French Philosopher Research Articles

«Консервативное просвещение» как «героизация настоящего»

This text is a polemic against the 2023 article by Sergey N. Gradirovsky who wrote about the present-day relevance of Immanuel Kant’s concept of enlightenment and challenged the idea of the modern human being as a child who needs an external guardian or guide to control his behaviour. In my polemic with Gradirovksy I point out that in addition to “self-incurred immaturity” Kant writes about the historical “immaturity” of savage or backward peoples. I also argue that for Kant “maturity” carries not only biological but also socio-historical connotations. I show that in the modern world Kant’s idea of the social or even historical maturity of the modern human acquires serious problematisation which was shown to be possible and inevitable in the article “What Is Enlightenment?” (1784) and its notion of the historicity of enlightenment, i.e. the very strategy of modernity is possible only when humankind reaches a certain historical age. Using as a point of departure the ideas of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, I maintain that the Kant­ian conception of enlightenment is at once ironic and tragic. It is ironic because it does not rule out that its main thesis on the historical maturity of the human being may turn out to be wrong. It is tragic because its main thrust is “heroisation of the present”, i.e. a readi­ness to resist the temptation of being absorbed by the future, which takes on added relevance in view of the virtualisation of reality.

Operação militar, guerra ou invasão: as primeiras ações russas na ucrânia em 2022 segundo as capas de jornais do Brasil e Portugal

Abstract The aim of this article is to show which discursive formations, as defined by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in his work The Archeology of Knowledge (1969), were present in Brazilian and Portuguese printed journalism regarding Russia's military action unleashed on Ukrainian territory in February 24, 2022. This concept will also be discussed in light of the redefinitions of Michel Pêcheux, a French theorist of Discourse Analysis, who gave new contours to the Foucauldian notion. We analyzed 16 newspaper covers (eight Brazilian and eight Portuguese) published the day after the beginning of the Russian actions in Ukraine. Our reading observes the support of Portuguese media outlets for the Ukrainian cause and the demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin as responsible for the outbreak of the conflict; In the Brazilian case, the discursive formation around the war is very present, but Putin is part of a discursive formation that is different from that operated in Portugal.

Stebbing and Eddington in the Shadow of Bergson

AbstractIn this paper, we argue that the French philosopher Henri Bergson was a hidden interlocutor in Susan Stebbing's critique of Arthur Eddington in her Philosophy and the Physicists. First, we outline Stebbing's critique of Eddington's philosophical-physical writings with a particular emphasis on her case against Eddington's account of the passage of time. Second, we provide evidence that Eddington's philosophy is, at its core, Bergsonian and make the case that Eddington was directly influenced by Bergson's philosophy of la durée. Third, we lay out Stebbing's critique of Bergsonism in her Pragmatism and French Voluntarism and identify important similarities with her critique of Eddington over twenty years later. In doing so, we show that it is Eddington's Bergsonism that she is attacking. Finally, we situate Stebbing's criticisms of both Eddington and Bergson within two wider conflicts that emerged in early twentieth century British philosophy: one between an objectively describable time of physics and subjective temporal experience, and the other between science and intuition.

Surse ale melancoliei în cinema. Trăsături ale bovarismului în filmul Scurta întâlnire de David Lean

The process of identifying sources and representations of melancholy in cinema implies exploring character typologies that present aspects or even clear symptoms of what is currently termed as melancholic depression or major depression disorder. David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), an adaptation of Noël Coward’s short play Still Life (1936), presents female melancholy as an inherent symptom of the bovaryc character. This paper analyzes aspects of melancholy studying the case of Lean’s main character, Laura, and relating it to the features of bovarysm, as theorized and exhaustively explored by French philosopher Jules de Gaultier in the essay Le Bovarysme (1892). To what extent is melancholy an inherent symptom of the bovaric character? While exploring the ongoing psychological research on melancholy and depression, we find it difficult to determine whether the character suffers from major depression disorder, as it is impossible to ascertain the specific cause of their symptoms, especially if they relate to internal, neurobiological systems. The apparent cause of their unhappiness seems to be the result of their perception of romantic relationships and their surrounding reality that does not reflect this distortion. Consequently, the analysis mainly focuses on the detectable elements and activators of the protagonist’s melancholic disposition.

