Poetics of history Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe; Fort, Jeff; Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe
2019
eBook
Rousseau's opposition to the theater is well known: Far from purging the passions, it serves only to exacerbate them, and to render them hypocritical. But is it possible that Rousseau's texts reveal ...a different conception of theatrical imitation, a more originary form of mimesis? Over and against Heidegger's dismissal of Rousseau in the 1930s, and in the wake of classic readings by Jacques Derrida and Jean Starobinski, Lacoue-Labarthe asserts the deeply philosophical importance of Rousseau as a thinker who, without formalizing it as such, established a dialectical logic that would determine the future of philosophy: an originary theatricality arising from a dialectic between "nature" and its supplements.Beginning with a reading of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, Lacoue-Labarthe brings out this dialectic in properly philosophical terms, revealing nothing less than a transcendental thinking of origins. For Rousseau, the origin has the form of a "scene"—that is, of theater. On this basis, Rousseau's texts on the theater, especially the Letter to d'Alembert, emerge as an incisive interrogation of Aristotle's Poetics. This can be read not in the false and conventional interpretation of this text that Rousseau had inherited, but rather in relation to its fundamental concepts, mimesis and katharsis, and in Rousseau's interpretation of Greek theater itself. If for Rousseau mimesis is originary, a transcendental structure, katharsis is in turn the basis of a dialectical movement, an Aufhebung that will translate the word itself (for, as Lacoue-Labarthe reminds us, Aufheben translates katharein ). By reversing the facilities of the Platonic critique, Rousseau inaugurates what we could call the philosophical theater of the future.
This article intends to expose how J.J. Rousseau, in his Emile, adopts the assumption that liberty is a natural given, thus something innate in men and intact in children. That being so, a pedagogue ...who wishes to educate starting from this assumption – that liberty is a natural given – and seeking for virtue would only find it much later, and perhaps only through artifices such as stating that it is God’s will that makes man virtuous. In doing so, even after convincing us that it is not possible to educate without reference to values accepted by one’s cultural tradition, Rousseau fails to show how cultural tradition is transmitted, or even how cultural tradition could be renovated and employed as basis for further development of cultural traditions. As an effect of this first rejection and future, late acceptance (and even during epochs posterior ethical transcendence), Rousseau established the separation between educational and cultural fields, a separation whose ultimate, broad implication is the commonly accepted idea of anticultural education along with child-centered education.
To be a teacher requires that one can weave and unravel pedagogy, drawing on previous understandings while constantly revising them in response to particular classroom circumstances. To do so is ...important, difficult, and frightening. Teachers therefore need experiences to help them prepare mentally for this work. In this essay Cara Furman argues that Jean‐Jacques Rousseau's pedagogical texts Emile, or, On Education and its sequel Emile and Sophie, or, The Solitaries can serve as a handbooks on this process, providing an educative experience in weaving and unraveling for teachers.
Rousseau and Republicanism de Dijn, Annelien
Political theory,
02/2018, Volume:
46, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Rousseau was arguably one of the most important and influential of eighteenth-century republican thinkers. However, contemporary republican theorists, most notably Philip Pettit, have written him out ...of the republican canon by describing Rousseau as a “populist” rather than a republican. I argue that this miscasting of Rousseau is not just historically incorrect but that it has also led to a weakening of contemporary republican political theory. Rousseau was one of the few early modern republican thinkers to take seriously the problem of the tyranny of the majority and to attempt to formulate a cogent answer to that problem. Ignoring his contribution to republican political thought therefore cuts off contemporary republicans from an important resource for thinking about this problem.
In the second half of the 1970s, Michel Foucault gave his archaeological-genealogical methodology the name “Analytics of Power”: power, rather than an essence or attribute, rather than a unitary ...element condensed in institutions, is an exercise. Political theory, on the other hand, hypostatises power, understanding it as a unique reality and an object of possession or cession. In this latter sense, the institution of power in economic terms unites conservative thinkers and an unspecified Marxist thought. Foucault traces the tendency to subordinate power relations to the economy, to finalise and functionalise them to economic rationality. This article will discuss the appropriateness of attributing the economic model to Rousseauian contractualism. In order to do so, I will first clarify the critical tenor of the Foucauldian analytics of power. In particular, I will clarify the critical objectives in the political theory of sovereignty, as well as the elements that, having overcome these theoretical problems, the French philosopher aspires to highlight. Having then acknowledged the notion of sovereignty that Foucault considers problematic within Rousseau’s thought, I will discuss the actual applicability of the economic model to the way in which the Genevan understands the constitution of power.
Digitization is transforming our world economically, culturally, and psychologically. The influx of new forms of communication, networking, and business opportunities, as well as new types of ...distraction, self-observation, and control into our societies represents an epochal challenge. Following Bernard Stiegler's concept of pharmacology, Felix Heidenreich and Florian Weber-Stein propose to view these new forms as digital pharmaka. Properly dosed, they can enable new self-relationships and forms of sociality; in the case of overdose, however, there is a risk of intoxication. In this essay, Felix Heidenreich, Florian Weber-Stein, and, in a detailed interview, Bernard Stiegler analyze this complex change in our world and develop new skills to use digital pharmaka.
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