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Intersubjectivity, Experience and Utopia in Merleau-Ponty and Benjamin

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Intersubjectivity, Experience and Utopia in Merleau-Ponty and Benjamin The Flesh of History: Intersubjectivity, Experience and Utopia in Merleau-Ponty and Benjamin Paul Mazzocchi A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Programme in Political Science York University, Toronto, Ontario June 2016 © Paul Mazzocchi, 2016 Abstract This dissertation explores the connection between intersubjectivity, experience and utopia in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Walter Benjamin. The project utilizes a constellative approach, reading Merleau-Ponty and Benjamin through and against one another, in a manner in which each draws out latent ideas or problems in the other's work. In these respects, the project begins by drawing on a political reading of Merleau-Ponty's late ontology of the flesh in the context of his earlier phenomenology of the body and his political engagements. The ontology of the flesh transcends the various dualisms that have marred Western thought, in viewing being as in and of the world, and in asserting the very relational character of the body-as-flesh. Here, Merleau-Ponty provides a rich, multifaceted understanding of intersubjectivity. Yet, the ontological contours of Merleau-Ponty's work often operate at a level of abstraction that ignores or fails to theorize the contours of embodied experience under the particular historical conditions of capitalist modernity. In theorizing the primacy to the historical, Benjamin's work provides such a phenomenology. In this vein, Benjamin's work suggests that under modern conditions the sensuous capacities of the body take on an anaesthetic character, which ultimately elides the very relations of alterity that are central to intersubjectivity and political possibilities. At the same time, in deconstructing the "object" of history, Benjamin sees potentially utopian possibilities in the ontological and ethical conditions and structures of history. While this offers only a minor gesture in the direction of providing a positive political or ethical optic, these insights provide a means for re-reading Merleau-Ponty's account of the body as a site of the utopian/dystopian. In this context, the project turns to theorizing embodied capacities as providing the conditions of possibility for both relations of solidarity/emancipation and domination. Consequently, it explores the manner in which the corporeal capacities of embodied subjects can be transformed, as well as the problem of the particular forms of institution and intersubjectification that are rooted in this transformability. ii To my parents, Peter and Melody, for love and support that has always gone beyond the mere confines of parental obligation. iii Acknowledgements ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ One of this dissertation's central ideas is that subjectivity is always intersubjectivity: that human existence is only meaningful through our relations with others, which are fraught with tension and revelation. To the extent that I’ve been able to escape the contemporary tendency towards interiority and the closure of meaning, this dissertation – and my life more generally – was enlightened by the support and friendship of a number of people. This is the first chance I have to "officially" thank them, though hopefully my thanks have already been felt in various non-official ways. First, I would like thank my committee members – David McNally, Martin Breaugh and Asher Horowitz – for support, encouragement and suggestions throughout the dissertation process. As a wet behind the ears MA student, David's research interests aligned with mine and, despite somehow knowing nothing about him otherwise, I decided I wanted to work with him. When I asked a senior PhD student about David during my first week of classes, they told me that he was "the kindest man in the world." David has regularly affirmed that throughout his time as my MA and PhD supervisor, even if his kindness and positive encouragement has sometimes been offered to the chagrin of my naturally masochistic tendencies. I had the good fortune to have Martin join the department just prior to the formative stages of the dissertation, and it bears the strong imprint of his engagement with it, which took place through auditing his graduate course and over many a libation elsewhere. I should also thank his good humour for putting up with my inability to not poke the bear – in this case, his admiration for the work of Claude Lefort and penchant for wearing lavender shirts. Asher was one of the reasons I