University of Dundee DOCTOR of PHILOSOPHY Creating Society As
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University of Dundee DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Creating Society as a Work of Art Towards an Imaginative Logic of Action in Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason Smidt, Austin Hayden Award date: 2017 Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 02. Oct. 2021 Creating Society as a Work of Art: Towards an Imaginative Logic of Action in Sartreʼs Critique of Dialectical Reason Austin Hayden Smidt This thesis is submitted to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Dundee in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Dundee September 2017 Table of Contents Introduction 10 Part One: The Living Logic of Action in Critique of Dialectical 19 Reason Chapter I. Dialectical Reason and the Paradoxico-Critical Orientation 19 of Thought 1.1 The Unveiling of Being: The Separation of Logos from 20 Mythos 1.2 The Unveiling of Being: Totality and Totalization 24 1.3 The Validity of the Unveiling: Dialectical Reason and the 31 Paradoxico-Critical Orientation 1.4 The Validity of the Unveiling: Lévi-Strauss and Dialectical 44 Reason Chapter II. Dialectical Logic and the Pervasion of Seriality – Toward 50 a Fresh Reading of Sartreʼs Critique of Dialectical Reason 2.1 Circularity in the Critique 50 2.2 Rejecting Pessimism 57 2.3 In Media Res: Kaironic Seriality and Problematization 63 Chapter III. The Field of Possibles – the Practico-inert and the 72 Exigency of Objective Conditions 3.1 Scarcity as a Human Fact 72 3.2 Worked Matter, the Practico-inert, and the Emergence of 75 Exigency 3.3 Exigency and the Demands of Returned Praxis 79 Chapter IV. Pluridimensional Seriality 84 4.1 The Tripartite Nature of Seriality 85 4.2 Diachronic Seriality 88 4.3 Synchronic Seriality 91 2 4.4 Kaironic Seriality 96 Chapter V. Freedom and the Logic of the Group 114 5.1 Praxis, the Logic of (In)Human Activity 114 5.2 The Apocalypse 117 5.3 The Group-in-Fusion 132 5.4 The Pledged Group 138 5.5 The Organization 147 5.6 The Institution 152 Part Two: Toward an Imaginative Logic of Action 156 Chapter VI. The Logic of Poetic Imagination 157 6.1 The Usefulness and Limits of Sartreʼs Imaging 157 Consciousness 6.2 A New Logic of Imagination 163 Chapter VII. A Tale of Two Logics 172 7.1 The Serial Logic of Inaction 172 7.2 The Imaginative Logic of Action 178 Chapter VIII. Creating Society as a Work of Art 185 8.1 Constructing New Humanisms 186 8.2 Micro-Psychobiological Shifts 200 8.3 The Perpetual Apocalypse 218 Conclusion: Final Thoughts and Future Aspirations 228 Glossary of Terms 242 Appendix I: Timeline of Sartreʼs Publications 247 Appendix II: Comparative Timeline w/Other Thinkers 248 Bibliography 249 3 Acknowledgements " Venturing to a foreign country can be daunting. The challenge becomes compounded when one is attempting to delve into obscure philosophical texts that many have relegated to the heap of inconsequential historical labors. But in my experience, the transition and subsequent work progressed rather smoothly. This is no doubt due to the massive support-cast that ensured my affective disposition would never waver. " I would be remiss if I did not first thank the University of Dundee and the Scottish Overseas Research Award Scheme that funded the great bulk of my duration in Scotland. Without this financial support, I would have never begun to venture into PhD research. Thank you, a million times over. " Within the University of Dundee, the Department of Philosophy carried the weight of institutional support. Thank you for making my decision to travel to bonny Scotland worth enduring the cold, dark winters. For a Southern California boy, there were definitely periods of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but the sunny dispositions and stimulating intellectual environment of the department, from top to bottom, injected a surge of vitality into my daily habits. Thank you James Williams. Your initial guidance set my research trajectory on a path that was both challenging and enlightening. Your endless inquisitiveness and attentiveness to minute details gave me vision to see cracks and fissures over which other supervisors would have glossed. You may not have been around to the see the project to completion, but trust that your influence hovers over each page. Ashley Woodward, since you stepped into the role of supervisor, you have given me support and guidance every step of the final stages of my writing period. With the clock working against me, you remained calm and confident. This infectious assurance no doubt impelled me to the finish line. I will be forever grateful. " My family and friends have always been One to me. I see no ontological difference between blood and water. All of those who have affected me in positive (and even negative) ways have shepherded me in my life journey. I can!t possibly thank you all. That said, there are those who bear a special significance of intensity that must be addressed. Mom, there are literally no words that can describe what you mean to me. Our little family is small but our bonds are strong. Like the fastest of 4 light waves, we are bound together with a great energy. Your smile, your strength, your spaghetti – they have given me life throughout the years. Although I!m not the little towhead anymore, you will always be my #momma!. Pop, you are a man of integrity. I know your humility will never let you see it, but you are the highest standard of a man that I can look to on Earth. Dedication, perseverance, diligence, wisdom, critical thinking, and faith – these are the earmarks of an apostle. Thank you for your witness. Als ik kan. To my Aunt, your sofa has been a home to me (I know, I know, there!s the guest room too, but that sofa...). You have been my cultural guide. You introduced me to theatre, art museums, and Terminator 2! Thank you for giving endlessly of yourself. Even when you were sick, you gave and gave. I finished this in large part because of that selflessness. Fran, if pop is a man of integrity, you are the reason why. I feel like in every story there is an unsung hero. In mine, you!re it. You live the motto, #love is a verb!. And even though pop might be the front man, you are clearly the backbone, the time keeper, the drummer. Thank you for your unwavering love. I have a clearer idea of ἀ%&'( because of you. And Elly, you will forever be a punk, but I love you so much. I am excited to continue witnessing your growth into a caring and motivated woman. "Finally, thank you to all those who provided feedback on the various drafts of this thesis, as well as the innumerable influences that have contributed flourishes by way of insightful debate and discussion, particularly Scott Gallacher, Matthew Ally, Michael Burns, and Brian Smith. And as for Troy Polidori, the time spent at M-dub, the three-hour Skype sessions, and your consistent friendship through all the varying stages of my continual epistemological crisis have shaped me in more ways than just academic. Thank you, brotha! 5 6 Abstract ! Jean-Paul Sartre!s Critique of Dialectical Reason is generally read as a work of social ontology and/or normative social theory. The present project proposes that it is better to approach CDR as a heuristic, as a formal, logical investigation into the elementary formal structures of history. Once the ontological and normative hermeneutic is attuned towards a hypo-logical reading, CDR becomes a proto-text of critical theory that can aid future theorists in both analyzing material conditions and proposing paths for liberatory praxis. "This thesis is divided into two parts. Part One is an analysis of the key formal, logical constructions in Jean-Paul Sartre!s Critique of Dialectical Reason. Their intelligibility is the result of a fresh reading of a text that has been either relatively neglected or that has been read within a particular, predefined way. This reading will be challenged through an exegetical approach, while also engaging with key figures of the standard interpretive approach. The intent is not to smear previous interpreters, for this work is heavily indebted to them, but to suggest a slight corrective that will enable a hidden richness of this text to be uncovered. At the end of Part One, the various modes of “practical ensembles” will be understood by their formal, logical, and heuristic value. This will allow us to construct a theory of a logical disposition that is being termed an #imaginative logic of action! that will resist the hegemonic control of seriality. "Part Two connects these concepts with Sartre!s early work on the imagination and suggests further ways in which such a marriage can be strengthened by analyzing select tendencies from recent trends in Continental Philosophy.