Norwegian town of Fredrikstad, where plans for establishing an IT highway project—a digital city concept developed and supported by users —came to nothing after technical experts intervened in the shape of a mediating agency and introduced their own scenarios. (shrink)

En este pequeño libro, Daniela Calabrò realiza una reconstrucción minuciosa del recorrido que sigue el pensamiento de Roberto Esposito desde sus primeros escritos hasta la actualidad. Con una capacidad de síntesis admirable, la profesora de la Universidad de Salerno identifica y comenta cada uno de las problemáticas y conceptos fundamentales de la obra de Esposito, desde lo impolítico a lo impersonal.

Cet ouvrage rassemble une serie d'articles parus en francais dans les Archives de philosophic entre 1974 et 1987. Passons rapidement sur le fait que la collection «Vrin-Reprise» se donne pour but de remettre a la disposition de tous des textes ou des etudes «aujourd'hui introuvables ou inaccessibles». Ouvert par un texte de 1981 ou I'auteur nous livre son autobiographic intellectuelle, l'ouvrage reprend ensuite l'article «Philosophie de la recherche scientifique» (1974) qui expose les vues de Radnitzky sur une theorie praxiologique de (...) la recherche. Reconstruction ratjonnelle de la recherche scientifique comme systeme d'action, cette theorie developpe des modeles de facteurs qui brientent la-recherche ainsi que des modeles de coagence des recherches theoriques et empiriques. Bien que la theorie se concentre sur les processus de production, elle comprend egalement un systeme de types de criteres qui permettent de juger les produits de la recherche scientifique. Con§ue comme voie mediane par rapport aux reconstructions logiques et aux etudes empiriques de la science, la praxiologie envisagee par Radnitzky («"Praxiologie" est employe ici au sens de Kotarbinski; en gros, c'est la theorie de Faction effective et efficace» [p. 99]) se reclame d'une theorie de l'action dirigee rationnellement vers un but (Zweckrationalitat) qui deboucherait ultimement sur une «anthropologie philosophique de la connaissance» (p. 31). Quoi qu'il en soit, Radnitzky manifeste le desir de se situer a la confluence des traditions analytique et hermeneutique; mais, en fait, malgre un apanage de concepts systemiques qui lui est particulier, son entreprise demeure largement tributaire de la theorie critique de Popper, comme l'atteste la teneur des autres articles qui composent cet ouvrage et qui portent tous, a une exception pres, sur la methodologie popperienne des sciences. L'exception est un article recent qui propose d'emprunter a l'economie l'analyse cout-benefice pour tirer au clair les questions de choix intertheorique («preference rationnelle») en science. Pour le reste, Radnitzky nous presente une defense parfois servile de la methodologie popperienne, tout en tentant de l'affermir par sa propre contribution d'une dimension qui lui manque, la dimension praxiologique justement. (shrink)

In Seminar XVII, entitled The reverse side of psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan presents his famous theorem of the four discourses. In this rereading I propose to demonstrate that Lacan’s theorem entails a transferable dialectical method for studying processes of knowledge production, enabling contemporary scholars to develop a diagnostic of the present, notably scholars interested in issues such as the vicissitudes of knowledge production under capitalism, the crisis of the university and the proliferation of electronic gadgets. In short, I will argue that (...) Lacan’s theorem of the four discourses entails a dialectical diagnostic of technoscientific knowledge during late capitalism. First, the four discourses will be briefly outlined, emphasising the extent to which they entail, albeit in an ambivalent manner, a return or detour to the logic of Hegel. Subsequently, each discourse will be presented in more detail, emphasising how they allow us to come to terms with the current status of technoscientific knowledge. Special attention will be given to the political backdrop of the seminar: the crisis of the university. Finally, I will discuss the historical dimension, outlining both the predecessor of the four discourses and their current predicament under neoliberal/capitalist conditions. (shrink)