DOCSLIB.ORG

Knowledge and Thought in Heidegger and Foucault: Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures Arun Anantheeswaran Iyer Marquette University

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects Knowledge and Thought in Heidegger and Foucault: Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures Arun Anantheeswaran Iyer Marquette University Recommended Citation Iyer, Arun Anantheeswaran, "Knowledge and Thought in Heidegger and Foucault: Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures" (2011). Dissertations (2009 -). Paper 131. http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/131 KNOWLEDGE AND THOUGHT IN HEIDEGGER AND FOUCAULT: TOWARDS AN EPISTEMOLOGY OF RUPTURES by Arun Iyer, B. E., M. A. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin August 2011 ABSTRACT KNOWLEDGE AND THOUGHT IN HEIDEGGER AND FOUCAULT: TOWARDS AN EPISTEMOLOGY OF RUPTURES Arun Iyer, B.E., M.A. Marquette University, 2011 This dissertation shows how Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault, by questioning the very understanding of the subject-object relationship on which all epistemology is grounded, challenge two of its most cherished beliefs: 1. Thought and knowledge are essentially activities on the part of the subject understood anthropologically or transcendentally. 2. The history of knowledge exhibits teleological progress towards a better and more comprehensive account of its objects. In contrast to traditional epistemology, both Heidegger and Foucault show how thought and knowledge are not just acts, which can be attributed to the subject but also events which elude any such subjective characterization. They also show us how the history of knowledge exhibits ruptures when the very character of knowledge undergoes drastic transformation in the course of history. The dissertation concludes by hinting at how these new accounts of thought and knowledge have the potential to shake the very foundations of epistemology and lead us to a new framework for discussing the most basic questions of epistemology, towards an epistemology of ruptures. i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Arun Iyer, B.E., M.A. This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Arthur J. Schmidt Foundation for the academic year 2008-09 and the Smith Family Foundation for the academic year 2009-10. The financial support provided by the Smith Family Foundation made it possible for me to spend the whole of 2009-10 doing research at Bergische Universität, Wuppertal, Germany. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Laszlo Tengelyi of Bergische Universität for inviting me to Wuppertal and mentoring me for a whole year whilst discussing some of the difficult problems that the topic of my dissertation gave rise to. I benefitted immensely from his many seminars and reading groups at Wuppertal. I am also thankful to Dr. Dieter Lohmar of the Husserl Archives at Universität Köln for inviting me to present some of the work that I had done for my dissertation in the workshop held there and for the comments he gave me thereafter. I am truly indebted to my director Dr. Pol Vandevelde for standing with me every step of the way. He taught me how to frame a problem, ask a question and cut through verbiage and get to the heart of the matter. These are skills without which no kind of scholarship is possible. However, he has been much more to me than just a dissertation director. He has been a spiritual guide. I have relied on his advice and his guidance in all of my difficult times. No words can express the tremendous role he has played and continues to play in my overall intellectual and spiritual development. ii I express my sincerest thanks to my three readers, Dr Ibanez-Noe, Dr. Sebastian Luft and Dr. Andrew Cutrofello of Loyola University Chicago. My second reader, Dr. Ibanez-Noe read through the dissertation most carefully and his penetrating comments and precise questions were very valuable towards improving this dissertation as piece of scholarship and he was always ready to discuss my work with me. I shared several pleasant and enlightening conversations over my work and about the general nature of academic scholarship with Dr. Sebastian Luft in the United States and in Germany. His specific comments on my dissertation and general comments on the nature of scholarship were invaluable indeed. I am truly honored that Dr. Andrew Cutrofello of Loyola University, Chicago decided to become part of my dissertation committee. His comments and his perspective on the problems I was addressing were irreplaceable. He was very generous with his time and his detailed and insightful comments were instrumental in getting some portions of this dissertation published. I convey my gratitude to Dr. Kevin Gibson for introducing me to the rigors of academic life in the United States, guiding me through the process of my academic development and helping me find sources of financial support and Dr. John Pustejovsky for helping me with my German. I give my heartfelt thanks to Dr. S. S. Antarkar of the Philosophy Department at Mumbai University for showing me what it was to philosophize when I was just starting out with philosophy. Without his encouragement, I would not have dared to pursue a career a philosophy. I fondly remember the many hours in conversation I spent with him over philosophy. iii I would like to thank my friends without whom it would have been impossible to endure the long hours of hard work and my parents without whose unstinting support none of this could have been achieved. I am particularly thankful to Mrs. Maureen Kondrick for her unconditional help in times of real need. The company of my friends Chris Dorn, Pat Anderson and Matt Wion here in the United States and my friends Leiling Wang, Antonio Cimino, Inga Römer, Guillaume Fagniez and Yenny Djinga in Germany was truly indispensable. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………. i CHAPTER INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………….1 I. HEIDEGGER’S DISCOVERY OF NON-CONCEPTUAL THINKING: FROM THE TRANSCENDENTAL POWER OF THE IMAGINATION TO INCEPTUAL THINKING………………………………………………….13 1. Introduction………………………………………………............ 13 2. The Transcendental Power of the Imagination as Non-Conceptual Thinking in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics…………………………………………..14 2.1. Heidegger on the Relationship between Intuition and Thinking in Kant………………………….......14 2.2. The Ontological Synthesis of Intuition and Thinking in the Transcendental Power of the Imagination………………………………………..... 17 2.3. Schematization as the Key to the Role of Transcendental Power of the Imagination………………......20 2.4. The Transcendental Power of the Imagination as Thinking prior to Thinking……………………………........ 32 3. Inceptual Thinking as Non-Conceptual Thinking in the Beiträge…………………………………………………........ 36 3.1. From the Transcendental Power of the Imagination to Inceptual Thinking......................................... 36 3.2. The Characteristics of Inceptual Thinking...................... 49 3.3. Inceptual Thinking and the History of Be-ing................ 54 3.4. Thinking of the Event and the Event of Thinking.......... 65 4. Conclusion..................................................................................... 72 v II. THE OBJECT OF THOUGHT IN THE HISTORY OF BEING: FROM THE OBJECT OF EN-THINKING IN THE BEITRÄGE TO THE OBJECT OF THINKING IN WHAT IS CALLED THINKING?................................................................................... 79 1. Introduction.................................................................................... 79 2. Distinction between two kinds of thinking in the Beiträge........... 80 2.1. An Interpretation of Heidegger’s Notion of Seyn....................................................................... 80 2.2. The Delicate Task of Separating Thinking (1) from Thinking (2)............................................. 82 3. The Object of Thinking in the Beiträge......................................... 85 3.1. The Standard Understanding of the Being and History in Contemporary Epistemology................................ 85 3.2. Heidegger’s Challenge to the Standard Understanding........................................................................ 88 4. En-thinking of Be-ing and the One who Does the En-thinking......................................................................... 95 4.1. The Relationship between En-thinking and Be-ing.............................................................................. 95 4.2. Da-sein as En-thinker of Be-ing..................................... 97 5. Appraisal of the Epistemological Implications of Heidegger’s Ontological Framework in the Beiträge.............................................................................................. 100 6. The Distinction between Thinking and Science in What is Called Thinking?............................................................... 103 6.1. The Complex Relationship between Science and Thinking............................................................. 103 6.2. The Dual Object of Thinking: The Being of Beings and the Nature of the Human Being.......................... 114 vi 7. Elucidating the Object of Thought in What is Called Thinking?.................................................................. 115 7.1. The Call-Response Relationship between Thought and its Object........................................................... 115 7.2. Thinking as a Pre-Logical Activity in Parmenides........................................................................ 121 7.3. Being as the Object
Recommended publications
  • Introduction: Towards a History of Ignorance