La rappresentazione della crisi all’epoca della crisi della rappresentazione

This article proposes a reflection on the meaning of the crisis event that is the war in Ukraine, based on the modes of representation through which it was constituted as an image. Starting from a short essay by Merleau-Ponty written at the end of the Second World War, in which the French philosopher reaffirms that the war took place, I intend to critically juxtapose Merleau-Ponty’s attempt to inherit the crisis as a political task and, above all, a philosophical one, with the processes of hyper-representation highlighted by Jean Baudrillard which, on the contrary, operates a subtraction of the event and the real. The proposal is therefore to analyze the non-taking place of events as the impossibility of inheriting a task and a meaning, by showing how such an impossibility manifests itself precisely in the phenomenal space of our contemporary screens.

Violence and the Sacred Revisited

In this article, I seek to contribute to the recent philosophical interest in the phenomenon of narco-culture. I build on the intervention initiated by Carlos Alberto Sánchez’s A Sense of Brutality: Philosophy after Narco-Culture (2020) by articulating the spiritually “generative” aspects of violence. For this endeavor, I turn to the French philosopher René Girard, whose work audaciously understands community-building and the maintenance of social order as a violent process of sacralization. This conception of violence then permits me to challenge some of Sánchez’s interpretations of the violence and brutality of narco-culture. My argument is that any comprehensive analysis of the narco-world, just as any other existential option, must consider the spiritual component that, in Girard’s terms, can be expressed as a search for the sacred.

Vulnerabilidades vivenciadas por familiares/ cuidadores de crianças com condição crônica

Abstract The objective was to know the vulnerabilities experienced by family members/caregivers of children with a chronic. Qualitative research supported by the theoretical framework of the French philosopher Roselló Un which 15 family members/caregivers of children with chronic conditions participated in the study. The information was collected in the years 2018 and 2019 and submitted to thematic analysis. The results are presented in three themes: The disease as an expression of the vulnerability of being a child; The child’s chronic illness as a condition of vulnerability of the family member/caregiver; The support of support networks: potentialities and vulnerabilities in the daily life of children with chronic conditions and family members/caregivers. Knowing the components of vulnerability experienced by the families of children with chronic conditions is complex, as it requires analyzing and reflecting on the situations these families face, considering their peculiarities, feelings, family organization and the accessibility they have to health services. Therefore, knowledge about the context in which these families are inserted is essential to establish an adequate planning of health actions aimed at promoting their well-being.

Androgyny and a Dream: Gaston Bachelard’s Question about a New Anthropology

Androgyny as the idea of unity and wholeness appears in the thought of Gaston Bachelard in the context of a poetic dream. It is in it, as we learn from “Poetics of Dreams”, that the reconciliation of anima and animus, female and male in one psyche takes place. The anima dream is called by the French philosopher the philosophy of androgynous existence, which shows us a double idealization of humanity. The anima and animus, confirming the androgyny of the psyche, are Self-moments. This dual nature of mental being is expressed through two antagonisms represented by the function of reality (adaptation to reality and social life) and the function of irreality (loneliness of dreams); supervised thought (criticism, censorship) and free dreaming (liking, acceptance, attachment); work (effort) and rest (relaxation); anxiety (project, anticipation) and peace (presence in oneself) - especially around the duality that crystallizes in the distinction between the scientific mind (l'esprit scientifique) under the sign of the animus (concepts, knowledge) and the poetic mind (l'esprit poetique) anima (images, communion of souls). Androgyny, understood as the integral life of the psyche, is for Bachelard perspective and valuable, and he identifies attempts to seek it with the question of the meaning of human existence. The study of the dream shows its fundamental importance for the balance of the psyche. The power of images understood in this way then creates the art of living. In this sense, Bachelard becomes a precursor of a new perspective in the field of reflection on the issue of the image - it turns out that the image is responsible for the relationship between man and the world.

