Demosophia Button 21 November 2020 Button The Tennis Court Oath by Auguste Couder, 1848, Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons Democracy and philosophy are only two sides of the answer to the same perplexity: that of a human gathering that no longer has a sacred (or natural, but in fact the two merge) bond to join together. It would not be abusive to couple them to form demosophia: the art or science of discerning the people, their nature, their good. Democracy and philosophy are one and the same thing in that both essentially relate to a lack of foundation. Democracy is the state in which there is a group without a leader and law. Philosophy is the state of thinking devoid of principle and rule. In both cases it is a question of inventing, and in both cases, there is no question of arriving at a definitive result (which would suppress any deliberation of decisions and any elaboration of meanings). This is the reason why democracy and philosophy appear together in Western history, at the moment when this history is separating from social and symbolic forms shaken by profound transformations. It is an age of loss and of need to invent. It is the Greek, Jewish and Roman age, soon also the age of Islam. Beyond this history it is always about something else: forms of government and forms of thought draw their resources from deposits of forms and forces that bear fruit from remarkable inventions that always relate to an immemorial fund (myths, wisdoms, symbolic regimes). These are arts of governing and arts of thinking, not the urgent need to trick with precariousness and bewilderment. There are traditional cults or meditations and recitations, as well as kings, priests, shamans. An order is assured, a regularity, a rhythm - under the condition of an unimpeachable hierarchy. On the contrary, in democracy and philosophy there is a haste, an agitation, an avidity of the destitute people, whereas in empires or tribes there is an assurance, a majesty that traverses even the miseries and tyrannies — without preventing wars or conquests. In the same way, in the West a logic of production and progress is awakening rather than a wisdom of reproduction and conservation. It could be said that the West has been pushed towards growth/progress? (with an organic and innovative model) while elsewhere it has stuck to increase (with a cumulative and transmitting model). But the agitation conquered the world when it became technological in the sense that implies going beyond the use of the given and forcing the elements. But the agitation conquered the world when it became technological in the sense that implies going beyond the use of the given and forcing the elements. The example and symbol of this is navigation: with the single rudder, known in ancient China but little used and on the other hand developed and perfected in 13th-14th century Europe, ships can much better and faster chart their course across the oceans. The use of gunpowder in firearms has a similar history. In just a few centuries the technological complex, which became industrial, managerial and entrepreneurial, extended its network to the whole planet. Democracy and philosophy, in their intimate connection, have been part of this extension. One could say that democracy and philosophy form a double technology of forcing the symbolic element. Where there is no sacred or natural principle or order, it is necessary to invent the law itself, that is to say, the functioning of the social assemblage as well as the foundations and/or the finality of this functioning. No democracy without a questioning of the very possibility of law, no philosophy without a practice of discussing principles and ends. Thus, we will not keep the term "demosophia": it should only be used to point out the promise that has remained fallow. Plato might seem to contradict this statement, since he is opposed to democracy. But he does so only in the name of what he thinks is the truth of the people gathered in the city. One can even say that Plato confirms the symbiosis of democracy and philosophy as the reality of a single process: that of giving meaning and consistency to the existence that is devoid of it. Existence is common — and it is for this reason that all cultures have always been provided with provisions for the maintenance and prosperity of the community. The Concourse of the Birds, folio 11r of a Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds) of Farīd ud-Dīn painted by Habiballah of Sav ca 1600, Photo credit: Metmuseum.org Democracy and philosophy are only two sides of the answer to the same perplexity: that of a human gathering that no longer has a sacred (or natural, but in fact the two merge) bond to join together. It would not be abusive to couple them to form demosophia: the art or science of discerning the people, their nature, their good. 2 Demosophia will have formed the political, legal and speculative aspect of the technological enterprise engaged in the pre-European Mediterranean. The Roman world will have been its first production, followed by Europe. There is no doubt that the technological extension was also an enterprise of domination. The question today is no longer to reveal the domination, but rather to note that the dominant force has lost the confidence that it attributed to itself and that up to a certain point everyone had recognized this. Technical power has nothing to do with an ability to make sense of existence. This is why today democracy and philosophy, considered as technologies for living together, project a poor image. Yet, demosophia was the true promise of progress and its domination: one had to achieve a renewed and fulfilled humanity, just, peaceful and capable of something other than enduring and suffering. However, we only notice this weakness within the so-called developed societies. For others, the whole relative Western well-being (food, health, leisure, domestic comfort, mobility, etc.) constitutes a model and spurs the desire. But precisely, desire is beginning to abandon developed nations. They are becoming aware of the vanity and even emptiness of a life subjected to an enormous techno-economic machine that only works for a few, which it enriches exponentially, while the others are less and less able to grasp what the machine is leading them towards. It is no longer hierarchy, it is the privilege of power that commands. However, the vast majority of humanity of our time does nothing but suffer. Some because they are visibly and cruelly deprived of the comfort of others, others because they find no strength, no breath of life in the gigantic and incomprehensible machinery that poisons their existence as much as it claims to emancipate them. 3 The promise was wrong - unless we old demosophers or demosophists have understood nothing, and a whole other humanity is being prepared, becoming part of the great machinery. And we are incapable of imagining this. It is true that there are a great number of human beings on earth to whom various forms of religion, beliefs, ritual observances furnish the necessary standards, the strengths and the breaths without which we do not exist. May the gods and spirits of each community watch over it. However, it is not easy to understand nor especially to manage the co-presence and interference of such divergent or even contradictory forms of existential resources. In fact, on the one hand the demos seems to have lost all that could give it form and consistency. On the other hand, the sophia seems to have been transferred to a general computation of algorithms. On both sides the vigour of desire – which always turns to the incalculable – gives way to the rigour of calculation. And yet, no one knows what it would be a question of calculating, if not the computational capacities themselves. Thus, we will not keep the term "demosophia": it should only be used to point out the promise that has remained fallow. The modern history of mankind, at the moment when it closes in on the history of a world both intra-connected and deprived of representation of itself, presents us with two empty forms: "people" and "thought". That is, existence and meaning. We know only one thing: the two sets are either close to disappearing into another reality –made up of populations and calculations – or to appearing in a wholy new light of which we still suspect nothing. This is why "democracy" and "philosophy" are once again the double, perhaps anachronistic, name for what can no longer be a promise but becomes an emergency. POST-SCRIPTUM It is all the less necessary to keep "demosophia" as it is essential to consider what remains after this lexico-surgery. There remains this other compound: philocracy. That is, the love of power. Now a demosophia which would be a true thought of the people, by them and for them, should above all hold in respect this philocratia which is one of the most powerful factors of human conduct. This doesn’t mean that no power is needed, but that the love of power must be controlled, channeled, instructed according to another love, that of life and speech. This is what democracy & philosophy must consider together. Yet, demosophia was the true promise of progress and its domination: one had to achieve a renewed and fulfilled humanity, just, peaceful and capable of something other than enduring and suffering. Translated by SOPHIE GALABRU Related Articles Related Article 1 Author Name Read Post Related Article 1 Related Article 1 Read Post

El problema del fin de la filosofía domina la filosofía europea desde (a partir de) Kant: Kant designa su enfoque crítico como un prolegómeno a una futura filosofía (metafísica)... Los dos finales de la filosofía SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK 17 January 2023 PHILOSOPHY Martin Heidegger; Image credit: Medium.com El problema del fin de la filosofía domina la filosofía europea desde (a partir de) Kant: Kant designa su enfoque crítico como un prolegómeno a una futura filosofía (metafísica); Fichte habla sobre una “doctrina de la ciencia” (Wissenschaftslehre) en vez de filosofía: Hegel vio su sistema no únicamente como filosofía (amor por el conocimiento) sino conocimiento en sí mismo; Marx opuso la filosofía al estudio de la vida real. Vivimos hoy día no solamente en una época en que se proclama el fin de la filosofía; vivimos en la época del doble fin de la filosofía. La posibilidad de un “cerebro conectado” es una especie de punto final a la naturalización del pensamiento humano: cuando nuestros distintos procesos del pensamiento interactúan directamente con una máquina digital, se vuelve efectivamente un objeto en la realidad. Deja de ser “nuestro” pensamiento como opuesto a una realidad externa. El fin de la filosofía en la ciencia El problema del fin de la filosofía domina la filosofía europea desde (a partir de) Kant: Kant designa su enfoque crítico como un prolegómeno a una futura filosofía (metafísica); Fichte habla sobre una “doctrina de la ciencia” (Wissenschaftslehre) en vez de filosofía: Hegel vio su sistema no únicamente como filo-sofía (amor por el conocimiento) sino conocimiento en sí mismo; Marx opuso la filosofía al estudio de la vida real; todas estas ideas hasta llegar a Heidegger cuyo lema fue “el fin de la filosofía y la tarea del pensar”. Mi primera tesis es que hay una profunda paradoja en todo esto. Es sólo con la revolución de Kant, con su idea sobre lo trascendental, que la filosofía vuelve sobre sí misma. ¿No será que a fin de cuentas la filosofía como tal empieza con Kant, con su giro trascendental? ¿No será que toda la filosofía puede ser entendida adecuadamente -no como la simple descripción de “todo el universo”, de la totalidad de los seres, sino como la descripción del horizonte dentro del cual las entidades se revelan ellas mismas hacia un ser humano finito- y sólo de manera anacrónica, a partir del punto de partida abierto por Kant? ¿No será que fue Kant quien abrió también el terreno dentro del cual Heidegger fue capaz de formular la noción de Dasein como el lugar en el que los seres aparecen dentro de un horizonte de significado históricamente determinado/destinado? (Soy consciente de que Heidegger nunca habría aceptado usar el término “trascendental” para su enfoque, en tanto que “trascendental” está para él marcado irreductiblemente por la noción de la subjetividad moderna. A pesar de esto mantengo este término porque creo que sigue siendo el más apropiado para señalar la idea de un horizonte en el que las entidades se nos presentan a nosotros). Hay por supuesto numerosas reacciones a la afirmación de que la filosofía ha muerto: en las últimas décadas encontramos esfuerzos por resucitar una ontología metafísica anterior a la de Kant. La posición del pensamiento de Deleuze es todavía ambigua: mientras Derrida es el último historicista del deconstruccionismo, ¿no despliega Deleuze en sus grandes obras (desde Diferencia y repetición ) una especie de visión global de la realidad? Y, ¿no es la “lógica de los mundos” de Badiou una especie de a priori de todas las posibles realidades? En una conversación conmigo, él caracterizó su “lógica de los mundos” como su dialéctica de la naturaleza. Después aparece Quentin Meillassoux y la “ontología orientada a los objetos” con su nueva “teoría del todo” (Graham Harman) que concibe a los humanos como uno igual entre los objetos. Si bien, en mi opinión, Harman simplemente despliega otra visión trascendental de la realidad, esta no es ciertamente su intención. En contra de estos retornos a la ontología, creo que después de Heidegger tal pensamiento ya no es posible. La distancia entre la realidad y su horizonte trascendental hace referencia a la estructura universal de cómo la realidad aparece ante nosotros: ¿qué condiciones deben cumplirse para que algo sea percibido por nosotros como realmente existente? En este sentido podemos dejar de lado la idea de que la filosofía es una visión ilegítima del universo que no tiene ningún fundamento científico; el pensamiento trascendental no especula acerca de todos los aspectos de la realidad, acerca de cómo la realidad es en sí misma; se preocupa únicamente en sí misma por cómo en la vida cotidiana aceptamos algo como realmente existente. “Trascendental” es el término técnico de los filósofos para el marco que define las coordenadas de la realidad; por ejemplo, el acercamiento trascendental nos hace estar conscientes de que, para un científico naturalista, dentro de un marco espacio-temporal, los fenómenos materiales regulados por leyes naturales existen realmente, mientras que para un premoderno tradicional, los espíritus y significados hacen parte también de la realidad y no sólo nuestras proyecciones. Un acercamiento óntico, por otro lado, está preocupado por la realidad en sí misma, por su origen y desarrollo: ¿Cómo llegó a ser el universo? ¿Tiene un inicio y un final? ¿Cuál es nuestro lugar en él? Antes del quiebre trascendental kantiano, la filosofía era una visión/noción de la totalidad de los seres: ¿cómo está estructurada toda la realidad, hay un ser supremo y cuál es el lugar de los humanos en él? Tales es usualmente nombrado el primer filósofo y su respuesta fue: el agua es la sustancia de todo -nótese que él habla de agua y no de tierra, ¡la usual réplica del mito! Como Hegel ya lo había percibido, el agua como la sustancia última no es el agua de la experiencia que vemos y sentimos -un mínimo de idealismo ya está presente aquí; el agua de Tales es una entidad “ideal”. Este corto circuito significa el gesto inaugural de la filosofía: un elemento particular representa a todos los demás. decir que “Hegel es materialista dialéctico” debe ser leído como una nueva versión de la afirmación especulativa de que “el espíritu es un hueso”: interpretada directamente, esta afirmación no tiene ningún sentido porque hay una brecha infinita entre el pensamiento de Hegel y el materialismo dialéctico. Sin embargo, el pensamiento de Hegel es precisamente pensar esta brecha. El reproche moderno que usualmente se hace a este corto circuito es que realiza un salto ilegítimo hacia la universalidad: en sus especulaciones meta-físicas, la filosofía propone una universalización sin un adecuado estudio y justificación empíricos. Solamente hoy día, con las “teorías del todo” en física, estamos acercándonos gradualmente a una respuesta científica a las “grandes” preguntas, lo cual significa el fin de la filosofía. En las últimas décadas, el progreso tecnológico en la física experimental ha abierto un nuevo terreno, impensable en el universo científico clásico, el de la “metafísica experimental”: “preguntas que anteriormente eran pensadas únicamente para el debate filosófico han sido traídas dentro de la órbita de la investigación empírica” (1) . Lo que hasta ahora era un tema de “experimentos mentales” se está volviendo paulatinamente el tema de experimentación actual en los laboratorios -el ejemplo más claro aquí es el famoso experimento de la doble rendija de Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky, en primera instancia imaginado, pero luego realizado por Alain Aspect. Las proposiciones metafísicas que han sido adecuadamente probadas son el estatus ontológico de la contingencia, la condición de localidad de la causalidad, el estatus de la realidad independiente de nuestra observación, etc. De acuerdo con esto es que, al inicio de El gran diseño , Stephen Hawking anuncia triunfantemente que “la filosofía ha muerto” (2) . Con los últimos avances en física cuántica y cosmología, la llamada metafísica experimental ha alcanzado su apogeo: las preguntas metafísicas sobre el origen del universo y otras similares, que hasta ahora eran especulaciones filosóficas, pueden ser respondidas a través de la ciencia experimental y ser probadas empíricamente. Por supuesto descubrimos que, bajo una mirada más cercana, no estamos todavía en ese punto -casi, pero todavía no. Además, sería fácil rechazar estos argumentos y demostrar la continua pertinencia de la filosofía para el mismo Hawking (sin mencionar el hecho que su propio libro no es para nada ciencia, sino más bien un problema popular vuelto generalización): Hawking se basa en una serie de presuposiciones metodológicas y ontológicas que da por sentadas. Apenas unas páginas después de la afirmación de que la filosofía ha muerto, describe su enfoque como un “realismo dependiente del modelo” basado “en la idea de que nuestros cerebros interpretan los datos de los órganos sensoriales elaborando un modelo del mundo. Cuando el modelo explica satisfactoriamente los acontecimientos tendemos a atribuirle, a él y a los elementos y conceptos que lo integran, la calidad de realidad”; sin embargo “si dos de esas teorías o modelos predicen con exactitud los mismos acontecimientos, no podemos decir que uno sea más real que el otro, y somos libres para utilizar el modelo que nos resulte más conveniente” (3) . Si hubo una posición filosófica (epistemológica), esta es una de ellas, pero en un lugar bastante vulgar. Sin mencionar el hecho consiguiente de que este “realismo dependiente del modelo” es sencillamente muy débil como para poder hacer el trabajo asignado a él por Hawking, a saber, el de establecer el marco epistemológico a partir del cual se puedan interpretar las muy conocidas paradojas de la física cuántica, la incompatibilidad de estas paradojas con la ontología de nuestro sentido común. Sin embargo, a pesar de todas estas características problemáticas, debe admitirse que la física cuántica y la cosmología tienen implicaciones filosóficas, y que ellas le hacen frente a la filosofía con un reto. Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) mit Studenten, Lithograph, Franz Kugler; Image credit: WikiMedia Commons. En este punto hay que ser absolutamente claros: estas consideraciones son, a pesar de sus imperfecciones, ciertas en un sentido simple y verdaderas; es por esto por lo que uno debería abandonar toda referencia oscurantista o espiritualista a cualquier dimensión misteriosa que eluda a la ciencia. ¿Deberíamos entonces apoyar esta consideración y abandonar la filosofía? En filosofía, la forma de resistencia predominante a la científica auto-objectivización de la humanidad que de todas maneras admite los logros de la ciencia, es la filosofía trascendental neo-kantiana (cuyo caso ejemplar hoy día es Habermas): nuestra percepción de nosotros mismos como agentes libres y responsables no es solamente una ilusión, sino más bien el a priori trascendental de todo conocimiento científico. Para Habermas, “el intento de estudiar la experiencia subjetiva de la primera persona desde el punto de vista objetivante de la tercera persona, compromete al teórico en una contradicción performativa, en tanto que la objetivación presupone la participación en un sistema de prácticas lingüísticas instaurado intersubjetivamente y cuya validez normativa condiciona la actividad cognitiva del científico”. (4) Habermas caracteriza a este terreno intersubjetivo de la validez racional como la dimensión de la “mente objetiva” que no puede ser entendido en términos de los perfiles fenomenológicos de la comunidad de las conciencias que la conforman: es el estado intrínsecamente intersubjetivo del terreno normativo el que excluye cualquier intento por responder a su operación o génesis en términos de las entidades o procesos más simples que el mismo sistema. (El término usado por Lacan para esta “mente objetiva” que es irreductible a lo Real de la pura realidad como también a lo imaginario de la experiencia de nuestro yo es, por supuesto, el gran Otro). Ni el perfilamiento fenomenológico (imaginario) ni neurobiológico (real) de los participantes pueden ser tomados como una condición constitutiva para esta social “mente objetiva”. El final de la filosofía en la historicidad trascendental Si bien Habermas y Heidegger son grandes enemigos filosóficos, ellos comparten el básico enfoque trascendental que le pone límites al naturalismo científico. Puede decirse que Heidegger lleva a la filosofía a su final al radicalizar el enfoque trascendental: él distingue de manera estricta entre realidad (entidades) y el horizonte en el que la realidad aparece -a esta distancia la llama “diferencia ontológica”. Por ejemplo, la realidad aparece ante nosotros, los modernos, diferente a los premodernos para quienes la realidad estaba llena de agentes espirituales y profundos significados -en la ciencia moderna no hay lugar para esta dimensión; “real” es únicamente lo que la ciencia puede medir y cuantificar. Recuerdo que cuando era joven se usaba en las escuelas un viejo y dogmático libro de texto marxista en filosofía en el que se caracterizaba a Heidegger como un “fenomenólogo agnóstico” -estúpido pero cierto. Heidegger es un “fenomenólogo” en el sentido en que su horizonte definitivo es el modo trascendental en que las entidades se presentan a la apariencia, y es un “agnóstico” en el sentido en que ignora el estado de las entidades antes o por fuera de su apariencia dentro de una específica y trascendental forma en que el ser se presenta. Para ponerlo de manera brutalmente simplificada, el verdadero problema en Heidegger no es el Ser, pero sí el estado de lo óntico por fuera del horizonte del Ser. (Esta es la razón por la cual algunos partidarios de la ontología orientada a objetos tienen razón al reemplazar “ontología” por “onticología”). Esto es así en tanto que al hablar de dios, Heidegger se limita a sí mismo en la forma como la divinidad aparece ante nosotros, los humanos, en las diferentes revelaciones temporales del Ser. Es en este sentido que obviamente Heidegger deplora el surgimiento del “dios de la filosofía”, la noción abstracta de causa sui: “Así suena el nombre adecuado para el Dios en la filosofía. A este Dios el hombre no puede ni orarle ni ofrecerle sacrificios. Ante la Causa sui el hombre no puede caer de rodillas por temor, ni puede ante este Dios tocar instrumentos musicales y danzar" (5) si el hombre es la única catástrofe, ¿significa que antes de la llegada de la humanidad no había catástrofe alguna, que la naturaleza estaba en un orden equilibrado que al final fue descarrilado por la hubris humana? (Por catástrofe no me refiero a desastres ónticos como asteroides chocando contra la tierra, sino más bien un trastorno mucho más radical de todas las formas de vida). De nuevo, el problema no es cuál figura de dios es más verdadera, sino más bien acerca de las diferentes apariencias en que dios se presenta en el tiempo. De manera parecida, y a pesar de su reciente respeto hacia la religión, Habermas, el gran opositor de Heidegger, insiste en que debemos adoptar una actitud agnóstica hacia las creencias religiosas -agnóstica en el sentido de dejar la pregunta abierta, es decir, no excluir la existencia de dios. (6) Vivimos hoy día no solamente en una época en que se proclama el fin de la filosofía; vivimos en la época del doble fin de la filosofía. La posibilidad de un “cerebro conectado” es una especie de punto final a la naturalización del pensamiento humano: cuando nuestros distintos procesos del pensamiento interactúan directamente con una máquina digital, se vuelve efectivamente un objeto en la realidad. Deja de ser “nuestro” pensamiento como opuesto a una realidad externa. Por otro lado, con el historicismo trascendental de hoy día, las preguntas “ingenuas” sobre la realidad son aceptadas justamente como “ingenuas”, lo cual significa que ya no pueden ofrecer un marco cognitivo general de nuestro conocimiento. Por ejemplo la noción de verdad en Foucault puede resumirse en el hecho de que la verdad/falsedad no es una propiedad directa de nuestras afirmaciones sino que, en diferentes condiciones históricas, cada discurso produce su propio efecto verdadero, es decir, implica unos criterios específicos de lo que se entiende como “verdadero”: “el problema no está en dividir entre lo que en un discurso responde a la cientificidad y a la verdad, y lo que responde a otra cosa, sino en ver históricamente cómo se producen efectos de verdad en el interior de discursos que no son en sí mismos ni verdaderos ni falsos”. (7) La ciencia define lo que es verdadero en sus propios términos: la verdad de una proposición (que debería ser formulada en términos claros, explícitos y preferiblemente formalizados) se establece a través de procedimientos experimentales que pueden ser repetidos por cualquiera. El discurso religioso actúa de manera diferente: su “verdad” es establecida a través de una serie de complejos argumentos retóricos que generan la experiencia de habitar un mundo de significados y controlado benévolamente por un poder más poderoso. Así pues, si se le fuera a preguntar a Michel Foucault una gran pregunta metafísica del tipo: ¿tenemos libre albedrío?, su respuesta habría sido algo como: esta pregunta sólo tiene significado si es puesta dentro de cierta episteme, campo del conocimiento o poder que determine bajo qué condiciones es verdadero o falso; y lo único que podemos hacer en últimas es describir esta episteme. Para Foucault esta episteme es lo que en alemán es llamado Unhintergehbares , algo detrás de lo cual no podemos alcanzar algo distinto. Un científico podría responder bruscamente: está bien, pero ¿no podría una antropología histórica describir cómo, en el curso de la evolución, diferentes formas de epistemes surgen de la tradición y circunstancias sociales concretas? ¿No ofrece el marxismo una muy convincente explicación de cómo las nuevas ideologías y ciencias surgen de una compleja totalidad social? Habermas está en lo cierto en este punto al insistir en que no podemos salir del círculo hermenéutico: una explicación evolucionista de las facultades cognitivas del ser humano presupone de antemano un determinado acercamiento epistémico frente a la realidad. El resultado es un irreducible paralelo: en un obvio e “ingenuo” punto de vista realista es claro que los humanos evolucionaron a partir de un extenso campo de la realidad; sin embargo, este círculo en el que nos incluimos en una realidad no puede cerrarse del todo en tanto que toda explicación de nuestro lugar en ella implica también cierto horizonte de significados -¿qué hacemos en este punto? Al enfoque trascendental le dio Heidegger un giro existencial: como una ontología trascendental y fenomenológica, la filosofía no se pregunta por la naturaleza de la realidad sino que analiza como ella se nos aparece en una específica constelación histórica. En la actual época de la tecno-ciencia consideramos como “realmente existente” únicamente lo que puede ser un objeto del estudio científico -todas las demás entidades son reducidas a experiencias ilusorias y subjetivas, lo que se imagina, etc. El punto de Heidegger no está en que tal punto de vista es más o menos “verdadero” que el de la premodernidad sino que, con el descubrimiento del ser que caracteriza a la modernidad, el criterio para decir que es “verdadero” o “falso” ha cambiado. No es difícil entender la paradoja de tal enfoque: mientras Heidegger es percibido como un pensador enfocado únicamente en el problema del Ser, deja fuera de toda consideración lo que entendemos por este problema desde nuestra “ingenua” y pre-trascendental posición: ¿cómo existen las cosas independiente de la manera como nos relacionamos con ellas, independiente de cómo ellas aparecen ante nosotros? Jacques Lacan; Image credit: Literary Hub ¿Es esto suficiente? Si la dimensión trascendental es el marco u horizonte irreductible a través del cual nosotros percibimos (y, en un estricto y kantiano sentido que no tiene nada que ver con una creación óntica, lo que constituye la realidad), ¿cómo podemos movernos más allá o a través de la realidad y su horizonte trascendental? ¿Hay un punto en común en que estas dos dimensiones se superpongan? La búsqueda por este punto es el gran tema del idealismo alemán: Fichte lo encontró en la auto postura del Yo absoluto, el Yo trascendental, mientras que Schelling lo encontró en la intuición intelectual en la que sujeto y objeto, actividad y pasividad, intelecto e intuición coinciden inmediatamente. Al tener en cuenta el fallo de estos intentos, nuestro punto de partida debería ser buscar tal punto en común entre realidad y su horizonte trascendental no en una especie de síntesis entre los dos sino más bien en la ruptura entre los dos. En tanto que el realismo científico es la visión hegemónica hoy día, la pregunta es: ¿puede ser entendida la dimensión trascendental en estos términos? ¿Cómo puede la dimensión trascendental surgir o explotar en lo real? La respuesta no es una reducción realista directa sino otra pregunta: ¿qué es lo que debe constitutivamente excluirse (primordialmente reprimido) de nuestra idea de realidad? En últimas, ¿qué pasaría si la dimensión trascendental es un “regreso de lo reprimido” de nuestra noción de la realidad? El hombre como catástrofe Este es, pues, nuestro callejón sin salida: tenemos dos finales de la filosofía; uno en la ciencia positiva que ocupa el campo de las viejas especulaciones metafísicas, y el otro con Heidegger quien llevó el enfoque trascendental a su conclusión radical al reducir la filosofía a la descripción de “eventos” históricos, a las formas en que el Ser se revela. Ninguno de estos dos complementa al otro, de hecho se excluyen mutuamente; sin embargo la insuficiencia inmanente de cada uno abre el espacio para el otro: la ciencia no puede cerrar el círculo y establecer en su objeto el enfoque que usa para analizarlo, pues únicamente la filosofía trascendental puede hacerlo. Por otro lado la filosofía trascendental, que se limita a sí misma al describir las distintas formas en que el Ser se revela, ignora la pregunta óntica (¿cómo son las entidades por fuera del horizonte de su apariencia?), de modo que la ciencia llena este vacío con su pretensión de entender la naturaleza de las cosas. ¿Es este paralelo la última posición de nuestro pensamiento, o puede ir más allá (incluso a través) de esto? Si bien Heidegger es el último filósofo trascendental, hay algunos pasajes misteriosos en donde se aventura en este terreno pre-trascendental. En la formulación de la noción de algo falso/ lethe / más viejo que la propia dimensión de lo verdadero, Heidegger enfatiza en cómo, cuando el hombre entra en el descubrimiento de la verdad, es “una transformación del ser-del-hombre en sentido de un desplazamiento [ Ver-rückung /volverse loco] de su posición en el ente” (8) . El desplazamiento al que se refiere Heidegger no es por supuesto ninguna categoría psicológica o clínica de la locura: hace referencia a una inversión/aberración ontológica mucho más radical, que se presenta cuando el universo mismo está “fuera de sus goznes”, descarrilado. Es importante tener en cuenta que Heidegger escribió estas líneas en los años en que se encontraba en una lectura intensa del Tratado sobre la esencia de la libertad humana de Schelling, un texto que se preocupa por el origen de la Maldad justamente como una especie de locura ontológica. En el “desplazamiento” de la posición del hombre entre los seres (su autocentramiento) como un paso intermedio (“mediador que se desvanece”) de la “naturaleza prehumana” a nuestro universo simbólico: “el hombre, en su misma esencia, es una catástrofe -un revés que lo aleja de su esencia genuina. En medio de los seres, el hombre es la única catástrofe” (9) Si bien Habermas y Heidegger son grandes enemigos filosóficos, ellos comparten el básico enfoque trascendental que le pone límites al naturalismo científico. Puede decirse que Heidegger lleva a la filosofía a su final al radicalizar el enfoque trascendental: él distingue de manera estricta entre realidad (entidades) y el horizonte en el que la realidad aparece -a esta distancia la llama “diferencia ontológica”. En este punto en el que en cierto sentido todo ha sido decidido, hay que dar sin embargo un paso más adelante en relación con la formulación de Heidegger –“un desplazamiento de su posición en el ente”-; un paso ya indicado por el mismo Heidegger en otras formulaciones. Puede aparecer claro lo que Heidegger quiere con la formulación citada: el hombre (uso el término en masculino pues es la forma como es usada en Heidegger) como Da-Sein (el “ser-ahí” del Ser, el lugar en que se desenvuelve el Ser) es una entidad fundamentada sobre todo en su cuerpo. Con un poco de exageración retórica, puede decirse que la idea de Heidegger de que no hay “Ser sin un Ser-ahí como el lugar de su desenvolvimiento” es su versión de la idea de Hegel de que “debe entenderse el Absoluto no sólo como substancia sino también como sujeto”. Sin embargo, si el desenvolvimiento de todo un terreno de entidades está enraizado en una única entidad, entonces es porque algo “desquiciado” está sucediendo: una entidad particular es el sitio exclusivo bajo el cual todas las entidades aparecen, adquieren su Ser -entonces, para ponerlo en términos crudos, si tú matas a alguien, al mismo tiempo estás “matando al Ser”. Este corto circuito entre el “claro del Ser” y una entidad particular introduce un desenvolvimiento catastrófico dentro del orden de los seres: esto es así porque el hombre, al estar fundamentado en su cuerpo y al no poder mirar a las entidades desde afuera, hace que cada desenvolvimiento del Ser, cada claridad, deba estar basado en lo falso (ocultamiento/encubrimiento). La causa última para la distorsión que le pertenece al Da-Sein está en el hecho de que el dasein, por definición, se encarna en algo. Hacia el final de su vida Heidegger aceptó que el problema más difícil para la filosofía es el fenómeno del cuerpo: lo corporal en el hombre no es algo animal. “Las formas de comprensión que tienen que ver con ello son algo que la metafísica no ha tocado hasta ahora”. (10) Puede uno arriesgarse en la hipótesis de que es precisamente la teoría psicoanalítica la primera en abordar esta pregunta tan importante: ¿no es el cuerpo erotizado de Freud, basado en la libido y organizado alrededor de zonas erógenas precisamente un cuerpo sin características animales, fuera de lo biológico? ¿No es ESTE (y no el animal) cuerpo el objeto propio del psicoanálisis? En este punto Heidegger se equivoca cuando en sus Seminarios de Zollikon desestima a Freud como un determinista causal: “Él postula también para los fenómenos humanos conscientes la integridad en la explicabilidad, esto es, la continuidad de nexos causales. Ya que «en la conciencia» no hay tal, tiene que inventar «lo inconsciente», donde tiene que haber la integridad de nexos causales”. (11) Esta interpretación parece ser correcta: ¿no será que Freud intenta descubrir un orden causal en lo que a nuestra consciencia se nos aparece como una serie confusa y contingente de hechos mentales (lapsus del lenguaje, los sueños, los síntomas clínicos) y en este sentido, cerrar el círculo de los enlaces causales que gobiernan nuestra psique? Sin embargo Heidegger no comprende cómo el “inconsciente” en Freud se fundamenta en el encuentro traumático con el Otro, cuya intrusión, precisamente, quiebra, interrumpe, la continuidad del nexo causal. Lo que está en el “inconsciente” no es un enlace causal completo, ininterrumpido, sino más bien las repercusiones, las consecuencias de las interrupciones traumáticas. Lo que Freud llama “síntomas” son las formas de lidiar con una herida traumática; mientras que la fantasía es la formación destinada a cubrir esta herida. Esta es la razón por la que para Heidegger, a priori, un ser humano finito no puede alcanzar la paz interior y la calma de la ilustración budista (nirvana). El mundo se nos revela en contra del fondo de una catástrofe ontológica: “el hombre es la única catástrofe entre los seres”. En este punto debemos arriesgar a dar un paso más adelante: si el hombre es la única catástrofe, ¿significa que antes de la llegada de la humanidad no había catástrofe alguna, que la naturaleza estaba en un orden equilibrado que al final fue descarrilado por la hubris humana? (Por catástrofe no me refiero a desastres ónticos como asteroides chocando contra la tierra, sino más bien un trastorno mucho más radical de todas las formas de