My review of Braver's 'Heidegger's Later Writings'

Just appeared today in Kritike. Like many in these circles I am a big fan of Braver and his crystal clear style. The review is generally quite positive. I've been meaning to get this finished for quite some time so I am really pleased to see it appear today. I cannot recommend Braver's work enough. For a book on the later Heidegger this is astonishingly straight forward. When I first read it I realized I can actually recommend a book on the later Heidegger to people without worrying that I'd scare them off it forever.

“The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion” CFP

This conference looks particularly appealing to those working on the intersection of post-continental philosophy and theology.

Caputo's upcoming course on also makes mention of Meillassoux (with an emphasis on Spectral Dilemma). The syllabus is here but seems to be currently down. Hopefully it will reappear later.

Phenomenological Realism

Here is a tentative outline of a paper I will be giving at a pre-conference workshop here in Dublin. It should be of interest to both Heideggerians and speculative realists in that it is my first attempt to join together phenomenological investigation and Meillassouxian intellectual intuition. In the paper I attempt to put together the first piece of the puzzle. Most readers here will be familiar with the other side and this will be developed in Continental Realism which is moving fast along through the editing process at Zero. In essence it is my first public attempt at setting out my position: phenomenological realism. I always struggle with the final lines of an abstract so they will likely be changed into something safer in a weeks time. I'll post details about the event when it is comfirmed. Incidentally what follows can also pass for a pretty good summary of my thesis which is now running at 63,000 words which hopefully explains the lack of posts here. The (somewhat polemical) abstract is as follows:

In this paper my aim is to demonstrate that no philosophical account of our situation as the beings that are here (Da-)- alone amongst others - can be considered complete unless it is a phenomenological realism. Phenomenological realism has two tasks: to describe the structure of what Heidegger calls a priori cognition in the ontological sphere and to demonstrate the absolute necessity of contingency or, for the purposes of this paper, the radical contingency of natural laws. I claim, in line with Meillassoux, that ‘what is the case’ is absolutely contingent as it is ‘in-itself.’ I further hold that in so much as it is contingent it does not appear that way to us in phenomenal experience. Natural laws, in the appearances, are habitually ordered for us. The phenomenologist is a closeted Humean.

I am hoping to add a second part (if time permits) that would go roughly as follows but this part is still too 'floaty' for me to commit to at this point:

Because this is the case with what is the case one needs two methods for a complete account of our situation: phenomenology and ontological realism. Here I will attend to one-half of phenomenological realism: phenomenological investigation in its descriptive essence. Since description is such a misleading word in phenomenological terms that is where I will begin - in particular with what I will call Husserl's nomological phenomenology. We will then turn to Heidegger's ontological radicalization of phenomenology. I claim that there is a deep paradox in Heidegger's thinking between his account of Dasein, who corrupts the later texts, and Heidegger's historiographical account of an Occidental destining that culminates in Dasein’s fragmentation within an indifferent technical Framework supposedly inhabited, somewhere on the fringes, by the withering ‘remains of Being.’ I will conclude with a simple proposition: is it possible that what remains after Being is nothing more than the entities themselves?

On Reading Nietzsche Reading Heidegger

Peter Gratton posted an interesting link to a review of a collection of essays on Foucault that struck me.

The reviewer talks a little about Babich and Zabala:

''In “A philosophical shock: Foucault reading Nietzsche, reading Heidegger,” Babette Babich argues that any reading of Foucault must incorporate readings of both Nietzsche and (a “very French”) Heidegger, rather than one at the expense of the other. The meanders of this essay take us through Nietzsche and Heidegger via an analysis of The Birth of the Clinic and reflections on philosophy of science to make the case. Remaining with Heidegger, later in the volume Santiago Zabala examines Foucault’s influence on the living Italian philosopher Vattimo. Foucault’s implicitly Heideggerian ontology is made explicit in Vattimo’s philosophy, Zabala argues. Foucault’s “ontology of actuality” (or “historical ontology of ourselves”) is his rejection of transcendental critique in favour of a historically situated analysis of the conditions of possibility of human being. This move, which engages Kant’s legacy while rejecting key aspects of his thought, has been key for Vattimo. The latter’s “weak thought” abandons “philosophy’s traditional claim to global descriptions of the world because after those masters’ demystifications . . . thought is much more aware of its own restrictions, limits, and boundaries” (115-116). Zabala goes on to make the connection between Vattimo’s referencing of Foucault’s ontology and Heidegger’s destruction of metaphysics and his hermeneutic alternative.

