Drawing from Peircean semiotics, from the Greek conception of phronesis, and from considerations of bodily awareness as a basis of reasonableness, I attempt to show how the living gesture touches our deepest signifying nature, the self, and public life. Gestural bodily awareness, more than knowledge, connects us with the very conditions out of which the human body evolved into its present condition and remains a vital resource in the face of a devitalizing, rationalistic consumption culture. It may be precisely these (...) deep-rooted abilities for what I term “self-originated experience” that can ultimately offset automatism. (shrink)

Moral concern with food intake is as old asmorality itself. In the course of history, however,several ways of critically examining practices of foodproduction and food intake have been developed.Whereas ancient Greek food ethics concentrated on theproblem of temperance, and ancient Jewish ethics onthe distinction between legitimate and illicit foodproducts, early Christian morality simply refused toattach any moral significance to food intake. Yet,during the middle ages food became one of theprinciple objects of monastic programs for moralexercise (askesis). During the seventeenth andeighteenth (...) century, food ethics was transformed interms of the increasing scientific interest in foodintake, while in the nineteenth century the socialdimension of food ethics was discovered, with theresult that more and more attention was given to theproduction and distribution of food products. Becauseof the increasing distance between the production andconsumption of food products ever since, theoutstanding feature of contemporary food ethics is itreliance and dependence on labeling practices. (shrink)

Modern, science-centered naturalisms can be charged with a certain moral laxity, according to S. T. Coleridge. This fault reflectsnbsp; a devitalizing, materialistic metaphysics informed by a narrow and self-serving conception of reason. Thus seeking a remedy that can bring justice to the spiritual as well as the physical aspects of experience, Coleridge envisages a lsquo;true naturalismrsquo; that will not only address the question lsquo;What is Life?rsquo; but also frame a lsquo;true realismrsquo; that includes what might be called a lsquo;true moralismrsquo;. (...) This calls, however, for a Heraclitean metaphysics capable of linking lsquo;goodnessrsquo; in both thinking and acting to a *Logos*mdash;that is, an essentially nonmodern theory of actuality that can do justice at once to the quicknesses and the uniformities of both Life and Thought. Coleridgersquo;s thus presents an outline of how one might respond to a challenge that can be best met, I argue, with the help of certain insights of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, A. N. Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and C. S. Peirce. By enlisting Hannah Arendtrsquo;s individual-centered conception of morality, which ties ethics to public concerns, it is also possible to sketch a metaphysically grounded response to Friedrich Nietzschersquo;s call for a lsquo;healthy moralityrsquo; capable of overturning the nihilistic values entrenched in modern thought. br /. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show the relevance of Michel Henry's thinking towards a reflection on the phenomenological meaning of life. A reflection that will question both history of philosophy and historical phenomenology, and which will implicate the very history of modern and contemporary Western society. Our presentation of Michel Henry's philosophy is divided into five sections: the question of the prerogative of Greek’s meaning of phenomenon and truth in the history of philosophy; the concept of “flesh” to (...) the definition of life; the transcendental illusion of life through the ego; the abstraction of life or devitalization of the world, due to this illusion; and, finally, the diagnosis of the decay of life in modern Western society, as the result of this process. (shrink)

L’inhabitable—the uninhabitable—was the bass note sounding through all of the work of Georges Perec, less a category than what categories failed to insure against: the depersonalizing, devitalizing, dark matter of modern histories and geographies, as scandalous as it was ubiquitous. At the end of Espèces d’espaces, Perec would parse “the uninhabitable” into a litany of alienating spaces produced by the very processes of industrial advancement and urban growth:L’inhabitable: la mer dépotoir, les côtes hérissées de fils de fer barbelés, la terre (...) pelée, la terre charnier, les monceaux de carcasses, les fleuves bourbiers, les villes nauséabondes […]L’inhabitable: l’étriqué... (shrink)

Cicero's discussion of wit in the de oratore includes an entertaining story about Ennius and a certain Nasica : ‘Valde haec ridentur et hercule omnia quae a prudentibus per simulationem subabsurde salseque dicuntur. Ex quo genere est etiam non videri intellegere quod intellegas… ut illud Nasicae, qui cum ad poetam Ennium venisset eique ab ostio quaerenti Ennium ancilla dixisset domi non esse, Nasica sensit illam domini iussu dixisse et ilium intus esse; paucis post diebus cum ad Nasicam venisset Ennius et (...) eum ad ianuam quaereret, exclamat Nasica domi non esse, turn Ennius “quid? ego non cognosco vocem” inquit “tuam?” Hic Nasica “homo es impudens:ego cum te quaererem ancillae tuae credidi te domi non esse, tu mihi non credis ipsi?”’ This anecdote, devitalized by its divorce from a well–known name, finds a place in the Philogelos, a compendium of jokes compiled in late antiquity and ascribed to the otherwise unidentifiable Hierocles and Philagrius, : Δύσκολόν τις ζτει. δ πεκρίνατο Ούκ εμì δε. τοû δ γελσαντος καì επόντοςΨεύδ τς γρ φωνς σου κούω – επεν ῏Ω κθαπμα, ε μέν δολός μου επχες ν ατ πιστεσαι γ δ σοι οφαίνομαι ξιοπιστότερος κείνου εναι. (shrink)

: This essay explores the value of oppositional, performative political action in the context of oppression, domination, and exclusionary political spheres. Rather than adopting Iris Marion Young's approach, Drexler turns to Hannah Arendt's theories of political action in order to emphasize the capacity of political action as action to intervene in and disrupt the constricting, politically devitalizing, necrophilic normalizations of proceduralism and routine, and thus to reorient the importance of contestatory action as enabling and enacting creativity, spontaneity, and resistance.

This essay explores the value of oppositional, performative political action in the context of oppression, domination, and exclusionary political spheres. Rather than adopting Iris Marion Young's approach, Drexler turns to Hannah Arendt's theories of political action in order to emphasize the capacity of political action as action to intervene in and disrupt the constricting, politically devitalizing, necrophilic normalizations of proceduralism and routine, and thus to reorient the importance of contestatory action as enabling and enacting creativity, spontaneity, and resistance.

This essay explores the value of oppositional, performative political action in the context of oppression, domination, and exclusionary political spheres. Rather than adopting Iris Marion Young's approach, Drexler turns to Hannah Arendt's theories of political action in order to emphasize the capacity of political action as action to intervene in and disrupt the constricting, politically devitalizing, necrophilic normalizations of proceduralism and routine, and thus to reorient the importance of contestatory action as enabling and enacting creativity, spontaneity, and resistance.