This article focuses on the political 'effect' that Arendt wished to achieve with her 'old-fashioned storytelling'. It is argued that she inherited her concept of the 'redemptive power of narrative' (Benhabib) from Walter Benjamin. The close relationship of the two intuitively suggests an affinity between Arendt's concept of a 'fragmented past' and her 'storytelling' and Benjamin's conception of history and narrative. An attempt is made here to determine the amplitude and the meaning of this proximity. An account is provided of (...) Benjamin's and Arendt's shared belief that the past is fragmented and that only fragmented writing, mainly in the form of 'stories', had the capacity to be faithful to its 'ruins'. It is argued that for both Arendt and Benjamin, the purpose of this writing form was not to commemorate the dead, but to show their absence - their invisibility. It is suggested that Arendt and Benjamin held a similar conviction: that stories had the capacity to save the world. Key Words: Arendt • Benjamin • catastrophe • experience • fragmented past • imagination • remembrance • revelation • standpoint of the defeated • storytelling. (shrink)

In Levinas’s philosophy, “nature” refers to two distinct and sometimes opposed concepts. Most often it stands for being and perseverance in being (i.e., conatus): it is what is and wants to be. In some places, however, “nature” indicates the limits of human power, violence, or hubris, and reveals the uncanny unlimitedness of transcendence. In other words, “nature” designates primarily the ontological character of Creation but also sometimes the otherness beyond ontology. It expresses the egoistic but also sometimes the altruistic. It (...) commonly discourages ethics but also sometimes encourages it. The aim of this paper is to analyze how these two meanings of “nature” meet and contradict each other in Levinas’s philosophy, and to interpret their meeting and contradiction. Levinas never offers a studied reflection on nature per se. However, his Talmudic Readings include descriptions of nature as both ontological and inspiring the ethical. Reinterpreting some of the Readings I show that, for Levinas, nature is associated with war, conquest and destruction, but is sometimes presented as the cure for these ontological evils. In other words, its function is similar to that of politics. It embodies a necessity that must be moderated by an ethics which, in a way, comes from nature itself. (shrink)

This essay examines and challenges some of the theoretical arguments of the neoliberal attack on the concept of popular sovereignty. I argue that in order to resist both the neoliberal reaction against popular power and the subsequent resurgence of populist rhetoric, we need to rework the concept of popular sovereignty. I focus on three groups of texts written in the early years of the neoliberal shift—namely, from the mid-1970s to early 1980s—which deal with the question of sovereignty: Hayek’s Law, Legislation (...) and Liberty; Foucault’s works of the late 1970s; and Lefort’s reflections on the symbolic dimension of power. While Hayek and Foucault defend similar views on sovereignty and argue that it is or should be replaced by technics of management, Lefort proposes a de-essentialized conception of democracy based on redefining sovereignty as the possibility of continually refiguring the space of power. (shrink)

This book is about the postructural Franco-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. This book covers Jewish ethics in the twentieth century and also cultural philosophy.

Arendt claimed that violence is not part of the political because it is instrumental. Her position has generated a vast corpus of scholarship, most of which falls into the context of the realist-liberal divide. Taking these discussions as a starting point, this essay engages with violence in Arendt’s work from a different perspective. Its interest lies not in Arendt’s theory of violence in the world, but in the function that violence performed in her work, namely, in the constitutive role of (...) violence in her thought. It argues that the concept of violence allowed Arendt to make important distinctions serving to catalyze the categories that constitute her political philosophy and, in particular, the categories of public and private. More specifically, it claims that the concept of violence in Arendt’s work is the a priori background against which both the public and private realms should be defined. (shrink)

