Philosophy of Culture

Just a brief note that you should check out a new website dedicated to Philosophy of Culture. It includes papers from many of my former colleagues at the University of South Florida as well as a paper by the head of my current department.

Levinas, Marion and the Same

In the comments to my previous post West asks: "with regard to Marion: would you say, in his phenomenological reduction of the Other, that Marion posits some new totality? some new Same? Your conclusion makes it sound as if you think so, but what is this Same?"

As I state in my brief response, I find this to be an exceptionally difficult question and I am not sure there is an adequate answer to it. I hope in this post, however, to be able to at least say something on the subject.

On the Edge of the History of Being: Assessing the Terrain

I apologize for my absence but life does intrude from time to time and I have been rather busy developing several of the projects I am juggling. For the outcome of one such project, check out Existentia 2011 Volume XXI in which my paper "Discourses of Excess and the Excess of Discourse: On Georges Bataille's Lasting Influence Upon Foucault" was just recently published. Most of my time, however, has been focused on rewriting and expanding my book in preparation for sending it out to potential publishers. 

I want to take the time to fill you in on where some of my recent thought has been gravitating, specifically towards proposals that seek to reveal the limits of Heidegger's History of Being. This had already been an overt interest of mine, one that I pursued in my paper "What Homer Can Teach Us About Seynsgeschichte" which I presented at the 2011 meeting of the Heidegger Circle. In this paper I offered my own suggestion for how Heidegger's project might be extended through the resources made available to us in a focus on the transition from orality to literacy in Ancient Greece. It is a work I am still developing. Recently, however, I have been looking at often more critical engagements with his project that suggest either ways to correct and expand the project or ways to reveal its supposedly fatal inadequacies. It is this terrain I would like to begin mapping for you now in preparation for later posts in which I intend to consider more fully some of the hints or attacks I will mention here. I would like, then, to discuss (often small) parts of five books; Levinas' Totality and Infinity, Derrida's Specters of Marx, Marion's Being Given, Agamben's Homo Sacer and the collaborative work of Vattimo and Zabala Hermeneutic Communism.   

Update

Sorry for the disappearing act this summer, it has been a very busy time for me. I am back, having moved to a new city and new philosophy department, and will be offering new posts soon. I am also acutely aware that I never finished my posts concerning the Ancient Philosophy Society. This will be rectified soon.

Ancient Philosophy Society 2011 Meeting, Part Two

 
(All pictures were taken by me at the Sundance resort during the conference)

Day Two Continued (see my previous post for details)

Panel: The Evolution of Nature in Early Greek Thought

"'Now that it has left its stump on the mountain;' the Withdrawal of Nature in the Iliad I"
by Thomas Thorp of Saint Xavier University


This is the paper I was asked to comment on and I am extremely excited by the project. The work of Tom I am familiar with, primarily this paper and an earlier one presented at the meeting of the APS in New York several years ago, tends to focus upon a careful reading of the use of particularly important words within Homer and the implications this use has for philosophical issues, especially those connected to social and political concerns.

In this paper Tom focused upon the first use of the concept of nature within the Iliad and, therefore, arguably the first documented use we find of the concept in western history. His provocative point was that the first time nature appears in the Iliad it does so on its verbal form, Phuo, rather than the substantive Phusis. In other words, nature's first appearance is as an event of begetting. Furthermore, this verbal use is the origin of the substantive noun for nature. Tom suggested that it wasn't until Aristotle's work that we find a fully developed concept of nature as a self-developing ordered system.

Ancient Philosophy Society 2011 Meeting, Part One

I just returned from this year's meeting of the Ancient Philosophy Society at the Sundance Resort in Utah. I have been attending the APS for several years now and have had the opportunity to both present and repeatedly offer comments to this incredibly rigorous group. I am happy to say that this year's meeting was probably the best conference I have ever attended. It was sponsored by Utah Valley University and hosted by Michael Shaw. Michael and those who assisted him, primarily the two Program Coordinators of the UVU Honors Program Tiffany Nez and Allen Hill, all worked exceptionally hard to bring about a very successful conference. I would like to thank each of them, but especially Allen Hill who helped me repeatedly throughout my stay and was a lot of fun to hang out with.

I also had the opportunity to meet many of the UVU philosophy undergraduates and I found them all to be extraordinarily well educated and intelligent. They are a testament to the superb educational work of the UVU philosophy faculty. In particular they reflected the amazing talents of the faculty I had the pleasure to spend time with including Michael Shaw, Shannon Mussett and Pierre Lamarche.

In this and the following posts I would like to provide a summary of the conference for those who were not able to attend. I hope that it will also encourage those who have not previously been members of the Ancient Philosophy Society to join.

Heidegger Circle 2011

I just recently found out that my paper "What Homer can Teach us about Seynsgeschichte" was accepted for presentation at this year's meeting of the Heidegger Circle. Needless to say, I am very excited and honored.

I will also be responding to Thomas Thorp's paper "'Now that it has left its stump on the mountain;' The Withdrawal of Nature in Iliad I" at this year's meeting of the Ancient Philosophy Society.

Hope to see some of you at one or both of these events.