vida). El problema es que si el hombre es la única catástrofe entre los seres, y si estos seres se revelan únicamente ante nosotros los seres humanos, entonces el espacio para los seres sin ninguna catástrofe que rodean a los humanos es algo ontológicamente fundamentado en el surgimiento del hombre como catástrofe. Más allá del trascendental Nos enfrentamos a la siguiente pregunta: ¿es una excepción que el ser humano sea una catástrofe entre los seres, a tal punto que si asumimos la imposible posición de ver al universo desde una distancia segura veríamos una universal textura de seres que no está trastornada por ninguna catástrofe (todo esto en tanto que el ser humano es una catástrofe únicamente desde su posición, como la excepción que permite el acceso a los demás seres)? En este sentido volvemos a Kant: la realidad “en sí misma”, por fuera del Claro en el que aparece ante nosotros, no puede ser conocida, y sólo podemos especular sobre ella en la misma forma que lo hace Heidegger cuando juega con la idea de que existe una especie de dolor ontológico en la naturaleza. ¿O debemos tomarnos esta especulación de Heidegger seriamente, de modo que la catástrofe no se encuentra únicamente en el hombre sino también en la naturaleza en sí misma, de modo que al concebir al hombre como el ser del habla, la catástrofe que fundamenta la realidad en sí misma se vuelve palabra? (La física cuántica ofrece su propia versión de la catástrofe que fundamenta la realidad: la ruptura de la simetría, la perturbación de las oscilaciones cuánticas vacías; las especulaciones teosóficas nos dan otra versión: la auto-división o Caída de la Divinidad por sí misma que da nacimiento a nuestro mundo). La distancia entre la realidad y su horizonte trascendental hace referencia a la estructura universal de cómo la realidad aparece ante nosotros: ¿qué condiciones deben cumplirse para que algo sea percibido por nosotros como realmente existente? En un debate con un estudiante de teología, Richard Dawkins (12) dijo que se toma muy en serio lo que los departamentos de teología hacen cuando investigan los orígenes históricos de una religión y su desarrollo -encontrando aquí un sólido estudio antropológico-; sin embargo no lo hace cuando, por ejemplo, los teólogos debaten acerca de la naturaleza exacta de la transubstanciación en un ritual cristiano (el milagroso cambio en el que, según el dogma de los católicos romanos y la ortodoxia oriental, los elementos de la eucaristía en el momento de su consagración se vuelven cuerpo y sangre de Cristo al mantener la apariencia del pan y el vino). Pienso que por el contrario tales debates deben ser tomados muy en serio y no reducirse a meras metáforas. Ellos permiten comprender no sólo las premisas ontológicas básicas de la teología, sino que también pueden ser usadas para arrojar luz sobre algunas nociones marxistas. Fredric Jameson estaba en lo cierto cuando proclamó a la predestinación como el concepto teológico más interesante para el marxismo: la predestinación muestra la causalidad retroactiva que caracteriza propiamente a un proceso histórico dialéctico. De modo análogo, no debemos ser temerosos de buscar las pistas del enfoque meta-trascendental (materialismo dialéctico) en las especulaciones teosóficas de Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme o de F.W.J Schelling. Si adherimos a esta opción, habría que indicar la única conclusión que se muestra como consecuente: cada imagen o construcción de la “realidad objetiva”, del modo en que ella es en sí misma, “independientemente de nosotros”, es una de las tantas formas en que el ser es revelado ante nosotros. Es ya de cierta manera una aparición “antropocéntrica”, fundamentada en -y al mismo tiempo tergiversando- la catástrofe que nos constituye. Quienes se presentan como los candidatos más importantes para decir con mayor certeza cómo es la realidad “en sí misma” son las fórmulas de la teoría de la relatividad y la física cuántica, que son el resultado de un complejo trabajo experimental e intelectual para el cual nada corresponde en nuestra directa experiencia de la realidad… El único “contacto” que tenemos con lo Real “independiente de nosotros” es nuestra separación con él, la locura radical, aquello que Heidegger llama catástrofe. La paradoja es que lo que une con lo Real “en sí mismo” es la brecha que experimentamos al estar separados de él. (Lo mismo aplica para el cristianismo en donde la única forma de tener una experiencia de unidad con Dios es la identificación que se tiene con el sufrimiento de Cristo en la cruz, es decir, el momento en el que dios es separado de sí mismo). Este movimiento en que se experimenta la brecha misma como el momento de unidad es el aspecto básico de la dialéctica en Hegel -esta es la razón por la cual el espacio que le asignamos al espacio que supera al pensamiento de Heidegger, que hemos denominado como el espacio más allá de lo trascendental, le pertenece al pensamiento de Hegel- Este es también el lugar del pensamiento que no puede ser reducido a la ciencia. Esta es la ambigua formulación de Heidegger acerca de este oscuro punto: “A menudo me pregunto, inclusive se ha vuelto para mí una gran pregunta, qué sería la naturaleza sin el hombre: ¿acaso no hace falta que se una a sus meandros a fin de desembocar en su potencia propia reconquistada?” (13) Este pasaje fue escrito inmediatamente después de las lecturas de Heidegger sobre Los conceptos fundamentales de la metafísica de 1929-1930. En ellas es formulada una hipótesis schellingiana según la cual los animales están quizás, de una manera hasta ahora desconocida, al tanto de su falta o “pobreza” de su relación con el mundo -quizás hay un infinito dolor que permea toda la naturaleza viviente: “si el carecer en ciertas variaciones es un sufrimiento, entonces, si la carencia de mundo y el ser pobre forman parte del ser del animal, un sufrimiento y un dolor tendrían que recorrer todo el reino animal y el reino de la vida en general”. (14) Así pues, cuando Heidegger especula sobre el dolor en la naturaleza que ha sido alejada de nosotros de manera independiente, ¿cómo es posible leer esta idea sin comprometernos con una forma de pensamiento antropocéntrica y teleológica? Fue nada más ni menos que Marx quien dio, en la introducción a los Gründrisse , una respuesta al decir que: “La sociedad burguesa es la más compleja y desarrollada organización histórica de la producción. Las categorías que expresan sus condiciones y la comprensión de su organización permiten al mismo tiempo comprender la organización y las relaciones de producción de todas las formas de sociedad pasadas, sobre cuyas ruinas y elementos ella fue edificada y cuyos vestigios, aún no superados, continúa arrastrando, a la vez que meros indicios previos han desarrollado en ella su significación plena, etc. La anatomía del hombre es una clave para la anatomía del mono. Por el contrario, los indicios de las formas superiores en las especies animales inferiores pueden ser comprendidos sólo cuando se conoce la forma superior”. (15) Al parafrasear a Pierre Bayard (16) , lo que Marx está queriendo decir es que la anatomía del mono, si bien fue formada en el tiempo antes que la del hombre, sin embargo, en cierto sentido, es un plagio por anticipado de la anatomía del hombre. No hay ninguna teleología en este punto; su efecto es estrictamente retroactivo: una vez el capitalismo está aquí (al haber surgido de manera contingente), establece una forma universal para las demás formaciones. La teleología reside precisamente en el progresismo evolucionista en el que la clave para la anatomía del hombre es la del mono. Alenka Zupančič muestra que lo mismo puede decirse de la idea de Lacan de que il n´y a pas de rapport sexual: esto no quiere decir que en la naturaleza, entre monos y otros animales hubiera una relación sexual armoniosa regulada por instinto, mientras que con la llegada del hombre la disarmonía haya explotado. No hay en efecto ninguna relación sexual entre monos y entre otros animales; sus complejos rituales de apareamiento lo demuestran. Es un simple hecho, quizás experimentado como doloroso, que la disarmonía permanece “en sí misma”, mientras que con los humanos el error es presentado como tal, “para sí mismo”. Es en este sentido que el dolor en la naturaleza apunta hace el orden simbólico que lo registra. (17) A lo largo de estas líneas puede entenderse por qué Kant pensaba que, en cierto sentido, el mundo ha sido creado de tal modo que nuestras batallas morales puedan ser peleadas en él: cuando estamos inmersos en una intensa batalla que significa todo para nosotros, experimentamos que el mundo colapsaría al fallar en la batalla; lo mismo ocurre con el temor que existe en fallar en un intenso amor. No hay ninguna teleología; el encuentro amoroso es el resultado de un encuentro contingente, es decir que pudo no haber sucedido -pero cuando sucede, decide cómo experimentamos toda la realidad. Cuando Benjamin escribió que una gran batalla revolucionaria no decide únicamente el destino del presente sino también el de todas las batallas pérdidas, hace poner en movimiento el mismo mecanismo retroactivo que alcanza su climax en la afirmación religiosa de que, en una batalla crucial, no es solamente el destino de nosotros el que se decide, sino también el de dios mismo. Es únicamente Hegel quien nos permite pensar esta paradoja. “Hegel es un materialista dialéctico” La dialéctica de Hegel no es ni una dimensión trascendental dinamizada (lo que Barndom y Pippin afirman como la sucesión de todas las formas posibles en que la realidad aparece ante nosotros) ni tampoco el proceso dialéctico “objetivo” de la realidad misma (que es tanto lo que los marxistas del “materialismo dialéctico” como los idealistas objetivos afirman). Su recurso oculto es la experiencia de una brecha irreductible que precede a las dos. En este punto es que podemos de algún modo dar claridad sobre la diferencia entre el materialismo naturalista (“mecánico”), el idealismo y el materialismo dialéctico: el materialismo “mecánico” cubre un extenso campo que va desde los materialistas antes de Platón hasta el naturalismo científico y la ontología orientada al objeto -aun así se caracterice a sí misma como “inmaterialista”). Todos ellos entienden la realidad como algo ya dado, ignorando así su constitución trascendental; el idealismo es caracterizado por el predominio del enfoque trascendental; el materialismo dialéctico aparece cuando nos movemos hacia el oscuro dominio que está más allá de lo trascendental, tal cual fue elaborado por el giro pos-kantiano de Schelling y Hegel, por algunas especulaciones teosóficas (incluyendo las de Walter Benjamin), por algunas formulaciones tentativas de Lacan, como también por lecturas especulativas de la física cuántica (18) . Para un kantiano por supuesto tales especulaciones no son más que vacías Schwärmerei, una entusiasta habladera acerca de nada, mientras que para nosotros es únicamente aquí en donde podemos tocar lo Real. ¿Por qué llamo a la posición hacia la cual todos estos distintos enfoques tienden como “materialismo dialéctico”, un término difícil de disociar de la tradición del estalinismo, un término que promueve la ideología filosófica en su forma más estúpida, una filosofía que no tiene ningún valor cognitivo sino el de justificar decisiones políticas? Esto es así puesto que lo que tengo en mente es innombrable, no hay un nombre “propio” para ello, así que la única solución es usar un concepto que muestre de la manera más clara posible su propia insuficiencia. En otras palabras, decir que “Hegel es materialista dialéctico” debe ser leído como una nueva versión de la afirmación especulativa de que “el espíritu es un hueso”: interpretada directamente, esta afirmación no tiene ningún sentido porque hay una brecha infinita entre el pensamiento de Hegel y el materialismo dialéctico. Sin embargo, el pensamiento de Hegel es precisamente pensar esta brecha. TRANSLATED BY Mauricio García NOTES 1. Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning , Durham: Duke University Press 2007, p. 25. (traducción propia). 2. Stephen Hawking. El gran diseño . España: Crítica, 2010, p. 5 3. Ibid . 4. Jürgen Habermas, “The Language Game of Responsible Agency and the Problem of Free Will: How Can Epistemic Dualism be Reconciled with Ontological Monism?,” Philosophical Explorations 10, no. 1 (March 2007), p. 31. 5. Martin Heidegger. Identidad y Diferencia, Barcelona, Anthropos, 1990 6. Jürgen Habermas. Entre naturalismo y religión . Barcelona: Paidós, 2006. 7. Michel Foucault. “Verdad y poder”. En: Un diálogo sobre el poder y otras conversaciones . España, Alianza editorial, 2000, p. 136. 8. Martin Heidegger. Contribuciones a la filosofía (Del acontecimiento) . Traducción de Breno Onetto Muñoz. Chile: RIL editores, 2002, p. 233. 9. Martin Heidegger, “Hoelderlin’s Hymne‚ Der Ister”, Gesamtausgabe 53 , Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann 1984, p.94. (traducción propia). 10. Martin Heidegger. Heráclito. Seminario del semestre de invierno 1966-1967 . Traducción de Raúl Torres Martínez. Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2017, pp. 193-194. 11. Martin Heidegger. Seminarios de Zollikon . Traducción de Ángel Xolocotzi Yáñez. Herder, 2013, p. 303. 12. Ver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHoK6ohqNo4 . 13. Martin Heidegger, Correspondance avec Elisabeth Blochmann , Gallimard, Paris, 1966. Traducción publicada en Imago Agenda. 14. Martin Heidegger. Los conceptos fundamentales de la metafísica . Traducción de Alberto Ciria. España: Alianza editorial, 2007, p. 326. 15. Karl Marx. Grundrisse . Traducción de Pedro Scaron. España, Siglo XXI editores, 2007, p. 26. 16. Para esto ver: Pierre Bayard, Le plagiat par anticipation , Paris: Editions de Minuit 2009. 17. Alenka Zupančič. ¿Qué es el sexo? España: Paradiso ediciones, 2021. 18. La posición de Fichte sobre este respecto es ambigua: incluso cuando habla del Yo absoluto al formular el No-Yo, no está queriendo decir que el Yo absoluto crea objetos como su causa directa. Lo único que es creado por el sujeto es el “misterioso” impulso que lo lleva a “poner” la realidad; este impulso es la versión de lo que Lacan llama objet a. Related Articles The Two Ends of Philosophy SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK Read Article Nancy’s Wager DIVYA DWIVEDI Read Article

Amitiés à Jean-Luc Nancy Button 11 September 2021 Button Une photo de Vers Nancy par Claire Denis. In memoriam Jean-Luc Nancy J’ai peu connu Jean-Luc Nancy personnellement, néanmoins il fait partie de mon environnement intellectuel et culturel depuis bien longtemps. Et je crois que cette phrase ne pourra jamais s’écrire au passé, malgré sa disparition. Ce en quoi sa pensée œuvre et fait œuvre. Nous nous étions croisés quelquefois, et avions des amis communs, des liens : Claire Denis, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Bernard Stiegler. Mais aussi Divya Dwivedi et Shaj Mohan. La dernière fois que j’ai entendu sa voix, vive et douce à la fois, c’était à l’occasion du colloque « Memory for the future » ( 1 ) dédié à Bernard Stiegler. Et avant cela au téléphone pour préparer le livre collectif qu’il avait coordonné et auquel j’ai eu la chance de contribuer, « Amitiés de Bernard Stiegler ». Il y avait d’ailleurs souligné l’importance de ce lien « par accident », mais qui était existant par la relation même de Bernard à chacun de nous et réciproquement. Une autre façon d’interroger la communauté, ce qui occupa et fut aussi l’expérience de Jean-Luc Nancy. Pensée et expérience vécue, philosophie et vie, cette articulation, ou sa tentative, est bien ce qui caractérise ces deux philosophes, et qui fait sens dans leur existence autant, bien entendu, que dans leur œuvre. Jean-Luc Nancy évoquait à propos de Bernard Stiegler « cette vie risquée qui s’empare des concepts », et qu’il « vivra jusqu’au bout » ( 2 ) . Elle pourrait aussi identifier la sienne, par ses expériences propres, ses accidents, sa proximité avec la mort, la capacité à en faire une expérience de pensée. « Tout sera donc venu avec le sentiment de la mort » ( 3 ) . Nancy cite Stiegler. Un tel sentiment est propre à l’homme, et porteur de mélancolie. Nancy souligne que Stiegler écrit sentiment et non conscience de la mort. « Le sentiment : sensibilité, affection, passion, notion, intuition, sens. » ( 4 ) Sentiment funeste, et expérience jamais vécue. Stiegler écrivait que « la mort n’est pas un événement de l’existence parce qu’elle en est la possibilité même » ( 5 ) . Nancy avait-il lui-même ce sentiment présent lorsqu’il écrivait à propos de son ami ? « Une fois mort je ne sentirai plus rien. Je ne serai plus là. Je ne me diffèrerai plus ou bien ma différance, d’un coup, sera infinie et ne sera donc plus mienne » ( 6 ) commentait Jean-Luc Nancy. Et encore que « commencement et fin nous sont également dérobés : ils forment notre incomplétude » ( 7 ) . Selon Stiegler, la mort, « la possibilité la plus extrême » de la vie, « constitue la temporalité originaire de l’existence » ( 8 ) et les événements de la vie s’inscrivent dans cette indétermination. Mais toujours avec ce sentiment, qui affecte ces événements, et les rend si exceptionnels. Je voulais dire à Jean-Luc Nancy à quel point je trouvais que son commentaire était juste, à quel point il ouvrait la pensée amie. J’aurais voulu dire à Bernard Stiegler à quel point sa pensée me mettait en mouvement. Je n’en ai pas pris le temps et le regrette infiniment. Amitiés post-mortem chers, Colette Tron 6 September 20 NOTES 1. Colloque « Memory for the future : thinking with Bernard Stiegler, 3 et 4 décembre 2020 : https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/2020/12/lccp-symposium-memory-for-the-future-thinking-with-bernard-stiegler 2. Amitiés de Bernard Stiegler, douze contributions réunies par Jean-Luc Nancy, Galilée, Paris, 2021 3. La technique et le temps I, La faute d’Epiméthée, Bernard Stiegler, Galilée, Paris, 1994 4. Amitiés de Bernard Stiegler, Jean-Luc Nancy, op. cit. 5. Introduction à La technique et le temps, I, II, III, Bernard Stiegler, Fayard, Paris, réédition 2018 6. Amitiés de Bernard Stiegler, Jean-Luc Nancy, op. cit. 7. Ibid. 8. Introduction à La technique et le temps, I, II, III, Bernard Stiegler, op. cit. Related Articles Related Article 1 Author Name Read Post Related Article 1 Related Article 1 Read Post

RYOSUKE KAKINAMI Ryosuke Kakinami is a philosopher based in Japan. After having studied at the University of Tokyo and the University of Paris X, he is Associate Professor at the University of Yamagata, Japan, where he teaches Philosophy, Cultural Studies and French. He has contributed in Lorna Collins and Elizabeth Rush (eds.), Making Sense: For an Effective Aesthetics (Peter Lang, 2011). Recently, he co-edited a special issue of the review Tayôtai (Manifold: for the aesthetics of whatever beings, Getsuyosha, Tokyo, vol. 2, October 2020) Kakinami is currently translating Lacoue-Labarthe & Nancy’s L’absolu Littéraire (forthcoming).

