2009 was a huge year for me. Not only were there some serious personal considerations being dealt with (still being dealt with), but intellectually I was challenged more than I have in any other previous year. No doubt this was largely due to finishing my undergrad (at a small private college in Southern Cali) and starting my postgrad program at the University of Nottingham. So, I figured it might be fun to take note of some highlights of ‘09. And what better way to do so than with some short LISTS!!

Best Books Read in ‘09 (Not necessarily newly published):

1. Being and Nothingness/Transcendence of the Ego – Jean-Paul Sartre (had to put them as one considering the former is a consummation of sorts of that which was begun in the latter)

2. The Riverside Milton – John Milton; Ed. Roy Flannagan (“Il Penseroso” inspired some body art!!)

3. Christ in Postmodern Philosophy – Frederiek Depoortere

4. I See Satan Fall Like Lightning – Rene Girard (Thanks for the recommendation Troy!)

5. The Paris Lectures – Edmund Husserl (My first real intro to Phenomenology)

Best Movies Watched in ‘09 (Not necessarily newly released):

1. “Inglorious Basterds”

2. “Zizek”

3. “In Bruges”

4. “Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo”

5. “Lars and the Real Girl”

Best-Worst Political/Celebrity Moments:

1. Palin – Ever heard of “foot-in-mouth syndrome”???

2. The Glenn Beck March on Capitol Hill – One of my favorite signs read, “You can keep your Kool-aid. I drink TEA!”

3. Obama Nobel Peace Prize – Was this simply  a move to get people to actually care about the Nobel Committee?

4. “Personal Ordinariates”

5. The Hillary Outburst

Best New Beer Tasted:

1.Guinness in England! Nuff said…

Troy (and anybody else for that matter), what say you?

Zizek makes a great point in his new book when discussing the false binary in contemporary politics between permissive liberalism and fascistic populism: those who have oft-suggested an alliance of revolutionary politics in the West with more-or-less populist uprisings in the Middle East and Third World have completely missed the point of true revolutionary action. Such a position, Zizek claims, is commensurate with correlating the current uprisings against capitalists with Hitler’s own national socialism (since, as we all know, the Nazi’s really meant ‘capitalists’ when they said ‘Jews’). As Zizek states:

“It would be a fatal mistake to think that, at some point in the future, we will convince the fascists that their “real” enemy is capital, and that they should drop their particular religious/ethnic/racist form of their ideology in order to join forces with egalitarian universalism.” (Zizek, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, 70)

I can’t help but think that this same principle applies in the theological realm as regards the new traditionalisms (MacIntyre, Milbank, etc.). Any and all reactionary positions, whether in politics or theology, are bound to be determined by that to which they are antithetical. Or, as Zizek has explained elsewhere, the first popular reaction to catastrophe (whether economic, ecological, or otherwise) is never one of universal solidarity, but of out of control populist violence. We must resist this type of blatant antagonism in theology as much as in politics. Instead, Zizek proposes fidelity to an event whose coordinates, a la Badiou, are not fixed according to the given situation. For Zizek, this means a radical “starting over from the beginning” – as opposed to a return to a previous high point. In theology, this would mean the ultimate eradication of any nostalgia for a previous politico-theological era. A radical rethinking of the very roots of theology are needed, and a theoretical blind eye must turned to modern antagonisms. As Barth once advised: we should utterly ignore the world when going about the business of theology, but always do so for the sake of the world.

So, I’ve had a recurring dream of late that my girlfriend is dating Slovenian pop-icon/Philosopher Slavoj Zizek.

Basically, the dream begins with my girlfriend and I having and intense conversation in which I am confusingly dealing with her admission that she is still dating her long-time lover, Zizek. Apparently there is some sort of assumed sordid history inside this tumultuous love triangle. During the duration of the conversation between her and myself, I get to the point where I actually picture Zizek (not exactly a god-like physical specimen) and then assume that she MUST be attracted to him for his mind. Turning to ask her about her attraction to Zizek, I am met with apathy and what seems like frustration that I can’t simply “deal with it.” To make matters worse, she then proceeds to elaborate on the physicality of their relationship, which simply infuriates and disgusts me even more. It’s at about this time when I awake.