    Introduction: Towards a History of Ignorance

    Introduction: Towards a History of Ignorance Cornel Zwierlein As ignorance is always larger than knowledge, a concise and complete intro- duction or a general theory of a History of Ignorance seems a priori impossible. The following lines therefore do not claim to rise to such Olympic fields; they are more a sketch of problems, of points of views and of possible approaches that might arise when one starts to write histories of forms of ignorance and how people coped with ignorance in the past. And, being subserviant to the combined work of all contributors to this collective enterprise, this introduc- tion proceeds largely by taking the examples from the volume itself in an inductive way, trying to generalize some of the problems raised there to such a level that other scholars and studies might link their proper ideas and work with what these combined case studies can offer. 1 A ‘Grammar’ The first step of approaching the problem of a history of ignorance might be to borrow questions and terminology from the sociology of ignorance, because for some decades in this field of the humanities, a specific focus on, and a ter- minology for those problems has been developing. But the historian will be quickly disappointed by the results of simply re-projecting those schemes con- ceived for the problems of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries back into the past (cf. for more on that and for prudent reflexions on the terminologies offered the framing last contribution by William O’Reilly in this volume). If one only recalls the wealth of the terminology of ignorantia already worked out by medieval lawyers and theologians, it could seem reductionist or even ignorant to use the perhaps less fitting technical terms utilized by sociologists, prob- lematizing the decision-making occurring under circumstances of ignorance concerning the problems of climate change or terrorist attacks.
  • Jeffrey Rubard

