‘kierkegaard, metaphysics, and political theory’

my review of Alison Assiter’s recent book on Kierkegaard is now up on the Philosophers Magazine website. You can read it here.

it’s maybe a bit harsh, but at least honest.

affectivity and the human animal in Logics of Worlds

In Logics of Worlds Badiou identifies four affects which signal the incorporation of a human animal into a subjective truth-process. These affects are terror, anxiety, courage, and justice.

The first, terror, “testifies to the desire for a great point” [86]. This point serves as the decisive discontinuity which brings about the new in an instantaneous fashion, and completes the subject in the process. The initial point is the break in a previous situation, or world, which inaugurates the opening of the path into the new one.

The second, anxiety, “testifies to the fear of points” [ibid], in which the human animal fears the choice between two hypotheses which comes with no guarantee. Thus, anxiety, in the Kierkegaardian-Sartrean sense, comes about when the individual (or, human animal) is confronted with the realization of free and contingent choice.

The third, courage, “affirms the acceptance of the plurality of points” [ibid]. Thus, one has the courage to navigate the consequences of an event in the form of points. To once again use Kierkegaard/Sartre as the example, courage is the affect which grips the individual who has overcome the anxiety of contingency and freely willed a decision.

The final affect is justice, which “affirms the equivalence of what is continuous and negotiated, one the one hand, and of what is discontinuous and violent, on the other.” [ibid] To justice, all categories of action are thus subordinated to the absolute contingency of worlds. Justice is thus the affective sign of the egalitarian maxim.

On page 87 of LW he goes on to note that “all affects are necessary in order for the incorporation of a human animal to unfold in a subjective process, so that the grace of being immortal may be accorded to this animal.” Thus, the human animal must go through each affect to enter into the process of ‘becoming-subject’.

While I am excited and intrigued to see Badiou relying so much on language of affect (which was a major lack of Being and Event, see Gillespie, The Mathematics of Novelty, for the best critique of BEin regards to affectivity) in Logics, I am also left wondering what is actually feeling these affects? And along these same lines, how does a/the subject ‘feel’ an affect? Because the subject is non-individual and non-human (as theorized by Badiou), what is it that feels itself feelingthese affects? Is it only a collective subject-body whom is able to feel enthusiasm in regards to an emanciptory political movement? Or can the individual be equally affected by novelty in this respect?

It seems as if theorizing the pre-subjective individual as the ‘human animal’ is problematic in these regards, and it would be more constructive to theorize the existence of the non/pre-subjective ‘human animal’ as the ‘individual self’. By providing a more detailed theorization of this individual self, we can have a self whom is self relational and capable of ‘feeling itself feeling’ theseaffects which subsequently lead it into the subjective process. As anthropocentric as Badiou’s philosphy of the subject is (no matter how much he argues otherwise), it seems as if it’d be more constructive for his whole project if he would just concede to the existence of this originary individual self, which theorized properly is situated in such as a way as to be cable of feeling affects and subsequently enter the process of becoming-subject.

I’m still working my way through (the english edition of) Logics of Worlds, so more thoughts on this to come for sure. Would be interested in hearing what others are making of this language of affect in LW…

Adorno on Kierkegaard

I’ve been aware of, and have been an owner of, Adorno’s Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic, for some time now, but have just seriously given it a read this week (still only half way through). The first thing that struck me about the work was how seriously Adorno takes Kierkegaard as both a philosopher and a sort of prototype to a ‘critical theorist’. He reads Kierkegaard in such a way as to place him in dialogue with both critical theory and dialectical materialism, and opens up some interesting interpretive windows.