Feel free to psychoanalyze all the minute details – if nothing else it might be enjoyable to poke fun at my neurosis. But what gave me a nice chuckle about this the other day is when I told her about the recurring dream. Her response was classic and humorously disturbing: “Maybe you’re just insecure about an intellectual relationship that you actually have with him.”

Thanks, Kim… thanks ;)

I recently began reading The Future of Religion by Rorty and Vattimo. The following quote was lifted from the intro, written by the translator, Santiago Zabala:

“The only truth that the Bible reveals to us is the practical appeal to love, to charity. The truth of Christianity is the dissolution of the metaphysical concept of truth itself” (14).

Any interesting thoughts???

In this evening’s seminar on Walter Benjamin, Dr. Tracey Potts led a discussion – in a fittingly fragmentary, Benjaminian way – on the thought, methods, and intentions of the late Frankfurt School thinker. While many things are swirling around in my mind regarding Benjamin’s critique of capitalist modernity, things to which hopefully I can return at some later date, at the moment my thoughts are directed toward educational models and practices in the West – primarily the US and UK.

My girlfriend is doing research at the moment on dyslexia and other related “educational disabilities.” One of the primary areas of concentration in her study has been on the question, “Is dyslexia a myth?” Within this paradigm of thought, the general claim is that dyslexia is not a biological, hereditary disorder of the brain. Rather there are phonological and social factors that have led to the appearance of an educational disconnect that we have subsequently labeled “dyslexia.” Simply stated: there are phonological defects imbedded within the English language itself that have caused the difficulties that we identify as dyslexia. Supporters claim that in non-English speaking countries (even in all non-Latin based linguistic models) there are significantly fewer cases of dyslexia and in many cases dyslexia is completely obsolete.

While her research, and thus my secondary knowledge of her research, is still in its infantile stages the above ideas resonate well with thoughts that I have had regarding the “attention-deficient” West as well as with Benjamin’s work on the effects of capitalist modernity, in particular his work on advertising and technological reproduction, on the “masses.” One of his primary contentions is that because of its emphasis on that which is new and on the importance of shock-value capitalist modernity has created a milieu of attention deficiency, which has consequently ruptured any linear model of thought en toto and – more pertinently for this entry – reading in particular. Thus, because we are able to bring to ourselves any aesthetic object at any given time, which we would otherwise only get to experience on rare occasion, we are a people who are overloaded by aestheticism. One of the resultant outcomes is that we are a people who always need to be shocked by that which is new. This in return creates a pathos of anaesthetisation towards that which is familiar, old hat. Therefore, the cycle of needing more shocking commodities is instigated, to which of course capitalist corporations are willing to cater and our insatiable appetites are ever-ready to consume.

In the classroom, or simply at the educational level as such, this attention problem is also clearly seen. Not only has there been a rise in children labeled as ADD, ADHD, Dyslexic, Dyspraxic, etc., but there has also been an increase in placing said children into “special needs” environments that can better serve their “disabilities.” Something that Kim (better to refer to her by her name than in the possessive form :)) has thus been considering in light of her research (on the brain, psychological development, classroom models, and educational theories) is whether our entire educational systems needs massive – and I repeat MASSIVE – reform. If we are to therefore take Benjamin’s critique of capitalist modernity seriously, then perhaps there are some significant descriptive elements in his works that could aid us in such a task.