Hommage to Jean-Luc Nancy. “The unstoppable murmur of being together”: Remembering Jean-Luc Nancy MARÍA DEL ROSARIO ACOSTA LÓPEZ 6 June 2023 PHILOSOPHY JEAN-LUC NANCY Image credit: Die Welt Hommage to Jean-Luc Nancy. The story of how I met Jean-Luc for the first time is a testimony to the generosity his thinking leaves us with and the kind of community his writings will continue invoking. It was 2011 and I was an assistant professor of philosophy in Colombia. I had been reading for more or less a year Jean-Luc’s work with a group of amazing brilliant students - who I am still very close to and I still keep very much in interlocution with - after having taught a seminar on the inoperative community. Because of the times we were living in (Colombia was in the midst of a transitional justice process while also very much submerged in the longest armed conflict in the southern cone) reading Nancy’s work at the time felt both like and invitation and an open question. We felt inspired by his way of approaching the question of violence – almost without naming it; by his trust in the power of being in common and the critical importance of taking it up as a task (that “infinite task at the heart of the finite,” as he puts it), while also very much warning us of any political discourse that would invoke it as a goal; by his conception of representation behind which, we suspected, there was a connection between history and narrative that felt so timely and urgent at times when any form of testimony seemed so insufficient to make audible the stories that were finally coming out of the war. We all had so many questions and a lack of grammars to put them in words. Putting his own thinking in dialogue with our historical circumstances was an attempt to find resources to render our own lives meaningful, credible, legible – in spite of the gaps that are naturally part of the experience of reading a European author in and from Latin America. This difference, however, does not transpire in his work as irrelevant, or even less as an excluded question. Quite the contrary, the vulnerability in Jean-Luc’s work, the way he was very consistent, as a thinker, with the commitment to a radical exposure - the sharing and opening of a heart that was his and not his to claim – was the reason we kept coming back to his work once and again, in that difference, and with the intention of turning it into the possibility of the encounter. Following the advice of my very good friend Marcia Cavalcante, I wrote to Jean-Luc and told him, simply, we had so many questions for him. I explained the context briefly and sent it out as an email. His reply came right away: he was inviting us all to come to Strasbourg for a three days seminar, just us and him (he could no longer travel overseas, he explained, otherwise he would come to us). He wanted us to come and visit, to listen to our questions, and answer those he felt like he could, but mostly, as he put it, to get together, to be together in thinking. And that’s what it was, really, when we finally got to go and meet with him a couple of years later (the story of how we managed, the 13 of us, to go all the way from Colombia to Strasbourg with no funding available for this kind of traveling … that’s a story for another time). We were indeed together in thinking. We were indeed together. We gathered around his thought but ended up learning how, for him, there was no such a thing as a thought to call his own. Every time we referred to one of his works, instead of going back to what he had written, or had already thought about a subject, he literally started thinking anew… like answering for the first time a question that had never been posed to him before, as if the space opened up between us was the inauguration of a world of sense, an opportunity for its re-circulation, a new site for resonance. (1) Indeed, Jean-Luc cannot be separated from his philosophy. He practiced it and embodied it so consistently that it honestly came at first as a surprise. This ultimate trust, this ultimate bet his philosophy places on an ontology of being singular plural – at a time when the skepticism and suspicion towards anything that mentioned community was at its highest – was not just a theoretical approach, but a way of living. And this is what was most compelling for us about his thinking. This is, I think, one of the reasons why his thought has been taken up in Latin America in the way it has, and why his notion of inoperative community has become such a referent for many thinkers of the common in our continent. Because while Europe was undergoing an exhaustion of the experience of community and of the concepts that had given place to its historical realization, while European thinkers were worried about the end of democracy as they had known it and the need for an interruption of the political structures that had allowed it to become a threat to the political, in Latin America many voices (decolonial, anti-colonial, feminist and anti-racist) were raising to claim the need for a thinking of the commons , of the under-commons , of other ways of being in common that cannot be understood and cannot fit those modern, mostly white, thoroughly colonial, historically European approaches to community. Jean-Luc was a thinker that dared to insist on the need to think of the common at a time of (its) crisis. In Latin America, voices raise every day to insist on the need to think of comunidad in the context of a crisis of time itself, asking for other aesthetics, other temporalities altogether. Everyday communities are rewriting history with a claim to their right to exist, with the very resistance that only being in common can offer – as Jean-Luc wrote in The inoperative community : the restless resistance that being in common poses to the constant attempts to its destruction. Interrupting these attempts, once and again, is the “task of community;” not a goal or a project but rather the possibility of imagining (and thus bringing into existence) those worlds that live through the fissures of that over-saturated language of totality – and of the totality that is represented by that abstract concept of individuality that runs through our contemporary political and economic systems, as Nancy pointed out once and again in his work. Let me quote him in length here from that seminar in Strasbourg in 2013; because I think only the echo of his voice can do justice to the relevance and timeliness of his thinking today – and today more than ever: what happens when a speaker is interrupted or interrupts themselves? Their speech does not come to an end; it is just suspended and will go on. Or maybe when an interruption takes place something does go on, something that no longer has to do only with listening. My feeling, my relief or my craziness is to imagine that during the interruption something like a murmur goes on between all of us; the unstoppable murmur of being together (just imagine what would happen if it stopped). […] This – if nothing else – is what constitutes an absolute ground of resistance. The evidence is that, in order to shatter this resistance, hate and violence are necessary. A selfishness so great that it destroys the very ego that seeks to isolate itself is needed to break this resistance. Against this selfishness, we have the generosity of Jean-Luc’s thought. Not just his generosity, but the essential generosity his thinking claims as being at the ground of what we are: the generosity of an ear always attentive, always ready to listen to the murmur, the unstoppable murmur of being together, that reminds us of our responsibility to care for the world, and the duty to defend as our ultimate imperative the right of every being to be audible, infinitely, without end. NOTES 1. The final version of these meetings, after their transcription and a thorough process of editing in which Jean-Luc was very involved, is coming out as a book with Fordham University press. Related Articles Jean-Luc Nancy: in whose wild heart immortality sleeps homeless. DIVYA DWIVEDI Read Article The Eternity of Jean-Luc Nancy SHAJ MOHAN Read Article

Intimité et clinique : L’espace de la métamorphose Button 24 February 2022 Button de la série Shame, Penny Siopis, Afrique du Sud ; Crédit image : Mario Todeschini Compte rendu du livre La chute d’intime par Laurence Joseph, Éditions Hermann, 2021. Cet ouvrage a la puissance de la curiosité de l’auteure, curiosité telle qu’elle y est définie : « c’est l’acte de prêter attention au monde, à ses détails, à ses changements (…) la curiosité à l’autre est un moyen de prendre soin. » La chute de l’intime est un livre traversé par la clinique. Clinique de la vie qui désire, qui s’interroge et qui construit lorsque sont préservées les frontières de l’intime. Clinique du discours des patients dans ce lieu de l’intime qu’est la psychanalyse, là où se fait au plus près l’épreuve d’une différence à l’intérieur de soi. Mais aussi clinique du monde, monde démocratique menacé par la mélancolisation du discours qui s’est faite entendre dans le temps des restrictions sanitaires mises en place pour lutter contre la propagation de la Covid-19. L’écriture de Laurence Joseph est une écriture de clinicienne, celle qui ne quitte pas des yeux la société dans laquelle elle exerce et en cela, elle plaide, témoigne et manifeste. Plaidoyer pour l’intime. L'écriture épouse le fond de l’intime pour mieux lui donner corps, créer des images et partager une mythologie. Ce corps c’est celui de la fée Mélusine, figure de légende qui se métamorphose chaque samedi en femme serpent dans le secret de sa salle d’eau. Allégorie de l’intime, elle vient témoigner de la nécessité pour chacun de posséder des territoires personnels qui délimitent le champ de l’intime pour qu’une transformation puisse avoir lieu. Tant que son secret est respecté, Mélusine peut consoler, construire, apporter son écot à la cité, mais à la trahison de la parole donnée, son intimité est violée, la création cesse et des présages de mort s’ensuivent. Point d’action politique dans la cité, point de destin de bâtisseuse, sans la possibilité d’un temps de retrait pour abriter un secret, celui d’une rencontre avec la parole de l’Autre. Un dehors et un dedans inextricablement liés. À l’instar de l’ami intime dont elle déploie la fonction, Laurence Joseph refait le monde avec nous, elle le refait parce qu’elle le renomme, en appelant ainsi au transfert du lecteur. Elle aiguise notre curiosité par une écriture emprunte de fraîcheur. « Un langage nouveau suscite des idées nouvelles et des pensers nouveaux veulent une langue fraîche » disait Raymond Queneau plaidant pour une langue vivante. Cette fraîcheur permet de reprendre, d’entendre autrement, d’ouvrir d’autres horizons, une écriture plaidoyer de l’intime. Une écriture où les signifiants se libèrent, trouvent une autre destinée. C’est peut-être le très beau chapitre sur l’Autre en moi qui touche au plus près cette délicatesse-là. Ici l’intime dans des circonstances ordinaires fait l’expérience extraordinaire de l’altérité. Aborder l’essence de l’intime c’est aussi éclairer sa fragilité. Témoignage de la chute de l’intime Cette fragilité a été éprouvée dans l’ébranlement du socle de l’intime, de ses bords, lors des restrictions sanitaires qui ont rendu impossible ce retranchement dans « une chambre à soi ». Le confinement. Temps suspendu et pour certains, temps confisqué dans lequel résonne déjà ce sentiment de préjudice propre à la mélancolie. Temps mort car sans différence, sans ponctuation, sans battement entre le dehors et le dedans, par essence plus de rythme, ni pulsation. L’entendu ne pouvant être négligé, l’écriture témoigne. Elle témoigne de l’abrasement des discours, du lissage des subjectivités, de l’asthénie du désir, « d’une perte de la capacité d’aimer » , cette caractéristique psychique de la mélancolie pour Freud qui pour l’auteure fait écho à l’indifférence, à la disparition pour le goût des autres, du prochain, pouvant aller au rejet, à la ségrégation. Ce qui a été entendu, c’est que le discours totalitaire sur la Covid « a desséché les autres discours, et précisément ce langage créateur qui est celui de l’intime. C’est cela la mélancolisation du discours. » « Privés de rencontres et d’événements, ce sont les coordonnées de l’altérité qui se sont érodées » et cet effacement de l’autre a provoqué des sentiments d’abandon, de solitude, de doute et de colère. De colère car pour certains, c’est le monde lui-même qui les a abandonnés : l’état, le système de santé, la science, le savoir, « de tout ce qui faisait abri, aucun n’a tenu parole » . Ces sentiments ne sont pas nouveaux, ils ont seulement trouvé à se faire entendre à l’occasion de la pandémie. Serrant au plus près Deuil et Mélancolie, Laurence Joseph y tire le fil de « la constellation psychique de la révolte », mélancolisation précédant l’accablement mélancolique, moment où l’intime entame sa chute. Un état psychique guidé par un sentiment de trahison. Ici n’existe plus cette possibilité d’énigme qui étaye, seul règne la certitude ravageante d’un sentiment de préjudices et de remords. Victime de trahison, le sujet pré-mélancolique en vient à se détourner des principes démocratiques car il considère qu’il n’a été ni entendu ni protégé. Il se sent lésé, laissé-pour-compte. Cet état est un moment clinique hautement lié au politique alerte l’auteure, car le lien démocratique s’épuise et se teinte de négativisme, couleur mélancolique. On ne peut qu’entendre le : « À quoi bon… » et donc l’abstention. Négativisme d’une part et agressivité de l’autre. Le sujet emprunt du remords « d’avoir cru en l’objet qui était entré dans le champ du désir et qui a été retiré », a envie d’en découdre. Revenant à l’étymologie du remords, l’auteure nous fait entendre combien la mélancolie est porteuse d’insurrection car il va s’agir de « mordre en retour », il faut répondre et attaquer là où on a été blessé. Du remords découle la défiance. Défiance de l’altérité, de la parole politique trompeuse à laquelle on avait pourtant cru. Le dehors hostile et menteur, il faut s’en désaffilier. Le complotisme vient s’infiltrer dans cette crise de confiance, en proposant « une autre mythologie pour dégager l’autre de sa crédulité et le persuader des tromperies du pouvoir. » La pertinence de « la constellation psychique de la révolte » se fait entendre tout au long de ce chapitre tant ses ressorts viennent éclairer les maux de notre société qui mettent en péril le socle démocratique. Manifeste pour l’intime au regard de la démocratie Répondant tout autant aux exigences d’une recherche à laquelle la pratique de la psychanalyse engage qu’à l’intime conviction de l’auteure, l’écriture se fait moins ronde, plus incisive, elle percute. Laurence Joseph investigue ce qu’il advient du discours dans son destin collectif quand il se mélancolise. Elle questionne notamment les risques encourus par le discours si, à l’instar du moi mélancolique, il en venait à se prendre pour un objet et se retournait contre lui. « Le globish galopant rejoint par la novlangue de la Covid » ont déjà rendu fragile la parole singulière. Ainsi, d’autres discours captant le désarroi de l’abandon et la haine sourde de l’objet, pourraient advenir et se glisser dans cet intime chuté, discours portés par un Autre séducteur pervers. Cet Autre n’est pas l’interlocuteur avec lequel une métamorphose pourrait s’opérer, car cet Autre ne se laisse pas transformer par celui qui y adhère, il ne cherche que le pouvoir et la jouissance… Le vote de plus . L’intime chuté, c’est un intime qu’on a fait taire car il n’est plus entendu. Une sortie du discours. Si la parole n’éveille plus la curiosité et le désir de l’autre, le sujet ne se sent plus compté parmi les autres mais rejeté comme un déchet. C’est le sujet tout entier qui peut en venir à chuter, chuter jusqu’au trottoir si ce n’est par la fenêtre. de la série Shame, Penny Siopis, Afrique du Sud ; Crédit image : Mario Todeschini À chaque étage chuté de l’intime concorde une mutation du lien social inhérente à la mélancolisation du discours. L’immeuble est haut, la chute est longue. Nous ne pourrons ici en recenser tous les niveaux. Mentionnons cependant le passage Destruction de l’intime où l’auteure noue les élaborations de Lacan sur l’ex-time à la disparition de l’autre au long des divers confinements, rendant tout un chacun plus malléable à cette part d’ex-time en lui. Son développé est édifiant sur ce qu’il pourrait advenir de l’efficience du langage, de son lien à la vérité et par là même de notre curiosité. Pour autant, Laurence Joseph ne succombe pas à la mélancolisation du discours. La chute de l’intime en fait foi. Quand Lacan en 1967 s’adressait aux psychiatres de Saint-Anne, les alertant sur les effets de la ségrégation, il les enjoignait à une forme de curiosité en leur disant qu’ils pourraient avoir quelque chose à dire à ce sujet, « sur le sens véritable que ça a » car « savoir comment les choses se produisent ça permet très certainement de leur donner une forme différente. » Cet ouvrage relève de cette mission, il a la puissance de la curiosité de l’auteure, curiosité telle qu’elle y est définie : « c’est l’acte de prêter attention au monde, à ses détails, à ses changements (…) la curiosité à l’autre est un moyen de prendre soin. » La réponse de Laurence Joseph à la chute de l’intime est la proposition d’un espace en partage pour métamorphose(s). Related Articles Related Article 1 Author Name Read Post Related Article 1 Related Article 1 Read Post

l’indéracinable optimisme de Jean-Luc Nancy Button 23 August 2022 Button Translation of the text written by André Bernold in 2017, and read by him on the funeral of Jean-Luc Nancy. It is presented here as in the “Livret” of the funeral orations. [The indomitable courage (that's the expression, but it's the right one), his inflexible, unyielding optimism of Jean-Luc Nancy are so powerful that they make me, for a moment, reverse all perspectives: what if there were, in the end, more good than bad? What if there were everywhere, in every corner, beings as amazing as him, many more than fools and cowards? What if the exception was the rule? In front of Jean-Luc Nancy my inveterate pessimism suddenly falters, and I look at the world with entirely new eyes. Alas, I do not see him as often... as I should... Another blessing in my life. I should say more. I must say that a philosopher capable of living like this can only be the object... of a favorable prejudice... as to his philosophy. He claims no one in particular, claims nothing. He studies, calmly, examines. He is a very sick man and a true doctor of the soul, a kind of very special hakim who goes everywhere, even through the nets of death. ] [ L’indomptable courage (c’est l’expression consacrée, mais elle est juste), l’inflexible, l’indéracinable optimisme de Jean-Luc Nancy sont d’une telle puissance qu’ils me font pour un instant renverser toutes les perspectives : et s’il y avait, en définitive, plus de bons que de mauvais ? S’il y avait partout, dans tous les coins, des êtres aussi étonnants que lui, beaucoup plus que d’imbéciles et de lâches ? Si l’exception était la règle ? Devant Jean-Luc Nancy mon pessimisme invétéré soudain chancelle, et je regarde le monde avec des yeux entièrement neufs. Hélas, je ne le vois pas aussi souvent... qu’il faudrait... Encore une bénédiction dans ma vie. Je devrais le dire d’avantage. Je dois dire qu’un philosophe capable de vivre comme ça ne peut faire que l’objet... d’un préjugé favorable... quant à sa philosophie. Il ne se réclame de personne en particulier, ne revendique rien. Il étudie, posément, examine. C’est un très grand malade et c’est un vrai médecin de l’âme, une espèce de hakim très spécial qui passe partout, même au travers des filets de la mort. ] Related Articles Related Article 1 Author Name Read Post Related Article 1 Related Article 1 Read Post

Art is the Anti-End of the World Button 21 February 2021 Button Le baiser, René Magritte, circa 1951; Image credit: Charly Herscovici, Bruxelles 2011, artibune.com. Art is the anti-end of the world. It will bring us together, bridges, channels, hearts and minds, an invisible parliament where not any voice will be silenced. Not a leisure park, as the majors of the global entertainment companies try to incarcerate our sense and sensibility, but a infinite agora to reinvent a fare globalization. 黑夜给了我黑色的眼睛 我却用它寻找光明 -- ( 顾城, 一代人 ) The dark night gave me dark eyes I use it to look for the light — (GU CHENG) We are experiencing Art in a way we never did before. Our endangered times may be operating a genetic mutation on us, transforming an increasing portion of human beings as a presentable Walking Dead outfit not far away from the Robert Kirkman comic series. A morbid combination of prisoners surrounded with a digital and military wire fence, contaminated vulnerabilities accused of being the agents of the pandemic, waiting for some miraculous (and certainly expensive) remedy. Or the lonesome judge-penitents in Albert Camus’ The Fall , shouting alone in the middle of the desert. In this black hole civilization, Art may offer a path through the night. During the lockdown of spring 2020, I was obsessed about the public libraries, museums, theatres, art houses and cinemas all across the entire world. At night, while the planet was breathing and the sky having a rest from the unremitting airplane ballet, I was navigating from one museum website to another, disrespectful from every geographical and time constraint, increasingly depressed by the automatic announcement, in every language of the world: “We are closed as a precautionary measure to help contain the spread of coronavirus.” I was thinking about them, the unread books, the unseen paintings, the untouched sculptures, the unplayed concerts, locked-down in these cultural fortresses – and somehow, I was more and more convinced about the importance to unlock them, to make them free. Our own freedom depends on their freedom. Art is vulnerable. How can we help a bird with broken wings to fly again without crushing its fragile abdomen? In the meantime, the proliferation of digital meetings, social media fever, TV shows and continuous flow of news about the global situation may have transformed each one of us as simulacra , putting everything, including Art and Education, on the same level of the flat screen. The capitalism was at ease: trespassing the problem of infrastructures, denying any form of resistance to a global locked-down population, drafting its development plan to a renewed productivity based on Smart Cities, Smarts Villages, Smart Countryside – Artificial Intelligence without critical mind. In French language, the lock-down sanitary measures are called confinement . It reminds us how imperialism comes with two parallel strategies, as Franz Fanon’ Wretched of the Earth analysed it: a system of exclusion and a system of confinement, and whatever violence and repression is used is justified in the name of reason, rationality, public health. Is Art of any help to struggle against such a system? Or is it a way to make it less hurting, infinitely depicting a phenomenon, powerless, neutralized, and sanitized? Can a bird flying in its cage with invisible bars and a Windows-like blue sky above still be defined as a bird? Step by step, texts after texts, the ideas became stronger thanks to this shared experience, and finally revealed a thought not unique but common. Art was not a tradition anymore: it was a contemporary creation, encompassing each one of us. We are like Jonas (or Yunus in the Koran) in the belly of the whale. If we refuse the resurrection to come as a Biblical judgment (Matthew, 12), we have to create our own breach. Art can provide the map to the prison break. Time has come to reweave the close link between creators and citizens. Cultural spaces have to reopen, even if their activity is very reduced. It is vital to inhabit the world and that a place of culture must be a place of life above all, even if it is no longer a place of representation of the world, but only of life. It is never too late to fight against representation as an authority. I was thinking about them, the unread books, the unseen paintings, the untouched sculptures, the unplayed concerts, locked-down in these cultural fortresses – and somehow, I was more and more convinced about the importance to unlock them, to make them free. “Representations are a form of human economy, in a way, and necessary to life in society and, in a sense, between society. So I don’t think there is any way of getting away from them – they are as basic as language. What we must eliminate are systems of representation that carry with them the kind of authority which, to my mind, has been repressive because it doesn’t permit or make room for interventions on the part of those represented.” I cannot agree more with these words of Edward Said in a 1985 interview in the New York based Wedge magazine. Every part of the population, not excluding any one, should bring their own culture to this new path of Art, in a participative way. In the long-term creation as such would emerge from this pragmatic relationship with the daily lives of the citizens. When I say that the cultural spaces must open, I am not talking only about their social and educational missions, but also as public services and part of the economic life. Especially since these places are often well located, in crossroads geographies (even in rural areas - like where I live, the only living place in the village of 500 inhabitants is a public library backed by a village hall -, and suburban areas, with actors in the field who are too rarely approached by the cultural world), Art can help us map a new geography of citizenship. What is the flying bird able to see? As for creation as such, breeding ground for all innovations, we should not worry too much: when it is driven by a necessity, it always manages to find the way. The dark night gave me dark eyes I use it to look for the light — (GU CHENG) Here. In short, we have to look for the light. And don't just scratch our eyes! What is Art doing to me? The scale of this question needs to be enlarged. What is Art doing to whom? Izumi Dance Company at Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image, Angoulême, July 2020; Image credit: received. Let me share one of the most vivid experiences I ever had with art. A group of teenagers from a suburb area had worked intensely on a dance project during ten days. There were more than one language, and a large part of these young people were black with African and Comorian origins. The choreography was their common language, a new collective mother tongue without any inherited burden. They were dancing under the artistic and social guidance of one of these unknown fighters who give all they have to enhance the potentialities of children usually bound into a pessimistic pattern. The result was simply stunning, unforgettable. Watching it, on a very sweet summer night, in the middle of a crowd smiling behind the face masks, my eyes became bathed with an irrepressible emotion and then, it was all clear. Art is doing this miracle to bring people together. Do you know why? Henry Miller, in a letter to John Cowper Powys (sent from Big Sur, California, on the 17th April 1950), was writing: “Our young people seems to be ruined even before having started to create anything. The problem, I guess, being they are all waiting for the end of the world .” Art is the anti-end of the world. It will bring us together, bridges, channels, hearts and minds, an invisible parliament where not any voice will be silenced. Not a leisure park, as the majors of the global entertainment companies try to incarcerate our sense and sensibility, but a infinite agora to reinvent a fare globalization. Related Articles Related Article 1 Author Name Read Post Related Article 1 Related Article 1 Read Post

YOTA DIMITRIOU Yota Dimitriou is an art historian, curator and translator. She studied History and Philosophy of Science at Athens University, Art History at the American College of Greece and completed her MSc in Contemporary Art and Curating at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. She is currently translating a short novel while working as curatorial assistant for an Athenian contemporary art gallery.