In Levinas’s philosophy, “nature” refers to two distinct and sometimes opposed concepts. Most often it stands for being and perseverance in being : it is what is and wants to be. In some places, however, “nature” indicates the limits of human power, violence, or hubris, and reveals the uncanny unlimitedness of transcendence. In other words, “nature” designates primarily the ontological character of Creation but also sometimes the otherness beyond ontology. It expresses the egoistic but also sometimes the altruistic. It commonly (...) discourages ethics but also sometimes encourages it. The aim of this paper is to analyze how these two meanings of “nature” meet and contradict each other in Levinas’s philosophy, and to interpret their meeting and contradiction. Levinas never offers a studied reflection on nature per se. However, his Talmudic Readings include descriptions of nature as both ontological and inspiring the ethical. Reinterpreting some of the Readings I show that, for Levinas, nature is associated with war, conquest and destruction, but is sometimes presented as the cure for these ontological evils. In other words, its function is similar to that of politics. It embodies a necessity that must be moderated by an ethics which, in a way, comes from nature itself. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Arendt's understanding of freedom should be examined independently of the search for good political institutions because it is related to freedom of movement and has a transnational meaning. Although she does not say it explicitly, Arendt establishes a correlation between political identities and territorial moves: She analyzes regimes in relation to their treatment of lands and borders, that is, specific geographic movements. I call this correlation a political itinerary. My aim is to show genealogically (...) that her elaboration on the regimes of ancient, modern, and 'dark' times is supported by such a correlation. I read Arendt in light of the current clash between an amorphous global political identity (and 'new' international order) and the renewal of nationalisms. I show that, for Arendt, the world is divided by necessary frontiers - territorial borders and identity frames - and that the political consists precisely of the effort to transgress them. Arendt never proposed a restoration of authority but, on the contrary, a worldwide anarchic (that is, based on no predetermined rule) politics of de-localization and re-localization; in her terms, a politics of free movement of founded identities, a cosmopolitanism, which, nevertheless, would have nothing to do with global sovereignty. (shrink)

In this essay, I compare the meaning of political representation in Hobbes? Leviathan and Corneille's Cinna. For both authors, a monarch is a ?representer? and representation is a necessary condition of effective sovereignty. However, the term ?representation? means something entirely different in Hobbes and in Corneille. For the former, it means acting and speaking in the name of a multitude and in its absence; for the latter, it means acting and speaking in the presence of a political public, with the (...) intention to impress this audience. I would like to argue that our late modern (or postmodern) conception of sovereignty can be seen as being (unconsciously) based on the conjunction of Hobbes? and Corneille's different notions of representation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relationships that Derrida establishes between three analytic discussions and three autoimmunities. The analytic discussions are (1) the antinomy of hospitality, related to what happens when the subject faces demands from strangers; (2) the antinomy of the death penalty, related to the meeting between the right to life and the right to end the life of another; (3) the antinomy of animality related to laws and what lies beyond them. The autoimmunities are (1) the autoimmunity of (...) inclusion: democracy is open only to its sovereign citizens while it claims to welcome all who are excluded; (2) the autoimmunity of rights and liberties: in liberal democracy, rights and liberties are meant to challenge sovereignty’s absolutism, but any attack on sovereignty is an attack on rights and liberties; (3) the autoimmunity of globalization: for democracy to work it requires protection provided by a supersovereignty, which limits the sovereignty of states, and hence, democracy. The paper follows Derrida’s connections between the questions of hospitality, the death penalty, and animality on the one hand, and the autoimmune aspects of democratic politics on the other, to argue that his deconstruction of democracy is an ethicization of democracy activated by the concept of sovereignty, and a deconstruction of sovereignty via ethics. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Levinas’s understanding of the social as distinguished from the political. In his neo-phenomenological work, Levinas never conceptualized the difference between the political and the social, because he was more interested in the difference between the ethical and everything else. In his Talmudic Readings, however, with the help of examples or paradigms, he offers a vision of a social domain distinct from the political one. This paper concentrates on the Talmudic Readings to delineate those situations in which (...) Levinas distinguishes such a specifically social realm. It analyzes Levinas’s understanding of the city as paradigm of liberalism’s shortcomings and elaborates on the absence of the social in Levinas’s conception of a good life. (shrink)

