1. The Society for European Philosophy and The Forum for
European Philosophy Joint Conference 2012
In association with the London Graduate School
5th-7th September 2012
CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS
Table of Contents
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS 1
PLENARY PANEL 2
PANEL A: The Limits of Hegel’s Dialectic 3
PANEL B: The Problem of Use-Value 3
PANEL C: Contemporary Art/Contemporary Thought 4
PANEL D: The Impersonal Occurrence of Art 6
PANEL E: Bergson and/or Heidegger 7
PANEL F: Nonhuman Art, Nonhuman Philosophy: François Laruelle and Allan Kaprow 8
PANEL G: Object,Refuse,Reject,Abuse:Cynicismand NihilisminFoucault’s The Courageof
Truth 9
PANEL H: Exposing Dialectics 10
PANEL I: Critical Theory and Ideology Panel 10
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SPEAKERS IN PARALLEL SESSIONS 12

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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
What Can Phenomenology Tell us about Social Cognition?
Shaun Gallagher (Lillian and Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence in Philosophy at the University of
Memphis, Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Hertfordshire in
England,Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, Affiliated Research
Faculty Member at the Institute of Simulation and Training at the University of Central Florida)
In several recentpapersthe relevance of phenomenology, understood as a philosophical
method (in the tradition Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and others), has been challenged
specifically within the context of studies of social cognition. For example, Pierre Jacob (2011)
suggests that since processes that explain social cognition are not available at the experiential
level,phenomenologymissesthe mark. Spaulding (2010, 131) from a theory of mind perspective
suggeststhatphenomenologyissimplyirrelevant.Thisisnotthe minorityopinioninphilosophyof
mind.Most,althoughnot all,theoristsinphilosophyof mind,psychology,andneuroscience would
locate the essential processes of social cognition at the subpersonal level and dismiss
phenomenology as likely misleading. In an attempt to respond to these dismissals of
phenomenology, I address several questions. First, are all aspects that are relevant to an
explanation of social cognition in fact sub-personal? Second, how should such sub-personal
processesbe cashedouton the experiential level, assuming that we do experience something as
we interact with others? Third, what role does folk psychology play in an explanation of social
cognition? And finally, is phenomenology limited to introspection?
The Return of Subjectivity
Alphonso Lingis (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University)
Phenomenology’sdescription of the things as they show themselves to be depended on
the realityandapodicticityof self-consciousness. Ethical responsibility required the reliability of
self-consciousness. Linguistics defined self-consciousness as the speaker who issues a present
utterance identifying him- or herself with the grammatical subject of that utterance. But
pragmaticsexhibitsspeechactsas social interactions; a speech act is elicited and commanded by
an interlocutor. Deleuze and Guattari argue that one says what one has been ordered to say; all
statements are quotations. I argue that these positions do not eliminate subjectivity; they
engender a new conception of self-consciousness.
It Does Not Have To Be Like This
Catherine Malabou (Professorof ModernEuropeanPhilosophy,KingstonUniversity)
In this lecture, I will address, discuss and challenge the issue of radical contingency as
raisedbyQuentinMeillassoux inhisbook AfterFinitude,openinga new path toward a Kantianism
to come.

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PLENARY PANEL
‘New Materialities, Other Deconstructions’
Catherine Malabou (Professor of Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University)
Martin McQuillan (Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston)
Simon Morgan Wortham (Professor,Associate Dean,Facultyof ArtsandSocial Sciences,Kingston)
If it is true that we are enteringanepochof new materialitiesforwhich we as yet have no
descriptive framework then philosophy must respond to this situation. The question of matter
afterall is alsoa philosophical concept.The empirical and all empiricisms are, as Derrida notes as
early as ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, philosophical gestures that embed themselves within the
historyof philosophy. His reading of Levinas in this essay is to suggest the ways in which Levinas
demonstratesthatall empiricismis metaphysical, and a constant philosophical thematization ‘of
the infinite exteriority of the other’. Levinas in contrast understands the empirical not as a
positivism but as an experience of difference and of the other. ‘Empiricism’, claims Derrida,
‘always has been determined by philosophy, from Plato to Husserl as nonphilosophy: as the
philosophical pretentiontononphilosophy’. That is as philosophy’s way of affecting to speak in a
non-philosophical way. However, nothing can more profoundly conjure the need for philosophy
than this denial of philosophy by philosophy. Within the metaphysical schema that is
nonphilosophy, the irruption of the wholly other solicits philosophy (i.e. the logos) as its own
origin,end,andother.There isno escape fromphilosophyasfaras empiricismisconcerned;there
will only ever be a thinking about the empirical that is philosophical. It is this radicalization of
empiricismthatdeconstruction proposes as a breathless, inspiring journey for philosophy in the
lateryearsof the twentieth century. As Derrida states in the opening paragraphs of the essay on
Levinas,itisthe closure of philosophybynonphilosophy that gives thought a future, ‘it may even
be that these questionsare notphilosophical,are notphilosophy’squestions.Nevertheless, these
shouldbe the onlyquestionstodaycapable of foundingthe community,withinthe world,of those
who are still called philosophers; and called such in remembrance, at very least, of the fact that
these questions must be examined unrelentingly…’
So,the questionof the materialityof apost-deconstructiveage maynotbe a questionthat
philosophy has the resources to answer but which must nevertheless be thought about and so
determined in a philosophical manner. This panel will address this demand.

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PANEL A: The Limits of Hegel’s Dialectic
Thispanel isformedaroundthe philosophical questionof the ‘limits’of Hegel’s dialectical
process. According to Hegel, the demarcation of a limit immanently suggests its own
transgression. If thisisone definingfeature of Hegel’sdialectic,how todayare we to confront the
question of limits that at once draw attention to the immanent structure and unfolding of
dialectical logicandmark real historical and conceptual limitations? The papers in this panel are
situatedon‘two sides of the limit’: on the one hand, the internal limits of the dialectic itself (its
terms,categories,structure);andonthe otherhand,itsexternal limits (its incapacity to grasp and
fully account for certain realities and negativities).
Hegel’s Concept of Abstract Negation
Hammam Aldouri (PhD candidate, CRMEP, Kingston University)
Thispaperaims to examine the notionof ‘abstractnegation’asitemergesinthe unfolding
of the conceptof determinate negation in the famous fourth chapter of Hegel’s Phenomenology
of Spirit. The aim of the paper is twofold: first I want to bring into relief the place of abstract
negation in the formal deployment of the dialectical process as conceived in the concept of
determinate negation; second, I want to point toward a potential understanding of abstract
negation as the ‘origin’ or source of the dialectical process itself, a claim that, in a certain sense,
simultaneously subverts the process itself and vindicates its general logic.
The Role of Dialectic in Marx’s Critique of Hegel
Ian Jakobi (PhD candidate, CRMEP, Kingston University)
My paperwill addressthe developmentof Marx’smethodof critique inhisContributionto
a Critique of Hegel’sPhilosophyof Law (1843). My aimwill be to show inwhatways Marx situates
hismethodof analysisinand through a critique of Hegel’s dialectical presentation of the state. I
will therebyseektoproblematise the view thatMarx conservesHegel’smethodwhile rejectinghis
systembysuggestingthatMarx bothdemonstratesthe limitationsof Hegel’sdialecticwhile at the
same time revealing its real content. I will conclude by assessing the ability of Marx’s practical
alternative to dialectical thought to move beyond these limits.
PANEL B: The Problem of Use-Value
Contraryto Marx’s claimthat there is ‘nothing mysterious about it’, the category of ‘use-
value’inhis work raises a number of philosophical ambiguities. These difficulties are in part the
consequence of an inconsistent amount of importance afforded to use-value by Marx himself.
Use-value explicitly features as an economic category in the Grundrisse and its significance is
vigorously defended in an 1881 polemic against Adolph Wagner. On the other hand, it is
conceptually reduced to the ‘physical properties of the commodity’ in the first few pages of
Capital, and is subsequently rendered superfluous to the systematic development of the value-
form. Given such ambiguity, there is the temptation to stabilise the place of use-value within
Marx’s work(whetherthroughuncritical acceptance oroutrightrejection).However,the papersin
this panel maintain that such stabilisation neglects the potential philosophical promise of the
concept.In short,itforeclosestwopossibilities:(1) criticallysituatinguse-value inrelationtoother

5. 4
philosophical problemsinMarx’swork,suchas materialityandtemporality,andthus (2) enriching
the meaning of ‘use’ and ‘use-value’ in Marx more generally.
Use-Value and the Metabolism of Humanity and Nature
Cas McMenamin (PhD candidate, Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy
Kingston University)
Thispaperwill situate use-valueinrelationtothe ‘metabolism’ of nature and humanity in
Marx’s work. It will explore the following questions: What can use-value teach us about the
‘double relationship’ between the social and natural in Marx? Does the concept of use-value
contain metaphysical assumptions about a primary matter external to and causally determining
human practice? Does the concept of use-value as a metabolic product retain any meaning
beyond its relation to exchange-value (i.e. outside of the commodity form)?
Use-Value and Temporality
George Tomlinson(PhDcandidate,Centre forResearchinModernEuropeanPhilosophy,Kingston
University)
This paper critically develops passages in the Grundrisse on the use-value of the
commodity labour-capacity/labour-power [Arbeitsvermögen] – that is, labour – doubly
characterizedasthe use-value which‘confronts’capital andthe use-value‘of capital itself’. These
passagesbega conceptionof the ‘use’of the human in relation to self-expanding value (capital).
By situating them in the context of Marx’s analysis in Capital of the doubled (concrete and
abstract) character of labour(somethingnotpresentinthe Grundrisse),we are also introduced to
a number of problems at the level of the philosophy of time. Abstract labour is, of course, a
temporal category:homogenous, quantifiable and divisible time which constitutes the measure
and substance of value. Yet it is far from clear what temporalities structure concrete labour in
Marx, such that thislabour(whichbothproducesand existsas use-valueforcapital) is dialectically
intertwined with abstract labour. In other words, concrete labour-time cannot be reduced to
variousdifferentactivitieswhichoccur‘within’homogenous(clock) time.There needs to be some
considerationof concrete labour-time as the ongoing negated ground of the commodification of
labour-power and the production of abstract labour.
PANEL C: Contemporary Art/Contemporary Thought
Each of the three papers on this panel addresses different aspects of the conjunction between
contemporary works of art and thought; each of them thinks through the silent mark between
them, whether in psychoanalytic, phenomenological or post-phenomenological terms. What
emergesinthe conjunction between the three papers, then, are facets of the world, still human
yet always already on the way to a beyond – futurity, pre-figuration, opacity.
The Practice and Production of Addiction in Contemporary Art
ChristopherKul-Want(Course directorM.A.Fine Art and Acting course director MRes Art: Theory
& Philosophy School of Art, Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design)
Reportedlymore prevalent than ever in society, addictive disorders can migrate into any
activityexceedingthe lawsthatgovernenjoyment. Not only defined by drug or substance abuse,