« La solution finale » au problème Gaza-Hamas de l’Israël Button 21 November 2023 Button Les ruines de Hiroshima, 1945 ; Crédite d’image : AP Les Palestiniens sont les « Indiens » des temps modernes, dont les terres ont été volées pour construire un nouvel État, et aux fantômes desquels les États-Unis ont donné le nom de « terroristes » pour justifier leur « guerre contre le terrorisme ». Ce que les États-Unis ont fait pour la fondation du pays est reproduit par Israël au milieu du 20e siècle. Les États-Unis ne peuvent donc pas empêcher Israël d'éradiquer leurs « Indiens ». Les États-Unis, qui ont largué les bombes atomiques sur Hiroshima et Nagasaki et qui tentent depuis lors de régner sur le monde sous le couvert de la dissuasion nucléaire, n'ont d'autre choix que de permettre l'éradication de ces « peuples indigènes ». Aujourd'hui, le monde est enfin sur le point d'apprendre que l'« ère américaine » est terminée, mais les États-Unis ne l'accepteront évidemment pas. C'est justement là la raison pour laquelle le monde contemporain est en ébullition. Depuis la plus grande attaque transfrontalière du Hamas le 7 octobre, Israël a complètement bloqué la bande de Gaza sous la bannière de l'éradication du Hamas, en fermant les infrastructures de vie et en procédant à des frappes aériennes à grande échelle et à une invasion de troupes au sol. Le secrétaire général des Nations unies, M. Guterres, a déclaré que « Gaza est devenue un cimetière pour enfants », la communauté internationale a condamné la situation et des citoyens de nombreux pays ont manifesté en grand nombre. Néanmoins, le Premier ministre Netanyahou réitère la poursuite de la « guerre » et profite de l'occasion pour terminer le nettoyage de « l'organisation armée du Hamas », en déclarant que les récentes attaques du Hamas constituent la plus grande crise depuis la fondation du pays. 　 Il ne s'agit pas d'une « guerre », mais d'une extermination de groupes de réfugiés enclos. Mais il ne s'agit pas d'une « guerre ». Les Palestiniens n'ont pas d'État, en particulier dans la bande de Gaza, une colonie de réfugiés, qu'Israël gère en la fermant par un mur haut et solide en échange de la levée de l'occupation illégale. Le Hamas (Mouvement de résistance islamique) est essentiellement un quasi-gouvernement dans la région (il a remporté les élections du Conseil de l'Autorité palestinienne de 2006 face à l'OLP, mais l'Occident a refusé de reconnaître ce résultat et a été contraint de ne placer que la bande de Gaza sous son contrôle) et son aile militaire est organisée pour la résistance contre Israël. Il n'est donc pas possible de distinguer strictement le Hamas des habitants de la région (c'est la branche politique du Hamas que les médias désignent sous le nom d’« Autorité sanitaire de Gaza » dans les annonces des nombres de décès, etc.) Ainsi, l'éradication du Hamas par Israël signifierait effectivement la destruction de toute la bande de Gaza. Il ne s'agit pas d'une « guerre » d'affrontements entre États, mais seulement d'une opération d'extermination d'un groupe de réfugiés sans État. En fait, les militaires israéliens semblent le penser et, lors de discussions informelles avec des responsables militaires américains, ils ont justifié la destruction complète de Gaza en citant le largage des bombes atomiques sur Hiroshima et Nagasaki pour forcer le Japon à se rendre, en réponse à la demande de l'armée américaine de contrôler les pertes civiles. Israël envisagerait également de « déplacer de force » deux millions de réfugiés vers des camps prévus se situer dans la péninsule du Sinaï. En bref, ce serait une « solution finale au problème de Gaza et de la Palestine ». Utilisation de phosphore blanc à Gaza, octobre 2023 ; Crédite d’image : Aljazeera La « question palestinienne » est née, bien entendu, de la création de l'« État juif d'Israël », qui a exclu la population arabe. Cela a donné lieu au conflit israélo-arabe et a créé les « réfugiés palestiniens » qui existent jusqu’ aujourd'hui. Les « accords d'Oslo » de l'après-guerre froide (1993) ont constitué un tournant majeur dans cette situation. Un plan de reconnaissance mutuelle d'Israël et de la Palestine et de coexistence entre les deux États a été lancé, mais le Premier ministre israélien Yitzhak Rabin, qui avait accepté ce plan de paix, a été rapidement assassiné dans le même pays et le plan a été escamoté. Le tournant suivant a été la « guerre contre le terrorisme » lancée par les États-Unis. 　 Pourquoi les États-Unis sont-ils si sur la défensive ? Néanmoins, pourquoi les États-Unis (United States of America) continuent-ils à défendre et à soutenir Israël dans une telle mesure alors que des manifestations massives « Save Gaza, save Palestine » ont lieu dans le monde entier (même dans les pays occidentaux) ? Les médias en parlent beaucoup. De la pression exercée par la communauté juive des États-Unis, ou le fait que ce pays ait été créé pour les protéger des nazis... Pendant la guerre froide, Israël a également été une tête de pont pour l'Occident, en tant que moyen de pression contre les États arabes riches en pétrole. Mais même lorsque, comme cette fois-ci, la « guerre » d'Israël a perdu le soutien de la majorité de la communauté internationale, les États-Unis continuent de soutenir le « droit à la guerre d'autodéfense » d'Israël. Avant d'admettre qu'il s'agit là de la position diplomatique fondamentale des États-Unis, nous devons nous demander pourquoi cette prise de position ? D'une part, c'est la « guerre contre le terrorisme » qu'Israël mène et, depuis le début du XXIe siècle, les États-Unis l'ont érigée en régime mondial. L'ennemi n'est plus un État mais des « terroristes », et les « terroristes » ne sont pas des êtres humains et doivent être détruits à tout prix par les tenants de l'ordre. Le droit international régissant la guerre ne s'applique plus. Non, il n'a pas de sens. L'ennemie n'est pas un État, mais un groupe armé illégal. Ils seront traqués jusqu'au bout du monde et éliminés où qu'ils se trouvent, sur le territoire d'un autre pays ou non (mais ils ne peuvent pas bombarder à l'intérieur du pays, donc un système de surveillance sera mis en place à l'intérieur du pays). Il en va de même pour les pays qui soutiennent les « terroristes » : ainsi, l'Afghanistan et l'Irak seront détruits d'un seul coup par des bombardements intensifs. C'est la "guerre contre le terrorisme" au nom de la civilisation (qui a finalement échoué au bout de 20 ans et les États-Unis se sont retirés d'Afghanistan, mais ils ont conservé l'habitude de désigner leurs « ennemis » comme des « terroristes ». Les États-Unis les ont désignés comme terroristes, les plaçant hors de toute protection juridique, et d'autres pays ont suivi leur exemple). Lorsque le président américain George Bush l'a proposée après le 11 septembre, Israël a été le premier à l'accueillir. Le Premier ministre de l'époque, Ariel Sharon, a justifié la répression militaire de l'Intifada en déclarant : « Ce que nous avons fait, c'est précisément la guerre contre le terrorisme ». Depuis lors, le Hamas, issu d'organisations musulmanes, peut être exterminé en toute impunité en tant que « terroristes », et les habitants de Gaza, qui produisent des combattants du Hamas, peuvent être emmurés comme des « foyers de terreur » et bombardés à tout moment. Les États-Unis ne peuvent donc plus critiquer les méthodes d'Israël. 　 Les origines des états isomorphes Mais les racines des faits sont bien plus profondes. Alors qu'Israël vise à éliminer les Palestiniens de la surface de la terre au nom de la « légitime défense », l'État d'Israël est en fait exactement le même type d'État que les États-Unis d'Amérique. L'attaque et l'assassinat d'Oussama ben Laden en 2011 constituent une étape importante de la « guerre contre le terrorisme ». Le nom de code de la « cible » utilisé par l'armée américaine dans cette opération était "Geronimo". Un éminent Indien (peuple indigène) qui a résisté jusqu'au bout aux États-Unis d'Amérique (et aux Américains) a été utilisé comme nom de code pour désigner un « chef des terroristes ». Cela illustre à l'envers ce que les Indiens étaient pour les Américains d’aujourd’hui (surtout pour les dirigeants nationaux). L'« Amérique » a commencé à s'instaurer lorsque les puritains, fuyant les persécutions religieuses en Angleterre, ont traversé l'Atlantique vers un nouveau continent où ils pouvaient acquérir des terres « librement », établir des droits de propriété dans les colonies, chasser les indigènes qui n'avaient aucune notion de la propriété foncière, et étendre progressivement leurs possessions pour construire des villes. Cela a immédiatement entraîné des conflits avec les indigènes, mais les « Indiens » (comme les Européens les appelaient), qui n'étaient pas civilisés et ne possédaient ni chevaux ni fusils, ne pouvaient pas rivaliser avec eux. En outre, les colons voulaient s'approprier cette « liberté ». Ils ont donc pris leur indépendance vis-à-vis de la Grande-Bretagne et ainsi les États-Unis d'Amérique ont été créés. En moins de cent ans, ils sont devenus une puissance transcontinentale, mais dans le même temps, la population indigène a presque disparu. C'est Geronimo qui a conduit les Apaches, considérés comme « belliqueux », à résister jusqu'au bout. Les États-Unis d'Amérique ont aussi eu le problème des esclaves noirs (que la guerre de Sécession a définitivement résolu, dirait-on), mais avant cela, le pays était un pays « libre » parce qu'il avait presque anéanti la population indigène (la terre est donc devenue « free »). Et c'est parce qu'ils ont converti toute la terre et la nature en bien foncière et en marchandise que les États-Unis d'Amérique sont devenus le pays le plus riche et le plus puissant du monde à la fin du 19e siècle, et en 20 e , surtout après la chute de l'Europe lors de la Grande Guerre. Hiroshima, 6 août 1945 ; crédite d’image : penntoday.upenn.com Un monde qui n'accepte pas la suffisance des États-Unis et de l'Europe. Israël a été créé par des Juifs (sionistes) qui se sont installés en Palestine pour créer un État sur la base de l'Ancien Testament et qui, à travers marasme des deux guerres européennes, ont expulsé les Arabes qui y vivaient (fameux Nakba) et ont créé un État exclusivement juif. La guerre a éclaté entre eux et les États arabes qui s'opposaient à l’Israël, mais avec le soutien ferme des États-Unis et des pays d’Europe (qui étaient en effet responsables de la persécution historique des Juifs, maladie incurable des sociétés de la traditions chrétienne, devenue dans la modernité « antisémitisme »), l'État est devenu ce qu'il est aujourd'hui après la quatrième guerre du Moyen Orient. Cependant, les gens qui avaient vécu là (les autochtones !) ont été expulsées lors de la création d'Israël. Certains de leurs descendants résident aujourd'hui dans la « réserve » (des Indiens) appelée Gaza. En passant, on se souvient que, pour les premiers puritains, la traversée transatlantique était assimilée à un « Exode » (de l’Égypte), et les immigrants enduraient des épreuves dans l'espoir de créer un « nouvel Israël » sur la nouvelle terre, de « construire une ville sur une colline » que le monde entier pourrait admirer (épisode de J. Winthrop, premier gouvernant de la colonie Massachusetts, un élément important de l’histoire de la fondation des États-Unis d’Amérique). C'est pourquoi les États-Unis ne peuvent pas répudier Israël. Car répudier Israël reviendrait à répudier sa propre fondation. Les Palestiniens sont les « Indiens » des temps modernes, dont les terres ont été volées pour construire un nouvel État, et aux fantômes desquels les États-Unis ont donné le nom de « terroristes » pour justifier leur « guerre contre le terrorisme ». Ce que les États-Unis ont fait pour la fondation du pays est reproduit par Israël au milieu du 20e siècle. Les États-Unis ne peuvent donc pas empêcher Israël d'éradiquer leurs « Indiens ». Les États-Unis, qui ont largué les bombes atomiques sur Hiroshima et Nagasaki et qui tentent depuis lors de régner sur le monde sous le couvert de la dissuasion nucléaire, n'ont d'autre choix que de permettre l'éradication de ces « peuples indigènes ». Mais aujourd'hui, les pays qui ont l’expérience d’être colonisés par les pays occidentaux et qui ont subi leur joug depuis leur indépendance n'acceptent plus l'autojustification de la suprématie des États-Unis et de l'Europe (de l’Occident). En particulier, la Chine, l'Inde, la Turquie et d'autres pays ne s’en contentent plus et deviennent une « menace » pour les États-Unis. En Amérique latine, beaucoup de pays deviennent plus indépendants. Et aux Nations unies, une résolution appelant à la levée de 70 ans de sanctions économiques américaines contre Cuba a été adoptée à une écrasante majorité. Et la Bolivie, le pays le plus progressiste en matière de restauration des peuples « indigènes », a annoncé la rupture de relations diplomatiques avec Israël en signe de protestation contre le bombardement de Gaza. Aujourd'hui, le monde est enfin sur le point d'apprendre que l'« ère américaine » est terminée, mais les États-Unis ne l'accepteront évidemment pas. C'est justement là la raison pour laquelle le monde contemporain est en ébullition. Related Articles Related Article 1 Author Name Read Post Related Article 1 Related Article 1 Read Post

What do mainstream scientists acknowledge as original scientific contributions? In other words, what is the current épistémè in natural sciences? This essay attempts to characterize this épistémè as computational empiricism. Computational empiricism : the reigning épistémè of the sciences MAËL MONTÉVIL 30 July 2021 PHILOSOPHY SCIENCE Article PDF Le Bon sens , René Magritte, 1945. Image credit: Fotki . What do mainstream scientists acknowledge as original scientific contributions? In other words, what is the current épistémè in natural sciences? This essay attempts to characterize this épistémè as computational empiricism. Scientific works are primarily empirical, generating data and computational, to analyze them and reproduce them with models. This épistémè values primarily the investigation of specific phenomena and thus leads to the fragmentation of sciences. It also promotes attention-catching results showing limits of earlier theories. However, it consumes these theories since it does not renew them, leading more and more fields to be in a state of theory disruption. Introduction Provided that, for better and worse, the historical model of modern sciences is classical mechanics, theories, and theorization used to have a central role in mainstream sciences. Then, the decline of theoretical thinking in sciences, the object of this special issue, becomes possible only once practitioners no longer feel the need for such work — or possibly when its possibility vanishes since the lack of possibility may very well translate into a lack of perceived need. This decline requires a transformation in what is considered scientifically acceptable and what is acknowledged as scientific research. As such, we should ponder the nature of the dominant perspective of current sciences and the possibility that a new épistémè emerged. The justification of current practices lack sufficient elaboration and explicitness to shape a full-fledged doctrine and, a fortiori, a philosophy — though some of the components of these practices are highly refined. The most informal nature of the foundations of current practices seems necessary since it cannot withstand contradictions on intrinsic and extrinsic grounds — refutations have been numerous and compelling. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that it shapes both scientific institutions and everyday practice, sometimes by highly formalized procedures. In a sense, several of its key texts are polemic, such as the one of Anderson (1) . However, we think that their aim is not to take genuine theoretical stands, but to shift Overton’s window, the range of ideas, and, here, of methods that mainstream practitioners consider sensible. We should acknowledge that this window has moved considerably. There are fields, such as molecular biology, where using artificial intelligence to generate hypotheses is received as a superb idea, and, by contrast, the very notion of theoretical or conceptual work has often become inconceivable. To interpret this épistémè, let us not rush on the gaudy flags waved by some extreme authors and, instead, focus on the mainstream practice of sciences and its organization insofar as it has an epistemological dimension. To this end, we focus on some general but nevertheless precise characteristics of how current scientific work is structured intellectually. The strange philosophical amalgam structuring scientific articles In order to investigate the dominant épistémè in current sciences, let us start with the elementary unit of current scientific practice, namely the research article. We concur with Meadows when he states: The construction of an acceptable research paper reflects the agreed view of the scientific community on what constitutes science. A study of the way papers are constructed at any point in time, therefore, tells us something about the scientific community at that time. (2) In Foucauldian words, the structure of acceptable research articles provides evidence on the épistémè at a given time. The prevailing norm for the structure of scientific articles is IMRaD; that is, Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. This structure has been introduced in the 40s and 50s, depending on the disciplines. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) formalized it as a standard, and its rule is still growing. It is enforced more or less rigorously in most scientific journals, especially in biology and medicine (3) . The rationale of this norm is first to shape an article like an hourglass. The introduction goes from the general situation in a field to the specific question addressed by the article, the Methods and Results are narrow contributions, and the Discussion goes back from these results to their impact on the field of interest. In this sense, the main contribution of research articles is like a single brick added to the cathedral of scientific knowledge — especially when scientists aim for the minimal publishable unit, to further their bibliometric scores. However, since we consider that theoretical thinking requires reinterpreting empirical observations and theoretical accounts — not only in the field of interest but also in other relevant fields — this structure is deeply inimical to theoretical thinking. In other words, theorization is not about adding a brick in the edifice of a specific science; it involves rethinking its map or even its nature. Let us proceed with the Discussion of the IMRaD structure. In 1964, P. Medawar, a Nobel prize winner, called this structure fraudulent, emphasizing the artificiality of the split between Results and Discussion: The section called "results" consists of a stream of factual information in which it is considered extremely bad form to discuss the significance of the results you are getting. You have to pretend that your mind is, so to speak, a virgin receptacle, an empty vessel, for information which floods into it from the external world for no reason which you yourself have revealed. You reserve all appraisal of the scientific evidence until the "discussion" section, and in the Discussion, you adopt the ludicrous pretense of asking yourself if the information you have collected actually means anything. (4) Medawar attributes this crooked structure to an inductive view of science, especially John Stuart Mill’s. Science would move from unbiased observations to knowledge. This perspective is philosophically dated; among many shortcomings, experimenting means bringing forth a specific situation in the world, motivated by a scientific stake and, therefore, endowed with interpretation and theoretical meaning. We add that, in theoretical thinking, a central question is the scientific interpretations of what it is that we can and should observe. For example, Einstein famously stated that: This épistémè builds on induction and is a kind of empiricism. At the same time, it typically uses a computational Popperian scheme to decide whether the results are genuine or the outcome of chance alone. The contradiction between the two philosophical stances is strong. Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed (Einstein, cited in ( 5 ) ) From this perspective, with IMRaD, the meaning of, say, an observed quantity is scattered between the Methods section that describes the procedure generating this quantity, the Results section that describes the outcome of this procedure, and the Discussion that interprets the results, notably in causal terms. Even though Medawar does not discuss the Methods section much, we think its transformations in the last decades are worth discussing critically. The Methods section is often called Materials and Methods. Materials are the description of the concrete objects that scientists worked with, including the instruments of observation. Methods include sampling and transforming concrete objects, getting data from them, and analyzing these data. Let us consider the statistical component of the Methods. For example, when observing different samples in an experiment, an argument is required to assess whether a result stems from chance or is evidence of causation. To this end, the primary method is the statistical test. Statistical tests are a kind of computational version of Popper’s falsification (6) . First, tests require a null hypothesis; for example, treatment has no effects. Second, they require an alternative hypothesis, such as a decreased hospitalization rate in COVID-19 vaccines. Then, under the null hypothesis, the test estimates the probability of observing the experimental outcomes. If this probability is too low, the observations falsify the null hypothesis. Then, the latter is rejected in favor of the alternative. There are many flaws with this method. For example, the typical threshold in biology is p=0.05, that is, one chance over twenty. However, this also means that it is sufficient to redo twenty times the same experiment or variations of it to have a good chance of a positive result — this is an explanation of why it is somewhat easy to provide empirical "evidence" of ESP (Extra-Sensory Perception) (7) . Significant. Image credit: xkcd In this context, statistical tests appear as a general, almost automated way to assess whether an experiment yields “real” results or not. This automation, of course, is furthered by the use of user-friendly statistical software. The latter entails the usual dynamic of proletarianization, that is, the loss of knowledge following its transfer into the technological apparatus described by Marx and reworked by Bernard Stiegler (8) . In many cases, none of the authors of an article understand the concepts underlying these tests. As a result, tests have become rules of the experimentation and publication game and not an object of healthy controversy. Statisticians protested collectively against this situation in an unusual statement by the American Statistical Society (9, 10) ; however, this stance has no systemic consequences for now. Since statistics require a population and are about collective properties, in this mainstream methodology of experimental science, case studies do not play any role and sometimes seem inconceivable to the practitioners. Nevertheless, among many other examples, it is still crucial in biology to define new species, in medicine to show that procedures like organ transplants are possible, or in astronomy to argue that an exoplanet exists in a specific system. This point brings another aspect of the dominant épistémè into light, namely the positivist influence. Indeed, the predominant aim is finding causal patterns such as "mechanisms" or mathematical relationships. By contrast, case studies provide a very different epistemological contribution; they show that something exists and a fortiori that something is possible — which may have profound practical and theoretical ramifications. Overall, the disconnection between the Methods section and the critical examination in the Discussion is conducive to scientific writing and thinking protocolization. Experimental and analytic methods, including statistical ones, are described to be reproduced by other practitioners. In the context of the crisis in the reproducibility of experimental results (11) , this trend has gained momentum, emphasizing the transparency in the publication of the methods employed (12) . We have no qualms with an increase in transparency and in emphasizing reproducibility —especially if the same norm is applied to the scientific output of industry, for example, in the case of chemical toxicity investigations. However, we insist that protocolization can also be counterproductive since it downplays the work of objectivation, that is to say, the articulation between procedures and theoretical thinking. The choice of the quantities to observe, their robustness concerning details of the protocols are all questions that the IMRaD structure tends to marginalize. Neither the Methods nor the Results section accommodates naturally empirical or mathematical works aiming to justify the methods. Moreover, an underlying problem is widespread confusion between objectivity — an admittedly problematic notion — and automation. For example, the automatic analysis of biological images may depend on their orientation that stems from the arbitrary choice of the microscope user — it is then automatized but yields arbitrary results. Separating the methods from the Discussion contributes structurally to this confusion between objectivation and automation. Incidentally, the IMRaD structure is highly prevalent in biology and medicine; however, it is not as strong in physics, where mathematical modeling plays a central role. A brief investigation shows that in multidisciplinary journals following IMRad or some variant, physicists tend to escape this structure, mainly by merging Results and Discussion or by transgressing the rationale of IMRaD sections shamelessly, often with the welcome complicity of editors and reviewers ... or by twisting their arms. We come back to the case of modeling below. Computational empiricism is an industrialization of research activity, a paradoxical notion considering that research is about bringing new, singular insights. To accommodate this tension, the original works it acknowledges are local; by contrast with the theoretical works that have precisely a synthetic function. A key reason why this article structure dominates biomedicine is the massification and acceleration of scientific production. With a standard structure, hurried readers can find the same kind of information in the same place in all articles. In this sense, all articles have to follow the same overall rationale because scientists do not have the time to engage with specific ways to organize scientific rationality. The information paradigm is relevant to understand this situation. In information theory, the sender sends a message to the receiver; however, neither of them changes in this process. Articles following a standard structure — such as IMRaD — assume that the architecture of thinking can and should remain unchanged, and in this sense, these articles provide information about phenomena. Again, there is a gap with theoretical thinking since the latter aims precisely to change how we think about phenomena and address them scientifically. Let us now put these elements together to develop a first description of the épistémè we are discussing. This épistémè builds on induction and is a kind of empiricism. At the same time, it typically uses a computational Popperian scheme to decide whether the results are genuine or the outcome of chance alone. The contradiction between the two philosophical stances is strong. However, it may escape many practitioners due to the protocolization or even the mechanization of scientific practices as typically described in the Methods sections. Moreover, once implemented in a computer, a statistical test is no longer primarily a scientific hypothesis to refute; instead, it becomes a concrete mechanical process to trigger. In a sense, in everyday biomedical practice, computers transformed statistical tests into an empirical practice, where the device (the computer) produces a result that can be faithfully published. The IMRaD structure and the common use of statistics are not relevant to the complete scientific literature. Let us now discuss two other kinds of contributions: first, evidence-based medicine and its use of review articles, and then, mathematical modeling. Evidence-based medicine and review articles Evidence-based medicine is somewhat unique because it is genuinely a doctrine organizing medical knowledge — this statement does not imply that we concur with this doctrine. Prescriptions for original experimental research follow the IMRaD structure, and our Discussion above applies. Double-blind, randomized trials are the gold standard of the experiment, and statistical tests discriminate whether they provide conclusive evidence for or against the putative treatment. There are precise reasons for this method: in several cases, reasonable hypotheses on the benefit of drugs or procedures used to be broadly followed by medical care practitioners and were proven false by randomized trials. However, this standard also means that the organization of medical knowledge does not accommodate theoretical considerations, and therefore, the latter provides a limited contribution to medical knowledge. Evidence-based medicine distrusts of theory may come from a confusion between theory and hypothesis. A theory provides a framework to understand phenomena; notably, it specifies what causality means in a field. For example, in classical mechanics, causes are forces, i.e., what pushes an object out of the state of inertia. In molecular biology, DNA plays the role of a prime mover, and effects trickle down from it. By contrast, hypotheses discussed in medicine posit that a specific process takes place and yields a given outcome. The theoretical issue with the latter is that, even though the putative process may indeed occur and the local hypothesis may be correct, other processes can be triggered by the treatment, some of which may be detrimental, leading to more risks than benefits. Incidentally, these other processes can also be therapeutically interesting; for example, Viagra resulted from investigating a drug against heart diseases. Moreover, for methodological reasons, this doctrine implies that evidence only pertains to the effects on a given population (meaning here a collection of individuals on which the clinical trial was performed). A political shortcoming in these cases is that the population used is often rather specific; it typically corresponds to the North American or West European populations. Other populations may have frequent, relevant biological differences — not only for genetic reasons but also due to differences in their milieu and culture. Last, patient individuality and individuation are not entirely ignored by evidence-based medicine, but they are rather left entirely to practitioners’ experience: again, they cannot be the object of evidence for methodological reasons (13) . Needless to say, this perspective is also a regression with respect to Canghuilhem’s critic of health as the statistical norm and his alternative concept of health as normativity (14) . A noteworthy aspect of evidence-based medicine is that it provides a global perspective on the organization of medical knowledge targeting the practical work of healthcare practitioners. Its founders considered the massification of publications mentioned above and the need for practitioners to acquire the most recent evidence relevant for the cases encountered. To this end, evidence-based medicine institutionalized review articles. These articles synthesize the results of primary research articles to conclude on the efficacy of one protocol or another so that practitioners, who have limited time to make decisions, do not have to read numerous articles. A recent, notable trend is to perform meta-analyses, that is to say, to put the results of different trials together in order to provide a statistical conclusion — again, statistical computations are the gold standard of evidence. Review articles also raise other considerations, sometimes even conceptual or epistemological. Nevertheless, they are no genuine substitute for dedicated theoretical research. The latter also synthesize a diversity of empirical work, but under the umbrella of a new way to consider the phenomena of interest in relation to other phenomena and theoretical perspectives. The needs of medical practitioners also exist in fundamental research due to the massification and acceleration of scientific publications. Therefore, review articles are central in current sciences, and in a sense, are the locus of most synthetic works taking place in research. However, they are also in a very ambivalent position. First, journal editors typically commission reviews —and editors are not academics in many "top journals." Thus, the initiative to write and publish review articles does not come from authors and sometimes does not even come from research scientists. However, in situations where no theoretical framework pre-exists, the principles used to model a phenomenon are themselves local and typically ad hoc. In the absence of theoretical discussions, the meaning of models’ features remains shallow, and the modeling literature is rich in contradictions that are not elaborated upon and that accumulate, even in relatively narrow topics. Second, writing, publishing, and reading review articles carry a fundamental ambiguity that can be made explicit by distinguishing between analytic and synthetic judgments (or other concepts that may justify that a contribution is scientifically original). This question is raised provided that reviews do not contribute new empirical data and are not supposed to develop an entirely new perspective. Our aim, here, is not primarily to examine the nature of the reasoning taking place in these articles, like in the fundamental question of mathematics’ analytic or synthetic nature in Kant critic or the analytic stance of the Hilbert program. Instead, we aim to examine the current épistémè, and accordingly, we are interested in how the scientific community acknowledges review articles. For example, do scientists consider that review articles are primarily analytic recombinations of previously published results, or on the opposite, do they provide new insights? Institutions and singularly scientific journals provide a very clear answer to this question. Review articles are typically published in contrast to original research and explicitly exclude them. This situation does not imply that original contributions do not take place in standard review articles, such as the critical discussion of empirical results or hypotheses — editors typically require the review work to be critical. Now, a notable exception to the judgment on reviews is when statistical meta-analyses are performed. In the latter case, they may be considered original research. In other words, it seems that the computational nature of meta-analyses provides them with higher originality recognition than the critical arguments of other reviews. We consider that theoretical works have a synthetic function. Review articles have largely taken over this function. They sometimes bring up theoretical considerations; nevertheless, they are not considered original research. The main exception is when original computations are performed in meta-analyses. The case of mathematical modeling Let us now discuss mathematical modeling in mainstream scientific practice. Mathematical modeling is often considered theoretical, and this is correct, of course, when theory is understood by contrast with empirical investigations. However, here, we sharply distinguish modeling from what we call theoretical work. Theory and models are distinct in fields such as physics or evolutionary biology. Moreover, they correspond to different research activities, playing different roles. Let us now discuss these points. The notion of mathematical model carried significant epistemological weight in the 50s. For example, Hodgkin and Huxley described their mathematical work on neuron action potentials as a description and not a model (15) — the vocabulary shifted, and it is now known as the Hodgkin Huxley model. Similarly, Turing contrasted his model of morphogenesis with the imitation of intelligence by computers (16, 17) . In current practice, the notion of a model is laxer than in the previous period. It encompasses computational models, that is to say, models whose only interpretable outcomes come from computer simulations. Statistics aside, modeling is currently the most popular use of mathematics to understand natural phenomena. A central difference between models and theoretical thinking is that mathematical models are primarily local. They are concerned with a narrow, specific phenomenon, for example, the trajectories of the Earth and the Moon or the formation of action potentials by the combined action of several ionic channels in neurons. Nevertheless, models can have a variety of epistemological roles concerning theories. For example, Turing’s model of morphogenesis can be interpreted as a falsification of the notion that biological development requires something like a computer program (18) . Another example is Max Planck’s discretization of energy — the idea that energy should not be seen as continuous but as small packets. This discretization was initially a modeling effort, aiming to understand the observations of light ray emission. Max Planck later stated: ( It was) a purely formal assumption, and I really did not give it much thought except that no matter what the cost, I must bring about a positive result (19) . This daring modeling move was not theoretical by itself precisely because Max Planck did not, in his own terms, give it much thought. Nevertheless, this assumption was in profound contradiction with classical physics (classical mechanics and thermodynamics) because discreteness is not compatible with continuous deterministic change. It became the starting point of quantum mechanics, a revolutionary theoretical framework in physics that required to rethink observations, the nature of objects, determinism, and even logic. Let us also mention that mathematical contributions to theoretical thinking do not always go through models. A prominent example of this is the relationship between invariance and symmetry that Emmy Noether brought to light with her famous theorem. Beyond solving a pressing concern about energy conservation in general relativity, Noether’s theorem reinterpreted critical aspects of the structure of physics’ theories and became one of the most fundamental mathematical tools in contemporary theoretical physics (20) . Emmy Noether. Image credit: Wikimedia Now, the case of Max Planck’s discretization of energy shows that mathematical modeling requires a specific theoretical work about the integration in a broader framework to provide a genuine theoretical contribution and not just the opportunity for one. Most works on mathematical models do not contribute general theoretical considerations. Instead, they are more or less ad hoc accounts of a specific phenomenon, aiming to imitate several of its properties with precision. The contribution of the model is then narrow because it pertains only to a specific phenomenon. Thus, the contribution of these mathematical models and their publication structure follows the hourglass’s logic, as IMRaD articles, where texts go from broader considerations to a narrow contribution and finally back to a broader discussion. In this conception, like for empirical works, controversies are primarily local; they pertain to the elements and the specific formalism needed to account for the intended phenomenon. In this sense, mathematical models are primarily local. Nevertheless, they may build on established theories, such as in many physics models. For example, models of the trajectories of the Earth and the Moon build on Galilean relativity, Newton’s universal gravitation, and Newtonian mechanics. The backbone of these principles is made explicit by numerous earlier theoretical discussions and results, such as Noether theorem. Thus, these models build on earlier work theorizing numerous empirical observations and mathematical and epistemological considerations. This situation explains why an elementary change in the mathematical structure of a model, such as Max Planck’s discretization, can be the starting point of a revolution once considered a theoretical move. Thus, theoretical work confers profound scientific meaning to the properties of models. However, in situations where no theoretical framework pre-exists, the principles used to model a phenomenon are themselves local and typically ad hoc . In the absence of theoretical discussions, the meaning of models’ features remains shallow, and the modeling literature is rich in contradictions that are not elaborated upon and that accumulate, even in relatively narrow topics (21) . At the same time, the lack of interest in enriching models with theoretical meaning leads to conceiving mathematics as a tool, and the same tools tend to be used in all disciplines, a situation that the mathematician and epistemologist Nicolas Bouleau calls ℝn-isme in reference to the modelization of a system as determined by a set of observed quantities and their relations (22) . To conclude, mathematical modeling is sometimes described as theoretical work; however, its local nature differs from working on theories. Current works emphasize the computational aspect of models, their ability to fit empirical data concerning the intended phenomenon and possibly make predictions. For these local developments, practitioners tend to think that the coherence and integration with other models and theoretical frameworks are not needed; however, this belief also implies that models’ features remain superficial, and, therefore, arbitrary. Discussion Let us conclude on the way we can characterize the épistémè that predominates in current sciences. Original scientific works are primarily empirical, generating data, and computational to analyze these data and reproduce them with models In empirical