Durham E-Theses The Social Philosophy of Gillian Rose: Speculative Diremptions, Absolute Ethical Life BROWER-LATZ, ANDREW,PHILLIP How to cite: BROWER-LATZ, ANDREW,PHILLIP (2015) The Social Philosophy of Gillian Rose: Speculative Diremptions, Absolute Ethical Life, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11302/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 The Social Philosophy of Gillian Rose: Speculative Diremptions, Absolute Ethical Life by Andrew Brower Latz Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Theology and Religion Durham University 2015 ii Abstract This thesis provides an original reconstruction of Gillian Rose’s work as a distinctive social philosophy within the Frankfurt School tradition that holds together the methodological, logical, descriptive, metaphysical and normative moments of social theory; provides a critical theory of modern society; and offers distinctive versions of ideology critique based on the history of jurisprudence, and mutual recognition based on a Hegelian view of appropriation. Rose’s philosophy integrates three key moments of the Frankfurt tradition: a view of the social totality as both an epistemological necessity and normative ideal; a philosophy that is its own metaphilosophy because it integrates its own logical and social preconditions within itself; and a critical analysis of modern society that is simultaneously a critique of social theory. Rose’s work is original in the way it organises these three moments around absolute ethical life as the social totality, its Hegelian basis, and its metaphysical focus on law and jurisprudence. Rose’s Hegelian philosophy includes an account of reason that is both social and logical without reducing philosophy to the sociology of knowledge, thereby steering between dogmatism and relativism. Central to this position are the historically developing nature of rationality and knowing, and an account of the nature of explanation as depending on a necessarily and necessarily imperfectly posited totality. No totality is ever fully attained but is brought to view through the Hegelian-speculative exposition of history, dirempted experience, and the tensions immanent to social theories. Rose explored one main social totality within her social philosophy – absolute ethical life – as the implied unity of law and ethics, and of finite and infinite. This enables a critique simultaneously and immanently of society and social philosophy in three ways. First, of both the social form of bourgeois property law and social contract theories reflective of it. Second, of social theorising that insufficiently appreciates its jurisprudential determinations and/or attempts to eliminate metaphysics. Third, the broken middle shows the state-civil society and the law-ethics diremptions as two fundamental features of modern society and as frequently unacknowledged influences on social theorising. iii Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….ii Contents……………………………………………………………………………........iii Abbreviations…………………………………………….…………………………......vi Declaration……………………………………………………………………………..vii Statement of Copyright………………………………………………………………...vii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………viii Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….1 1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..1 2 Rose’s life and work………………………………………………………………….4 3 Interpretations of Rose……………………………………………………………….7 4 Outline of the argument……………………………………………….……………15 Chapter 1 Rose’s Hegelianism……………………………………………………………………19 1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………19 2 Situating Rose’s Hegelianism……………………………………………………….23 3 The nature and scope of the argument in Hegel Contra Sociology…………………30 3.1 Hegel Contra Sociology in itself……………………………………………..…30 3.2 Is Hegel contra sociology? Rose’s critique of classical and critical social theory…………………………………………………………………………...34 3.2.1 Classical social theory…………………………………………….………..34 3.2.2 Frankfurt School social theory……………………………………………..47 4 The substance of Rose’s Hegelianism……………………………………………….53 4.1 Phenomenology……………………………………….………………………...56 4.2 Triune rationality………………………………………………………………..64 4.3 Speculative propositions………………………………………………………...76 5 Double critique and implied totality………………………………………………...79 5.1 A simultaneous critique of society and social philosophy……………………...80 5.2 Absolute ethical life……………………………………………………………..85 6 Objections…………………………………………………………………………...91 6.1 Political economy and substantive theory………………………………………92 6.2 Vagueness…………………………………………………………………….....94 iv 7 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………99 Chapter 2 Rose’s Frankfurt Inheritance……………….….……………………...……………102 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………..102 2 Rose and Bernstein: aporetic ontology, philosophical modernism………………..103 3 Self-limiting reason………………………………………………………………..106 4 Social totality………………………………………………………………………110 5 ‘From Speculative to Dialectical Thinking’……………………………………….117 6 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………121 Chapter 3 Jurisprudential Wisdom…………………………………………………………….123 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………..123 2 The ‘speculative identity of form and history’……………………….....................124 2.1 The ‘antinomy of law’…………………………………………………………124 2.2 The argument of Dialectic of Nihilism ………………………………………...127 2.3 The post-Kantian condition……………………………………………………133 3 Ideology critique via jurisprudence: Kant and Roman law……..…………………135 3.1 An elective affinity…………………………………………………………….135 3.2 Kantian rationality and the person/thing distinction…………………………..138 3.3 The usucapio defence of freedom……………………………………………..140 3.4 Freedom and private law………………………………………………………143 4 Jurisprudential wisdom…………………………………………………………….148 4.1 The legal formalism charge……………………………………………………149 4.2 Jurisprudential wisdom and social philosophy………………………………...152 5 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………161 Chapter 4 The Broken Middle…………………………………………………………………..163 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………..163 2 The broken middle…………………………………………………………………164 2.1 A ‘phenomenology of modern theory’ and society……………………………166 2.2 The state-civil society diremption...…………………………………………...171 2.3 The law-ethics diremption……………………………………………………..183 v 2.3.1 New ethics and the spirit of postmodernism……………………………...188 2.3.2 The equivocation and suspension of the ethical…………………………..194 3 Politics between moralism and realism……………………………………………200 3.1 Mutual recognition and Hegelian phenomenological reconstruction...………..203 4 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………212 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………215 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….224 vi Abbreviations Works by Gillian Rose TMS The Melancholy Science: An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno (1978) HCS Hegel Contra Sociology (1981) DN Dialectic of Nihilism: Post-Structuralism and Law (1984) BM The Broken Middle: Out of Our Ancient Society (1992) JAM Judaism and Modernity: Philosophical Essays (1993) LW Love’s Work: A Reckoning With Life (1995) MBL Mourning Becomes the Law: Philosophy and Representation (1996) P Paradiso (1999) Works by Hegel PhR Philosophy of Right PhSp Phenomenology of Spirit EL Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Science, Part 1 Logic SL Science of Logic vii Declaration This thesis has been submitted to Durham University in accordance with the regulations for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. It is my own work and no part of it has been previously submitted for a degree in the University of Durham or any other university. Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author’s prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. viii Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding this research. I am delighted to be able to express my gratitude and debt to Prof. Christopher Insole and Dr. Marcus Pound, my excellent supervisors. A more complementary pair of Doktorväter – in temperament, inclination and specialisation – is difficult to imagine. This work owes a great deal to their patient direction, wise advice and insightful criticisms. For conversations about Rose and/or comments on draft sections of the thesis I am grateful to Keith Ansell-Pearson, Anthony Bash, Nick Brindley, Thom Brooks, Derek Brower, Deirdre Brower Latz, Robert Fine, Josh Furnal, David Held, Nik Howard, Wayne Hudson, Owen Hulatt, Stephen Houlgate, Kimberly Hutchings, Simon Jarvis, Anthony Jensen, Vincent Lloyd, Sebastian Luft, Thomas Lynch, Wayne Martin, Hermínio Martins, John Milbank, Brian O’Connor, Maggie O’Neill, Peter Osborne, Charlie Pemberton, William Rasch, Anna Rowlands, Andrew Shanks, Nigel Tubbs and Rowan Williams. I thank Diarmuid ÓNéill for financial support and general encouragement. I have benefited from the assistance