6. 5
everything today is potentially classifiable as addictive: sex, work, eating, weight control, play,
shopping,exercise,relationships,the TV orits latestincarnation,the internet.Thispaperdiscusses
how recent discourses about addiction can contribute to an understanding of contemporary art
and literature engaged in practices of apparent obsession, compulsion and repetition. Artists
relevant to this discussion are: Thomas Demand, Margarita Gluzberg, Matthew Hale, Thomas
Locher,Sarah Morris and JulianOpie.AlanBall’stippexpaintingsof t.v.listings,andRobertMabb’s
serial spirographs – which convey a sense of distraction and boredom through repetitive acts of
apparentadolescentintroversion –are also relevant.Throughtheirpeculiar blankness and lack of
bodily relation these art forms negate Romantic ideas about an obsessive – and individualistic –
strivingforradical,expressiveeffect.Rather,the senseof indifferencethatcharacterizesthis work
incombinationwith an(implausibly) publicmode of address,indicatesthat what is at stake in this
work is a phenomenology of modernity as utopian longing: a phenomenology that recalls
Heidegger’s and Benjamin’s philosophies regarding time and the practice and production of
boredom.
Late in the Night, Perhaps Too Late: The Emergence of Opacity in Anne Carson’s Nox
Jill Marsden (AssistantProfessorPhilosophyandEnglish, Faculty of Arts and Media Technologies,
The University of Bolton)
Whenthe brotherof the poetAnne Carsondiedshe wrote anelegyforhim‘in the form of
an epitaph’. Her 2010 work Nox, an accordion-fold book in a hard edge box, is an art object of
profoundbeauty,amonumentof a veryprecious kind. Part meditation on loss (and on Catullus’s
poem 101), part scrapbook of letter fragments, grainy photographs and drawings, Nox is so
convincingareplicaof Carson’smemorybox that itspagesgive the illusionof texture, inviting the
recipient to feel for the imprint of pen strokes and the ragged surfaces of pasted collage.
My paper explores the sensory experience of encountering this work. There is a tactile
pleasure in handling the pleated pages, a visual delight in the subtle palette of sepia-tint and
monochrome, of brilliant white and occasional dash of colour. More than this, however, Nox
appealstosomething between visionandtouch,a sense inthe processof beingborn.Indescribing
her brother, Carson evokes ‘a certain fundamental opacity of human being, which likes to show
the truth by allowingittobe seen hiding’. My aim is to try and show how this opacity emerges in
the space of encounter with this captivating work, to pursue what it might mean to let ‘night’
appear.
Figuration, Movement, Coming to Presence in the Thought of Nietzsche, Nancy, and Richter
Andrea Rehberg (Assistant Professor Philosophy Department, Middle East Technical University)
The two complementaryquestionsmotivating this paper are, firstly, how can painting be
thought (and written) in the contemporary philosophical constellation and, secondly, how does
painting think, what does it think? The starting point here is that painting – even when it is
figurative – does not represent an extra-artistic reality, does not imitate nature. Instead, the
processof figurationitself,asithappensina painting,is investigated in its constituent elements,
in particular in its temporal and spatial aspects, in the materiality of colour and line.
What emergesinthisinvestigationisthatpainting –arguablyevenmore so than the more
overtly temporal arts – is capable of staging the process of coming to appearance, of differing
(from) itself, i.e., the productive process as such.
To give more concrete shape to these reflections, the works of three seminal thinkers of
art are addressed, namely those of Nietzsche, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Gerhard Richter.

7. 6
PANEL D: The Impersonal Occurrence of Art
The paperson thispanel share the conviction that the thinking of art should be liberated
from the chains of subjectivity, which has dominated the philosophy of art for centuries. To this
purpose,the artist’s, or, in the case of music, the listener’s relation to the work of art is critically
rethought in these papers, and understood as an exposure and openness to the impersonal,
through which the work of art presences. With the help of Nietzsche’s, Heidegger’s, and
Blanchot’s thoughts the papers look at this event of exposure in different ways, by focusing on
music, visual art, and literature, respectively, though always in the light of the aforementioned
conviction.
Affirmation Through Music: the Transformative Power of Music in Nietzsche’s Thought
Reha Kuldaşlı (Philosophy Department Middle East Technical University)
In this paper I will investigate the relationship between music and affirmation in the
contextof Nietzsche's thought.AccordingtoNietzsche’sagonisticontologyof life, there isonlythe
“abyssof existence”,bywhichImeanbecomingandthe playof forceswhichstrive to take control
of phenomena, as Deleuze also explains in his book Nietzsche and Philosophy. Nietzsche
understandsmusicasthe kindof force thatis capable of exposinghuman being to the groundless
nature of existence,especiallyas Dionysianmusic.Thispaper will problematize the shortcomings
of discussing music in aesthetic or anthropocentric terms, outline Nietzsche’s account of music
and, by elaborating the relationship between music and affirmation, argue that music is able to
affect the topology of forces in human physiology through its exposing power and to transform
them into a possible affirmation of life. The paper will also investigate the ‘musical’ nature of
Nietzsche’s own thinking, which deliberately attunes itself to the
agonistic play, rather than pausing, dissecting and grasping it.
From Creation to Responsiveness: the artist as τεχνίτης
Andrea Rehberg (Philosophy Department Middle East Technical University)
Withthe assertionof the ontological insignificance of the artistvis-à-vis the work of art, it
seems that the artist has simply been jettisoned from the space of art. This paper, by contrast,
seekstoinvestigate apossible role forthe artistincontemporary philosophy of art. The aim is not
to re-introduce obsolete notions of a centralizing, organizing subjectivity through the back door.
Instead,thispaperattemptstorethink the contribution of the artist from a non-anthropocentric,
post-humanistperspective. Buthowcan we speakof the artist withoutreifyingthembackintothe
position of an original, God-like agency? Is it enough to say, as Heidegger does, that “in great
art…the artist remains inconsequential…almost like a passageway that destroys itself in the
creative process for the work to emerge” (“The Origin of the Work of Art”)?
How can we understandthe role of the artist,somewhere betweenthese twoextremes of
the God-like creatorandthe impersonal,indifferent conduit between potentiality and actuality?
The central claimof thispaperis that anotherof Heidegger’stexts,namely “The Question
ConcerningTechnology”(QCT),allowsustothinkof the artistin more subtle,differentiated ways,
neitherin‘hyper-subjectivist’norinmerely‘conductive’ terms. In QCT, Heidegger chisels out the
ancient Greek apprehension of the τεχνίτης, whose main contribution to the emergence of the
artwork is the knowledge of how to gather (λέγειν) the contributory factors (αἰ τία), but who is
not herself necessarily or chiefly involved in the physical, material making of the artwork as it
finally shows itself. It is this delineation of the contribution of the τεχνίτης to the coming-to
presence of the artwork that this paper seeks to mobilize in order to begin to develop a ‘post-

8. 7
metaphysical’ understanding of the role of the artist in contemporary art. To concretize these
reflections, they will be focused on a specific, especially pertinent work of art, namely “Sun
Tunnels”, by Nancy Holt.
The Darkness That Resists: Blanchot and the Experience of Radical Otherness
Ramin Ismayilov (Philosophy Department Middle East Technical University)
Blanchotoften – especiallyinhisearlywritingsonMallarmé –characterizesthe essence of
the literaryworkof art as the appearingof “the dissimulationitself”(TheSpaceof Literature, (SL)),
whichisthe originof the demandposedonthe artist/writer.Yet,inhisthoughtthisappearingisat
the same time understood to be inherently and “infinitely problematic” (SL), even impossible,
because the dissimulationitself resistscomingtopresence.Facingthisimpersonal resistance lying
in “the silent void of the work” (SL), namely the darkness par excellence that precedes any
oppositionof lightanddarkness,the writerthusexperiencesthe shatteringof the unity of self, an
experience which corresponds to the encounter with radical otherness. Focusing on the early
Blanchot (Faux Pas, The Work of Fire, The Space of Literature), this paper endeavours to throw
lightonsome of the details of Blanchot’s understanding of the always interrupted movement of
the coming to presence of the literary work of art. Moreover, it also traces the emergence of
radical otherness in connection with the thinking of literature in Blanchot’s thought, and in this
context seeks to locate a possible intertwining of the literary and the ethical even in the early
Blanchot’s writings.
PANEL E: Bergson and/or Heidegger
Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger are two pivotal thinkers of the first half of the 20th
century, whose ideas structure much of contemporary ‘continental’ philosophy. Although
HeideggerwascertainlyinfluencedbyBergson’sthinking,theirdivergentresponsestobasicissues
and problemsinthe philosophical tradition have shaped different currents within contemporary
thought. The renewal of interest in Bergson’s work in the last decades, however, has not been
accompaniedbysustainedanalysisof whatexactlydividesHeideggerfrom Bergson (or vice versa)
on key ontological and metaphysical problems. Our proposed panel at the SEP/FEP annual
conference willofferaninitial attempttodopreciselythisbyfocusingonthree interrelatedissues:
freedom, nothingness and creation. Understanding how Heidegger can take up Bergson’s
conceptionof freedomwhilstcriticisingboththe positivisminvolvedinhiscritique of nothingness
and the subjectivism/voluntarism that underlies his ideas of creation and novelty is an essential
prerequisite, we contend, for understanding many debates in contemporary philosophy.
Bergson, Heidegger and the Question of Freedom
Matthew Barnard (PhD candidate, Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University)
Begson and Heidegger: Much Ado about Nothing
Christophe Perrin (Post-Doc, Université catholique de Louvain)
Bergson’s Genius
Mark Sinclair (Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University)