The main question I’m really driving at is thus: if Benjamin is correct (and of course the lovely Kim) that capitalist modernity has created an attention deficient culture, then what type(s) of educational model(s) will effectively work for persons contained therein? Of corse, there will be some conservatives who will hate the idea of “catering to the masses.” And in one sense, I can sympathize – in a very little sense. However, I also recognize that the existent models of education were developed a posteriori, based on the personae of the people who developed them. Thus, in one sense, our institutions always mimic society. However, is there a sense in which a dialectical model of education could be proposed, one that would both allow the masses to inform its structure and at the same time have a profound respect for the past and its structure, while pursuing a common goal of all educators and thus providing better education for the maximum amount of people? I think it’s possible… now I just have to wait until Kim comes home from class so I can pitch my thoughts to her so SHE can change the world!

In the chapter entitled “The Critique of the Subject” in the volume Who Comes After the Subject (edited by Cadava, Connor, and Nancy), Michel Henry embarks on a critical history of the philosophy of the subject. While he claims that the history of the critique of the subject has “numerous convergent formulations” from which a detailed tome could be assembled, for the sake of space he limits his chapter to brief analyses of Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, and Freud. Acknowledging the diversity of these thinkers, he nevertheless draws on a convergent point in the four; namely, what they have in common is the “critique of man conceived as a specific and autonomous reality” (157).

It is this specificity and autonomy that Henry claims must be understood. Accordingly, in the philosophy of the subject, man is identified as the subject “granted an exorbitant privilege in that there is in the end no Being nor being except in relation to him, for him and through him, and this insofar as he constitutes the a priori condition of possibility for all experience and thus for all that is and can be, at least for us” (157). Henry refers to this subject as a “super being,” one who has all beings at his disposal – as they are subjugated to him. As he goes on to remark, “These descriptions are those of our world – of the ravaging of Earth by Technology [... which] consists in the unconditional subjugation of the Whole of being, which becomes the Ob-ject, to man, who becomes the Subject” (158). Henry is not here concerned with how such a view of subjective-subjugation of the world can have power, although he does imply that this view of mastery over the world based on subjectivity is an illusion that needs to be addressed. Rather, his immediate concern lies elsewhere; namely that the philosophy of subjectivity does not know anything about the being of this subject. He poses two questions to begin his essay:

1. What is the Being of this subject that has to be eliminated, “evacuated,” from the problematic?
2. Who, contesting at once the right and the existence of such a subject – the right of man to identify with it – goes about its elimination?

At this point he deems it necessary to focus on the philosophies of the two greatest philosophers of the subject: Descartes and Kant – although he chooses to address them historically backward. His attentions swings first to Kant because Henry wishes to show how the Kantian paradigm is the pre-eminent philosophy of the groundless subject. In other words, the moment philosophy “sees itself clearly as a philosophy of the subject… the foundation on which it explicitly and thematically bases itself… escapes it and, slipping from its grasp, tips over into the void of inanity” (158). “Inane” because essentially what occurs is that the Being of the subject becomes understood as representation. Thus, “I think” is equal to “I represent to myself that I think.” As Henry elaborates,

“[This] means that the Being of the subject is classed as the object of a representation, an object that, on the one hand, presupposes this subject and, on the other, never contains by itself, insofar as it is represented any reality – just as to represent to oneself a thaler does not imply that one has one in one’s pocket. Thus the foundation of any conceivable Being is stricken with a profound ontological indigence that prevents us from attributing to Being itself and kind of Being. Like it or not, it is the philosophy of the subject itself that has raised the most serious objection to the subject, to the point of rendering its very existence problematic” (159).

Returning to the two questions above, Henry then asks, “which subject finds itself thrown out of existence, and by whom?” His answer is the subject of representation, and by itself. This is so because the subject-as-representation draws its essence, its Being, from representation, which thus prevents Being from being conferred upon it. According to Kant, because the structure of representation is intuition and concept – and because we have no intuition or concept of the “I think” – we cannot know anything about it. Thus, the subject-as-representation is not a phenomenon for us, nor can it be. In other words, the essence of Being itself cannot consist in representation because representation does not rest upon itself and cannot ground itself in itself – as it is always referential. Thus, “to be” does not mean “to be represented” (160).

