Papers by Geoffrey Bennington
Discourse
Let me suggest provisionally that fiction (or at least literary fiction), in its traditional (phi... more Let me suggest provisionally that fiction (or at least literary fiction), in its traditional (philosophical) determination, always has to do with a certain beyond. 1 That it puts us in adventurous touch with something over the frontier, with other worlds, with ghosts (perhaps, as we shall see, with ghost ships). And that, reciprocally, any beyond always runs the risk of falling prey to fiction, so that as soon as philosophy ventures into it, it runs the risk of finding itself somewhere it never should be. Jacques Derrida claims in Parages that it is on the frontier of philosophy and literature-or rather, where this frontier trembles-that philosophy is most called to thought (10). One imagines that such a frontier (especially if it were to turn out to be essentially unstable), has a complex structure that is difficult to pin down. My working hypothesis here, in what will be both rather elementary and rather dry (for which I apologize), is that this structure must have an at least analogical relation with the structure of the frontier as Kant presents it, and especially in the famous and obscure discussion in the Prolegomena of the distinction between limit and bound, bound and limit, border and boundary, perimeter and periphery, barrier and gate, Grenze and Schranke. Moreover, we shall see that analogy is also part of our problem and, as such, cannot solve the question of the frontier. 2 I shall be trying to show, not that philosophy and literature are two domains with a frontier (even a vague or uncertain frontier) that separates them more or less successfully, but that where there
Cahiers philosophiques, 2009
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Réseau Canopé. Distribution électronique Cairn.info pou... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Réseau Canopé. Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Réseau Canopé. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit. Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse https://www.cairn.info/revue-cahiers-philosophiques1-2009-1-page-46.htm Découvrir le sommaire de ce numéro, suivre la revue par email, s'abonner... Flashez ce QR Code pour accéder à la page de ce numéro sur Cairn.info.
Theory, Culture & Society, 2011
One might be forgiven for imagining, especially perhaps in the age of Wikileaks, that political s... more One might be forgiven for imagining, especially perhaps in the age of Wikileaks, that political secrets are bad and the truth should simply be uncovered. But as we can find out by reading Kant, that exemplary Aufklärer, uncovering secrets always might unveil the fact that the truth this revealed is part of a greater system of secrecy, and merely a supplementary fold in the
The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2012
In his seminars on the death penalty, Derrida consistently describes Kant's arguments in favor of... more In his seminars on the death penalty, Derrida consistently describes Kant's arguments in favor of capital punishment as "rigorous" and explicitly relates that rigor to the mechanisms of execution and the subsequent rigor mortis of the corpse. 'Rigor' has also often been a contested term in descriptions of deconstruction: different commentators have either deplored or celebrated the presence or the absence of rigor in Derrida's work. Derrida himself uses the term a good deal throughout his career, usually in a positive sense, although he also at least once, in passing, suggests the need to question the rigor of the concept of rigor itself. In this paper, I will outline the place of Kant in the Death Penalty Seminars and suggest that it is the very rigor attributed to Kant that makes him (rather than some other writers-whether supporters or opponents of the death penalty-whose arguments seem less rigorous to Derrida) an exemplary object for deconstructive attention, not for the first time in Derrida's work. Broadening the focus beyond the texts Derrida explicitly analyzes, I suggest that this kind of attention can also be fruitfully brought to bear on some more general arguments in Kant about right and justice. In conclusion, I suggest some implications of this situation for the still difficult issue of the more general relation between deconstruction and critique in the Kantian sense. Geoffrey Bennington is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Modern French Thought at Emory University where he is also Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature. He is the author of fifteen books and many articles and chapters on philosophical and literary-theoretical topics.