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PANEL F: Nonhuman Art, Nonhuman Philosophy: François Laruelle and
Allan Kaprow
What are the implicationsof the nonhumanturninthe Arts and Humanities? Specifically,
what is the meaning of the ‘non’ in the ‘nonhuman’, and what is the relationship between this
‘non’and the definitionof artandphilosophy?If ‘non’ issimplyanegation,itcouldbe argued that
the assertion that there is something nonhuman in these practices is vacuously broad in that it
embraces everything other than human. And, indeed, in the realm of the performing arts, many
differentkindsof other-than-humanthingshave takenthe stage: animals and machines (Societas
Raffaello Sanzio), swirling mists and performing robots (Kris Verdonck), sand and paper (Cupola
Bobber),tuningforksandtomatoketchup(Zoe Laughlin).AsLaughlinsaysin The Performativity of
Matter (2008), ‘materials perform. Stuff is constantly getting up to things.’ But is the removal of
the humanhere still toofocusedonthe humanas its opposite?What kind of performances might
nonhuman bodies enact beyond a negation of the human?
The same might be said again in the philosophical domain as regards the claim that
nonhumans can do philosophy: the idea of philosophy performed by animals (Coetzee’s horse -
philosophers), intelligent computers, and even cinema (Frampton’s ‘filmind’) stretches its
definitiontoequallychallenginglimits.If,asDerridaargued,one can no longer be sure of what ‘is
not’ philosophy as much as what is, does that not leave too much of it on the outside, with no
starting point of its own at all, no anchor (in propositional content, argumentative logic,
questioning,wonder,etc.) bywhichother,extended meanings might be oriented? Every (human
and nonhuman) thing does philosophy, and so nothing does; everything is performance and so
nothing is.
Our paper/workshopexaminesthe nonhumanthroughadifferent,expansive approach to
that of negation combines François Laruelle’s ‘non-standard philosophy’ and Allan Kaprow’s
‘nonart’.ForLaruelle,the ‘non’isnota negationbuta performanceof expansion,of broadening.It
operatesinthe same waythat non-Euclideangeometriesdonotnegate Euclid,butaffirmit within
a broaderparadigmthat alsoexplainsalternativegeometriesthatare only apparently opposed to
it.Non-standardphilosophyisademocracyof thoughtthat performativelyextends the definition
of philosophybeyondthe authorityof standardphilosophical approachesthatalways humanize it.
Form ‘superposes’ content as Laruelle performs what he preaches. As such, we will show how
Laruelle’sisanon-humanphilosophy,notthroughthe negationof the human,but its extension, a
‘human-without-humanism’ that discovers (or ‘decides’) the human, and philosophy, in myriad
otherrealms(yetwithouteithertermbecomingvacuous).Likewise,the ‘non’inKaprow’s ‘nonart’
doesnotsignal a negationof art, butan extensionof whatcountsas‘art’ (beyond convention and
habit) into the terrain of ‘life’ including attending to the life of nonhuman materials. Kaprow’s
Activitiesshouldbe conceivedasperformingjustthe kindof ‘extendedexperimentation’ required
to come to know what our body can do in conjunction with the nonhuman: testing what
transformations might happen when a particular human body enters into composition with the
nonhuman body of ice, or a lightbulb. As we will discuss and show in this combined paper and
workshop,Kaprow’sresponse tothe question: ‘What is art?’ will be constituted through a theory
of mutation that he shares with Laruelle – a theory in which not every nonhuman thing is, or is
not, art or philosophy, but any thing can become art or philosophy (by attention training in
Kaprow, performative decision in Laruelle). In the practical element, we will recreate one of
Kaprow’s most significant ‘activities’. People who attend this session will be invited to act out
Kaprow’s ‘score’ – everyday action rendered unfamiliar in a manner that allows us to encounter
nonhuman materials anew as thoughtful/artful in their own right.

10. 9
John Mullarkey (Professor in Film and Television Studies Kingston University, Chair of SEP)
Laura Cull (Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies University of Surrey)
PANEL G: Object, Refuse, Reject, Abuse: Cynicism and Nihilism in
Foucault’s The Courage of Truth
This panel will comprise of three papers examining related issues raised by Michel
Foucault’s revaluation of the importance of Cynicism in The Courage of Truth, his final series of
lecturesdeliveredatthe Collège de France in 1983 - 1984. Acknowledging that Cynicism has often
beenpresented as a marginal – and perhaps even trivial – figure in ancient philosophy due to its
rudimentarytheoretical nature,Foucaultneverthelessshowsthatconsideredas a mode of life – a
way of being and doing – Cynicism is in fact central to the history of Western culture. Our
intention is to examine three key aspects of Foucault’s account.
Cynicism, Scepticism, Nihilism
Keith Crome, (Senior Lecturer in Philosophy Manchester Metropolitan University)
In an undeliveredpassage from the lecture course The Courage of Truth, included by the
editorsasan extendedfootnote,Foucaultsuggests that 19th
century European nihilism should be
understood as an historically specific confluence of Scepticism and Cynicism and adds that it is
thusan episode of a problemfirstposedinAncientGreekculture,namelyof the relationbetween
the will to truth and a style of existence. My aim will be to explicate this brief, but provocative
remark,and situate it inrelationtothe HeideggerianandNietzscheanunderstandings of nihilism.
Cynicism as Anti-Platonism
Maxime Lallement (PhD candidate, Department of Philosophy Manchester Metropolitan
University)
At the beginningof hisaccountof Cynicism, Foucault draws attention to the parrhesiastic
role attributedtothe Cynicin Antiquity.Likenedbothtoanangel (aggelos) andtoa dog,the Cynic
was seenassomeone sentaheadof the political communitytowarn it against the dangers of life.
In this presentation, I will argue that this mode of political action relies on an inverted form of
Platonismand,byconfronting the Cynic life with the task of the philosopher described in Plato’s
“Allegory of the Cave”, I will show that the philosophy of the Cynics is based upon a non-
paradigmatic concept of truth.
Cynicism and Literature: The Cynical Life of the Artistic Addict
Colin Wisely (PhD candidate, Department of Sociology Manchester Metropolitan University)
Michel Foucault proposes in his final lecture series that we can see the influence of
Cynicisminthe modernage throughthe bourgeois form of modern art. The principle of the artist
living his life as art in a scandalous fashion can be seen clearly as a theme in the treatment of
'drugs' from Thomas De Quincey and William Burroughs. I shall consider the importance of
confessioninthe literarytrope and the impact of stoic and Cynic thought upon Confessions of an
Opium Eater and Junky.

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PANEL H: Exposing Dialectics
What is yet to be exposed about dialectics? What has dialectics still to expose about
philosophy? A common concern with the status of dialectical thought connects the papers to be
presented on this panel. However we seem to be out of fashion, as papers concerned with
dialectics seem not to turn up at conferences or in journals with much frequency. If, as Nancy
writes,‘dialectics,ingeneral,isaprocessthatarisesfromsome given’,thenwhere doesa concern
with and a discussion of dialectics belong in a contemporary philosophical scene built on the
rejection of givenness, be it in the form of idea, presence, signification, subjectivity, world or
phenomenon?Isitinfact possible toreturntodialectics under these conditions? Or is Heidegger
correct when he says that the dialectic is a ‘genuine philosophic al embarrassment’?
‘Misconstrued, treated lightly,’ Derrida asserts, ‘Hegelianism only extends its historical
domination, finally unfolding its immense enveloping resources without obstacle.’ Can one, as
such, hold a position on dialectics without taking up a position within the dialectic? We will not
attemptinthese three paperstodefinitivelyanswerthe questions we pose, but instead will seek
to mobilize the discussionwiththree approachestodialectics.The three paperspresentedwillaim
to both expose different understandings of the role of dialectical method in philosophy and to
consider what dialectics exposes when brought to bear on contemporary thought.
The roles of mimesis and methexis in Nancy’s readings of Socratic dialectic and
phenomenological hermeneutics.
Nick Aldridge (PhD candidate, Department of Philosophy Manchester Metropolitan University)
Nancy’s critique of dialectics as mobilized in his exposition of love in his 1986 essay L’amour en
éclats (Shattered Love)
Leda Channer (PhD candidate, Department of Philosophy Manchester Metropolitan University)
Approaches to Hegelian Dialectics
Adam Skevington(PhDcandidate,Departmentof PhilosophyManchesterMetropolitan University
PANEL I: Critical Theory and Ideology Panel
Ideology-critique is one of the central tasks of all strands of Critical Theory and it is
necessitatedbyCritical Theory’sconcernforhumanemancipation. A key aspect of Critical Theory
– and that which distinguishes Critical Theory from Traditional theory – is its commitment to a
historical approachtoknowledge. Knowledge is informed by the specific historical context of its
formationandthe- possiblynon-conscious - interestsandprejudicesof those whose knowledge it
is, as well as by general human limitations. As such knowledge is never objective. There is no
Archimedeanpoint from which we discover eternal universal truths and hence knowledge must
always be subject to revision. As human beings we have interests and these are reflected in our
theories and knowledge – whether we are aware of it or not - so there is no such thing as value
neutral knowledge. The rejectionof ahistorical, objective, neutral knowledge becomes ideology
critique whenever the presumed value neutrality of a theory helps to perpetuate oppressive
power structures and thus prevent human emancipation. Ideologies may hinder human

12. 11
emancipationbydeclaringoppressivestructuresasobjectively necessary. Or, they may by falsely
assumingthe standpointof neutralityactivelycontribute tothe oppression(especially of minority
cultures).Generally,ideologycruciallyinvolvestwomoments:anexperienceof problematic social
conditionsandat the same time the ideaof justice.These twomoments together necessitate the
legitimationof the oppressivestructures.One example of ideology critique is the stance of many
Critical Theorists towards political liberalism, which is regarded as oppressive in its presumed
value-neutrality.Ratherthanachieving(impossible) genuinevalue neutrality, political liberalism is
seen as a bias towards the economic and political interests of those in power, whose social
domination is now theoretically justified and preserved. Ideology critique aims to unmask the
inherentbiasinsuchvalue neutrality and destabilize the confidence in proclaimed certainties in
order to open up a space for human emancipation.
But, while Critical Theoryisunitedinideologycritique, the conception of ideology differs
across the different strands and with it the form of critique and the focus on various aspects of
social life.Differentconceptionsof ideologyin turn might reflect changes within ideology itself –
so that differentstrandsof critical theoryare (possibly) notdistinguished by a different view they
take on ideologybutare themselves reactions to changed ideologies. This panel will look at the
differentconceptionsof “ideology”withinthe Critical Theorytraditionandimplications and also –
withreference tothe lastpoint – examine the relationbetweenthe differentformsof critique and
the nature of ideology.
Stefano Giacchetti (Loyola University Chicago)
Karin Stoegner (University of Vienna)
Dagmar Wilhelm (Teaching Fellow, Department of Philosophy University of Bristol)