All four of these essays (which are scattered through the volume) suffer from the same difficulty: no doubt the authors found it hard to compress such complex philosophical ideas and inheritances into a chapter-length essay, and they are all broad-ranging and allusive rather than focused on a closely argued issue''

It is interesting that both Babich and Zabala are Heidegger scholars (I’m reviewing Zabala’s wonderful The Remains of Being at the moment and Babich is giving a talk at the Heidegger conference I’m organizing so I am pretty familiar with both of them apropos Heidegger scholarship).

Judging by Zabala’s concise Remains of Being (roughly 150 words) I’m not sure he has a problem with compressing his ideas. In fact one of the perks of his book, which is a deeply faithful ‘Heideggerian’ style book in the best possible sense, is that he manages to condense the entire post-Heidegger response into a single chapter without it being too busy. He talks a little about Foucault in the RoB too and perhaps the issue here is that attempts to develop a new logic of remains jars against this kind of exegesis (I suspect his interest in Foucault is not broad enough to appeal in this collection to those interested in Foucault sans the ‘hidden’ Heidegger influence).

Babich’s style is unique enough that I would give her a pass on the basis that her work tends to be richly rather than frustratingly allusive. But here we are probably stumbling into questions of style - I have a high tolerance for this kind of thing beginning as I did with Nietzsche and moving onto the later (and then earlier!) Heidegger.

Updates: Records on Ribs and some Meillassoux

I've recently been browsing Records on Ribs - a kind of open-access record label after my own heart. Without trying to pigeon hole the music on offer I think it really suits the writing vibe. I find it hard to locate this kind of music or else I can find it but it costs a bomb. So do check it out.

Also worth checking out is this recent post by William Koch on Meillassoux's arche-fossil.

That is all for now. I'm currently located in a twilight zone where organization is outwinning philosophy itself.

Interview at Major Philosophy

Brent at Major Philosophy was kind enough to include me in his series of interviews with graduate students called Reflections on Philosophy. Take a look!

Quick Update on Speculations and OOO news

Graham Harman has informed us that articles from Speculations are now starting to appear on google scholar. A good sign although I now have to watch out for the Big Other!

Tim Morton is the latest convert to OOO. His passionate post is well worth a read. A lot of happening in the world of OOO and I expect the next year to really kick things up a gear or two.

Finally Pete Wolfendale has posted his thought on Ereignis which is worth checking out like all Pete's post. It is also worth noting that Pete will be delivering a paper at the 21st Century Heidegger conference and I admit his is among the main papers I am looking forward to attending.

Speculations discount

Thanks to Lulu's 'New Read' Discount. That is a 15% discount so it is now even more affordable than we had hoped.

The code is NEWREAD305 and the offer ends on the 15th of September so if you plan on picking it up keep that deadline in mind.

I'm also happy to note that we are already starting to receive submissions from outside the traditional SR blog circle so I think the journal has started to achieve what I hope it keeps on doing: getting more people interested in the area.

On 'Ereignis'

What do we know about Ereignis? From what I can gather, and I mean gather, is that we do not know much. There is a growing body of literature out there, but I suspect the definitive investigation of Ereignis has not yet come to be. I am not a fan of the later Heidegger especially when he begins to speak the language of destining though I admire the attempt as perhaps the last uncomplicated attempt to think this truth. Our current situation seems to forbid it (too ironic as Haas argues). It has been made impossible as Zabala puts it in The Remains of Being (a little masterpiece, and I mean masterpiece, I have the pleasure of reviewing at the moment). Heidegger’s thought has been doubled for us – no longer the thought of Being, but of the remains of Being too. I am happy to note that no less a reader of Heidegger than Derrida considers it (in Positions) “the most continuous and most difficult thread of Heidegger's thought.” Why continuous? Well as far as I can ascertain it first appears in the 1919 Kriegsnotsemester (according to Kisiel) and we find it, of course, all over the Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) where we find such wonderfully dense sentences that almost feel like scripture: “In enowning, enowning itself resonates in counter-resonance.” This week I face the daunting task of writing my dissertation section dealing with Ereignis. Expect increasingly cryptic dispatches from inside the Ge-Stell…