Ratio, 2000
This is, perhaps, not very philosophical. This is theatre. Or even cinema. C'est du cinéma. Telev... more This is, perhaps, not very philosophical. This is theatre. Or even cinema. C'est du cinéma. Television. What fun. I We are here to act, and to act something out. A play. A scene. Something perhaps not very philosophical, more of the order of drama. Call this scene something like: Derrida (finally) meets the (real) philosophers. You would like to get on with it, wouldn't you, get down to brass tacks, to arguments, to start finally sorting some things out. That is what you came for, I imagine, on the basis of some assumed promise or imagined contract whereby we would dispense with the theatricals for once, do without the messing about, eschew the word-play and fancy talk, and finally get down to thrashing out the real issues, the points, the arguments,
Parallax, 2000
In his monumental, and still perhaps largely unread Discours, gure, Lyotard distinguishes three ... more In his monumental, and still perhaps largely unread Discours, gure, Lyotard distinguishes three levels of the eponymous concept of the gure. The ‘highest’ level, that of the gure-image, is to do with something visible, an image possibly in the sense of a gurative or representational picture, potentially introducing something of the order of a perception of depth into what is described as the ‘ at’ space of discourse; the second level, that of the gure-forme, is to do with the conditions of visibility of the gure-image, for example the invisible but powerfully organising principles of perspective in the costruzione leggitima of post-renaissance painting, but the sort of thing that can also be brought out into visibility in ‘modernist’ painting, insofar as it tries not so much to paint the world, but to paint the conditions of visibility of a world (or indeed of a painting). The third and deepest level is what Lyotard calls the gurematrice, the matrix- gure, which in the French resonates much more strongly than in English with a sense of maternity, of the womb. This level, which in a sense escapes gurality as such (whereas the gure-forme can at least try to ‘represent’ the conditions of representation of the gure-image), is related by Lyotard to a psychoanalytic concept of primary fantasy, whatever, in a given artist for example, produces or dictates or provokes the actual works (be they gurative or not). ‘The works of a man’, says Lyotard, with a perhaps not insigni cant speci city about the assumed gender of the artist, ‘are only ever the o Ú spring of this matrix; it can perhaps be half-glimpsed through their superimposition, in depth’.
Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2007
ABSTRACT Derrida writes a good deal about an "Eighteenth Century" he typically ... more ABSTRACT Derrida writes a good deal about an "Eighteenth Century" he typically puts in scare-quotes, and he puts difficult questions to such a notion of a century and indeed to all historicizing and periodizing concepts. Beginning with explicit remarks about the Eighteenth Century in Of Grammatologie, we show that this is done not with a view to denying or ignoring history, but in the interests of understanding how history is possible at all, and notably how texts in their historicity still remain open for reading today.
diacritics, 2009
in this essay, as my title might already suggest, i want to look again at a very famous passage f... more in this essay, as my title might already suggest, i want to look again at a very famous passage from the opening of aristotle's Politics (indeed one of the most famous passages in all Western philosophy), according to which man is by nature a political animal and is so, more at any rate than some other political animals, because he, and he alone, is an animal possessed of logos. more especially, i want to look at this passage in the light of more or less recent readings of it offered by lyotard (especially) and Derrida (somewhat). in passing, i'll also look at what is a little less obviously a reading of this passage in aristotle, in Hobbes's chapter "of commonwealth," that opens part 2 of the Leviathan. and in conclusion i'd like to refer to Heidegger's commentary on this passage of aristotle, as recently published in English in the 1924 lecture course Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy. the context for those readings (in lyotard and Derrida, at least) is an effort to rethink the concept of animality, or the supposed specificity of the human as against the animal, which Derrida especially thinks is a crux of Western philosophy's "metaphysics of presence" and logocentrism, more specifically insofar as it forms part of a problematical concept of sovereignty. in the case of both Derrida and lyotard, this look at animality has (or is supposed to have) political consequences, or at least consequences for how we might think about politics.
Culture Machine, 2000
This is a frontier. Here and now, here we are crossing it now, something is ending and something ... more This is a frontier. Here and now, here we are crossing it now, something is ending and something else is beginning. And like all beginnings, it's a moment of risk and chance, fear and anticipation: something new might happen, something strange might happen, something ...
Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1987
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Papers by Geoffrey Bennington