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ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SPEAKERS IN PARALLEL SESSIONS
Structure and Intuition in Deleuze’s Renewal of Ontology
David J. Allen (PhD candidate, Department of Philosophy University of Warwick)
In thispaper,I will considerlanguage andscience asconvergentphilosophical problems in
Deleuze’s early project (culminating in 1968-69) of renewing ontology, and examine Deleuze’s
structuralism as the site of the convergence of these two problem.
In his 1954 review of Jean Hyppolite’s Logic and Existence, Deleuze makes a decisive
commitment to a renewal of ontology orientated around the concept of ‘sense’ or ‘meaning’
(sens). This paper is motivated by a problem generated by these notions of ‘sense’, and of an
‘ontologyof sense’,giventhe centralityfor Deleuze’s project of the thought of Henri Bergson. In
Logic and Existence,Hyppolite setsBergsonupas a counter-figure to his own Hegelian onto-logic
of sense. For Hyppolite, Bergson’s emphasis on philosophical ‘intuition’, and consequent
scepticism regarding the adequacy of language to grasp metaphysical truth, barred him from
graspingthe properlyontologicalsignificance of the conceptof sense. Deleuze,however, sets out
to formulate an ontology of sense in terms of a return to Bergson. How does this manoeuvre
function?
To answerthisquestion,IexploreDeleuze’sphilosophical appropriation of structuralism,
takingthe conceptof ‘structure’asthe keyto understandingDeleuze’sovercoming of the tension
outlined above. In the concept of structure, Deleuze discerns a characterisation of sense which
gelswitha more adequate characterisationof Bergson’s methodological concept of intuition. By
bringing together the concepts of structure and intuition – or, rather, by bringing out the
artificialityandfalsityof theirjuxtaposition –Deleuze is able to deploy the concept of sense in an
ontological register,without fallingpreytothe problemshe diagnoses in Hyppolite’s attempt at a
Hegelian version of the same move.
In both a Bergsonian and a structuralist context, the question of the status and nature of
sense cannot be extricated from the question of the status and nature of science – of science’s
relation to sense, and to philosophy. ‘Structure’ is the founding concept of a transdisciplinary
research programme in the ‘human sciences’ in the 1950s and ’60s in France which attempts to
theorise and practice a new science of meaning. Deleuze’s philosophical appropriation of this
conceptthushas ramificationsforthe status of philosophy in relation to the sciences; a troubled
relation which, I argue, is at the heart of the very need for a renewal of ontology.
Nietzsche in the Light of Elias
Tom Angier (Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Philosophy University of Kent)
Philosophers,especiallyinthe analytic tradition, have tended to accuse Nietzsche of two
related, informal fallacies: (a) the genetic fallacy, and (b) the fallacy of ad hominem.
They ground (a) centrally in book one of On the Genealogy of Morality, where Nietzsche
traces contemporaryEuropeanmoralitytowhathe callsa ‘slave revolt’.Accordingtohisnarrative,
a set of positive Ur-values, embedded in the life of unnamed ‘nobles’, was overthrown by the
collective might of reactive, life-denying, individually weak ‘slaves’. It is this narrative that
supposedly instantiates the genetic fallacy: for why suppose that the origin of our moral code
determinesitspresentvalueandfunction,or(evenmore implausibly)requiresa‘revaluationof all
values’?
(b) is seen to be more diffusely present in Nietzsche’s work, but no less genuine for all
that. Nietzsche oftenspendstime praising or attacking the character and/or behaviour of famous

14. 13
figures,ratherthandemonstratinghow theirclaimsstandup/fail to stand up to rational scrutiny.
He writes,forexample,that‘Inorigin,Socratesbelongedtothe lowestclass:Socrates was plebs. .
. . he was ugly’.1
But, ask Nietzsche’s critics, what bearing can this have on the cogency of
Socrates’ arguments and claims? Once again, Nietzsche focuses on a thing’s origins, where this
focus seems irrelevant to arriving at a rational assessment of it.2
Putting aside, for the moment, whether these accusations of fallacy have any weight, I
wantto ask a furtherquestion:whatif we turnthisaspectof Nietzsche’s method against himself?
For thisis,I shall argue,effectivelywhatNorbert Elias does in his seminal book, The Germans. He
does so in two respects.
First,he outlineshowNietzsche’sethical heuristicof ‘weakness’versus ‘strength’ finds its
properbackgroundinthe German practice of duelling,whichoriginated, in turn, from a culture of
unforgivingwarriorvirtue. Secondly, Elias elaborates how the German middle classes – of which
Nietzsche wasapart – shiftedtheiraspirationsfrom an apolitical, purely artistic ideal of Kultur in
the earlynineteenthcentury,toathoroughlypoliticised,militarised and nationalistic ideal of the
Reich in the late nineteenthcentury.3
AlthoughEliasdoesnotdraw this conclusion himself, there
are once again clear implications for understanding Nietzsche’s work. For the two broad ideals
betweenwhichNietzsche’stheoryof value movesare,I shall argue, precisely those of individual,
artistic creativity and military-cum-political heroism.
Do these sociological observations throw any light on Nietzsche’s moral and political
philosophy,oristo believesomerelytocommitoneself tofallacy?Onthe one hand,the lightshed
by Elias’duellinghypothesisis,Iwill argue,minimal,since Nietzsche’scategoriesof ‘weakness’and
‘strength’ are multiply applicable, being much broader than those embodied in any particular
practice.On the otherhand,Elias’studyof nineteenthcenturyGermanmiddleclassidealsis,I will
argue,highlyrelevant,since itpointsupadeepincoherence withinNietzsche’s own, central ideal
of the powerful, all-conquering artist-creator – and thereby underscores a deep incoherence
within his political philosophy as a whole.
Havinglaidout the crucial importof Elias’work for understanding Nietzsche’s, I shall end
by drawingsome general conclusionsconcerningthe geneticand ad hominem ‘fallacies’. In fine, I
will argue nosuch genericfallaciesexist,sincethe relevance of the originsof x toan assessmentof
x depends wholly on what kind of assessment is at stake, what kind of thing x is, and moreover
what logical and empirical relations hold between x and its origins.
1
Twilight of the Idols, ‘The Problem of Socrates’, 3.
2
The origin in this case is clearly an individual man, rather than a set of people or practices. But
formally the two are very similar, and indeed, one could argue that ad hominem is a species of
genetic fallacy (assuming they are fallacies in the first place).
3 Thisshiftoccurred,Eliasargues,whenthe middle classesbeganto be allowed some share in the
political life and administration of the Reich.
The Aesthetics of the Between: On Beauty and the Erotic Object
Babette Babich (Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University)
BeyondRudolf Arnheim’sreflectiononafeature commontoarchitecture and sculpture as
frameless works of art, such that the “the figure determines its own fulcrum,” this presentation
articulates a phenomenological aesthetics of the subject, including the subject’s observation of
and encounterwiththe museumobjectandwiththe experience of the museumorgalleryitself in
the context of the philosophy of art and beauty. With a particular focus on the contemporary
sculpturesof Jeff Koonsand others like Brancusi and Canova as well as Polykleitus, but paintings
too like ManetandBougereau, in addition to the photography of Barbara Morgan and the dance,

15. 14
but alsoliterature andphilosophyitself(Plato,Mann,Rilke,Stevens),the erotic dimensionality of
the beautiful inartisilluminatedbyareadingof AlexanderNehamasandHans-GeorgGadamer on
the beautyinphilosophical aesthetics and the experienced dimensionality of the art world. This
same contextincludesadiscussionof the flâneur/cyberflaneur, questionsof originality in art, and
of capital.
Coercing Autonomy: Free Speech, Symbols, and Kantian Critique
Clover Bachman (PhD in Literary and Cultural Theory, Carnegie Mellon University)
Recent discussions of free speech, secular freedoms and religious censure, religious
freedoms and secular censure, have returned us to foundational questions about coercion in
interpretive practices. The more subtle varieties of censorship which occur through the coercive
normsof cultural debate presentuswiththe taskof rearticulatinghow the individual subjectworks
through problems of autonomy and judgment - including the capacity render an assertion of
subjective freedom knowable to the self and an other.
Rather than relying on Marx¹s scientifically coded form of critique and or a specifically
Foucauldian critical attitude that brackets assertions of normativity, I want return in a more
focusedmannerhowthe Kantiansubjectof free speech is bound to a specific intellectual process
that seeks,nota state of absolute critical freedom, but an ongoing awareness of the social nature
of subjectivity and the coercive contexts that give rise to metaphorical and symbolic accounts of
truth.Critique¹saestheticdimension- itscapacity to subject its own encounter with metaphors to
self-evaluationratherthanhermeneuticacceptance opensupthe bifurcatednature of subjectivity
- allowingusasjuridical-political subjects(of limitedfreedom) tonever-the-less view our selves as
radically autonomous subjects (of infinite freedom). This point needs to be distinguished from
whatTalal Asaddescribesas³the banal argumentthat free speechisnevertotallyfree becauseina
liberal societyfreedomisbalancedbyresponsibility.²What this essay explores is how the concept
of critique andthe modernsubjectariseswithinconflictsof free speech, coercion and censorship.
The fear that critique hasbecome a³heroicattitude,aparticularview of subjectivityandits
prime duty²-- little more thanone narrative of subjectivityamongmanypossible others, seems to
have resurfaced (Asad).
Kantian critique, and the pressure it places on setting aside claims to metaphysical truth
can appear problematic in the context of recent debates on religion, secularity and free speech:
critique privileges reason but cannot actually demonstrate absolute rational freedom or pure
theory, despite its reliance on a logical model which is defined by demonstrability (Butler,
Foucault). Using critique as a pragmatic political or moral position (to demystify ideological
assumptions) certainly can make it seem like little more than a historical transformation of
Christianmythosintologos(Milbank,Asad)oran a-historical assertionof rationalitythatreplicates
intellectual absolutism even as it claims to displace it.
However,the goal of critique isnota state of absolute intellectual freedomfromwhichthe
subject can at-last issue expedient and ³just² judgments. Rather Critique culminates in a more
subtle form of praxis -- the subject¹s own recognition of the conflicted conceptual basis of his or
herown subjectivity(Goetschel,Balibar). A critical subjectivity relies on interpretive moments of
critical reflection on the aesthetic experience of symbolic (rather than scientific) examples to
engage in analysis of the contingencies that inform the very sensus communis wherein the
intellectual autonomy that authorizes judgment is constituted.
Philosophy and Photography: The shimmering image: affect and digital technologies