    Jeffrey Rubard

    1 The Torso of Humanity: An Interpretation of Being and Time Preliminary Edition Jeffrey Rubard 2019 2 Contents 1. Preface 4 2. Introductions I and II 16 Division I: The Human Achievement 3. Chapter 1 37 4. Chapter 2 49 5. Chapter 3 57 6. Chapter 4 75 7. Chapter 5 85 8. Chapter 6 100 Division II: The Temporal Interpretation 9. Chapter 1 118 10. Chapter 2 128 11. Chapter 3 141 12. Chapter 4 158 13. Chapter 5 173 14. Chapter 6 185 15. Postscript 202 3 Preface Being and Time is a work by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger on the "Question of Being", published in 1927. As the centennial of the book approaches it perhaps ought to be said that as we press further into the 21st century the 'world-views' of intellectuals in the early 20th century like Heidegger's might well be expected to fade in importance in the face of the onslaught of new technologies and ‘ways of life’ which has characterized this century to date. Yet in many ways Heidegger’s first book, though its famous 'difficulty' is not much overstated, is one of the most enduring landmarks of philosophical modernity: a book which for a long time gave 'those with eyes to see and ears to hear' a new way of thinking that ignored neither the human predicament nor the shape of the cosmos. Furthermore, it almost does not need saying that the book's importance for philosophy in general exceeds the numbers of those who explicitly subscribe to its tenets.
  • When Practices, Places and Materiality Matter: a French Trajectory in the History of Knowledge.” Journal for the History of Knowledge 1, No

    When Practices, Places and Materiality Matter: a French Trajectory in the History of Knowledge.” Journal for the History of Knowledge 1, No

    Van Damme, Stéphane. “When Practices, Places and Materiality Matter: A French Trajectory in the History of Knowledge.” Journal for the History of Knowledge 1, no. 1 (2020): 4, pp. 1–8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jhk.26 FORUM When Practices, Places and Materiality Matter: A French Trajectory in the History of Knowledge Stéphane Van Damme European University Institute, IT [email protected] Keywords: Knowledge; spatial history; places; practices; materiality In recent years, issues raised by the new knowledge and information society have become a staple of both bookshop shelves and university research programs. History and the social sciences have taken up the challenge and now offer a vast range of approaches and problematizations that overflow the narrow confines of the history and sociology of science.1 The creation of the American journal KNOW in 2017 and the Journal for the History of Knowledge in the Netherlands in 2019 has added to a process of institutionalization that began nearly twenty years ago with the publication of two iconic books. The first, Ways of Knowing (2000) by the medical historian and professor at the University of Manchester John Pickstone, sought to build a transdisciplinary history in which the histories of science, technology, and medicine converge, while the second, A Social History of Knowledge by cultural historian Peter Burke, professor at the University of Cambridge, gave new impetus to the historical sociology of knowledge.2 France was not to be outdone: the launch in 2007 of the Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances edited by Dominique Vinck was followed by the publication in 2007 and 2011 of the two weighty multi-authored volumes of Lieux de savoir edited by Christian Jacob.
  • The Evolution of Thesauri and the History of Knowledge Organization: Between the Sword of Mapping Knowledge and the Wall of Keeping It Simple

    The Evolution of Thesauri and the History of Knowledge Organization: Between the Sword of Mapping Knowledge and the Wall of Keeping It Simple