Interpretation of the French Revolution as a means of political forecasting: On the concept of Paul Janet

The article analyzes the ideas of one of the classics of 19th century French philosophy about the essence of the French Revolution concepts. He divided their history into two stages, referring to the first (until the middle of the 19th century) categorical, tough assessments, to the second — calmer and more balanced. The typology of concepts of the French Revolution proposed by him contains historical, philosophical, mystical and theocratic, liberal, republican, democratic-socialist, economic schools. Burke, who fell upon the abstract foundations of the revolution, according to Janet, was mistaken, for it was about justice and improving social life. Fichte, on the contrary, with youthful naivety developed a speculative interpretation of revolutionary events. Janet believed that Fichte, who was carried away by the abstract formulation of the question of the revolution, did not notice the full complexity of the problem. Saint-Martin, the mystic, expected a renewal of religion from the revolution, his forecasts did not come true. Joseph de Maistre saw the revolution as a heavenly punishment, predicting a return to the previous orders. Janet criticizes the socialists for extolling Robespierre with “revolutionary fanaticism” and justifying all the acts of the Jacobeans. Explaining his plan, Janet stated that he was only going to become a historian of the concepts of the French Revolution, to study their philosophy. But in fact, he goes beyond this task, because in his desire to find the truth in the variety of opinions he eventually comes to the formulation of his own social ideal. This ideal highlights legal justice. For Janet, the revolution appears as a natural result of the entire previous history, in which the main attitudes of common sense were determined. It was these attitudes that were systematically fixed by the French Revolution. Given the mentioned context, the future task was seen by the philosopher in the peaceful development and completion of the revolution.

To Have Done With the Death of Philosophy

In this essay, we read Derrida’s Theory and Practice seminar against the backdrop of the theme of the “death of philosophy,” prominent in 1960s French philosophy. This theme takes two forms—one Nietzschean-Heideggerian and the other Hegelian-Marxian. We summarize both before turning to Derrida’s treatment of Althusser’s views on the Hegelian-Marxian form of this death. Althusser posits a distinction between theory in the general sense and Theory as a designation for Marxist dialectical materialism. Derrida gives two specific criticisms of Althusser that we discuss: (1) Althusser commits himself to a tautology, by arguing that Theory only makes explicit what is implicit already in Marxist practice; (2) Althusser ultimately establishes the priority of practice over theory. We refute both of these charges before concluding that, prior to the distinction between theory and practice, is the world itself; and presenting itself to us as unthinkable, the world places the demands upon us that it be engaged with, in theory and in practice.

Technical Invention as Biological Function

This article aims to introduce English-speaking readers to a still little-known tradition of French philosophy of technology: the “biological philosophy of technology.” As recognized by Georges Canguilhem, this philosophy was initiated by Henri Bergson, who conceived of technology as an extension of life, which in its evolution, creates natural tools (organs) and artificial ones (technical objects). The paleontologist André Leroi-Gourhan took up this thesis and put it to the test of archaeological data to demonstrate, on the one hand, the biological basis of technical evolution and on the other hand, the importance of technics for human evolution. Finally, Gilbert Simondon extended Leroi-Gourhan’s scientific technology from the study of tools to that of machines, providing yet another fruitful example of the biological philosophy of technology.

לכתוב בית, לקרוא עיר: שלושה רומנים על בת ים

According to French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, spaces of stability in human experience are those from the childhood home, where memory and the unconscious reside. However, what if these spaces are remembered from the childhood home of second-generation immigrants in an overcrowded and stigmatized Jewish-Israeli town? Does home under such circumstances function as a space of stability? And what of the town that surrounds the home, is that a stable space or one that destabilizes? This article examines the relationship between domestic and urban spaces in three Israeli novels written over the past decade featuring protagonists who grew up during the 1970s in Bat Yam, an immigrant town. The descriptions of home take us from the spaces of the characters’ childhood, created by people who have been torn away from their native land, to their present homes in a city which is about to undergo a massive urban renewal project. Using Gabriel Zoran’s three-dimensional model, the article examines urban re-construction and considers whether the three novels favor demolition and renewal over urban preservation. The analysis of spatial representation here facilitates an understanding of how the urban environment is imagined and the interrelationship between urban and literary studies.