16. 15
StellaBaraklianou (Lecturer,BA (Hons) Photography School of Art,Designand Media University of
Portsmouth)
Photography’suniquerelationshipwithtime,the ideaof fixing an image in time has been
alteredwiththe invasionof digitaltechnology.How revolutionary is the idea of the digital? What
essentially differentiates the idea of a stilled moment in time with its (digital) potentiality to
reverberate and pulsate within the same frame? From the capturing to the processing and
printing, images are subjected to open-ended alterity. However this is not just a question of
technological advancement but also of the question of an un-timely present. With reference to
Simondon’s L’individu et sa genese physico-biologique and Agamben’s What is an apparatus the
notionof diffractedandshimmeringtime will be explored,one thatisconditionedandatthe same
time, conditions the notion of subjectivity.
A Critical Evaluation of Parfit’s References to Nietzsche in ‘On What Matters'
Kit Barton (Pathway Leader, Business Studies Webster Graduate School at Regent's College
London)
The publication in 2011 of Derek Parfit’s book on ethical theory, entitled “On What
Matters”, was a much anticipated philosophical event. Once published, a number of prominent
philosopherssuggestedthatitmightrepresentthe mostimportantstepforwardinthinking about
ethics in over one hundred years. Amongst other ideas, the book delivered the final version of
Parfit’s convergence theory, which if true would reconcile the opposing ethical systems of
consequentialismanddeontology,adivide thoughtunbridgeablesince the workof HenrySidgwick
in 1874. The ramifications this would be immense, affecting both meta-ethics, by offering a
powerful newargumentforethical objectivism, andappliedethics,offering a new, unified ethical
systemtouse in moral deliberationandevaluation. Fromthiswide-rangingfieldof consequences,
this paper will focus on Parfit's references to the work of Nietzsche, a philosopher that Parfit
writes, “is the most influential and admired moral philosopher of the last two centuries”. Parfit
admits that if his convergence claim is to work then it must not be strongly challenged by
Nietzsche's claims. Parfit agrees with Nietzsche’s basic insight that morality is an historically-
conditioned phenomenon but he disagrees with any relativistic conclusion that could be drawn
from this. Parfit argues for progress in moral deliberation and ethical reasoning and so is like
Nietzsche insofarashe agrees that morality has a specific history or genealogy. However, Parfit,
unlike Nietzsche,doesnotacceptthatthishistoryeventuallyleadstoa stage that is ‘beyond good
and evil’, where morality would have progressed beyond a concern with human suffering. This
paperwill criticallyevaluate Parfit’s references to Nietzsche and, more specifically, determine if
Parfit’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s conception of moral history is correct. In addition, it will
attempt to show that some of Parfit’s concluding arguments about moral progress in ‘On What
Matters’ are to some extent already offered by Nietzsche in Untimely Meditations.
Visual Agnosia, Heidegger and Perceptual Error
David Batho (Graduate Student, Department of Philosophy University of Essex)
I beginthe paperby presentingacase study.The example isof awoman,LillianKallir, who suffers
from visual agnosia, a condition in which one cannot see objects as determinate unities. While
those with visual agnosia can make out properties of objects of their immediate environments,
they can’t see any unity through the properties such as would allow them to see whatever it is

17. 16
that’s in front of them. Nonetheless, however, Kallir could easily navigate her way about her
kitchen. As Oliver Sacks writes:
I followedLilianintothe kitchen, where she set about taking the kettle off the stove and
pouringboilingwaterintothe teapot.She seemed to navigate her crowded kitchen well,
knowing, for instance, that all the skillets and pots were hung on hooks on one wall,
various supplies kept in their regular places. When we opened the refrigerator and I
quizzed her on the contents, she said, “O.J., milk, butter on the top shelf – and a nice
sausage, if you’re interested, one of those Austrian things … cheeses.” (Sacks, pp.12-13)
Thisis somewhatpuzzling.Howcoulditbe that Kallircouldnotsee any unified objects and yet, in
some sense, retain the capacity to visually navigate her kitchen?
In order to go about answering this problem, I will look to Heidegger’s discussion of two
sensorycapacities,perceptionandcircumspection, in his elaboration of Plato’s Theaetetus. I will
draw attention to Heidegger’s use of the notion of ‘reckoning’, a concept which, I shall argue,
Heidegger uses to point to way in which perception is a means of maintaining one’s grip on the
world, not simply through correcting local failures but also in checking that one’s grip is fit for
purpose soas to prevent failures from occurring. The concept of reckoning thus conceived draws
significant distance between Heidegger’s description of perception and that offered by Hubert
Dreyfus. Insofar as Dreyfus insists that attentive, focused perception is engaged only given a
failure of our‘absorbedbodilycoping’(forinstance,if the hammerhead fliesoff mid-hammering),
Heidegger’s suggestion that perception is intimately involved in our everyday activity so as to
allow for the continuation of the proper functioning of ‘absorbed coping’ stands at odds with
Dreyfus’ portrayal. According to Heidegger, contra Dreyfus, we would struggle to cope without
perception.
By focusing on Heidegger’s notion of reckoning we shall also be able to address the
problemwithwhich we began, for we shall find a way to make sense of Kallir’s ability to cope in
her environment despite being unable to see any unified objects at all.
Silence and Phenomenology in John Cage and Gilles Deleuze
Iain Campbell (PhD candidate, Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy
Kingston University)
In this paper I will look at the role of silence in the musical theory of John Cage and the
relationof thisconceptof silence to the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, including his collaborative
work with Félix Guattari. While silence is rarely addressed explicitly in Deleuze's writings, I will
argue, through engagement with Cage, that it plays a key role in the development of his
ontological project. Furthermore, I will deepen this relation by considering opposing
interpretationsof Cage – namely, the Deleuzian one I offer, and a phenomenologically-oriented
one – and consider how the distinctions between these approaches can shed new light on the
specificityof Deleuze'srelationtoandbreakwithphenomenology,andin turn Cage's connections
to phenomenological thought.
Cage's conception of silence centres on its impossibility – in even the most supposedly
silentof situations,suchasCage's famousexampleof hisvisit to an anechoic chamber, sound will
still be present – as in the sounds of his own nervous and circulatory systems that Cage heard
while in the chamber. Cage's concept of silence, then, stands parallel to the 'blank' canvas of
Rauschenberg's white paintings: as a space upon which sound is articulated prior to artistic
intention and musical form, always present and exceeding gestures intended to control it,
encouraginganemphasison'lettingsoundsbe themselves'.While Cage isdiscussedonlybriefly in
Deleuze & Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, despite the apparent centrality of musical thought
through concepts such as the refrain and reference to the musico-theoretical writings of other

18. 17
composers such as Pierre Boulez and Olivier Messiaen, I will argue that his articulation of the
concept of silence is nevertheless central to the ontology developed therein. For Deleuze &
Guattari, Cage “first and most perfectly” deploys the fixed plane of sound that will stand in for
what Deleuze & Guattari call smooth space, a space wherein sound is expressed in terms of its
processuality, through its singular movement rather than its subordination to transcendent
organisation through form and structure. It is from this Cageian conception of a space of sonic
heterogeneity, I will argue, that Deleuze & Guattari can construct the theoretical apparatus of
paired concepts upon which A Thousand Plateaus sits – smooth-striated, deterritorialization-
reterritorialization, and so on.
Following this positioning of Cage's silence as central to Deleuze & Guattari's thought, I
will look at an opposing philosophical interpretation of Cage - namely, the phenomenological
readingputforwardby,for example,Daniel Charles,whereinthe impetusof aCageian philosophy
concerns a subject approaching the hidden world of sound in terms of a Heideggerian
unconcealment.Incomparingandcontrastingthese approaches withconsiderationof the kindsof
criticismsdirectedtowardsCage whenconsideredphenomenologically,suchasthose made bythe
sonictheoristDouglasKahn,Iwill lookto reach two main conclusions – the first being an analysis
of how these critical approaches to Cage are derived from a partial – that is to say, excessively
phenomenologically-oriented – reading of Cage, and the second being a framing of the shape
Deleuze's break with phenomenology takes, and its import with regards to responding to the
limitations of phenomenological thought.
Re-theorising the Individual in a Spinozist way: Towards a Novel Materialist Ontology of
Affectivity
Ljuba Castelli (PhD candidate, School of Politics and International Relation Queen Mary,
University of London)
This paper examines the paradigm of the individual proposed by Spinoza, and considers
the extent to which his theses address contemporary concerns and open novel trajectories in
philosophy and politics. It explores Spinoza’s intricate vision of the human being centred on a
conative desire of striving and persevering into life, which is constantly enriched by an endless
production of affects, ideas and bodily movements. This study of Spinoza’s thought of the
individual is situated within the general tendency inaugurated by contemporary continental
thought, which has posed the urgency of re-constructing our knowledge of human subjectivity.
Contemporarycontinental philosophyhasclaimedthat the reality of human being follows a non-
linearpath,whichunfoldsavarietyof heterogeneouselementssuchasdesires, affects and forces
(Deleuze, Simondon, Negri, Agamben, among others). Building upon the continental approach,
here, the central questions are: What theory of the individual might we draw from continental
portraitof humankindasa mixture of variousforces?And also, assuming the continental account
of the individual, what can we really know of an individual? What is at stake here is the
establishmentof reallynewcategoriesof thought,whichallowustoemphasise internal dynamics,
and to understand what confluence of forces lie underneath and between the individual. These
categoriesof thoughtshouldoffer the opportunity of analysing the anatomy of the individual by
looking at its development and at the experience of its becoming. A consideration of these
questionsinvolvesamore extensive accountof the meaningof life,the re-definition of the notion
of otherness;andalsothe understandingof the multiple waysinwhichthe external worldimpacts
uponthe individual and vice versa. An enquiry into these themes is imperative for developing a
novel paradigm of the individual of the present, around which contemporary theories of
community, mass movements and society might be predicated. Spinoza addresses these issues.

19. 18
The discussiondrawsattentiontoSpinoza’stheory of the affects, conatus and desire and
the ways in which these operate within the constitution of the individual. The arguments, I
advance throughthispaper,are that Spinoza’smodel of the individual unveils a complex process
of collectiveandpsychicindividuation.Affectivitygroundspsychic life and is also the cornerstone
of relationality.Affects,relatingindividualstoone another,impress changes upon them, which in
turn give rise to a really new individual. It is in this context, I claim, that the novelty of Spinoza’s
philosophy lies. He forwards the idea of an ontology of and for affectivity. The affective process
doesnotdescribe the interiorlifeof anindividual being,andnorare affectssubordinateelements
of a more general cognitive system internal to the structure of the mind. Rather, affective
movementsare intensities,which lie on the interstices between individuals. These function as a
collective ground,inwhichindividualsparticipate andfurtherproduce sharedconceptionsof time,
otherness and actions. As a consequence, in Spinoza’s process of psychic individuation the
individualisnotthe principle of individuation,butratheraconstitutive elementof a more general
processof individuation. The peculiarity of a human being is characterised by a relational power
(conatus), and his or her life is driven by a form of tendency towards the others (desire). This
tendencydetermineshuman desireforconstructingpsychic,social andpolitical communities. The
importance of returningtoSpinoza’sontology,Iargue, is the re-formulation of a grammar for the
individual alternative to theories of lack and conflict; the affirmation of the autonomy of the
affects and also a re-consideration of the interconnection between different forms of life. Our
awareness of these might open unexplored avenues for materialist conceptions of community,
ethics and politics.
Sensation as Participation in Visual Art
Clive Cazeaux (Professor of Aesthetics, Cardiff School of Art and Design Cardiff Metropolitan
University)
Can an understandingbe formedof how sensoryexperience mightbe arranged,presented
or manipulatedinvisual artin order to promote a relational concept of the senses, in opposition
to the customary, (and arguably) capitalist notion of sensation as a private possession, as a
sensory impression that is mine? I ask the question in the light of recent visual art theory and
practice which pursue relational, ecological ambitions. As theories and artworks, they claim to
challenge the subject–object or artist–audience division by arguing that works of visual art have
the capacity either to affect or to cultivate social, environmental or exchange-based states of
being. Key thinkers in this area are Berleant, Bourriaud, Kester and Rancière. As they see it,
ecological ambitionandartisticformshouldcorrespond.Butanontological positionisoverlooked.
FollowingMarx,ourbeingisalreadyrelational in virtue of the fact that sensation is something in
whichwe participate.Inreasoning that ambition and form must correspond, Berleant, Bourriaud
and Kester fail to recognize sensation as a site where the ecological cause can be fought. And
Rancière’sdistributionof the sensible does not address the particularity of sensory experience. I
set out the difference between ontological approaches within recent relational or ecological
aestheticsandmyfocuson sensibility,andidentifysome of the problems involved in referring to
the senses. I spend the greater part of the paper articulating concepts that I think are central to
the makingand viewingof art where the ambition is to cultivate relational sensibility. These are
concepts of style, autofiguration, and the mobility of sensory meaning, extrapolated from
Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of Cézanne. Underlying all three is an argument for positioning the
sensesontologicallyasmovementsalonglinesof conceptual-sensory connection and implication,
based on the transfer of meanings created artistically through style and autofiguration.