    1 THE EVOLUTION OF THESAURI AND THE HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION: BETWEEN THE SWORD OF MAPPING KNOWLEDGE AND THE WALL OF KEEPING IT SIMPLE Francisco-Javier García-Marco Francisco-Javier García-Marco, Universidad de Zaragoza, Departamento de Ciencias de la Documentación e Historia de la Ciencia, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, C/ Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, [email protected] Abstract which ensures proper transparency and control by the user Thesauri are considered as an optimum between maximum who wants to take the effort to supervise and analyse its ontological modelling (best knowledge mapping) and mini- search processes. It is proposed that better devices for ensur- mal alphabetic ordering (less expensive access). From this ing semantic sorting are provided when necessary, and that a point of view a swift history of its evolution is provided. The distributed hub for thesauri interconnection is provided, per- recent evolutions in Internet searching are also analysed from haps using the existent big open Internet semantic facilities, this perspective. In this context, there is an immediate role for as Wikipedia. thesauri to ensure interoperability and feed up the new Inter- Keywords: Thesauri; Evolution; Interoperability; User expe- net semantic engines; and in the long term as a simple seman- rience; Cost-effectiveness; Semantic web tic user interface for resource discovery and navigation, to classification, which is natural, alphabetical ordering 1. Introduction is a socio-technology, which appeared very late in the During the last century and a half, many knowledge evolution of humanity, and which is valid for the ma- organization systems (KOS) —both models and exem- nipulation of the keys when you know them, but cannot plars— have been proposed and developed, but their be used to map knowledge, but only to ensure a quicker success has been diverse, with some universal and spe- access to it under certain conditions.
  • Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, and Heidegger

    Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, and Heidegger

    German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, and Heidegger Daniel Ferrer at Matrin Heidegger’s Todtnauberg haunt (Die Hütte, Rütte, Todtnauberg, Black Forest, Schwarzwald, Germany) By Daniel Fidel Ferrer 1 2011 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, digital, optical or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented; or otherwise without the prior permission in writing and signed by the author, Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Photo of Daniel Fidel Ferrer at Heidegger’s Todtnauberg haunt copyright ©Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Photo taken by Dr. Harald van Veghel with my 35 MM camera. Location: front page, title page. Die Hütte, Rütte, Todtnauberg, Black Forest, Schwarzwald, Germany, Deutschland. Some brief cataloging. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel (1952- ) German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, and Heidegger Includes bibliographical references. Index. 1. Ontology. 2. Metaphysics. 3. Philosophy, German. 4.Thought and thinking. 5. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. 6. Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, 1775-1854. 7. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. 8. Philosphy, Asian. 9. Philosophy, Indic. 10. Philosophy, Modern -- 20th century. 11. Philosophy, Modern -- 19th century. 12. Practice (Philosophy). 13. Philosophy and civilization. 14. Postmodernism. 15. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. 16. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. -- 17. g r una nd cent. I. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-. Dedication and Acknowledgements Family members. Families: Ferrer, Reavis, Kuhn, Lindstrom, Schmidt, and Yeager.
  • Psychology and Classifications of the Sciences Fernando Vidal ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies)

    Psychology and Classifications of the Sciences Fernando Vidal ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies)

    Psychology and Classifications of the Sciences Fernando Vidal ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) Translated by Jacob Krell Psychologie: piste l’homme et, close et figée, lui inflige une autopsie. — Michel Leiris, Langage tangage1 he history of psychology as an autonomous discipline is driven not only by its theoretical, methodological, and institutional developments but also by the elab­ oration of the concept of psychology itself and by theorizations of its position among Tother domains of knowledge. Classificatory schemes of the sciences have a preeminent function in such a context. They imply a reflection that exceeds the problems proper to any one discipline, and precisely because they both reflect situations of fact and embody metascientific ideals, they contribute not only to the project of identifying domains of knowledge but also to the process of defining them. This is what Francis Bacon (1561–1626) noted in theNovum Organum (1620) when he observed that “[t]he received division of the sciences [is] suitable only for the received totality of the sciences,” and that “we find in the intellectual as in the terrestrial globe cultivated tracts and wilderness side by side.” 2 1 Michel Leiris, Langage, tangage ou ce que les mots me disent (Paris: Gallimard, 1995). 2 Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, in The Instauratio Magna, Part II: Novum Organum and Associated Texts, ed. Graham Rees with Maria Wakely (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), 27. A good introduction to the topic of 2 republics of letters For psychology, classifications of the sciences have had a twofold significance.3 On the one hand, from the moment psychology sought to institute itself as an autonomous science, it began to conceptualize its inclusion within the general order of the sciences, and this process turned out to be one of its best modes of self­legitimation.
  • Blair 2007 Organizations of Knowledge for DASH.Pdf