came to York, and the project began percolating in his Frankfurt School course, and it has benefitted greatly from his book Ethics at a Standstill. I also thank him for his patience with the project, particularly in light of a previous aversion to (or revulsion at) Adventures of the Dialectic. iv I would also like to thank the staff in the Department of Political Science – in particular Margo Barreto, Carolyn Cross, Despina Klinakis, Judy Matadial, Marlene Quesenberry, Jlenya Sarra-De Meo and Angie Schwartz – who all helped me to navigate York's Kafkaesque bureaucracy during my years as both a grad student and contract faculty member. Academic life is often dreary, isolating and infuriatingly soul-crushing. My survival in it owes much to the collective solidarities that emerge within (and against) such competitive and hierarchical environments. For companionship/comradery, support, ideas, distraction and, perhaps, a future case of liver failure, a huge debt of thanks/blame is owed to the odd cast of characters that have populated my life during my time at York: Veronique Aubry, Uttam Bajwa, Caleb Basnett, Jonathan Blair, Jordan Brennan, Karl Dahlquist, Toni Finnikin, Ryan Foster, Caitlyn Gordon-Walker, Simon Grant, Ryan Grist, Christopher Holman, Rob Lawson, Sarah Leblanc, Rachel Magnusson, Jackie Medalye, James McMahon, Tristan Musgrave, Steve Newman, Devin Penner, Kate Rice, Joey Rice, Mike Ryner, Isabel Sousa and Sara Squires. In addition, a deep debt of gratitude is owed to my brothers from other mothers, Daylen Luchsinger and Aidan Maxted. Despite the fact that we've lived a few thousand kilometres of physical distance apart over the last 13 years, they've always been "here" (or "there") in the existential sense. Finally, I want to thank my family: my parents, Peter and Melody, my brother, Marc, sister-in-law Malinda, niece Hannah and nephews Braden and Matteo. I'm not always the easiest person, but their love and support has never reflected that. While we continue to have a horrible phone relationship, my brother has looked out for me as long as I've been alive. I savour every moment I get to spend with him, Malinda and the goobers. After surviving his second cancer diagnosis (and after my Mom survived her first), my Dad told me that one of the things that went v through his mind when he was diagnosed was that he wouldn’t live to see me finish my PhD. Nothing was further from my mind, but nothing was more representative of the sort of selfless love and support my parents have given me throughout my life. This is dedicated to them. vi Table of Contents ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................................. II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................IV INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 I. THE PROBLEM OF POLITICS IN MERLEAU-PONTY AND BENJAMIN ............................................ 2 II. CONSTELLATING MERLEAU-PONTY AND BENJAMIN ............................................................... 9 III. OUTLINE OF THE WORK ....................................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 1: POLITICS À L’ÉCART: MERLEAU-PONTY AND THE FLESH OF THE SOCIAL..... 19 I. EXISTENTIAL MOTIFS IN MACHIAVELLI AND MARX .............................................................. 23 II. ONTOLOGICAL TURN, POLITICAL “RETREAT”: THE FLESH OF THE WORLD.......................... 30 III. MACHIAVELLI AND THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL DIVISION ...................................................... 42 IV. LEFORT AND THE PROBLEM OF ALTERITY ........................................................................... 50 V. MARXISM AND THE PROBLEM OF IDENTITY .......................................................................... 61 CHAPTER 2: THE PRIMACY OF THE HISTORICAL: BENJAMIN'S MONADOLOGY..................... 73 I. FROM THE METAPHYSICAL TO THE HISTORICAL BODY........................................................... 75 II. HISTORY AS MONAD AND CONSTELLATION .......................................................................... 81 III. LUKÁCS AND KORSCH: REFERENTS FOR A THEORY OF HISTORICALITY ............................... 89 IV. THE CRISES OF PROGRESS AND HISTORICAL PERCEPTION ................................................. 101 V. THE HISTORICAL PRESENTISM OF NOW-TIME AS MONAD................................................... 110 VI. CONSTELLATING MERLEAU-PONTY: RE-PHENOMENOLOGIZING THE FLESH...................... 121 CHAPTER 3: MORTIFYING THE FLESH: BENJAMIN’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF CAPITALIST EXPERIENCE......................... 134 I. SIGNS OF DECLINE: EXPERIENCE
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