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Dialectic in Process/Progress: Plato, Kant and Hegel
Joyce Chen (Ph.D candidate/ Part-time Lecturer, National Taiwan University, Dept. of
Foreign Language and Literature)
The revival of ancient Platonic dialectic, as Gadamer asserts, can be traced back to
Kantiantranscendental dialecticforthe analysisof pure reasonandthe critique of metaphysics.As
the founder of dialectic philosophy, Plato regards dialectic as “the highest sort of philosophical
reasoning about the Forms or Ideas” (Guyer 126) for the constitution of the conceptual,
metaphysical dimensionof the world. Thus, Platonic dialectic explicates, or is synonymous with,
the highest faulty of reason. Yet, while German idealism attempts to dissolve the philosophical
predicament between rationalist dogmatism and empiricist skepticism, Kant as the initiator of
idealist movement indicates how the self-contradictory certainty and doubt in Cartesian reason
disclosesitsinnerlimit,andPlatonicForm buttressedbythislimited reason is merely “a dream of
perfectionthatcanhave its place onlyinthe idle thinker’sbrain”(Critique of Pure Reason 397). As
Kantian transcendental dialectic is concerned with “certain kinds of malfunction of reason,”
Hegelian dialectic, having affinity with Platonic dialectic as “the doctrine of the unity of the
opposites” (Kaplan 132), aims to dissolve Kantian dichotomy between the noumena and the
phenomenaforthe teleology of absolute, infinite knowing. While Gadamer argues that Hegel is
the first to actually “grasp the depth of Plato’s dialectic” (7), Hegelian dialectic rejects Kantian
transcendental dialectic and posits itself as “an immanent one of internal necessity” (7). As the
principles of “self-movement of concepts” (5), Hegelian dialectic anticipates an alternative idea
“not a mental representationof anobject[asPlatonicIdea],butisactuallypresentinthingsas the
groundof theirexistence”(Bunnin320).Drivenbythe principle of negation of negation, Hegelian
dialectic rejects Kantian transcendental dialectic as well as Fichetean a priori triad of thesis-
antithesis-synthesis but explicates an ongoing and immanent evolution of being-nonbeing-
becoming triad for the identity formation from the maximum difference as contradiction to the
minimal difference as indifference. As a fundamental principle that regulates the identity
formationof individual being, the Hegelian dialectic between the universal in the particular and
the particularin the universal leads tothe paradoxical parodyof radical (in)difference betweenthe
squaredcircle andthe round square; in Hegelian teleological dialectic, the noumenal essence of
being parallels the phenomenal existence of thing. This paper, interrogating how the Hegelian
dialecticinheritsfromaswell asbreakswithPlatonicandKantiandialecticforthe infiniteknowing
inepistemologyandtrue identityof beinginontology,outlinesthe evolutionandstylishgestureof
dialectical thinking from the ancient to the modern.
A Philosophical Concept of Miltancy
Matthew Cole (Recent graduate of Kingston University's Philosophy MA program)
Thispaperexploresaphilosophical concept of militancy. Its primary reference points are
Alain Badiou’s Being and Event, Ernesto Laclau’s essay “An Ethics of Militant Engagement,” and
Marx’s ‘Fragment on Machines.’ It attempts to address the following questions: How does
militancy form? What is a militant in the contemporary world? What is the temporality of
militancy? What is the role of ideology [both for the militant and the liberal state apparatus]?
Militancy forms the primary principle of any revolutionary intervention. As a politics, it
necessarily stands outside the State’s legal code of engagement, and by doing so, grounds itself
outside the State,whilenonethelessremainingwithinthe situationasawhole.Byexistingoutside
the State, setting it at a distance, militancy attempts to absolutely other the State, opening an
immeasurable gap between the militant and the State. This gap, opened by the antagonism
necessaryforintervention, lacksameasure.However,inresponse,the State attemptstoassertits

21. 20
powerand by doing so, it displays a certain measure of that power (this manifests itself through
various forms of policing, repression, violence, imprisonment, internment, etc. –all different
intensities of an essential war-situation). The real problematic of militancy develops out of the
State’s attempts to perpetually recuperate this immeasurability, to map this gap that militancy
requires to sustain itself, this space that the militant needs to defend against the State’s war-
machine.The militantthatallowsthe State tomeasure,fails,because this is the mode by which it
can be subsumedorrecuperated.Militancythusformswhenthe quantitative forms of resistance
are sublimated into the qualitative perma-war with the State is asserted.
Post-Human Critical Theory
Bernard Cosgrave (affiliated with the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin)
Habermasconstantlyclaimedthathe doesnothave a normative moral or political theory,
but a Critical Theoryof Society. The basis for this distinction is his claim that he is merely making
explicitthe implicitnormativepressuppositionsof all language users.Habermasenvisagedthe task
of reconstructing these normative expectations a partially empirical exercise. However no
empirical confirmation was forthcoming, as the empirical aspects of his theory were never
developed. I argue that this failure causes a Habermas' distinction between his Critical Theory
Theory and normative moral and political theories to break down.
This is crucially important as the norms that Habermas endorses are of explicitly Kantian
origin.Theyemphasizereasonandimpartialityandneedforasearchfor and a consensusarounda
single rightanswer.Thisconceptionof morality has been criticized as an ethnocentric and biased
towards masculine notion of reasoning. Habermas' defence against this claim is that these are
universally presupposed norms based as he has shown with the aid of empirical studies. This
defence isnolongeravailable tohimandthusI will argue that Habermas'theory is deeply marred
by ethnocentric and masculine biases about what I means to be human.
One approach this problem by those, including Seyla Benhabib, who recognise the force of the
objection facing Habermas, but who do not want to abandon his framework is to attempt to
broaden his notion moral and political discourse without fundamentally altering it.
I will argue thata more radical approachis necessary.The colonization of the human calls
for a posthumanism and investigate whether it has the potential to provide an alternative
paradigm for Critical Theory. By posthumanism I do not mean transhumanism the ambition to
alterthe humanthrough the development of human-machine hybrid. I am interested in the idea
that we have alwaysbeenpost-human.The possibilitiesof new biotechnology only serve to show
that the idea of the human is not a static one.
Influenced by Rosi Braidotti, I will focus on Deleuze's notion of the subject as a dynamic
process of becoming. Deleuze argues that in Western philosophy, the masculine as term of
reference of the dominant view of subjectivity coincides with the exercise of basic symbolic
functions,suchasreason,self-regulation,self-representationtranscendence and its corollary; the
powerto name andappointpositionsof 'otherness' as a set of constitutive outsiders who design
by negationthe parametersof subjectivity.Deleuze argues that the masculine coincides with the
fixity of the centre, which in western philosophy is represented through the notion of Being. As
such, the masculine is opposed to the process of becoming, understood as the engendering of
creative differences. Being allows for no mutation, no creative becoming, no process: it merely
tends towards self-preservation.
Deleuzue advocates processes of becoming, becoming minority, becoming woman, and
becominganimal.These are creative processthataimto engenderalternativeformsof life, ethics
and politics other than the dominant eurocentric masculine one. By investigating this notion of
becoming I will attempt to show that Benhabib's adaptation of Habermas' programme is not

22. 21
sufficient to overcome its shortcomings. I will also question whether Braidotti's use of Deleuze
allows us to salvage, what Habermas sees as essential for Critical Theory, a normative basis for
social criticism.
Yachts and Chains: Alienation in an Age of Technology
Steven DeLay (PhD Candidate, Philosophy Department Rice University)
On Marx’s view, the state of the present age is a tale of class struggle. It is a story of the
haves and the have-nots. There are, on the one hand, the capitalists who control the means of
production. And, on the other hand, there is the proletariat whom the capitalists exploit. The
relation between capitalist and worker, thus, is one of struggle and exploitation. And all this, so
the story goes, has given rise to alienation. And yet, an acknowledgment of alienation invites a
furtherquestion.While the workersof capitalistsocietyare surelybesetbyalienation,whatabout
the capitalists themselves? Are they exempt from such existential malaise? I think a telling
anecdote suggests otherwise.
Considerastory aboutPaul AllenandSteve Ellison.Allen,the cofounder of Microsoft, and
Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp, found themselves embroiled in a competition that epitomizes the
age’scapitalistethos.Whatwasall the fussabout?As Yachting Magazine’s BarryPickthall reports,
Ellison and Allen were in competition to see who could own the longer yacht. As the article
observes,“WhenAllenorderedhislatestsuperyacht,the 416-foot Octopus from the Lürsson yard
in Germany, Ellison was soon to follow with an order for the monster 452-foot Rising Sun, which
became the second-largest private yacht when he had the hull extended from 387 feet during
construction.”DoAllenandEllisontypifysomethingtelling about the contemporary age? I would
say so.Theyare, as any Marxistissure to exclaim, living archetypes of the exploitative capitalist.
Yet,are theynot alsobrothersinalienation?Fordespite the apparentgrandeurof their lifestyles,
Allen’s and Ellison’s yacht imbroglio suggests that both are as alienated as the rest of us—if not
more so.
With the wager in mind that everyone, not just workers, is alienated, I wish to critically
evaluate Marx’snotionof alienation.In§2,I explainMarx’sclaimthatalienation is ultimately due
to the material conditionsof capitalistsociety.Inreply,Iarticulate analternativeunderstandingof
alienation.Onthisalternateview which I call the “onto-existential” interpretation of alienation,
alienation is not to be understood as something that emerges on the basis of economic labor
conditions alone. It is, rather, a condition that reveals something essential about the nature of
being a human subject.
Havingframedalienationinthisexistential register, I turn in §3 to Marx’s claim that homo
faberisthe essence of humansubjectivity.Iargue that,once we recognize thatalienationisdue to
something about the very structure of human existence, and not merely a contingent historical
fact abouteconomicconditions,we have equalreasontoreconsider Marx’s conception of what it
meansto be a human subject.Specifically,we come tosee thatMarx—thoughrightfully critical of
capitalist labor conditions, principles, and values—overlooks the fact that such labor conditions
are notself-grounded.Economicconditions,thatistosay, are not the “base” that determines the
“superstructure” of society. Instead, it is the background understanding of what it means for
something to be—what Heidegger calls an “epoch” of being—that determines these economic
conditionsthemselves. In §4, then, I conclude with some remarks about how we might best deal
withalienation.Mysuggestion,informedbymy“existential”readingof alienationandHeidegger’s
critique of technology,isthatalienationisnotsomethingtobe overcome bysocial revolution, but
rather isa task that fallssquarelyuponthe shouldersof eachindividualtoconfrontalone.The only
“antidote” to such alienation, thus, is that we “let-things-be” rather than attempt to master,
dominate, and control them.