    Blair 2007 Organizations of Knowledge for DASH.Pdf

    Organizations of Knowledge The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Blair, Ann. 2007. "Organizations of Knowledge." In Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, edited by James Hankins, 287-303. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Published Version 10.1017/CCOL052184648X.015 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:29674918 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA manuscript for: Ann Blair, "Organizations of Knowledge," in Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, ed. James Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 287-303. Organizations of Knowledge in the Renaissance The "organization of knowledge" is a large and diffuse topic which can be studied at many different levels, ranging from the way an individual orders his or her understanding of the world privately or in publications, to the ways in which communities or institutions order knowledge, notably in pedagogical curricula and textbooks, professional structures, libraries and library catalogs and other collective projects.1 Although a few modern philosophers have addressed the problem of classifying knowledge, current practices of classification are mostly studied by anthropologists and sociologists.2 Modern cultures and subcultures engage in both explicit and tacit classifications of knowledge, but today any particular organization of knowledge is generally acknowledged to involve a number of arbitrary choices and its success is often measured by pragmatic criteria of effectiveness, such as ease of use and economic efficiency.
  • Heidegger and Scripture: the Calling of Thinking in Our Abandonment

    Heidegger and Scripture: the Calling of Thinking in Our Abandonment

    Open Theology 2017; 3: 321–337 Phenomenology of Religious Experience Open Access Peter Costello* Heidegger and Scripture: The Calling of Thinking in Our Abandonment DOI 10.1515/opth-2017-0025 Received June 5, 2017; accepted June 14, 2017 Abstract: This paper seeks to perform an interdisciplinary reading of some scriptural passages in light of Heidegger‘s phenomenology generally and his discussion of thinking in particular. The paper treats one passage from Isaiah and two from the Gospels of Luke and John that highlight the human situation of signification (or meaning) and abandonment (or alienation). Using Heidegger‘s description of experience, which roots the logic and unfolding of meaning as expressing the structure of human existence, the paper proposes that the movement toward the divine that each of the scriptural passages embodies (albeit each in its own unique situation) moves us toward an essential insight--namely that the human being exists as a divine sign of care. As such a sign, humans exist not just as the reception of the calling but also as the very calling of thinking itself. Keywords: phenomenology; Heidegger; Husserl; signification; Continental philosophy of religion; abandonment “For I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them. From them I will send survivors to the nations….They shall bring your kindred from all the nations as an offering to the Lord” (Isaiah 66:18-21) “And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’” (Luke 9:58) “Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.
  • 29.Philosophy of Liberation.Pdf

    29.Philosophy of Liberation.Pdf

    CONTENTS Preface viii Chapter 1 HISTORY 1.1 Geopolitics and Philosophy 1 1.2 Philosophy of Liberation ofthe Periphery 9 Chapter 2 FROM PHENOMENOLOGY TO LIBERATION 2.1 Proximity 16 2.2 Tota1ity 21 2.3 Mediation 29 2.4 Exteriority 39 2.5 Alienation 49 2.6 Liberation 58 Chapter 3 FROM POLITICS TO ANTIFETISHISM 3.1 Politics 67 3.2 Erotics 78 3.3 Pedagogics 87 3.4 Antifetishism 95 Chapter 4 FROM NATURE TO ECONOMICS 4.1 Nature 106 4.2 Semiotics 117 4.3 Poietics 126 4.4 Economics 140 vi Chapter 5 FROM SCIENCE TO PHILOSOPHY OF LIBERATION 5.1 Science 153 5.2 Dialectic 156 5.3 The Analectical Moment 158 5.4 Practice 160 5.5 Poietics 163 5.6 Human Sciences 165 5.7 Ideological Methods 167 5.8 Critical Methods 169 5.9 Philosophy of Liberation 170 Appendix PHILOSOPHY AND PRAXIS A. Philosophy and Ideology 181 B. Dialectic between Philosophy and Praxis 183 C. Exigencies for a Philosophy of Liberation 188 D. Toward an International Division of Philosophical Labor 195 Notes 197 Glossary of Concepts 201 Glossary of Non-English Terms 213 vii PREFACE What follows is addressed to neophytes in philosophy of libera- tion. It does not claim to be an exhaustive exposition. It is a discourse that proceeds by elaborating one thesis after another, using its own categories and its own method. It is a provisional theoretical philosophical framework. Except in the Appendix, this work has few footnotes and no bibliography. Writing in the sorrow of exile (in Mexico), I did not have access to my personal library (in Argentina).
  • Alfredo Lucero-Montano Benjamin's Political Philosophy of History 1