For Descartes, the problematic takes a different form. Henry notes that in the Meditations two decisive traits emerge: (1) The Being of the subject is contested, unsettled and denied. The Being of the subject and hence Being itself is the issue; and (2) The foundation of the Being of the subject presupposes that representation be ruled out – this means all that is or can be represented and the very structure of representation itself. By doubting all things – all representations and the structure of representation – Descartes’ remaining inquiry was regarding what might “sub-sist, that is to say, what can still be when representation in its entirety has been blocked”? What can still be when being is not through representation? Descartes’ answer is the “anti-essence of representation” as being “precisely the essence of the ‘subject’” (161).

Henry then briefly describes Descartes’ epoche as found in the Passions of the Soul. In this text, Descartes imagines himself dreaming. As such, all that is represented to himself in his dream is understood as illusory – is not. However, if the dreamer happens to experience emotions of sadness or grief or the like, even though still in a dream, even thought the representation(s) are false, the feelings themselves are absolute. Thus, he concludes: this feeling does not occur through representation but independent of it. How does it then occur? Henry notes, “In and through its affectivity” (161, emphasis his). Accordingly, this affectivity of the subject, this “auto-affectivity”, is the self’s immediate and undistanced experience of itself. And as such, it is to be understood as the essence of the subject and of all possible Being. As Henry thus remarks at the conclusion of his brief discussion of Descartes: “It is only when, as happens at one moment in Descartes, the philosophy of the subject returns to this original essence of subjectivity and Being that the ‘subject’ can become the theme of a philosophical discussion” (162).

Leaving behind Descartes and Kant, Henry turns his attention to his favorite philosophical punching bag. As he states, “The most striking misunderstanding is Heidegger’s, who explicitly and repeatedly identifies the ‘I think’ as an ‘I represent myself to myself’” (162). This non-ground of subjectivity is the resultant model of most critiques of the subject post-Heidegger. With this being the case, as far as Henry is concerned, the Being of the subject has “lost… all possible philosophical meaning” (162). Although Heidegger’s critique of the essence of Being was assumed to be something different, according to Henry, all that really occurred in Heidegger’s problematic was a new schematic of representation-as-essence.

The one bright spot that Henry notes in the history of the critique of the subject is located in the thought of Freud. Although not completely endorsed, Henry claims that the Freudian subject is “capable of opening up new paths” in the history of the critique. Freud’s critique was aimed directly at the subject of representation, which he identified as “consciousness.” As Henry mentions, Freud was not concerned with redefining consciousness, but rather took the stock meaning as employed by common philosophical jargon: “Let us call ‘conscious’ the representation which is present to our consciousness and of which we are aware, and let this be the only meaning of the term ‘conscious.’”

As noted above, for Freud, consciousness was equal to representation. It is this level – the level of consciousness – that would become the ground of his study of the unconscious; for there are memories that we “possess” which are not immediately accessible in the consciousness, as representation. Therefore, the subject cannot be understood in terms of “I represent myself to myself” because the unconscious, which is unrepresented, is integral in the constitution of the subject. However, whatever is not conscious is capable of becoming conscious. This is the task of the psychoanalytic therapist: to bring to the “actuality of representation something nonconscious that is secretly homogeneous with representation and that can, for this reason, change into it – an unconscious constituted by ‘unconscious representations.’ i.e., those that are not yet represented and that, ontologically if not existentially, are only asking to be” (164). Thus,  according to Henry, “Classical thought calls out for the coming of psychoanalysis” (164).