works, the overarching rationale is inductive, but they also require statistical computations that use Popper-inspired tests to discriminate whether results are significant. In computational models, the ability to fit empirical data is the central criterion by contrast with theoretical consistency or significance. Computations are ambivalent, especially since the invention of computers. Computers implement mathematical models, and at the same time, computations are processes that users can trigger without mathematical knowledge. We distinguish calculus from computations. The first corresponds to mathematical transformations that are theorized with mathematical structures and from which theoretically meaningful results may be pulled out, while the second corresponds to the mechanizable execution of digital operations. This épistémè requires the input of concrete objects, empirical or computational. By contrast, it does not value theoretical interpretation and reinterpretation. Critical synthetic works are performed primarily in review articles. They are not considered original research except when new computations are performed in meta-analyses. This épistémè primarily investigates specific phenomena and its contributions are supposed to be bricks contributing to the edifice of knowledge. In other words, it shares the cumulative view of positivism. By contrast, it marginalizes theoretical works that rethink how we understand phenomena by integrating a diversity of considerations. Therefore, review articles are central in current sciences, and in a sense, are the locus of most synthetic works taking place in research. However, they are also in a very ambivalent position. On this basis, it seems reasonable to name this épistémè computational empiricism. Computational empiricism has a strong empiricist stance like logical empiricism; however, its stakes are different. Logical empiricism posits that science is about analytical (logical) or empirically verified truth. By contrast, computational empiricism focuses on empirical data and mechanized computations. It cares for numerical questions (like statistics); however, it does not attend its logoi significantly, by analytical means or otherwise. Computational empiricism is an industrialization of research activity, a paradoxical notion considering that research is about bringing new, singular insights. To accommodate this tension, the original works it acknowledges are local; by contrast with the theoretical works that have precisely a synthetic function. Accordingly, it leads to the fragmentation of research work and scientific knowledge, and it goes with an institutional fragmentation, where different laboratories address similar questions with similar means on slightly different objects. The underlying government of science expects that interesting results will emerge by probing the world in many different places without attending to scientific reflexivity. In some cases, like molecular biology or the human brain project, the underlying idea is to decompose complex objects (living beings or the brain respectively), so that each laboratory studies a few aspects of it (a molecule, a pathway or a neuronal circuit) under the assumption that the result of these studies could somehow be combined. This organization goes with a cumulative view of science, where productivism is a natural aim. In this sense, computational empiricism aims primarily to extract patterns from nature, considering that some of them may be usable. Politically, it means that theoretical controversies no longer can set a field ablaze, leading to the bifurcation of its perspective on their phenomena of interest. Thus, partition yields academic peace, even though it might very well be the peace of cemeteries. Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, J. M. W. Turner: Rain, 1844. Image credit: wikimedia. Computational empiricism logically values technological innovations highly, whether experimental or computational — especially when they have transversal applications. Similarly, the deployment of recent innovation on new objects are natural activities in this épistémè. In a somewhat perverse way, it also promotes empirical results that destabilize former theoretical frameworks because they catch attention. However, it does not promote rethinking these frameworks, leading to what may be called a theory disruption that is more or less advanced depending on the fields and is a component of the disruption diagnosed by Bernard Stiegler (23) . Computational empiricism has substantial inconsistencies in its current form. In empirical articles, one of them is the need to formalize statistical hypotheses for statistical tests. Indeed, a Popper-inspired scheme does not integrate well with an entirely inductive rationale. Opportunely, deep learning provides methods to find patterns in big data. It is then not surprising that a strong current pushes forward the idea to generate hypotheses by artificial intelligence methods (24, 25) . Kitano notably puts forward the aim for artificial intelligence to provide Nobel prize level contributions (26) . More concretely, Peterson et al. (25) use deep learning to generate "theories" of human decision making; however, we can also note that this method requires theoretical constraints to produce interpretable "theories". Computational empiricism is not a consistent doctrine, and the repressed need for theoretical insights always makes a return. Peterson et al. make very explicit their use of prior theoretical considerations; however, others argue differently on far more informal grounds (1) . Computers do not only provide automation of computations and derived tasks such as classification or optimization. They are also an efficient artificial metis as proposed and made explicit by Turing in the imitation game (16) . As such, they can be used to generate epistemological illusions, notably the illusion of scientific research without theorization. However, such an illusion would not have taken hold without an épistémè preparing the minds for it. This decline requires a transformation in what is considered scientifically acceptable and what is acknowledged as scientific research. As such, we should ponder the nature of the dominant perspective of current sciences and the possibility that a new épistémè emerged. Of course, counter forces are calling for theoretical work in various fields and with diverse epistemological and theoretical stances (27, 28, 29) . At the institutional level, the call for interdisciplinarity may be a clumsy method to promote synthetic theoretical works, even though interdisciplinarity can also regress to the division of labor that finds its home in computational empiricism. An opposite perspective would be to distinguish, for example, the principles of construction from the principles of proof in scientific knowledge (20) . Computational empiricism only values the principles of proof (empirical and computational). 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The ongoing extermination of the Palestinian people and the bombing of Lebanon should not be blamed on Israel alone. It is America that has been waging wars across the world since they dropped the atomic bombs in Japan, and the present crimes against humanity and genocide are American crimes through the instrumentalization of Israel. Palestine Lebanon Extermination Camps: Call to Arms SHAJ MOHAN 14 October 2024 PHILOSOPHY POLITICS Article PDF Equality or Nothing ; Image credit: Philosophy World Democracy . The ongoing extermination of the Palestinian people and the bombing of Lebanon should not be blamed on Israel alone. It is America that has been waging wars across the world since they dropped the atomic bombs in Japan, and the present crimes against humanity and genocide are American crimes through the instrumentalization of Israel. Appealing to international law alone is not helpful as its foundational acts were meant to prevent American officials from being punished for the great crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The relation between America and Israel remains essentially that of antisemitism and it is grounded in the “Aryan doctrine”. From the outline of this extermination campaign taking place in West Asia, its expansion into all its neighbourhoods to create lands without people can be seen. This calls for a collective preparation for their own survival by the third world countries, who should move beyond Intifada (resistance) to Inquilab (revolution). They have been offered only death — Gilles Deleuze The autumn of the people of the third worlds. And yet, this is spring, the spring of blood and burnt flesh. Gun shot, Hibiscus . Shrapnel, Dahlia . Bunker buster, Orchis italica . The little heads of children roll easy along the earth scorched by phosphorous bombs, like fruits in the orchards. Flames bloom in olive trees. A dismayed child carrying a severed arm as if it were a bouquet. A boy speaking in tongues in a trance carrying the corpse of his little sister in a sack, like dead leaves. A mother curses poetry, whimpering and pointing to the little arm sticking out from the rubble of a bombed apartment; a lone Lilly held out in a pond of concrete for those in ‘the west’. Ancient pavements—older than Europe or America—now spit stones. The revenants are all awake—those who wrote and fought before letters were read in Europe, which is not Greece; Greeks were of the ancient world of Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Palestine, and Afghanistan. The dead garrisoned in the Beqaa Valley now rise above their tombs scattered by thunderous bombs, to console and join the revenants of all the hills and the valleys—Hind Rajab (1) , Abdi Riša, Nasrallah, Shaushtatar, Kanafani, Tushratta, Shadia Abu Ghazaleh—to raise an army unlike any other that America has seen. For they know, America kills . The American slave kingdoms of the desert, too, know that their people—always hidden contained behind the veils, in prisons, and smothered by the imposed illiteracy—are aware that they are merely the slaves held by the king slaves. The servant kings in torpor and the intoxicated slave princes perhaps know this, since Netanyahu (2) showed the map made in America, that the arms (and arms) are extending towards them. The only justification to retain a kingdom is the pretence to the so called international law—that they are sovereign countries with their own people. From Palestine onwards—but also the American invasion of Lebanon in 1958, Iraq wars, Afghanistan, Syria—it is clear that America-Israel does not need to follow this norm that is slowing their advance. Brahmin, the “Pariah”, and international law The sanctity and infallibility of the Vedas, Smritis and Shastras, the iron law of caste, the heartless law of karma and the senseless law of status by birth are to the Untouchables veritable instruments of torture which Hinduism has forged against the Untouchables.— Dr. B. R. Ambedkar The extermination project that has begun in Palestine and Lebanon is making it clear to everyone in the third worlds that America is creating a new epoch, and the only epoch a country such as it can make. In this epoch, America—which has already killed directly and indirectly more people than any other country on earth—seeks lands without people , the minerals, the oil, the military fortifications which are secure as they gaze ahead into the expanses without man. The phrase “Israel has a right to defend itself” means people and countries that had come and are soon going to come under American-Israeli “interest” in Asia and Europe do not have any right other than the right to submit or the right to perish. The dead garrisoned in the Beqaa Valley now rise above their tombs scattered by thunderous bombs, to console and join the revenants of all the hills and the valleys—Hind Rajab, Abdi Riša, Nasrallah, Shaushtatar, Kanafani, Tushratta, Shadia Abu Ghazaleh—to raise an army unlike any other that America has seen. For they know, America kills. The map of America-Israel shows the path to India, after Iran. There is a barely literate government in India—long ago was the India of the cunning of Gandhi, the acuity of the polymath Ambedkar, and the historicised mastery of world politics of Nehru—which is now aiding with trolls and drones their ‘Bibi’. The Gandhian cunningness above all else was what Mossadegh—the democratically elected politician of Iran, who was overthrown in a coup by Britain and America in 1953, for being excessively and inconveniently democratic—lacked while he possessed erudition and passion for politics as the fight for freedom (3) . Israeli bombing on hospital tents for children; image credit: Haaretz. But those who are able to see all this in its aspect, and more acutely, are the Jewish intellectuals and activists of the world— “I speak here as an intellectual, a Socialist, and a Jew (among other things, since I don’t believe in exclusive identities)” (4) . They assert what many ‘western’ countries are afraid to admit—it is America’s extermination feast through the arm of Israel and the vilest instrumentalization of the Jewish people and their historic suffering (5) . They are not confused by the conversations about international law; they know that such things are applied after the deaths and the spoils are found sufficiently filling by the victors. The most brave Francesca Albanese ( as Norman Finkelstein and others have remarked, opposing ‘them’ invites death ), UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, often speaks of international law as though it were a well determined logical fact. However, the language of Albanese conveys the horrific values underlying this ‘international law’—“I think it is unavoidable for Israel to become a pariah in the face of its continuous, relentless, vilifying assault of the United Nations, on top of millions of Palestinians.” (6) In Albanese’s case, this expression—“pariah state”—is innocent as it is the adoption of a common place that was used for many other states in the past. The Tamil language term “Pariah” was adopted by the colonial powers using a racialisation schema created in imitation of the “Aryan doctrine” of the Brahmins of India. This doctrine is the auto-constitution of being a special people, “Arya”, who must raid, pillage, denigrate and dominate all other peoples it encounters in its path of expansion of territories; it is the exercising of a theologically given right, a pact with the gods, who receives sacrifices offered by none other than Brahmins. It quickly moved along a hypophysical—the conception of the nature of a thing as its value itself—axis into Europe along with the “Aryan doctrine” (7) , and thus began the path towards the concentration camps. That is, ‘the west’ is the euphemism for the continuing white imperialism and its military alliance derivative of the “Aryan doctrine”. The other path to auto-constitution of the ‘west’ is the appropriation of the intellectual history of the Greeks, who did not know themselves as Greeks. The Greek schema of relations with other peoples—racist by today’s norms—sought relations only with their south east. In other words, the so called Greeks exchanged philosophies, loves, astronomy, myths and wars only with what was to their east—Lebanon, Egypt, India, Iran, Afghanistan and so on. Now, the “pariah” or “paraiyar” travelled to Europe and found a place in Victor Hugo’s literature. Of its theoretical uses, Weber’s was, perhaps, the most influential followed by Arendt’s well known text “The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition” (8) . For Arendt, Jewish people were the ones “to weave the strands of their Jewish genius into the general texture of European life” and with the “vision” of how “Jewish creative genius could grow and contribute its products to the general spiritual life of the Western world”. Instead, the political and social life of Jewish people came to range between that of the parvenu and “pariah”, without these two ever being offered as a choice, since the Jewish people were never given equality and acceptance among the highest of ‘the west’, which was by then conceived and configured in the analogy of the “Aryan doctrine”. The terms “pariah” and “parvenu” circulated between the two poles of the same desire, being denied by this very image of the “Aryan doctrine”— “The parvenu who fears lest he become a pariah, and the pariah who aspires to become a parvenu, are brothers under the skin and appropriately aware of their kinship”. Arendt’s understanding of the term “pariah” is further revealed when she speaks of “pariahs, calmly enjoying the freedom and untouchability of outcasts”. The first lesson to learn here is that Arendt uses the “Aryan doctrine”, the doctrine made by the ‘highest’ for the ‘highest’ (“Arya”), to conceive the crisis of sense in Jewish political life by adopting the name of the lowest of castes— the political category is today Dalit —the “pariah”, whose very sight is polluting according to this doctrine. That is, the sense of Jewish political being is conceived still in the terms of ‘the west’, and an ambition is set for the “Jewish genius” to reach the height of the “Aryan genius”. The second lesson points towards the very meaning of “pariah state” and also towards the discourse of international law as still entwined in the “Aryan doctrine”. For Arendt, “the despised pariah Jew, dismissed by contemporary society as a nobody, could at least share in the glories of the past”. The “pariah” or “Paraiyar” of India have no “glories of the past”, wealth, or the possibility of ever being “parvenu”, nor are they given the freedom even today to walk the streets and pursue their studies. They are killed routinely. Instead of relishing in the “Aryan” model of “creative genius” and the Jewish possibility of “enjoying freedom and untouchability”, the Paraiyar of India have always lived through the tremours of the image of imminent death, like the Palestinian people now. That the Americans were not hung in Japan is the real foundation of the sham we call international law. It is impossible that in this deft interpretation of Jewish political being Arendt did not know the meaning of the term she was deploying, for she was a scholar. Or else, she may have adopted it with the same levity with which the ‘west’ appropriated the “pariah”. As Aarushi Punia wrote in Philosophy World Democracy , “Ultimately, the outcaste whose fate Arendt was concerned with was the Jew and not the Pariah or the Indian untouchable” (9) . We must mark here—This use of “pariah” is objectionable . Hassan Nasrallah; Image credit: CNN. The discourse of international law continues to deploy “pariah” without the “Arya” because we know who the “Arya” are; that is, those who have the power to kill anyone today, anywhere, make and unmake laws, kneading mass deaths with bloody hands, and pretend to a certain “nobility”—the quality of knowing or wanting to know—while in reality remaining ἰδιώτης or idiots in all their senses. Instead of determining the meaning of politics and law through the equivalent terms—including (but not exhausted by) “terrorist”, “immigrant”, “extremist”—the future awaits a different discourse of law, and the life of the earth, which can only be realised once America comes to stop exterminating brown and black people and totally withdraw from their lands. Law and force I did not move a muscle when I first heard that the atom bomb had wiped out Hiroshima — M. K. Gandhi The actuality of law is the ritual spear in the hands of the one who already has several for war in his chariot. America is the very law of this lawlessness. America and its ‘west’ have been preparing the oppressed people of Palestine, Lebanon, West Asia in general, and Africa for their death. They are told they must not raise armies against their exterminators. They can resist, a little, but ‘non-violently’; that is, they must commit to their own death as a political destiny for the greater good—the good of the ‘west’. We have found previously, in the context of M. K. Gandhi and India, that the concept of violence (and non-violence) is not jurisprudential. Instead, “violence” is derived from the hypophysics of forces—that is, identifying a value with a particular scale of force. A force effects a change in the regularity of something else; or it helps to constitute a new regularity altogether. Force is inseparable from the regularities and irregularities which are themselves components (στοιχεῖον) in a complex of relations. For example, the rockets sent by Hezbollah into the empty fields in Israel and the drones sent by Israel to kill Palestinian children are components in relation with the componential regularities of exchanges and gifts from other countries; the trade in illicit commodities; networks of corruption which is the very foundation of capitalism; and, theological sanctions which are often used to override morality. That is, guns are never given in a mere exchange for the oblations to gods. In hypophysics—which permeates our understanding of force, resistance, and war—certain forces are conceived as good in themselves; for Gandhi, death is the height of good force as it does not effect any changes in something else. Each death is the disappearance of a