Literary between formalism and Deconstruction

Literarity has been considered as an important feature within the literary criticism during the twentieth century, particularly with the adoption of the structural linguistic framework which viewed it as an end in itself while criticising the litrary texts. However, with the advent of the philosophy of deconstruction with the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1970s, and the emergence of new concepts for text and literature, there appeared some cultural and semiotic approaches which go beyond the traditional concepts for literarity. The latter has no longer a direct relationship with the self, but has become an experience for the meaning before reaching the concept, where all the taxonomic features of the text disappear, and literature has come to be –in the absence of the centre- part of the culture rather than representing an aestheticcentre as it was.

Justification of panopticon in superhero movies: The Batman Movie

The French Philosopher Michel Foucault argues that power extends to all areas at the micro level in Bentham's Panopticon theory, which was inspired by the architectural design of the Panopticon. He extends this metaphor to speak of Panoptisism as a social phenomenon used to discipline workforces through implicit strategies. Like Bentham, he does not limit his panoptic rhetoric to a mere prison setting, but instead applies it to schools, mental hospitals, hospitals and factories. The panopticon basically ensures the ubiquity of power by seeing it unseen. This article aims to reveal how panoptiism, a particular mode of disciplinary power used by Foucault, is normalized in superhero films. When surveillance and gaze practices are approached from the point of view of cinema; the question of how the gaze is positioned through the camera, where and through whose eyes the audience is looking, arises. The narrator of The Batman (2022) is Batman, and the narrative begins with the superhero reading his diary. In the film, it is determined that Gotham city has been transformed into a panoptic universe and Batman, who watches over this universe, is in the position of a guard.

From Blind to Blinding: Saturated Phenomena and the Speculative Lyric of the Invisible in Andrew Joron’s Poetry

This essay presents a critical reading of Andrew Joron’s speculative oeuvre from a phenomenological standpoint. Proceeding from the poet’s cosmic perspectives, it focuses on the central issue of language in relation to the emergence of meaning and the world. Through a close reading of both Joron’s poetry and poetics, this essay demonstrates his conceptual affinity with the work of contemporary French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion, arguing that both Joron’s poetry and Marion’s phenomenology of givenness postulate an emergence of meaning and the world that is absolutely unconditioned and unconditional, an emergence characterized by an intuitively blinding richness that saturates the phenomenon over and beyond any limit and, hence, makes the phenomenon invisible.

African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic: A Decolonial Approach to Philosophy, by Jonathan O. Chimakonam and L. Uchenna Ogbonnaya

<i>African Metaphysics, Epistemology and a New Logic: A Decolonial Approach to Philosophy</i>, by Jonathan O. Chimakonam and L. Uchenna Ogbonnaya

ИДЕОЛОГИЈА ИЗМЕЂУ ОМОГУЋАВАЊА И НЕГАЦИЈЕ ПОЛИТИКЕ

Although our first association with the term “ideology” today is dogmatic thinking and political manipulation, Tracy intended first to associate scientific rigor and analytical clarity with this term. Relying, like other French Enlightenment philosophers, on Locke’s teaching about ideas, Tracy developed the concept of ideology in the context of his analytical methodology, which aimed to reduce complex ideas to essential elements. Therefore, the original meaning of the new term “ideology” should be understood much simpler and more elementarily - as “the science of ideas”. In their work The German Ideology, Marx and Engels define this term as a deliberate distortion of material reality that serves the ruling classes as a convenient cover for economic exploitation and political oppression. Steger, one of the most influential contemporary theorists of ideology, believes that we would be unfair to ideology and its historical manifestations if we limited them only to harmful aspects. Therefore, he unequivocally points out that ideology has its apparent “moral influence on human behavior”, that it is, therefore, helpful in creating “bonds of solidarity” in human communities, and that in this sense, it has a prominent “integrative role in ensuring social stability”. Analyzing the evolution of concepts within different ideologies, Freeden notes that an ideology’s relative “political success” depends on its ability to impose on others the belief that its definitions of concepts are consistently correct. This is precisely what leads to a kind of “competition in defining concepts”, in which each ideology tries to continuously “decontest” its concepts. We argue that the essence of ideology should be sought between, on the one hand, its necessity in the constitution of political life and, on the other hand, the possible abolition of politics if the tendency of ideology toward decontestation is not adequately controlled. Keywords: ideology, science of ideas, decontestation, politics, abolition, manipulation

