Jean-Luc Marion
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195075519
- eISBN:
- 9780199853052
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195075519.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter ventures into a deeper interpretation of the concept of cogito, ergo sum. The chapter begins with a presentation of the newly-reborn challenge and contact of Descartes' thoughts to ...
More
This chapter ventures into a deeper interpretation of the concept of cogito, ergo sum. The chapter begins with a presentation of the newly-reborn challenge and contact of Descartes' thoughts to contemporary philosophy. One such contact was Henry's use of “material phenomenology” to interpret Descartes' hermeneutic. The chapter emphasizes that this particular line gives access to an original and powerful understanding of the cogito, ergo sum, and not only that its phenomenological repetition pulls the Cartesian ego out of the aporias for which the greatest interpreters—Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger—had opposed it, but above all that this line opens absolutely new perspectives on the whole of Descartes' work. In particular, the chapter argues that it would in this way seem possible to reestablish, in the “I think, therefore I am” which generosity finally effects, the unity long missing between the love of wisdom and the search for truth.Less
This chapter ventures into a deeper interpretation of the concept of cogito, ergo sum. The chapter begins with a presentation of the newly-reborn challenge and contact of Descartes' thoughts to contemporary philosophy. One such contact was Henry's use of “material phenomenology” to interpret Descartes' hermeneutic. The chapter emphasizes that this particular line gives access to an original and powerful understanding of the cogito, ergo sum, and not only that its phenomenological repetition pulls the Cartesian ego out of the aporias for which the greatest interpreters—Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger—had opposed it, but above all that this line opens absolutely new perspectives on the whole of Descartes' work. In particular, the chapter argues that it would in this way seem possible to reestablish, in the “I think, therefore I am” which generosity finally effects, the unity long missing between the love of wisdom and the search for truth.
Sergei Prozorov
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781474410526
- eISBN:
- 9781474418744
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474410526.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
In Chapter 7 we shall outline the theoretical implications of our study of Stalinism for the contemporary debates on affirmative biopolitics in philosophy and social sciences. Our inquiry into ...
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In Chapter 7 we shall outline the theoretical implications of our study of Stalinism for the contemporary debates on affirmative biopolitics in philosophy and social sciences. Our inquiry into Stalinism demonstrates that the negative conversion of biopolitics into thanatopolitics has to do not merely with the ideological content to be translated into life but primarily with the manner of its translation. To rethink biopolitics affirmatively is thus to rethink the relation between life and idea otherwise than in terms of forcing the latter into the former. Drawing on Michel Henry’s material phenomenology of life, we develop an affirmative account of biopolitics based on the concept of captivation. While forcing an idea into life can only produce negative thanatopolitical effects, ideas may acquire a tentative and open-ended vitality in the lives that are captivated by them. We conclude with the discussion of the implications of this approach to biopolitics for rethinking the phenomenon of Stalinism.Less
In Chapter 7 we shall outline the theoretical implications of our study of Stalinism for the contemporary debates on affirmative biopolitics in philosophy and social sciences. Our inquiry into Stalinism demonstrates that the negative conversion of biopolitics into thanatopolitics has to do not merely with the ideological content to be translated into life but primarily with the manner of its translation. To rethink biopolitics affirmatively is thus to rethink the relation between life and idea otherwise than in terms of forcing the latter into the former. Drawing on Michel Henry’s material phenomenology of life, we develop an affirmative account of biopolitics based on the concept of captivation. While forcing an idea into life can only produce negative thanatopolitical effects, ideas may acquire a tentative and open-ended vitality in the lives that are captivated by them. We conclude with the discussion of the implications of this approach to biopolitics for rethinking the phenomenon of Stalinism.