It is therefore “anther subject that comes to light with the idea that the unrepresented is also representable, that the original Being of this subject is no longer represented but its anti-essence” (164). Henry continues:

“Freud in his turn runs up against such a subject, half perceived by Descartes, when he finds himself in the presence of an unconscious that is no longer provisional, no longer one phase in the history of representation, capable of completing itself in itself, in the actualization of it full essence. The history of our representations refers back to a force that allows them precisely to actualize themselves or that forbids them to do so. It is only this force itself that is irreducible to any representation. This force collapses in on itself in an immediation that is so radical, and in this immediation is submerged into itself in such a way that there is no room in it for any Difference, no distantiation thanks to which it would be possible for it to perceive itself, to represent itself – to be conscious in the mode of representation” (164-65, emphasis his).

However, all is not well in Henry’s eyes. At this point, right when Freud is divulging the most original dimension of Being – the unrepresented and unrepresentable force that directs all representations – that Freud “succumbs” to the presuppositions of this metaphysics and that force and affect fall back to the unconscious. Thus, the subject is led to its true Being, only to find itself removed from such Being.

In the final lines of the chapter, Henry focuses once again on Descartes and asks whether Descartes had perceived (or half-perceived) the Being of the subject as an anti-essence of representation, and that if such is the case why did consequent critiques of the subject so badly misunderstand the cogito in terms of representation? Well, Descartes is partly to blame for this. In the Meditations, Descartes does not completely disavow the subject as representation. In fact, it could be concluded that even after bracketing off all representations, the cogito that remains does so only as a representation to itself. Thus, the cogito is the “first truth and at the same time the prototype for all truth” (165). In this case, the cogito has nothing to do with the actual process of thought or with thought itself. Rather, the cogito is the subjective condition (understood as affectivity, as noted above), without which no appearing of the world would appear.

With that said, it is hence claimed that Descartes draws back at precisely this moment and states that affectivity, as the original essence of subjectivity, is a “disturbance brought into subjectivity by some foreign agent. Why? Because thought is light, the light of representation, the light of the world, the light in which things and their geometric shapes shine – Greek light” (166). It is here, according to Henry, where the problem of the philosophy of the subject lies: “absolute objectivism, whether it be the naive objectivism of the sciences, notably the human sciences, or the ek stasis of Being that, unbeknownst to them, serves as their foundation” (166).

While not setting out to resolve the problematic of the history of the critique of the subject in this chapter, Henry concludes the article by remarking that there is no past in the critique, there is no model that ought to be resurrected or restored. Rather, there is only the possibility of a “first coming”…

Conspiracy theorists of the world have suggested some great governmental plots in the past, but this one is just genius ;)

I have to say, Daniel Karslake’s “For the Bible Tells Me So” is without a doubt the most consistent and well-reasoned film I’ve ever seen that attempts to tackle any controversial socio-political subject from a Christian point of view. The combination of biblical exegesis, simple reductio ad absurdum arguments, and heart-wrenching personal narratives of gay and lesbian Christians is just so well put together. I can’t help but be genuinely affected by its well-rounded sympathetic tone. In fact, the section which explores the evolutionary advantage of cultural homophobia (i.e. it makes sense for people to think this way; therefore, we should sympathize with their feelings and address them as we would any other person) even spoke something crucial to me – something I was not prepared for given my personal agreement with the film’s general perspective. If you have a chance, watch this film with your family and friends – you won’t regret it.

Introductory Remarks Concerning the Ontological Distinction Between the One and the Many:

For Proclus, there is an essential, necessary ontological distinction between the One and the many. This distinction must not be understood in terms of a difference of degree or proportion but rather one in terms of kind or attribution. Thus, the many bear certain “qualities” that are attributed to them by their participation in some higher mode of being, and ultimately participation in the primal Unity.

For the many, essence precedes existence. This comes from the many’s origin in the One. Proclus claims that effects resemble their causes and that any appearance of the many was in some way pre-existent in the One from which it preceded. This leads to the  obvious claim that while essence precedes existence in the many such is not the case with the One. Rather, in the One, essence is existence and existence is essence. Said axiom is the defining ontological distinction of the One. This is the One’s simplicity. The many on the other hand, by virtue of its/their essence preceding its/their existence in the “mind” of the One (although “mind” here must not carry conscious connotation for the very fact that Proclus would also claim that the One transcends such), is ontologically distinguished by its complexity. Thus, two categories of ontology – simplicity and complexity – are what constitute the ontological difference between the One and the many.

