Philosophical Anthropology Syllabus

Simondon’s concept of the transindividual has become a central point of reference for contemporary critical philosophy and social philosophy. Despite its importance in the work of such writers as Etienne Balibar, Gilles Deleuze, Bernard Stiegler and Paolo Virno, Simondon’s works have not been translated into English, and thus no comprehensive study has appeared so far. Muriel Combes book presents not only a study of Simondon’s thought, but an examination of what it makes possible in terms of rethinking social relations.

In the nineteen sixties and seventies the question of Marx's humanism, his attachment to an idea of human nature, was hotly debated. In the years since that debate has subsided the question of Marx and the human has emerged in multiple sectors. The dominance of neoliberalism as policy has revived the notion of capitalism as human nature. At the same time the anti-humanism of poststructuralism has been replaced with posthumanism. There has also been a revival of the question of humanity in light of the anthropocene. Given all of these developments its seems worth posing the question of the human in Marx again. Taking its cue from the Sixth Thesis on Feuerbach which argues that the human essence is the ensemble of social relations, this essay examines the way in which labor constructs and destroys the generic figure of humanity. Ultimately, it argues that Marx can be understood as making a unique contribution to philosophical anthropology, not one that argues about any fixed essence, cooperative or competitive, but understands history to be the generation and corruption of different essences, of constituting the basis for solidarity and antagonism.

The political thought of Etienne Bali bar is framed between transindividuality and equaliberty. These terms frame much of Balibar's writing on politics, citizenship, race and philosophy in recent decades yet they do not have the same status. One is borrowed, a citation from Gilbert Simondon, while the other is Balibar's neologism, a word that combines equality and liberty. The first is situated with respect to Balibar's investigations in the history of philosophy, constituting a tradition of Spinoza, Hegel and Marx, while the second is deployed in Balibar's investigations of the intersection of race, nation and class in contemporary politics. One term refers to a question of political anthropology, or even ontology, an articulation of the fundamental problems of individual and collective, while the other is framed between the relation between equality and liberty, rights and freedoms, in the history of political practice. The points of overlap are just as salient as their differences. Transindividuality and equaliberty challenge conventional, which is to say both philosophical and ideological, notions of the individual and society, collectivity and individuality. The point, however, is not that these terms are the same, referring to identical terms and questions, nor that they are rigorously distinct, referring to different fields of inquiry -specifically social ontology and politics -but that the differences and relations may itself be a way of articulating what are some of the most pressing questions in contemporary philosophy, not just the relation between the individual and collective, but also the relation between politics and economics, and ultimately the relation between ontology and politics. The relation between transindividuality and equaliberty defines not just a field of political questions on citizenship, civility, TIT r 1 2 Bali bar and the Citizen Subject the nation and race, but defines a particular philosophical practice, a particular way of engaging in political problems.

This subject involves the study of theory and empirical research in social and political relations, culture and ideology, and human subjectivity and action. Students who complete this subject should possess an awareness of the ways in which social theory can provide a critical perspective on standard approaches to the study of politics, and knowledge of a repertoire of social theory concepts and approaches which can be drawn upon to analyse political processes.

THE MESSIANIC NOW : Religion, Philosophy, C ulture (co-edited with Paul Fletcher, 2 0 1 0 ) THE POLITICS TO COME: Power, M odernity and th e M essianic (co-edited with Paul Fletcher, 2 0 1 0 ) DERRIDA'S 'OF GRAMMATOLOGY': A Philosophical Guide (2 008) NEGATIVE THEOLOGY AND MODERN FRENCH PHILOSOPHY (2 004)

Syllabus for Humanities 3925: Interfaces: Technology and Human.

This thesis conceptually investigates the relationship between human existence and the technical object, and thereby relates questions faced within the philosophy of technology to the field of philosophical anthropology. This conceptual work will be taken up in a twofold manner. Firstly, I detail how the Western philosophical tradition has tended to distance its own practice and thinking from the technical, and how it, relatedly, has hierarchically subjugated technics from what essentially defines us as human beings. This will involve a genealogical investigation of the figure of the philosopher and the technician, which will detail how and why these figures have been antagonistic and oppositional from the start. The argument being that this relationship constitutes a genuine hindrance for thinking of existence as originarily technical within the confines of traditional philosophical inquiry and its various schools of thought. Secondly, I conceptually investigate and phenomenologically describe the relationship between human existence and technics by way of an engagement with, first and foremost, the early and late thought of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, the work of the French palaeoanthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan and the thought of the contemporary French philosopher Bernard Stiegler. The thesis sets out to question, in this regard, whether or not tool-user and tool, the human and the technical object are originarily prosthetically coupled, and hence if, so to speak, the inventor is also invented with what it invents. Its argument being, in this connection, that the invention of the human is technics. The central thesis of Heidegger’s later philosophy of technology that the essence of technics is by no means anything technical will thus be called into question.

ID 411 Design in Context (2016-7 FALL ISTANBUL BILGI UNIVERSITY) This course is about the responsibilities of the designer. By contextualizing design-work we attempt to position the designer and her fields of responsibility. Despite the fact that there are many overlaps and intersections among the contexts we will be discussing, a certain categorization was necessary. Production, materiality, labour, consumption, taste, society, politics, global justice, gender, usership, environment (resources and impacts), and ethics will be some of the contexts to be explored. Through key texts by authors such as Marx, Morris, Giedion, Bourdieu, Bonsiepe, Papanek, Hebdige, Latour and Lazzarato accompanied by current research and debates on design practice and design products; the course will be a cross-section of the profession and its impacts, as dissected by critical theory.