Truth, Transcendence, and the Good

Nietzsche regarded nihilism as an outgrowth of the natural sciences which, he worried, were bringing about “an essentially mechanistic [and hence meaningless] world.” Nihilism in this sense refers to the doctrine that there are no values, or that everything we might value is worthless. In the last issue of Modern Horizons, I offered this conditional explanation of the relation of science and nihilism: that a scientific worldview is nihilistic insofar as it rules out the existence of anything that cannot in principle be precisely picked out or identified.i What kinds of entities would a scientific worldview eliminate on the basis of such an assumption? The list is long and various, but it includes those intentional (mentalii) entities of our consciousness that underwrite the existence of persons, and more basically of thought itself – e.g., belief, value, agency, truth, and meaning. I argued in that previous paper that intentional concepts are ultimately inscrutable, and yet impossible coherently to deny. I claimed that we could no more doubt the existence of values than we could doubt reality itself – and when I spoke of values I had in mind the (suspicion-engendering) concept of the good, and was even toying with the related idea of the Logos (an even more suspect concept). There are a several attractive reasons why the idea of the good, or the Logos, might be regarded with suspicion, and why either might reasonably be discarded as a pseudo concept. Leaving the latter concern until later, we might worry that insisting on the possibility of an overarching good supports the idea of a total worldview, or that we are gradually progressing towards a single correct vision of things. A progressivist, totalising vision would seem to foreclose on outlooks, values, and persons that deviate from its most likely trajectory, and may stymie or interfere with incommensurate forms of otherness,iii awkward disturbances, and idiosyncrasies threatening its more well-established precincts – perhaps whatever stands out as strange, rare, and indissolubly individual. The idea of an emerging universal standard of values thus might amount to a source of oppression, e.g., if it provides a warrant to transform a currently limited universally prescriptive set of global practices and institutes into an ever more elaborate totalising hierarchy. In the discussion below, I will say why the good, conceived as the Logos, suggests a more salutary trajectory for individuals, and erodes support for either a totalitarian vision or a dissolving nihilistic outlook on the world

Corporeal gender : feeling gender in first person trans* narratives

In the field of gender studies, the connection between physical being and identity is a point of passionate debate. The way people relate to their physical selves and society’s interpretation of their corporeal body can often constitute the very cornerstone of identity. Whilst the destabilization of relations between sex, gender, sexuality, and identity has been vital to social progress, this theoretical framework does not fully engage with the importance of corporeal feeling. This neglect is most starkly clear in the interaction of trans* autobiographical literature with wider discourse; when the body before the mirror does not connect with your inner sense of self, your investment in the connection of physicality and identity is deep. In this paper, I engage directly with the notion of feeling gender, the importance of the material body, and the difficulties of articulation of a feeling that may not initially be understood. I will explore the issue with reference to specific trans* autobiographies, including Emergence by Mario Martino, Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein, and Katherine Cross’s current blog Nuclear Unicorn (www.quinnae.com). When there seems to be no vehicle for communication of emotion, new languages of feeling are created. It is this new language of feeling both gender and the body that must now demand our attention.peer-reviewe

What comes after sovereignty?

This paper addresses the question of sovereignty from a perspective that connects the origins of public international law, with a series of onto-theological assumptions about the nature of place that were decisive in the emergence of modern colonialism. It will argue that insofar as sovereignty depends on some form of transcendence, external or internal, it is and has been ‘’impotent’’ from the very outset. However, contrary to the idea expressed in the well-known tale about the emperor’s new clothes, it is not the case that acknowledgement of this impotence would entail the end of sovereignty. Faced with the truth of its ultimate impotence, the sovereign supplements its role as decider with that of the intrigant. This new figure of sovereignty is embodied in the expert politician who announces the coming catastrophe in order to avert it, or contain it, through the use of ‘’limited’’ but ultimately borderless violence