This article argues that Camus’s thinking, as expressed in his works of fiction and non-fiction, is based upon a contradiction between his determination to reconcile politics and ethics and his belief that they irrefutably contradict each other. Throughout his career, Camus’s concerns never diverged from his aporetic attempt to reach an ‘agreement’ between two concepts he regarded as incompatible: justice and freedom. This article demonstrates how this basic aporia led Camus to an original - albeit rather hopeless - view of (...) the human condition. It illustrates how Camus’s aporia led him to define the role of thinkers in terms of public criticism and argues that in today’s sociopolitical reality Camus’s aporia can neither be dismissed, nor overcome. (shrink)

This article argues that Camus’s thinking, as expressed in his works of fiction and non-fiction, is based upon a contradiction between his determination to reconcile politics and ethics and his belief that they irrefutably contradict each other. Throughout his career, Camus’s concerns never diverged from his aporetic attempt to reach an ‘agreement’ between two concepts he regarded as incompatible: justice and freedom. This article demonstrates how this basic aporia led Camus to an original - albeit rather hopeless - view of (...) the human condition. It illustrates how Camus’s aporia led him to define the role of thinkers in terms of public criticism and argues that in today’s sociopolitical reality Camus’s aporia can neither be dismissed, nor overcome. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Lefort’s and Rancière’s conceptions of democracy as a set of conflictual processes through which the composition of the public sphere is reassessed. Reading their works together and sometimes in opposition to each other, the paper extracts elements of a theory of inessential sovereignty that avoids the pitfalls of populist antagonism and of neoliberal diffuse domination. It analyses Lefort’s and Rancière’s understandings of democracy as rule of the people, which are based on ontological and aesthetical distinctions between (...) ‘politics’ and ‘the political’. It argues that in the structural situation of dissensus described by both Lefort and Rancière, popular sovereignty could be conceptualized as lying in an ability to shape and transform the public sphere. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Lefort’s and Rancière’s conceptions of democracy as a set of conflictual processes through which the composition of the public sphere is reassessed. Reading their works together and sometimes in opposition to each other, the paper extracts elements of a theory of inessential sovereignty that avoids the pitfalls of populist antagonism and of neoliberal diffuse domination. It analyses Lefort’s and Rancière’s understandings of democracy as rule of the people, which are based on ontological and aesthetical distinctions between (...) ‘politics’ and ‘the political’. It argues that in the structural situation of dissensus described by both Lefort and Rancière, popular sovereignty could be conceptualized as lying in an ability to shape and transform the public sphere. (shrink)

This essay is a political reading of Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’, which examines agency and resistance in situations of political wrong. Le Guin’s short story allows us to reformulate the questions of the boundaries of popular sovereignty and the opposition to general consent. These concerns will be here regarded as elements of a critique of neoliberal capitalism, in which freedom and self-realization are founded on injustices that persist because of a prevalent conception of (...) the good life. The case of ‘Omelas’, moreover, challenges our understanding of resistance in revealing the blurred boundary between political action and mere noncompliance. The question asked will be about the nature of noncompliance: is noncompliance a form of resistance, and, if so, can it transform the political reality? (shrink)

Levinas establishes an intriguing connection between idolatry and ontology. This connection is aptly illustrated by the biblical character of Balaam, the ambiguous Mesopotamian prophet or sorcerer of Numbers 22-24, who is almost never mentioned in Levinas's work but who is present, albeit hidden, in the talmudic reading “Contempt for the Torah as Idolatry.“ A deconstruction of this talmudic reading uncovers Balaam's footprints. It also clarifies different meanings of idolatry—exposing its ontological violence, but also, perhaps, its necessity for ethics and law.

