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Download Document Sofia Philosophical Review Alexander L. Gungov, Sofia University, Editor Peter S. Borkowski, American University in Cairo, Associate Editor Karim Mamdani, Toronto, Canada Book Review Editor Kristina Stöckl, University of Rome Tor Vergata, International Editor Vol. V, No. 1 Special Issue Beckett/Philosophy 2011 Editors in charge of the special issue: Matthew Feldman, University of Northampton, Guest Editor Karim Mamdani Academic Community in Civil Society This special issue on Beckett/Philosophy is printed with the kind support of the Embassy of Ireland in Sofia. The Sofia Philosophical Review is especially grate- ful to H.E. Mr. John Rowan for his constant encouragement of this project. Sofia Philosophical Review is a peer reviewed journal indexed by The Philoso- pher’s Index and The MLA International Bibliography. Sofia Philosophical Review accepts papers in the fields of Social, Political, and Moral Philosophy from a Continental Perspective; Continental Philosophy in general; and Philosophy of Medicine. Please send a hard copy of the manu- scripts accompanied by an electronic version of the same to: Editor, Sofia Philosophical Review Faculty of Philosophy Sofia University 15 Tsar Osvobodoitel Blvd. Sofia 1504 BULGARIA E-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.sphr-bg.org All prospective contributions should follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Review materials should be sent to the Book Review Editor at the above address. ISSN 1313-275X © Aglika Gungova, artist Beckett/Philosophy Edited by Matthew Feldman and Karim Mamdani In memoriam Sean Lawlor (1948-2011) The day that is darkest Is the day without laughter (Nicolas-Sébastien de Chamfort via Samuel Beckett’s “Long After Chamfort”, trans. Sean Lawlor) The editors would like to graciously thank the editor of the Sofia Phi- losophical Review, Alexander Gungov, for his consistent encourage- ment, patience, and enthusiasm for this project. We are also sincerely grateful to the Beckett Estate for permission to reproduce unpub- lished material in chapters by Emilie Morin, Chris Ackerley, David Tucker and Matthew Feldman. Matthew Feldman would also like to thank the University of Bergen, Norway, for a Senior Research Fel- lowship with the “Modernism and Christianity” research project, fa- cilitating the completion of this volume. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION TO BECKETT/PHILOSOPHY .................................... 8 Matthew Feldman (University of Northampton, UK) “I AM NOT READING PHILOSOPHY”: BECKETT AND SCHOPENHAUER ..................................................... 19 Erik Tonning (University of Bergen, Norway) “SPEAK OF TIME, WITHOUT FLINCHING … TREAT OF SPACE WITH THE SAME EASY GRACE”: BECKETT, BERGSON AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPACE ............. 45 David Addyman (University of Bergen, Norway) “OF BEING – OR REMAINING”: BECKETT AND EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY ......................................................................... 67 Peter Fifield (St. John’s College, University of Oxford, UK) SAMUEL BECKETT, WILHELM WINDELBAND AND NOMINALIST PHILOSOPHY ....................................................... 89 Matthew Feldman (University of Northampton, UK) MONADOLOGY: SAMUEL BECKETT AND GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ ............................................................................. 122 Chris Ackerley (University of Otago, New Zealand) “THE BOOKS ARE IN THE STUDY AS BEFORE”: SAMUEL BECKETT’S BERKELEY .................................................... 146 Steven Matthews (Oxford Brookes University, UK) BECKETT’S GUIGNOL WORLDS: ARNOLD GEULINCX AND HEINRICH VON KLEIST............................................................ 169 David Tucker (University of Sussex, UK) BECKETT’S CRITIQUE OF KANT ..................................................... 193 P.J. Murphy (Thompson Rivers University, Canada) “EFF IT”: BECKETT AND LINGUISTIC SKEPTICISM ....................... 210 Dirk Van Hulle (University of Antwerp, Belgium) TABLE OF CONTENTS 7 BECKETT, SAMUEL JOHNSON AND THE “VACUITY OF LIFE”...... 228 Emilie Morin (University of York, UK) BECKETT AND ABSTRACTION ........................................................ 251 Charlotta Palmstierna Einarsson (University of Stockholm, Sweden) BECKETT AND THE REFUSAL OF JUDGMENT: THE QUESTION OF ETHICS AND THE VALUE OF ART ................. 265 Mireille Bousquet (Université Paris-8 – Vincennes – Saint-Denis, France) “I CAN’T GO ON, I’LL GO ON”: BECKETT’S FORM OF PHILOSOPHY............................................................................... 283 Kathryn White (University of Ulster, UK) CONCLUSION: BECKETT IN THESES ............................................. 299 Karim Mamdani ANNOUNCEMENET MASTER'S AND DOCTORAL STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY TAUGHT IN ENGLISH AT SOFIA UNIVERSITY................................ 