    Alfredo Lucero-Montano Benjamin's Political Philosophy of History 1

    Internationale Walter Benjamin Gesellschaft Alfredo Lucero-Montano Benjamin’s Political Philosophy of History 1. The reflection on history seems a constant theme in Benjamin’s thought. Since his early works to his last texts, this concern constitutes the conducting thread, which grants to his diverse work an underlying unity. For Benjamin, the fundamental question seems to be how to interweave “the theory of historiography with the theory of the real course of history,” how “history itself is referred to its ‘making’—political praxis,” [Tiedemann 1983-4, 91] that is, how to generate a certain interrelationship between history and politics. This question refers us not to the nature of the historical process but to the way we acquired historical knowledge, not to historiography but to philosophy of history. Here the implicit issue is the construction of a new concept of history. Benjamin draws his concept of history through three differentiated answers: In the first phase, On Language as Such and on the Language of Man (1916) and The Task of the Translator (1923), he propounds a theological paradigm of history. Later, in The Origin of German Tragic Drama (1928), he develops, concerning history, an aesthetics paradigm. And finally, starting from 1925-1926, which marks his Marxist turn, Benjamin steadily develops a political paradigm of history, which its clearer claim is The Arcades Project (1927-1940) and the theses On the Concept of History (1940). This work only deals with Benjamin’s political paradigm, which is the synthesis of his historico-philosophical
  • CURRICULUM VITAE (Chronological)

    CURRICULUM VITAE (Chronological)

    CURRICULUM VITAE (Chronological) NAME: Thomas Nenon DEPARTMENT: Philosophy RANK: Professor DEGREES DEGREE DISCIPLINE INSTITUTION YEAR Ph.D. Philosophy Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg 1983 Germany M.A. Philosophy Boston College 1974 B.A. Philosophy Regis College, Denver 1972 EXPERIENCE RANK/POSITION DEPARTMENT/DIVISION INSTITUTION/COMPANY/ORGANIZATION PERIOD Dean College of Arts and Sciences University of Memphis 2013- Interim Provost University of Memphis 2012-13 Guest Professor Philosophy Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany 2010 Vice Provost Assessment, IR, and Reporting University of Memphis 2007-13 Vice Provost Undergraduate Programs University of Memphis 2006-07 Associate Vice Provost Academic Affairs University of Memphis 2003-06 Assistant Vice Provost Academic Affairs University of Memphis 1997-2003 Professor Philosophy University of Memphis 1997- Guest Professor Law School Europa-Universität, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany 1996 Director Center for the Humanities University of Memphis 1993-97 Associate Professor Philosophy University of Memphis 1991-97 Assistant Professor Philosophy University of Memphis 1986-91 Visiting Assistant Professor Philosophy University of Memphis 1985-86 Instructor Philosophy University of Freiburg 1984-85 Editor Husserl-Archives University of Freiburg 1982-85 TEACHING EXPERIENCE: (Specific information for past two years summarized in Appendix A. Use Appendix A to elaborate on teaching experience as needed.) SUBJECT (indicate Undergraduate (U), Graduate (G), Other) INSTITUTION Classic Issues in Philosophy
  • Rhetorical Being: a Metaphysics of Freedom and Essence Nathan Wagner Georgia State University

    Rhetorical Being: a Metaphysics of Freedom and Essence Nathan Wagner Georgia State University

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Georgia State University Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 4-30-2018 Rhetorical Being: A Metaphysics of Freedom and Essence Nathan Wagner Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Wagner, Nathan, "Rhetorical Being: A Metaphysics of Freedom and Essence." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2018. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/191 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RHETORICAL BEING: A METAPHYSICS OF FREEDOM AND ESSENCE by NATHAN R. WAGNER Under the Direction of Lynée Lewis Gaillet, PhD and Michael Harker, PhD ABSTRACT My dissertation examines the connection between rhetoric and being. I critique subject- oriented phenomenological assumptions that have perpetuated for decades within rhetorical theory and offer an alternative metaphysical methodology. I initially focus on Lloyd Bitzer and Richard Vatz’s debate about the rhetorical situation, which shaped accepted theories of subjectivity for decades to come. I offer an alternative model of the subject that is based on Augustine’s metaphysical model of being, and I focus on this notion of rhetorical being as a means of revealing knowledge as potentially, contextually already present through readings of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas’s work. Augustine’s paradigm of the human being as perpetually free yet dependent on contextual surroundings for meaning, whether empirical or ephemeral, affords this study a framework through which to examine the subject within the rhetorical situation.