Dualism in Neo-Platonism?:

From the above remarks it could be noted that an apparent dualism has emerged: one between simplicity in the One and complexity in the many. However, for Proclus no such dualism is maintained. Rather, there is a sense in which the many (as represented by lower modes of being – ie., human souls, animals, plants, inanimate bodies, and formless matter) are mirrors of the higher modes of being and ultimately the One. In other words, the lower, banal things show us the higher modes of being. This is understood as “theurgy.” Thus, for Proclus the material world is not opposed to the divine, but rather is shot through with divine luminosity. As such, the apparent dualism between simplicity and complexity evanesces through the participatory relationship between the One and the many.

Emanation and Reversion:

Still, the argument could arise that the mysterious vagueness of “methexis” (participation) does nothing to really nullify the now deemed “apparent” dualism contained in the ontological distinction between the One and the many. At this point, it may be helpful to note Proclus’ teaching on emanation and reversion. All things emanate from the One. The One is the primal cause of all that exists. In the many therefore (because effects resemble their causes) the One is ever-present (although not in full). This presence of the One in the many is also what causes the many to desire the One. By such desiring, the many strive(s) for its/their unity from whence it/they came. This process is known as reversion. All things at once emanate and revert to/from the One. This means that the lower modes of being, while being far from the One in virtue of emanation are nevertheless close to the One in their reversion – and so too with all other essents. So while all things have their origin (emanation) in the One, such an origin must not be understood in terms of a point-action event that moves from its beginning to some other end, but rather in terms of perennial participation which ultimately leads to a reversion back into the One. The One is thus the material, formal, efficient, and teleological cause of All.

Concluding Remarks and Questions :

While a true interaction with the above would require much more space (and time) the questions that follow will (hopefully) be the beginning of a series of posts dedicated to Neo-Platonic philosophy, it’s adoption/adaptation in early christian tradition (notably in Psuedo-Dionysius, Thomas Aquinas, and Nicholas of Cusa), and a series of posts on oppositional theories of being as found in Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Marleau-Ponty, Marion, and others. Of course, suggestions by readers (in the form of additional questions to explore, critiques, and/or supplemental information) are encouraged.

1. What are some implications of the One transcending both existence and non-existence?
2. Is it necessary to postulate the One “behind” the many? In other words, is there a need for theurgy or is there a way to postulate some form of authentic “materialism” without falling into a crude atheistic reductionism?
3. If there is no ontological difference between the One and the many, what keeps one from embracing pantheism? Would such be undesirable?
4. What implications does the Incarnation have on such discussions? For instance, does the Incarnation show us that the material can exhibit the divine? Or is there a more collapsed, flattened view of the Incarnation that would be better suited to help us understand the relationship between matter and non-matter?
5. In what way might Husserl’s tripartite formula, “ego, cogito, cogitatum,” aid us in seeking to establish a “beyond within our midst” without having to look behind the veil.
6. Is it possible to claim that “existence precedes essence,” along with Sartre, from within a theological framework? What might this look like?
7. How might Marion’s phenomenological reduction, “As much reduction, as much givenness,” help to provide an alternative model of being than the one supplied in the Neo-Platonic tradition?

I was shocked and appalled to read this article. To be confronted with this sort of blatant racism in this day and age – at such a high judicial level – reminds me that there is much to be done before we can really start flippantly throwing around terms like “progress,” “liberation,” and “equality” as if we have achieved such.

The most ridiculous part of the article is that the “Peace Officer” actually believes that he is doing a good thing for society by preventing interracial marriage while simultaneously claiming that he “[tries] to treat everyone equally.”