The second thing I’ve noticed (thus far) is how badly he reads Kierkegaard. According to the translators forward, Adorno only had access to limited, and in many cases incorrect, translations, and didn’t have to ability to read Danish. Clearly developing such a polemic and critical study based off limited and poorly translated texts is problematic, and this shines through in the text. The main problem is the lack of any mention of pseudonymity in the work of Kierkegaard. He refers to every textual reference as a direct quote from Kierkegaard himself, and assumes that one can read his authorship as a sort of consistent whole under the authorship of one individual. This is problematic as Kierkegaard uses the pseudonyms to work through the various stages of his thought, and read out of context can be terribly misleading. This error seems to have the most devastating affect on Adorno’s reading in regards to his critique of inwardness, in which he problematically critiques Kierkegaard for offering a sort of bourgeoisie a-social account of the individual subject. In a sense, his critiques seem to prefigure the similar misinterpretation of inwardness in Kierkegaard made by Levinas in ‘Existence and Ethics.’

That said, Adorno does a couple things that are spot on. One is recognizing the ontological undercurrent of Kierkegaard’s authorship, and another is emphasizing repeatedly the necessity of the free and active subject as the bearer of all reality (p.27).

I’m only half way through, so I’m curious to see what he does in the second half of the work. It seems as if rather than being a fair/accurate study of Kierkegaard’s work, Adorno is using Kierkegaard as philosophical material for beginning to work out his own critical project, and his sharing of Kierkegaard’s many key concerns in regards to idealism seem to be a starting point from which Adorno could launch his own critique.

If anyone is remotley interested in this, I just found a critical piece on Adorno’s reading of Kierkegaard that can be read here.

new Kierkegaard texts

As many whom either know me personally, or know this blog digitally, have ascertained, one of my primary areas of interests is the work of Soren Kierkegaard, and specifically in developing a reading of his work which places him in proximity with the political and ontological concerns of the recent materialists (and/or ‘post-phenomenological’) traditions of European, and specifically French Philosophy. That said, there are two recent works which seem to share a similar concern, which is both exciting and encouraging.

The first, written by Latin American (but US based) Theologian Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez, is entitled A Vexing Gadfly: The Late Kierkegaard on Economic Matters.This one is not only interesting as its the first study (at least that I’m aware of) which takes Kierkegaard seriously on economic matters, and its about time. Even more interesting is that the preface to this book was written by liberation philosopher Enrique Dussel, on whom I wrote much of my MA (on liberation philosophy and theology). It’s always exciting when two seemingly disparate research areas converge. Regardless, I’m waiting for this to be available on amazon.co.uk, and I will likely post thoughts as soon as its in my hands.

The other book, written by Alison Assiter of University of West England, is titled Kierkegaard, Metaphyics, and Political Theory. Sadly, this is being published in the Continuum series which constantly publishes interesting sounding text in paperback only editions cost over £50, far out of the economic reach of this books prime audience, PhD students. That said, I’m hoping to get an inter-library-loan copy of this book to read, and I’m really looking forward to it. Taking Kierkegaard seriously in regards to metaphysics and politics is one of the issues which helps get me up in the morning, so its exciting to someone else with a similar concern. I must admit, however, that when I first heard of this book I was afraid that it would render my project un-original, but luckily, what I’ve seen of this work so far seems to be far from what I’m working on.

Regardless, both would be interesting for anyone wanting to reckon with Kierkegaard as a political (and inherently non-postmodern) thinker should give these a read. I’ll try my best to post some notes once I acquire these.

re: journals

After some looking around, I think I’m going to submit the chapter to the heythrop journal, as it’s a journal of philosophy-theology, and looking through the recent issues, has published pieces dealing with fairly interesting continental topics. And as much as I’m more keen to publish a philosophy-as-such journal, almost all of the interesting/important Kierkegaard scholorship in recent years has taken place almost exclusively in theology based journals. This may be because when taught in theology departments, Kierkegaard is more connected to issues of existentialism and phenomenology, while I’ve come across much recently ‘philosophical’ work on Kierkegaard with a heavy analytic taste to it.

that said, if anyone has any good reasons why I should not attempt to submit to heythrop, let me know!

Journal Advice.