CETTE THESE INTERROGE DE MANIERE CRITIQUE LES RAPPORTS ENTRE UNE MANIERE TRADITIONNELLE DE PRATIQUER LA PHILOSOPHIE POLITIQUE, D'UNE PART, ET D'AUTRE PART LA PRATIQUE DE LA POLITIQUE QUI A ABOUTI AU VINGTIEME SIECLE AU PHENOMENE TOTALITAIRE. SON PROJET EST DE MONTRER L'URGENCE D'EMANCIPER LA PENSEE DU POLITIQUE DE CETTE TRADITION QUI SANS POUVOIR ETRE RENDUE RESPONSABLE DU TOTALITARISME EST TOUT AU MOINS CO-RESPONSABLE PAR SON IMPUISSANCE -PAR SA RESISTANCE- A PENSER LES CONDITIONS DU TOTALITARISME. LE TRAVAIL EST CONSTITUE PAR QUATRE (...) ETUDES CONSACREES RESPECTIVEMENT A H. ARENDT, M. STIRNER, F. ROSENZWEIG ET E. LEVINAS, QUI ONT SU CHACUN A SA MANIERE S'EMANCIPER DE LA MANIERE TRADITIONNELLE DE PHILOSOPHER, LES UNS EN OPPOSANT A LA TRADITION PHILOSOPHIQUE UNE RESISTANCE RADICALE, LES AUTRES EN OUVRANT CETTE TRADITION A DES HORIZONS DE PENSEE TOUT DIFFERENTS QUI LUI OFFRENT DES POINTS DE VUE AUTRES SUR ELLE-MEME ET SUR LA POLITIQUE. UN THEME TRANSVERSAL, CELUI DE L'ENTRE-DEUX, PERMET LA COMMUNICATION ENTRE CES PENSEES FORT DIFFERENTES LES UNES DES AUTRES, ET TOUT A LA FOIS DESSINE UNE DES PERSPECTIVES DANS LAQUELLE IL S'AGIRAIT DE REPENSER L'ESPACE DE LA POLITIQUE. (shrink)

ExcerptEmmanuel Levinas's Talmudic readings were given as lectures at the Colloque des Intellectuels Juifs de Langue Française, a conference that has been held every year in Paris since 1957. His commentaries on the Talmud purported to be non-technical, accessible, and popular adaptations of his philosophical thinking, which had been developed in difficult books written in the technical language of Husserlian phenomenology.1 In fact, however, a full understanding of these Talmudic readings often requires knowledge of their philosophical assumptions. Conversely, Levinas used (...) his biblical and Talmudic interpretations to formulate philosophical arguments: There are two ways of reading a…. (shrink)

Commentaries on Eichmann in Jerusalem are of two kinds. The first confronts the historical relevance of Arendt's `report' and attempts to ascertain whether her ironical presentation of Eichmann's trial matches reality, namely, the incommensurable suffering of the Jewish people. The second focuses on the meaning of her expression `the banality of evil', and places Arendt in a long tradition of moral and political philosophy concerned with the problem of evil and, accordingly, of judging evil. The argument of this paper is (...) that both paths of research miss Arendt's intention, and that her `report' has to be read in light of Walter Benjamin's conceptions of history and storytelling. On the one hand, Eichmann in Jerusalem was not intended to reflect reality objectively because, as Arendt claimed, the objectivity of scientific historiography may serve only to condone the genocide. Throughout her entire work, Arendt aimed at avoiding the neutrality of historicism, the `tradition of sine ira et studio', which, according to her, represents a renunciation of responsibility. On the other hand, Arendt emphasized that she did not attempt to write about the nature of evil but to faithfully describe a phenomenon. Therefore the questions to be answered are: What did Arendt mean by a `report'? What does it mean to describe Eichmann's trial non-objectively but faithfully? In this paper, I show that her report should be understood in the light of a new methodological experiment inherited from Benjamin, which can be broken down into two steps: 1. To reveal the truth of history in stories rather than seek historical `objectivity' through theories; and 2. To look at events from forgotten standpoints, which are assumed to represent the experienced `inside' of history. (shrink)