The New Being and Time translation

Just a note that the updated translation of Being and Time is out. I'm actually quite fond of using this one. Stambaugh did make some errors but nothing that anyone who takes Heidegger seriously won't pick up themselves. The translation is far better if you are trying to get someone to read Heidegger. It 'feels' far less stuffy and is just more readable. I'm pretty sure Heidegger scholarship is one of the few areas where this is seen as a bad thing because it doesn't capture Heidegger's austere tone well enough. Well I for one don't find Heidegger all that austere - pedantic, humourless, and repetitive for long sections sure, but can he set your mind racing when he needs to? For sure and Stambaugh gets the electric Heidegger way better than M&Q. And the electric Heidegger is the one that has captured us. It'll be great to see what Schmidt has done. If he manages to add all the bits needed to make it more scholarly without losing Stambaugh's tone then we may very well see it replace the M&Q translation as the standard.

Hat tip: enowning.

Speculations Volume I

The first volume of Speculations is now online. It can be accessed in a number of ways:

You can buy a physical copy on Lulu.

You can download the full PDF version for free.

And you can access all the individual PDF's on our wordpress blog.

This has been a lot of hard work, but hopefully we have managed to bring about what I originally promised – a venue to discuss ‘fringe’ continental philosophy no matter what its guise. This would have been a very different process if not for Thomas Gokey whose dedication to the project is the reason the issue is coming out now and not in two months time. If you are interested in submitting something for volume II drop me a line.

Enjoy and please spread the word!

Paul

[Technical note]: Users who have browsed the original website will have noticed a lot of stray code cropping up whenever users tried to navigate the site. This has already led to the delay of Speculations by a few weeks and should we continue along that path it might be another month yet. Hence the shift to wordpress.

21st Century Heidegger Call for Registration and full list of Speakers

Open Call for Registration

21st Century Heidegger Conference

Date: Friday 10th & Saturday 11th September 2010

Venue: UCD Humanities Institute of Ireland, University College Dublin, Ireland

Keynote Speakers:

Miguel de Beistegui (The University of Warwick, UK)

Martin Gessmann (University of Heidelberg, Germany)

François Raffoul (Louisiana State University, USA)


Session Speakers:

Trish Glazebrook (Dalhousie University, Canada)

Ullrich Haase (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

Mark Sinclair (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

Andrew Haas (University College Dublin, Ireland)

Dermot Moran (University College Dublin, Ireland)

Georgia Warnke (University of California, Riverside, USA)

Raphael Zagury-Orly (University of Tel-Aviv and Bezalel School of Fine Arts, Israel)

Joseph Cohen (University College Dublin, Ireland)

Gregor Noll (University of Lund, Sweden)

Erick Valdes (Georgetown University, USA)

Georg Friedrich Simet (Neuss University for International Business, Germany)

Thomas Arnold (University of Heidelberg, Germany)

Jeff Kochan (University of Konstanz, Germany)

Matthew Shockey (Indiana University - South Bend, USA)

Christophe Perrin (A.T.E.R., Paris-Sorbonne University, France)

Sacha Y. J. Golob (University of Cambridge, UK)

Phillip Tonner (University of Glasgow and University of Oxford, UK)

Marko Goran Bosnić (University of Freiburg, Germany)

Sinead Hogan (University College Dublin, Ireland)

Peter Wolfendale (The University of Warwick, UK)

Niall Keane (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland)

Branko Klun (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Justin Laleh (The University of Warwick, UK)

Stephen Reynolds (New College, University of Oxford, UK)

Michael Purcell (The University of Edinburgh, UK)

Jill Coffin (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)

Bert van den Bergh (The Hague University, The Netherlands)

Shaun May (University of London, UK)

Hans W. Gruenig (Tulane University, USA)

Christian Pinawin (Northwestern University, USA)

Sylvain Camilleri (Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)

Jana Elsen (University of Sussex, UK)

Evi Haggipavlu (Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus)

Mark Titmarsh (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

Cameron Tonkinwise (The New School of Design, New York City, USA)

Özge Ejder (Yeditepe University Istanbul, Turkey)

David Storey (Fordham University, USA)


Sponsored by:

UCD School of Philosophy

UCD Humanities Institute of Ireland

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

Goethe-Institut, Dublin

To register, contact:

The Organizing Committee

Paul J. Ennis

Dr Tziovanis Georgakis

heidegger2010@gmail.com