A bit of advice is needed from anyone who would be willing to share…

I’m currently writing up a draft of the first chapter of my PhD, which will be called something like ‘Kierkegaard and the Politics of Outwardness’, and I’m hoping to submit it to a journal within the next month. Partly because it’s about time I start submitting things, and partly because we’re having an essay contest in my department where the best submitted essay wins 300 pounds.

In basic terms, the essay deals with two periods of Kierkegaard’s writings, first considering CUP and Two Ages, and then moving to a consideration of Sickness Unto Death and Practice in Christianity. In the first section I critique the implicit existential ontology of the Postscript, basically arguing that Kierkegaard doesn’t need a transcendent ontology to accomplish what he hopes in regards to subjectivity and undecidability; in the second I reinforce Merold Westphal’s argue that Kierkegaard’s later writings move from the inwardness of ‘Religiousness B’ to a properly relational and outward ‘Religiousness C’, arguing that here we find not a break, but a consummation, of Kierkegaard’s earlier work, and one that provides a paradigm for radical socio-political thought and critique. Towards the end of the work I also re-think the notion of the religious in Kierkegaard in terms of a mode of relation, and also respond to Levinas’ critiques of Kierkegaard for being a-social and a-political.

All that said, I’m wondering where a good place to submit this piece would be? I’m hoping to find a ‘mid range’ journal, and something that wouldn’t be turned off by a piece that basically attempts to situate Kierkegaard as a precursor to contemporary materialism. Thus far I’ve thought about ‘Philosophy Today’ and the ‘Southern Journal for Philosophy’, but may have better chances with a philosophy of religion/theology journal with a Kierkegaard piece… but at this point, ANY advice would he helpful.

Thanks.

request for advice.

I’m spending the next month writing a draft of the first chapter of my PhD, which broadly construed, is going to deal with issues of politics, ontology, subjectivity, and relationality within four of Kierkegaard’s works I find to be fundamental to my understanding of his work. Along with Kierkegaard, there will likely also be short sub-sections dealing with Marx, Hegel, and Zizek within this chapter.

One of the conceptual issues I’ve moved towards is relationality, and in the context of Kierkegaard, the relationship between internal self-relation, and external socio-political relation between self-relational subjects. I feel like I’m moving towards a steady argument within Kierkegaard’s texts, but would like to at least consider some recent work in European philosophy that deals with relationality, and am not so sure where to look. One figure who has been recommended is Nancy, but even there I’m not quite sure where to start, as I don’t have time to read his corpus anytime soon.

So, I come to you, whoever you are, to ask for recommendations on philosophers with interesting theories of relationality. All recommendations are highly appreciated.

Kierkegaard and Capital

My supervisor makes me write a lot. Here is an excerpt from a pile of notes on Kierkegaard I threw together for this week’s supervision:

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In opposition to the present age, Kierkegaard provides the revolutionary age, which is “an age of action”, in opposition to the present age of “advertisement and publicity.”  This critique of the present age’s obsession with the press leads to one of Kierkegaard’s only direct critiques of the expanding grasp of capital in his age:

“In the end, therefore, money will be the one thing people will desire, which is moreover only representative, an abstraction. Nowadays a young man hardly envies anyone his gifts, his art, the love of a beautiful girl, or his fame; he only envies him his money. Give me money, he will say, and I am saved.”  (The Present Age)

By noting that the young man of the present age seeks salvation in money, Kierkegaard is one of the first authors to overtly critique the inherently religious nature of capital. This reliance on money is a sign of the overarching problem of the present age, a lack of passion and action. Because of this lack of ability to act passionately, “everything is transformed into representational ideas.”  Thus, the present age is one obsessed with nothing but reflection and representation, and this lack of anything real, or actual, is the cause of a lack of a passionate prior self-relation in the individual. Here it is clear that Kierkegaard’s conception of subjectivity in no way leads to stark a-social and a-political individualism, but is instead the necessary pre-condition for the individual to passionately exist in (and affect) reality.