312 INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND EDITORS ................. 318 8 SOFIA PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW Introduction to Beckett/Philosophy Matthew Feldman (University of Northampton, UK) The connections between Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) and philosophy were redoubtably present throughout his life, and remain alive and kicking more than a generation after his death. Characteristically and perhaps unsur- prisingly, evasive comments by the former shed only a half-light upon his relationship with the latter, in keeping with Beckett’s famed reticence to discuss his work or intellectual influences. To take just the 1960s as an ex- ample – at the end of which he received the Nobel Prize for Literature – Beckett repeatedly declaimed all knowledge or understanding of Western philosophy to interviewers on one hand, while on the other simultaneously recommending to Sighle Kennedy, amongst others, that a starting point for his work could be found in two maxims of Arnold Geulincx and Democritus of Abdera, respectively: “where you are worth nothing you should want nothing,” and “naught is more real than nothing.”1 This emphasis upon the void, no less than the syzygy of his position on philosophy, offers a fitting reminder that the texts to follow collectively explore that contradictory, paradoxical and spartan terrain sometimes called the “Beckett Country”: 1 Two of Beckett’s more famous declamations of philosophical knowledge are found in interviews form the early 1960s with Gabriele D’Auberede and Tom Driver, reprinted in Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage, edited by Lawrence Graver and Raymond Federman (London: Routledge, 1997), 238-48; Beckett’s letter to Sighle Kennedy of 14 June 1967 on Arnold Geulincx and Democritus of Abdera– “already in Murphy and neither very rational” – is reprinted in the oft-cited collection of journalism and mis- cellany entitled Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment, edited by Ruby Cohn (New York: Grove Press, 1984), 113. A similar view was advanced five years earlier in an interview with Lawrence Harvey, as recounted in his Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 267. For a broad introduction to Beckett’s relationship with Western philosophy, see my “‘I am not a philosopher.’ Beckett and Philosophy: A Methodological and Thematic Introduc- tion,” Sofia Philosophical Review 3/2 (2010). INTRODUCTION TO BECKETT/PHILOSOPHY 9 Closed place. All needed to be known for say is known. There is nothing but what is said. Beyond what is said there is nothing. What goes on in the arena is not said. Did it need to be known it would be. No interest. Not for imagining. Place consisting of an arena and a ditch. Between the two skirting the latter a track. Closed place. Beyond the ditch there is nothing. This is known because it needs to be said. Arena black vast. Room for millions. Wandering and still. Never seeing never hearing one another. Never touching. No more is known.2 There can be little doubt, then, as Dermot Moran has recently sug- gested, that such a “stark Beckettian world cries out for philosophical inter- pretation.”3 Yet at the same time, by the way of acknowleding the pitfalls facing any facile linking of Beckett’s (or any other modernist’s) literature with philosophical ideas – in no small measure due to the challenging opac- ity of Beckett’s (especially postwar) literature – Becket/Philosophy charts a narrow course. That is to say, the contributions to this collection examine specific philosophical interventions (or “slashes,” as suggested by this vol- ume’s title), in Beckett’s development and expression as a literary writer. Western philosophy is therefore selectively engaged here through the lens of Beckett’s engagement with a particular thinker, doctrine or theme, as regis- tered across his published prose, drama, and poetry, as well as in manu- scripts, letters, and reading notes. Moreover, in publishing this groundbreaking collection through the kind offices of the Sofia Philosophical Review, the cumulative implications throughout are that, first, Samuel Beckett was a particularly philosophically- minded writer; second, his knowledge of philosophy was extensive, perhaps 2 Samuel Beckett, “Closed Place,” in Texts for Nothing and Other Shorter Prose 1950- 1976, edited by Mark Nixon (London: Faber, 2009), 147. 3 Dermot Moran, “Beckett and philosophy,” in Samuel Beckett: 100 Years, edited by Christopher Murray (Dublin: New Island, 2006), 94. Despite merely seeing many phi- losophical allusions in Beckett’s work as simply “a kind of arbitrary collection or bricolage of philosophical ideas,” the philosopher nonetheless astutely continues: “Beckett’s relation to philosophy is difficult to complex. He was not a philosopher; if he had been,
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