singular epoch of exchanges of regularities and irregularities. The passivity of the passive resister of Gandhi is this readiness for absolute passivity—the purest non-violence. Unlike the middle class ‘western’ intellectuals and academics who would like the people of Middle East to resist or just die passively adhering to Gandhi, while the ‘west’ retained the force and right to exterminate everyone else, Gandhi himself had other plans. The ‘western’ moral stance is the denial of power to act and to wage war, and this intellectualised and aestheticized slaughter of the will to live is evil. Without this aestheticized moral stance of non-violence and the theatrical appeals “to all parties to stop”, no extermination campaign or its encampments can proceed. Gandhi’s passive resistance was not an instrument in a particular encounter attuned to the ends that were in sight—expelling England from India. Rather, Gandhi was not hypocritical. He wanted the whole of humanity to be passive resisters, in such a way that humanity itself surrenders to death and leaves the earth a field of ruins of man; or, adaptable conditions for animals who may not have the concern for ruins. And in these nights darkened by blood flowing over the eyes and lit like a thousand suns by bombs in many a third world country we should begin another practice. Before we put the children to sleep, we must warn them—America kills. Force must be thought again and again for each occasion without hypophysical seizures of it. Here, in the face of the American-British-Israeli ecstasies at extermination we should recall that we have duty to not be killed—the very first duty towards what is called humanity. When we know that we, the third world, are going to be faced with more and more extermination wars, we should assume that sufficient force is not being cumulated and its distribution and actualisation are not efficient for preventing our own exterminations. We, the third world, alone can prevent, and have any interest in preventing, the exterminations in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Congo, Iran, Myanmar, Yemen and so on . And then eventually Saudi Arabia, Egypt , and so on . Amidst the chaos of suffering and desperation one can see several who appeal to the wisdoms and kindness of China and Russia. This is foolish. All powerful nations await these new conditions—the exterminations— to prevail in order to take their own share. It is in their interest to see to it that America spells out the law of lawlessness, and then to partition the lands without people with America. The destruction of Gaza, Palestine; Image credit: CNN. But this is not a recent realisation for the world, that there is no such thing as international law. In the International Military Tribunal for the Far East or the Tokyo trials (1946 - 48), an Indian judge named Radhabinod Pal gave a dissenting judgment where he called the jurisprudential grounds and the death sentences derived from it a “sham”. I f universal legal principles were applied then Americans from Roosevelt and Truman to the generals and the pilots who dropped the bombs should have been hung . Instead, criteria for crimes and their corresponding laws were selected—much like how America selects political leaders in most countries of the world—to avoid being punished for American crimes that were on par with the Nazis (but also of another order), and the crimes they intended to carry out in future. That the Americans were not hung in Japan is the real foundation of the sham we call international law . Justice Pal wrote in his judgment, which should be quoted at length, I might mention here in passing that like the Western people the Japanese also were mostly worshippers of "a god of the chosen people". I am not sure if the fear which the white world was entertaining from this rising racial feeling in the East might not be ascribable to what Professor Toynbee refers to as the third of the elements in "the situation which go far towards accounting for the strength and virulence of Western race-feeling in our time”. The atom bomb, we are told, has destroyed all selfish racial feelings and has awakened within us the sense of unity of mankind. It may, indeed, be that the atom blasts at the close of the Second World War really succeeded in blowing away all the pre-war humbugs; or it may be that we are only dreaming (10) . We were never “only dreaming” but we refused to act against America the same way we let Nazi Germany flourish to the point of extermination camps. Hiroshima is in Gaza, “In Gaza, bleeding children are being held [by their parents]. It’s like in Japan 80 years ago” (11) . We always knew this in the third worlds. And in these nights darkened by blood flowing over the eyes and lit like a thousand suns by bombs in many a third world country we should begin another practice. Before we put the children to sleep, we must warn them— America kills . The Anglo-Saxon “Aryan Doctrine” and the Place of Jewish People in It The grandson of a victim of the gas chambers myself, I find it unbearable that the memory of the Holocaust is instrumentalized to justify colonization, apartheid, oppression, extermination, in the name of the defense of the ”Jewish People”. — Étienne Balibar What ties Hiroshima to Gaza is not Israel, it is America. However, it is also the desire—in the sense of that image which draws the faculty of will—which seeks to be identified with, or to seek recognition within the “Aryan doctrine” that continues to offer Israel up to America. The tragedy of Jewish people—identified by Arendt without her being able to think beyond it, as a non-choice between either the “pariah” or the parvenu to the “Aryan doctrine”—is evident in the statements made by Netanyahu, his cabinet of ministers, and other politicians in Israel. They have been appealing woefully to the image of ‘the west’ equating it with “civilisation” (there has never been an American civilisation in any sense of this term), and all this series remains determined by the “Aryan doctrine”. How else do we explain these statements of Israeli politicians? A) "The entire Gaza Strip should be emptied and levelled flat, just like in Auschwitz." — David Azoulay, the head of the local council of the town of Metula (12) B) 'As Hitler said,' Moshe Feiglin said to Channel 12 news, 'I can't live if one Jew is left,' we can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza' — Moshe Feiglin, Former Israeli MK (13) C) “Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here.' 'So what should I do with them?' he asked. He said, 'Burn them.'” — Benjamin Netanyahu (14) A British soldier patrols the Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq, 1 February 2005. BP was awarded the contract to be lead operator of the field four years later; Image credit: BBC. While today many scorn at the statements of the politicians of Israel as being “lumpen”, they remain continuous with the desire for recognition in the “Arya doctrine” expressed by “bourgeois” intellectuals and politicians in the past in terms of JewGreek, GreekJew, Judaeo-Christian . It is too late now to think in particular about Israel, as it will forever be the apartheid state that conducted the heinous crimes against humanity, raped its prisoners, assassinated children with headshots, for the genocide, and for the extermination campaigns. But the danger created and managed by America and Britain (one only has to locate in which countries British Petroleum operates to its role in the miseries of the people) to the Jewish people is rising. Oppressed people of the world unite! We have nothing but our lives to lose. We have a world to make. As Tanya Reinhart wrote, “Israel’s birth was in sin […] during the war of 1948, 730,000, more than half of the Palestinian population […] were driven off their homeland by the Israeli army”. (15) But attributing this constitutive sin to the Zionists alone is to foreclose the possibility of any peace. The first sin was British, and through the malice of division Britain created sectarianisms and conflicts in its former colonies for future exploitations. In West Asia including Iran, British greed for oil remains one of the primary causes of all miseries. Even before the Second World War Britain, and for a while France, had instrumentalised the suffering of Jewish people in order to create a base and a right—the right to prevent antisemitism—in West Asia, and to prevent any political unions of consequences appearing in the former Ottoman states. America took over the instrumentalization of antisemitism and the right to administer the fear among Jewish people of another Shoah in the future through its aiding and controlling of the Zionist state. Even today Netanyahu must appeal to and affirm the American patriarchs— “With American support and leadership, I believe this vision can materialize much sooner than people think“—in contrast to the image of his defiance of Biden in the American propaganda to protect American image, in case the war games go out of control. Of course, Netanyahu cannot be exonerated in any court that recognises that justice contradicts “ American interest ” in genocide and war crimes. But such a court must try the present American British administrations as well. It is not impossible. It is this situation that gives the Jewish people a choice only within the “Aryan doctrine” or the image of ‘the west’ that is anti-Semitic. It is the very instrumentalisation of the Shoah, which was preceded by centuries of pogroms, and of Zionism for Anglo-Saxon oil profits that is today the worst of anti-Semitisms. It is in this sense that we have to understand Jake Romm’s statement that, “Zionism is an antisemitism, first and foremost, because it internalizes and recapitulates the very same European antisemitism that sought the extermination of the Jews in the Shoah”. (16) The future of Israel is invisible to it; it is the same affliction given to all those who cross the limits of Primo Levi’s argument if this is man . Those who witness the impossible— impossible, if this is man —committed by their own hands receive the cataract in their eyes, and from thereon they live beneath (κατάθεμα) and under its weight. All American soldiers carried the cataract from the Asian deserts and mountains to their homes: America is already a country living beneath (κατάθεμα) this cataract. If the Jewish people and the Palestinians seek to form a new country today, under a new model, it will threaten the oil super wealth of America and Britain. For that reason, America will continue to prohibit the appearance of the political conditions in Israel through which a democracy—where Arabs, Jews, Palestinians and Christians will be able to live in their own shared indestinacy—can be realised. Such a project will be opposed in the same way that America successfully opposed Socialist parties in Europe, India, and Iran since the 1950s; and, in recent years the destruction of politics itself in Britain. The American taboo in politics—no real democracy anywhere—is as distinct an experience as any other taboo. Today, America determines the political course of nearly all the countries of Europe, with the European Union becoming indistinguishable from the bureaucracy of NATO. Can you imagine Corbyn a British prime minister, or Melenchon a French president? Resistance Intifada , Revolution Inquilab We hear incessant roar of heavy gunfire. We see grenades exploding. I am in a very good mood. — Ludwig Wittgenstein, 9 October 1914 Netanyahu keeps selling the people of the region—Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and all the others implied—the Zionist deal, either be killed or just kill yourselves. As if to punctuate the point with deaths—the only tongue now spoken by Israel-America is death—a 12-year-old Palestinian child is shot dead in the West Bank. (17) Israeli hospice dropped firebombs on the tents where the injured and the dying were sheltered. The lit children are still moving; wicks on flesh. (18) We can smell the human incense wherever we are; we can hear the bones of children cackling in that furnace wherever we are. Revolution begins; Image credit: Revolution Festival. We know this fire will be gathered into a storm by Israel-America and their ‘western’ slaves towards tents in the deserts, huts in the hills, villages of the valleys from Asia to Africa. In this furnace of human flesh, they will cook their godly meals. In the air filled with the incense of flesh, when the feast opens, they will have put all the gods ever imagined to shame. This is a call to arms to all those who think. This cannot be a philosophical reflection, not anymore; for if it were, it will then be a call to arms . If not a call to arms , then it will be akin to letting these mass deaths fester the earth itself the way it did in Nazi Germany. This world now whimpers before the possibility—the American deal—of the earth being left behind as the stigma of the human animal, without the human animal. This is a call to arms to all those who think. Then, we have to think a little about that to which we may contribute, with whatever we may have—stones, paper, words, food, guns, reason, money, metal. Is it Intifada (an inflection within resistance) or Inquilab (the surge of a revolution)? The intifada or the unrest created a system of resistance, and from the peripheries of these many systems of resistance other intifadas arose. But there is a distinction between resistance and revolution. Any resistant system—Hamas for example—remains in a componential relation with the system of oppression. The older example of the factory workers, the union, and the capitalist shows that the resister is never more than a component of the capitalist system. When the workers strike to raise their wages the union leader takes the middle position and negotiates with the management. Taking a cut from both parties the union leader gives the workers a marginal increase in their wages and for the management longer working hours. The resistance has now lost more than they realise. The role of resistance in any political system is to perform the function of regulation—not too fast, not too slow—while the creation of new regularities are always the right of the oppressor. Towards the expenditure to exist, resistance must constitute componential relations which would eventually compromise it. These compromises can include corruption as the real power of capitalism; weapons trade; becoming a militia to acquire working knowledge of ‘the field’; and, even deals with the oppressor. Sojourning this path one necessarily comes to be the Palestinian Authority, which is now an arm of the Israeli apartheid state, which points out which young men and women are trouble to their torturers. From Intifada we should begin to think and practice the opening acts of Inquilab or revolution. Revolution is first of all the recognition that a majority is oppressed by a minority, who have divided the oppressed according to ranks, sects, and religions. Secondly, it is to will that the present situation, the status quo, in any of its forms or variations offered up in the future is unacceptable. Thirdly, the revolutionary will must be created, which requires the image of the world without the oppressor, and an image that demands and secures for all the promise that there shall be a people of Inquilab who will no longer let any oppression commence amongst them. That is, resistance is possible without women leaders, which will eventually be realised as the Palestinian authority. But Inquilab cannot be lit without the torches of women revolutionaries. Everyone else in the third worlds (and second worlds including the precarious Eastern European countries) can see now that the Palestinians and the Lebanese freedom fighters are dying for the liberation of all of us, for the very survival of humanity—that is, opposing the American schema of politics which is a nihilism that identified itself as the value—American nothing—to be produced everywhere, while destroying all that is opposed to this lumpen nihilism, including philosophy. Oppressed people of the world unite! We have nothing but our lives to lose. We have a world to make. Notes 1. Hind Rajab was 5 years old and trapped in a car when she was killed by Israeli soldiers who fired fired 335 rounds from their tanks. American and British media referred to her as a “woman”. See Arwa Mahdawi, “The adultification of children has consequences from Palestine to the US”, The Guardian, 04 May 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/04/adultification-children-palestine-us 2. “In UN speech, Netanyahu holds map showing West Bank, Gaza as part of Israel”, Middle East Monitor, 27 September 2024, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240927-in-un-speech-netanyahu-holds-map-showing-west-bank-gaza-as-part-of-israel/ 3. There are many in the ‘west’, and also the Iranians living in the ‘west’, who dream of bikini beaches in Tehran in the monarchical puppetry run by Britain and America through the Shah. But the destruction of democratic possibility through the coup that brought down Mossadegh is hardly understood. The tragedy of Mossadegh and Iran is one of democracy itself, and it shows that it is fragile. It is also the reason many countries in the world refrain from democratic expansions and experiments, fearing the destruction of their people by America through coups. Iran remains threatened with British revenge and American will to extermination, as shown by the statements of Hilary Clinton and Kamala Harris in recent times. See Mark Curtis, “Iran 1953: MI6 Plots with Islamists to Overthrow Democracy”, Declassified UK, 1 August 2023, https://www.declassifieduk.org/iran-1953-mi6-plots-with-islamists-to-overthrow-democracy/ 4. Étienne Balibar, “The Genocide in Gaza and its Consequences for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, Philosophy World Democracy, 19 September 2024, https://www.philosophy-world-democracy.org/articles-1/the-genocide-in-gaza-and-its-consequences-for-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict 5. Twitter feed of Medea Benjamin, https://x.com/medeabenjamin/status/1844863934391628071?s=61&t=JA0tABAj0IbdTsr5RcCSkg 6. Emphasis added. “Israel will become a ‘pariah’ over Gaza ‘genocide’, UN rights experts say“, Al Jazeera, September 17, 2024, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240917-the-uns-protection-of-pariahs/ 7. See Divya Dwivedi, “The Evasive Racism of Caste—and the Homological Power of the "Aryan" Doctrine”, Critical Philosophy of Race, vol. 11 no. 1, 2023, p. 209-245. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/887363 . For the birth of a European self identity and the fabrication of a vague historical depth through the “Aryan doctrine”. 8. Hannah Arendt, “The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition”, Jewish Social Studies , Apr., 1944, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Apr., 1944), pp. 99-122. 9. Aarushi Punia, “Calypsology of Caste through Metaphorization“, 22 November 2020, https://www.philosophy-world-democracy.org/book-reviews/calypsology-of-caste 10. Radhabinod Pal, International Military Tribunal for the Far East: Dissentient Judgment of Justice Pal , Kokusho-Kankokai Inc, Tokyo, 1999. 11. “Atomic Bomb Survivors Win Nobel Peace Prize, Say Gaza Today Is Like Japan 80 Years Ago”, 11 October 2024, https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/11/nobel_peace_prize_nihon_hidankyo 12. “Israel-Palestine war: Israel should 'level Gaza and make it look like Auschwitz', says official”, Middle East Eye, 18 December 2023, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-level-gaza-make-like-auschwitz-says-official 13. “Former Israeli MK Quotes Hitler While Discussing Gaza War“, Haaretz, 16 June 2024, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-16/ty-article/former-israeli-mk-quotes-hitler-while-discussing-gaza-war/00000190-224f-d231-a1b2-e65f76fe0000 14. “After Netanyahu's Holocaust Remark, Germany Cites Its Own 'Break With Civilization'”, The Two Way, 21 October 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/21/450553110/after-netanyahu-s-holocaust-remark-germany-cites-its-own-break-with-civilization 15. P 52, Tanya Reinhart, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 , Letword Publishing, New Delhi, 2003. 16. Jake Romm, “Elements of Anti-Semitism: The limits of Zionism”, From The River to the Sea, Palestine Issue, Parapraxis, https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/elements-of-anti-semitism 17. “Israeli Forces Kill 12-Year-Old Child and 66-Year-Old Man in Raids on Occupied West Bank”, 8 October 2024, Democracy Now!, https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/8/headlines/israeli_forces_kill_12_year_old_child_and_66_year_old_man_in_raids_on_occupied_west_bank 18. “Deadly fire rips through tents after Israeli attack on Gaza hospital”, Al Jazeera, 14 October 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/10/14/live-22-dead-80-wounded-as-israeli-army-shells-gaza-school-shelter Related Articles The Genocide in Gaza and its Consequences for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ETIENNE BALIBAR Read Article « La solution finale » au problème Gaza-Hamas de l’Israël OSAMU NISHITANI Read Article