A Thing Of This World Reading Group (Summer 2009).

UPDATE (June 2010): A review of Lee Braver’s book in NDPR can be found here.

POSTS RELATED TO THE READING GROUP:

6/7 (Sunday) – we are a week away from the launch of this reading group and I am told there are some copies of the book available at amazon.com if you are interested in joining in. If you are looking for a deal on the book, check over here to see if you can get the book a bit cheaper.

6/15 – Introduction (by Mikhail Emelianov) and Chapter 1 (by Jon Cogburn) and A Rejoinder (by Mikhail Emelianov) and A Response (by Lee Braver)

6/16 – We get a nod from Leiter Reports.

6/22 – Chapter 2: Kant’s Revolution + a short digression (by Mikhail Emelianov) and A Rejoinder (by Jon Cogburn) and A Response (by Lee Braver)

6/29 – Chapter 3: Hegel: The Truth of the Whole (by Jon Cogburn) and A Rejoinder (by Mikhail Emelianov) and A Response (by Lee Braver)

7/6 – Chapter 4: Nietzsche’s Will to Truth (by Mikhail Emelianov)

7/13 – Chapter 5: Early Heidegger: Fundamental Ontology (by Jon Cogburn) and A Rejoinder (by Mikhail Emelianov) and A Related Post (by Gary Williams)

7/20 – Chapter 6: Later Heidegger: “The Great Turning Around” (by Mikhail Emelianov) with A Rejoinder (by Gary Williams)

7/27 – Chapter 7: Foucault’s History of Truth (by Jon Cogburn) with A Rejoinder I (by John Protevi) and

8/3 – Chapter 8: Derrida.

New Michel Henry Translation: On Kandinsky

Description 

 

Michel Henry was one of the leading French philosophers of the twentieth century. His numerous works of philosophy are all organized around the theme of life. In contrast to the scientific understanding of life as a biological process, Henry’s philosophy develops a conception of life as an immediate feeling of one’s own living.

Seeing the Invisible marks Henry’s most sustained engagement in the field of aesthetics. Through an analysis of the life and works of Wassily Kandinsky, Henry uncovers the philosophical significance of Kandinsky’s revolution in painting: that abstract art reveals the invisible essence of life. Henry shows that Kandinsky separates color and line from the constraints of visible form and, in so doing, conveys the invisible intensity of life. More than just a study of art history, this book presents Kandinsky as an artist who is engaged in the project of painting the invisible and thus offers invaluable methodological clues for Henry’s own phenomenology of the invisible.

More information here.

• Imprint: Continuum
• Pub. date: 15 Jun 2009
• ISBN: 9781847064479
  
• 160 Pages, paperback $21.95

Analytic Vs. Continental

There’s an interesting new forum thread on Analytic/Continental divide at PhilPapers.

What’s A (Continental) Boy To Do?

Jon Cogburn asks his readers to pitch in on a sort of Analytic Philosophy Reading List for the summer – I think we should join in and see if there are any additional suggestions for the list.

Philosophical Tribalism

Jon Cogburn recently posted a comment by Douglas Kellner regarding “analytic” and “continental” philosophy. I have highlighted some of the more interesting parts:

. . .I found a broad range of continental philosophy attractive. And yet I was not happy with the division of Anglo-American philosophy into continental vs. analytical perspectives. While much that passes for analytical philosophy today is abstract, academic, and often useless, much that parades as continental philosophy is dogmatic posturing and pretentious gibberish. But both the tools of conceptual analysis and perspectives of continental philosophy can be applied together in specific tasks and projects. Philosophy, in my optic, is both analysis and synthesis, deconstruction and reconstruction. Consequently, I would defend pluralistic perspectives that draw on the best work on all traditions.

. . . .Ironically, many of those who I consider the top philosophers of my generation have left philosophy departments, raising some serious questions about the contemporary institutional status of philosophy. On the whole, it seems like contemporary American philosophy seems frozen, in a state of paralysis. While the dominant analytical philosophy suffers from theoretical sclerosis, a hardening of the categories, and undergoing a slow public and academic death, the situation of continental philosophy is also dispiriting. In the 1980s, it looked as though contemporary philosophy was entering a frutiful state of pluralism with a blossoming of continental philosophy, mutating into “Theory,” crossing over into every discipline. On the philosophical frontlines, there was also a reappropriation of Dewey and pragmatism, of other strands of American philosophy, as well as the move into new fields such as feminism, African American and Latino philosophy, philosophy of technology, environmental philosophy, philosophical media studies, and the philosophy of electronic culture and communication. These trends continue within the broader philosophical-intellectual world, but often not in philosophy departments, and they have been pushed to the margins of the academic discipline of philosophy.

Most distressing, not only has reaction and retrenchment set in with analytic philosophy, but continental philosophy is segregating itself into circles in which specific philosophers are revered as the Voice of Truth, of the revered Word. Thus the ontotheological dimension of philosophy that Derrida decried has its Renaissance in schools of contemporary philosophy.

Badiou CFP

 

Here’s your chance (and mine) to do our academic duty and contribute to the piles of craptastic academic drek out there!  Today’s announcement is a CFP on the work of living philosopher Alain Badiou from Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy!  

 

Badiou represents an important point in contemporary Continental thought. He employs set theory, historical analysis of traditional Continental thinkers, including Rousseau, Marx, Heidegger, and Deleuze, and his own theoretical meditations in order to think through some of the foundational concepts of multiplicity, “the one” or “counting as one,” the world, subjectivity, and the event. He believes that philosophy is possible only when it is de-sutured from the events of mathematics, poetry, politics, and love. We welcome papers around these various aspects of Badiou’s work. Also, we welcome papers attempting to answer some of the following questions: What is the significance of Badiou’s work for the Continental/analytic divide in contemporary philosophy? What is the relation between subjects and events, and is Badiou’s account sufficient? Are there worlds that can resist Badiou’s logic or counting? Can one think of events on micro and macro levels? These questions are meant to stimulate ideas, but they are by no means comprehensive. All papers focused on Badiou’s work are welcome.