23. 22
Nancy and the Impasse of Community
Professor Ignaas Devisch (Professor of Philosophy Ghent University and Artevelde University)
Whichproblemsare we dealingwithwhenwe talkaboutcommunity? The most basic and
tautological answer is: the problem that we no longer know what we are talking about when we
speakaboutcommunity.The triviality of this answer speaks volumes. The fact that we no longer
knowwhetherand how we can still speak about community, this is the fundamental problem of
community today. All the foundations out of which we have thought community until now have
gone bankrupt,theyare past their expiration-date. But since this is a fundamental problem, one
must investigate it in an equally fundamental manner.
To my mind, Jean-Luc Nancy’s ontological inquiry therefore is and continues to be most
promising when articulating the regularly occurring impasse of community in the most radical
manner. It is not that ontology can solve the all-encompassing problem of community. As I said,
the problemcanno longerbe graspedinall-encompassing terms, and this is a good thing, for the
problem concerns precisely a societal model in which community no longer poses any problem.
This is just as true for the ‘solution’ that, out of fear of falling into totalitarianism or social
immanentism, tries to flee from all attempts at a solution to the problem.
My unpackingof social immanentismwill be ledinthe firstinstance byNancy,butinorder
to addressa numberof questionsconcerningsocial identityorthe returntoan original community
we will alsoneed totake a careful lookat Derrideandeconstruction. Only through this detour can
we properly analyze the call for a return to an original community and gain insight into the
philosophical stakes of Nancy’s call for a social ontology.
Matter of Life: Ecology in Spinoza, Deleuze and Meillassoux
Rick Dolphijn(AssistantProfessor,Department of Media and Cultural Studies Utrecht University)
For overthe past decade,radical thinkers, most of them combining several disciplines in
theiranalysis,andthenIthinkof people suchasBrian Massumi,Erin Manning,BryanRotman,Rosi
Braidotti, Jane Bennett, Tim Morton, Slavoj Zizek, Manuel DeLanda and Quentin Meillassoux,
increasinglyshow usthatthe type of thinkingthathasbeendominatingthe ecological debates for
so longnow,are ill-conceptualized in a fundamental way. Often influenced by the work of Gilles
Deleuze, it is now all across academia (from architecture (think Lars Spuybroek) to musicology
(think Steve Goodman)), that scholars and scientists are mapping that the current state of the
earth, of life, demands us to change our thinking about nature, about matter, about technology,
and about our role in it, radically.
Crucial here isto tackle this anthropocentrism whichliesdeeplyembeddednotonly in the
dominantideasaboutecology,butinourthinkingasa whole.Especiallythe writings of Immanuel
Kant,as they had a major impact upon (German) Idealism, phenomenology and critical thinking,
have established this central role of man in thought. Foucault already noted this in the early
1960's, yet"the end of man", as he indeed defined man a 19th century invention which we have
to get rid of as soon as possible, still stirs the debate, today more than anywhere, in terms of
ecology. Quentin Meillassoux most recently caused an uproar in academia, claiming that Kant’s
thoughts,andespeciallyhisSubject(the I-think), functioning as the necessary point of departure
for anything to come into existence, turned out to be the very “catastrophe” for thinking. This
humanself centeredness,thisarrogance even,hasremoved us from the earth we live, alienating
us from each other and even from ourselves.

24. 23
In this paper my goal is to reread this ecological tradition central to European thought,
starting with Spinoza with special attention to Deleuze and Quentin Meillassoux (who writes
important contributions) as a means to realize that the human being is just another form of life
that is nothing but a “fungal growth of which the planet is completely unaware”. To realize this
deeply Spinozist position, in thought, we cannot be interested in objects, but we cannot be
interested in subjects either. Contrary to how the ecological debate goes today, this tradition
cannot butconclude thatwe are not entitledtosave the world;we shouldallowthe world to save
the world. We should not open ourselves up to the world, as Derrida would have it. We should
allow the world to open us up. We should become a target if we truly want to get rid of
anthropocentrism and all of its devastations that keep on haunting us.
Ontology and (non)-Ontology in the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze
Vladimir Dukic (Recent Graduate, MA program in Theory, Culture and Politics Trent University)
Ontology has been solved—once and for all. When in Difference and Repetition Deleuze
writesthat“there has onlyever been one ontological proposition,” this statement is to be taken
literally: from Parmenides to Heidegger, the response to every imperative question and the
solution to every problem incarnated in the domain of ontology is the same—the one and only
ontological proposition,“beingisunivocal.”The question,then,concernsthe sense of this unique
proposition,but,more tothe point,itconcernsthe very task of thinking: if philosophy has solved
and re-solved its fundamental ontological problems, what remains to be thought?
By returningto Differenceand Repetition and relatedtexts of the same period, this paper
articulates an understanding of “(non)-ontology” as that which continues to give us thought. To
thisend,Deleuze’snotionof “(non)-being,”the beingof questions/ problems, is examined in the
contextof Martin Heidegger’sinquiryintonon-being,the nothing,as well as Henri Bergson’s own
investigations into the idea of nothingness. For Deleuze, it is argued, (non)-being must be
understoodasa “form” of beingthat refersnotto existence—the“toexist”of particularentities—
instead,itreferstothe “to subsist,”or“to insist”of perfectlypositive,differential, and dialectical
problematicfieldsandquestionsengenderedbythose fields.To be sure, insofar as (non)-being is
understood as a form of being, (non)-ontology remains a form of ontology; nevertheless, it is a
superiorform,concernednotwiththe propositionsof consciousness,butwithproblems-Ideasand
questions/ imperatives that impose themselves on the unconscious.
Gauging Proximities: An inquiry into a possible nexus between Middle Eastern and
Western Painting
Evrim Emir (PhD Candidate, University of Amsterdam)
The blind and the seeing are not equal.
––– The Koran, “The Creator”, 19
There isnothingmore goingon betweenthe thingsandthe eyes,and the eyes and vision,
than between the things and the blind man’s hands, and between his hands and thoughts.
––– Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “Eye and Mind”, 302
Nobel-Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk stages an exploration of the art and
philosophy of Ottoman miniature painting in his 2001 novel, Benim Adım Kırmızı (My Name Is
Red).Pamuk’sworkclearlysuggestsparallelsbetweenthe MiddleEasternminiature tradition and
20th
-century Western philosophy of art. Why would a contemporary reader with a Western

25. 24
education find My Name Is Red appealing? Why do Middle Eastern paintings themselves, or
Islamic philosophy, seem to lack the proximity to the West that is suggested by the novel? The
response tothese questionsmayperhapsbe foundinanothersetof questions:Whatcould be the
inspiration for a 20th
-century author who writes about Ottoman miniaturists? Ottoman history,
perhaps. Islamic philosophy, indeed. But what about 20th
-century Western philosophy?
Thispaperaims to examine whetherthe proximity between Islamic painting and modern
Westernphilosophyof artimpliedbyPamukisreallypossible, or whether what Pamuk has to say
about Islamic art is instead influenced by 20th
-century Western philosophy of art, especially the
ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jacques Derrida. I believe that the philosophy of art
portrayedin My Name is Red is at the very least unconsciously conditioned by the philosophy of
art of recenttimes.One mightpushthe argumenttothe limitandclaim that Pamuk is consciously
creatinga view of Islamic art according to 20th
-century philosophy of art. Nonetheless, the novel
opensupa space for inquiry into a possible nexus between two art forms, specifically miniature
paintings and 20th
century western abstract paintings, which seem to be not only historically but
philosophically radically apart from each other.
A Grey Zone between Republicanism, Liberalism, and Nationalism: On the Concept of
Constitutional Patriotism
Erdinç Erdem (Graduate student, MA Political Science, Sabancı University, Istanbul, Turkey)
This paper explores one of the proposed principles of “living together” within political
philosophy, “constitutional patriotism”, which has gained its name and prominence through
various writings of Jürgen Habermas. Habermas offers this concept first as a remedy for the
pathologiesof nation state, second as a new ground for political allegiance beyond nation state.
Since the times of Roman res publica, various forms of patriotism as a sentiment have been
discussed by various thinkers either as a virtue or a vice. On the one hand, civic republicanism
considers patriotism as a civic value, a moral potential, for citizens to fight against injustices in
theirhomelands.Inthisrespect,contemporaryrepublicanwritingson patriotismaimtobringback
and emphasize thisoldmeaningof the concept.Onthe other hand, other thinkers, largely from a
liberal cosmopolitan standpoint, undermine the importance of patriotism, and argue that it is a
variantof nationalism.Betweenthese twoperspectives, there is a growing literature focusing on
howto reconcile republicans’emphasisoncivic virtues and liberals’ emphasis on rights. Hence, a
constitutional patriotism is suggested by Jürgen Habermas as a principle that claims to solve the
tension between these two traditions.
Constitutional patriotism is developed not for the purpose of bringing back pre-nation
state form of patriotism. Nor it is analogous to any sort of nationalism. Therefore, in this paper I
ask what makes constitutional patriotism different from civic republican patriotism and
nationalism.Tothisend,firstlyI will trace the origins of modern patriotism where the concept is
gradually subsumed within the boundaries of nation state. In this respect, I argue that one must
turn to Hegel inorderto pinpointthe most elaborate form of patriotism as allegiance to political
institutions of a nation-state. Secondly, I ask whether constitutional patriotism has such a
contradictorynature that contains nationalism just as the one embraced by Hegel. This question
leads us to compare constitutional patriotism with nationalism, particularly civic and liberal
nationalism.Hence,inthispart,I will dwell on how to conceptualize patriotism as detached from
nationalism.Inthe final partof the paper,I will discusswhetherconstitutional patriotism is a right
answer for the question of how to live together.