Haunting Time in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing

Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing is a story about the past as well as about the present. It is peopled not only by characters living in the present South but also by ghosts representing past racial injustice. These ghosts are the manifestation of past racial brutality, the sign of the past haunting the present. But Sing, Unburied, Sing presents a temporal aporia: the past is separate from the present, hence the presence of ghosts as a link between the two temporalities but they are also merged through the present remains of the past: the Parchman prison or the present racial discrimination Jojo and his family have to cope with. The story thus seems to have a temporal dimension of its own. Following French philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s theory presented in his Time and Narrative, I will try to show that the different narrators are telling their story, not only to try to make sense of this temporality they exist in, but also to try to achieve a form of narrative identity that reinforces the African American community.

Le rôle de la honte dans la formation de la subjectivité humaine chez Jean‐Paul Sartre et Emmanuel Lévinas

The purpose of the following article is to juxtapose and compare the concept of shame as seen by two contemporary French philosophers, Jean Paul Sartre and Emmanuel Levinas. The fundamental problem that is posed in this article concerns the role and significance of the impact of shame on the formation of human subjectivity. For both J.P. Sartre and E. Levinas, the subject attempts to bear the burden of being in a heroic way and the experience of shame proves to be an important experience in this process. Is it an ontological or ethical experience? Or perhaps metaphysical? For both J.P. Sartre and E. Levinas, shame is a relational experience, i.e., it occurs in relation to You. But does this Other have to come to me from outside? In Sartre’s case, shame appears in the experience of the gaze of the Other, and it is a traumatic experience. The Other interferes with my freedom and challenges me as a subject. The experience of shame makes me aware of my subjugation by the Other. In Levinas, the experience of shame comes originally from within myself. The shame of my own existence demands justification. I can be ashamed in relation to myself. I can be a menace of myself. I don’t need the presence of another human being for this. What unites and what separates the two philosophers in interpreting the experience of shame for human subjectivity?

Postmodernism Era in the Context of Metanarrative Settings

The purpose of the article is to determine the key ideas and attitudes of the era of postmodernism in the context of the rejection of metanarratives. The research methodology consists in the application of methods of analysis and synthesis, systematisation of facts, comparison, and generalisation of research outcomes. The scientific novelty lies in an attempt to understand the transformative changes of the key ideas of postmodern era and to mark the role of metanarratives in the context of the concepts of ideal, truth, and universality. Conclusions. Postmodernism has found alternative ways of spiritual growth. Besides, new forms of relations between people and society have been built. Postmodernism has «rehabilitated» the previous cultural and artistic tradition, which was actively destroyed during the 20th century: realism, academicism, and classicism. Postmodernism combined the experience of the past with the experience of the present; it can be seen as a change in cultural periods. However, mutual reflection of similarities and repetitions have displaced the categories of metanarratives (objectivity, reality, truth, universality, and ideal). Thus, Jean-Francois Lyotard, postmodernist thinker, and French poststructuralist philosopher defined postmodernism as distrust of metanarratives. The term «metanarrative» replaced the concept of «philosophy of history». Metanarratives linked historical events into a single story that had spanned long periods. The use of the term «metanarrative» in the era of postmodernism indicated the emergence of a new way of understanding history, culture, and art in accordance with the postmodern concept of truth.&#x0D; Key words: postmodernism, cultural transformation, simulacrum, parodic approach, happening, metanarrative.