Disaggregating Territories: Literature, Emancipation, and Resistance

This article focuses on the implementation of literature for the democratic opening of the human being-in-common in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Rancière. Deleuze and Guattari advocate a quasi-traumatized, “animally” disfigured discourse that testifies to the impossibility of bearing witness to the unpredictable whirl of becoming, not only in philosophical but also in literary writing. Kafka exemplarily blurred the boundaries between his representing and represented subjects, drawing them into an unrestrained field of immanence. It is through such persistent revivifying of polyphony that his minor literature unleashed the suppressed creativity of major literature and language. It subverted literary language from within its identity, deterritorializing its monolingual molecules and pushing its subjects beyond the politically acknowledged threshold of representation. By invading the subject’s speech, action, and behavior, minor literature revolutionizes its agency. In Rancière’s work, political regulation of the subject from above is the main target of oppositional literary deregulation from below. For both Deleuze and Rancière, literary politics consists of the disarticulation of the politically authorized selection of sensations by an unpredictable revolutionary assemblage that escapes it. Now oriented inwards, toward the subject’s perception apparatus, instead of outwards toward other political subjects as before, revolutionary politics in Deleuze’s and Rancière’s rendering deactivates the agency, and departs from an inarticulate molecular area excluded from the scope of its activity. Despite undeniable divergences between their thoughts, this paradoxical “action through non-action” connects their conceptualizations of literature. However, as the genealogy of the messianic tradition has shown, the deactivation of majoritarian agencies does not merely achieve emancipating effects; it simultaneously empowers the minoritarian assemblage introduced in the place of agencies. As a result, the initially democratic assemblage suddenly resurfaces as the major agency of revolutionary terror. I argue that placing literature at the service of the allegedly egalitarian force of negation entertains this risk in both philosophies

Eschatological Realism: A Christian View on Culture, Religion and Violence

It was already Hannah Arendt, who, referring to Kant, emphasized the difference betweentruth and meaning, between practical common sense and opinions. It is interesting that the common sense approach is still completely dominant today, even among theologians, who are so often accused of irrationality – or perhaps just because of it. Theology seems to feel compelled to appeal to common sense, to show the modern world, that it is useful, or at least that it is not harmful. Our discussion in this essay concerns the relationship between religion and violence. We will try and explore the problem on the fundamental level, with no pretensions to offer yet another proposal in the style of 'how to ...', that modern requirements for practicality require and expect

It Is What It Is: Literacy Studies and Phenomenology

This investigation of the tenets of phenomenology is based on work completed using this methodology in educational studies. Specifically, the author writes about the way that phenomenology can be used when completing studies in the field of literacy. The author highlights foundational thinkers, along with major elements of methods and data collection that form the working parts of phenomenology. The author frames this article as a partially reflective account, looking at work that has been completed already, while also attempting to compose a descriptive investigation that other researchers can adopt for their own work in other fields

Cultural Tolerance in Oral Literature Ternate

Indonesia is known for its pluralistic and diverse ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural diversity. The diversity is united with the cultural values contained in the tradition as well as the language expression in the form of meaningful oral literature. One of them is the expression of oral literature Ternate that has the value of tolerance among religious people in establishing the attitude of unity, unity and togetherness in the life of the community. This article will discuss about Ternate oral literature which contains the cultural values of tolerance.Keywords: Oral Literature, Ternate, Culture, Tolerance

"Deconstructing Postmodernism and the Mainstream Developmental Discourse of Women's Empowerment in the (South) Asian Context"

This paper starts with an initial gesture accepting the validity of many of the criticisms of modernity by some leading postmodern thinkers. From this initial position, it then evaluates the postmodernist positions themselves with regards to democracy, women's empowerment and justice by paying careful attention to the arguments of these leading postmodernists. It then develops a theory of deep democracy and radical subjectivity which can be used to deconstruct the rhetoric of international organizations on women's empowerment. However, shallow and self-serving as this rhetoric is, it nevertheless can lead to a limited improvement in women's status contrary to the claims of the conservatives. Furthermore, the theory can also be used to de/reconstruct the liberal and social democratic positions on women's empowerment. Such a deep democratic perspective in South Asia focuses attention on enhancing social capabilities through all means, but most importantly through the political self-activities of the multitude---- particularly the radical subjectivities and actions of the most oppressed women who can and will increasingly take leading roles in overcoming the rule of global capital.