26. 25
Living Knowledge? Deleuze, Canguilhem and the Problem of Life
Tom Eyers (Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Humanities,
Washington University in St. Louis)
Century is often understood as being organized into two broadthFrench philosophy of the 20
streams.The first,associatedwithBergsonthroughDeleuze,privilegesthe livedexperience of the
subject, while the second, associated with Foucault, Lacan and Derrida and encompassing the
epistemologyof Canguilhem and Bachelard, centers on an anti-humanist account of the primacy
of conceptsandstructures.Inprovidingacritical readingof the work of the philosopherof biology
GeorgesCanguilhemandthe philosopherGillesDeleuze,twothinkersostensiblyat different ends
of this bifurcation of French intellectual history, I will contest this narrative, arguing that it is
aroundthe problemof ‘life’ that a concern for the vitality of experience and the constitutivity of
concepts and structures might be brought together.
Canguilhem, Iargue,insistsonthinking‘life’asencompassing both the immanent negotiations of
organisms within their milieu and the equally immanent emergence of knowledge from such
movements.Deleuze, in turn, evinces a comparable, if distinct, concern for the inextricability of
language and logic from the immanent potentiality of life. While the latter, I argue, risks falling
back intoan understandingof lifeasanincorporeal energyunmooredfrommaterial conditions,an
interpositionof Canguilhem’smaterialistunderstandingof the interactionof organismsandmilieu
may helptoretrospectivelyhighlightthose elements inDeleuze’sworkthatresistthe temptations
of a weightless vitalism.
Both thinkers, when read critically together, point towards a thinking of language that resists its
cleavage from the singularity of life, and an understanding of lived experience that circumvents
the vitalisturge toascribe a fundamentallyextra- ornon-material statusonlife.The contemporary
relevance of my paper lies in its return to the ‘source’ of much current thinking in European
philosophy around the problem of life as it intersects with political theory, most influentially
incarnated in the concept of ‘biopolitics’. How might an attention to the more general
philosophical conditionsforthinkinglife initsimmanentrelationwithlanguageandlogicshednew
light on the post-Foucauldian attempt to think life and politics together?
Ephectic Phenomenology and the Pathological Imperative
Richard Fitch (Independent Scholar, PhD Birkbeck, University of London)
`This paperfirst explores what would be required for a phenomenological practice to be
non-dogmatic, and then asks if the categorical imperative could have a place in such a practice.
Although modern phenomenology often professes noble anti-dogmatic intentions, in practice
these soon seem to fall by the wayside. The turn, from vulgar metaphysical or positivist dogma,
towards ‘the things themselves’, soon turns full circle to return to dogma, as appears to be the
case withrecentphenomenological returns to religion or to the philosophy of mind. Dogmatism
renders reasoning arbitrary and rationally indistinct. So a dogmatic phenomenology renders the
careful description of ‘what appears’, arbitrary and indistinct. Instead of bringing
phenomenological light, a thick dogmatic fog obscures. To succeed philosophically,
phenomenologymustremainnon-dogmatic.A properlynon-dogmaticphenomenological practice
would suspend judgement on matters beyond what appears to appear. This practice, given the
focus on suspension, might be described as an ephectic phenomenology. Essential to such a
practice would be the discipline to resist the siren calls of the more seductive styles of
dogmatising, such as, for example, transcendental thought. But what of the categorical
imperative? Even thinkers such as Derrida and Nancy, more sensitive than most to the perils of
dogmatism in phenomenology, have remained wedded to imperatives. Do imperative forms of
thought elude dogmatism, and thus have a place in an ephectic phenomenology? The paper

27. 26
exploresthisquestionbyexaminingthe place of the imperative inthe work of Alphonso Lingis, as
well asKant’soriginal formulation.Lingisisexaminedbecause of his sensitivity to the libidinal. In
conclusion, a concept of a pathological imperative is articulated. Not so much in the sense of a
diseased imperative, but more in the wake of the archaic sense of pathē as describing what we
must undergo regardless of our desire; an imperative torn between the pathological and the
passionate.
Violence and Translation in the Work of Emmanuel Levinas
Lisa Foran (PhD candidate, School of Philosophy, University College Dublin)
Thispaper seeks to explore the relation between being and otherwise than being in the
work of Emmanuel Levinas. I argue that this relation takes the form of translation; a translation
which is violent but one that is also the possibility of limiting that necessary violence.
In Otherwise than Being (1974) Levinas argues, against Heidegger, for a subject who is
more than a being questioning in the direction of the meaning of Being. His account of the
otherwise than being calls for another type of consciousness: a non-intentional consciousness
whose modalityisaffectivityandexposure againstthe intentional ego of Husserl whose modality
was representation and objectification. Seeking to explain the subject as substitution for the
Other, Levinas argues for a subject understood as a null-site, a u-topos who occupies the non-
space between being and otherwise than being. This paper argues that this null-site is to be
understood as a site of translation. It is here that the Levinasian subject on the one hand ties
being to the otherwise than being while at the same time being the ‘breaking point’ of that
relation. I suggest that this double modality creates a subject who passively enacts an infinite
translating between essence and beyond essence.
Separate to,evenpriorto,the intentional egoisasubjectwhorespondsto the face of the
Other, a response which is an infinite responsibility for the Other. This response, which is
responsibility,is for Levinas to be understood as Saying – ‘forward of languages’ – found beyond
being. However,sayingisbetrayed on the plane of ontology in the said, in language understood
as a system of signs. It is the responsibility of philosophy to reduce this betrayal, to reduce the
violence of the translation of saying to said, of otherwise than being to being. The manner in
whichthisreductionis to take place is through an ‘incessant unsaying’ of the said. In the second
part of this paper I contend that this unsaying is also a translating – a stepping back from the
treason of manifestation.
Finallythis paper argues that the violence of manifestation, the treason of the saying by
the said, is a necessary violence; what Levinas calls a ‘good violence’. ‘Traduttore, traditore’:
translationmightalwaysbe treasonbutitisalso the ‘price thatmanifestationdemands’. Wihtout
this translation, I argue, the subject is powerless to act.
Romanticism and Inaesthetics: Alain Badiou’s Reading of Hölderlin
Moritz Gansen (Postgraduate student in philosophy, Free University of Berlin and Kingston
University)
‘Hölderlin’sword’,Martin Heidegger writes in one of his Elucidations, ‘says the holy [das
Heilige], and thereby names the singular time-space of the original decision for the
essencearrangement [Wesensgefüge] of the future history of gods and humanities’. This is,
accordingto Heidegger,the taskof the poetsindestitute times,intimesof the threshold,inwhich
the ancientgods have withdrawn and the mortals must await their return: to be the messengers
of the gods, the witnesses of truth as the disclosure, or opening, of being. Poetry becomes

28. 27
ontology – if language isthe ‘house of being’,andif only bytraversing language we can reach that
which is, who but the poets, who venture further into language, could speak of being? Who but
the poets could truly think?
Such is, in brief, not only Heidegger’s theory of poetry, but also the fundamental
dispositionof whatAlainBadiouhascalled‘the age of poets’.Thisphilosophical category, in many
waysassociatedwithromanticism, identifiesa period, stretching from Friedrich Hölderlin to Paul
Celan,inwhichphilosophydeveloped a tendency to delegate its functions to poetry. Where due
to certain methodological constraints philosophy seemed wanting, Badiou argues, poets felt
compelledtostepin,producingwork‘immediately recognizable as a work of thought’. But as the
poetsbecome thinkers,asthe stakes and objects of the formerly distinct activities of poetry and
philosophyare increasinglyidentified,the resultisanew relationshipof rivalrybetween the two –
philosophers aspire to be poets. The age of poets means the ‘suturing’ of philosophy to poetry.
However, Badiou asserts, this age is over: Celan was its last poet. And yet, the poetic suture
subsists; the advocates of poetic ontology still appear as our contemporaries. However, Badiou
argues, they are not, since, caught in the impasse of neo-romanticism, they in fact deprive
philosophyof itspotential to be genuinely contemporary. The great task is hence the renewal of
philosophyinthe overcomingof the poeticsuture.One mustestablishanew relationshipbetween
philosophy and poetry – precisely this is the purpose of Badiou’s notion of ‘inaesthetics’.
The proposedpaperwill hence analyse the concept as a direct response to Heideggerian
hermeneutics.Afterashort recapitulationof Badiou’sgeneral understanding of the term, we will
more specifically consider it as an explicit intervention in the field of the
neo-romantictendenciesof Heideggerianism,asa programme designedtoovercome whatBadiou
believes to be the latter’s impasse. Finally, we will examine Badiou’s counterappropriation of
Hölderlin,the poetwhomhe tends to designate as the ‘distant prophet’ of the age of poets, and
whom Heidegger calls ‘the pre-cursor of poets in destitute time’. We will, by means of a close
reading of Badiou’s meditation on the romantic poet in Being and Event, understand that the
attempt to show a Hölderlin beyond Heidegger becomes a touchstone of inaesthetics that also
ultimately betrays its inadequacies.
Apprehension and Deception: Hegel and the Farce of Thinking
Tziovanis Georgakis (Teaching Staff, Department of English Studies, University of Cyprus)
In Phenomenology of Spirit,Hegel arguesthatthe sophistryof perceptionseekstolay hold
on the truth and save it from contradiction by distinguishing the “unessential” aspects of
understanding from an “essence” which is opposed to it. However, as he crucially notes, these
expedients do not ward off deception in the process of apprehension (Hegel, G. W. F.
Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. Miller, A. V. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 77). In this
paper,I argue that an underlying discourse of afarcical modalityeffectsthe Hegeliandialectic. For
Hegel,the singularbeingof sensevanishesinthe dialectical movementof immediatecertaintyand
emerges in the object as pure universality, the in-itself of the One. But this immediacy is still a
conditioned being-for-self alongside which appears another being-for-self. In other words, the
universal andtruthful objectof sense—which is both the act and object of apprehension—is the
one and the same respect of the excessive opposite of itself. It is for itself so far as it is for a
multiple other, and it is for a multiple other so far as it is for itself. This determinacy of the
universal one asanexcessive otherand the excessive other as universal one is pure negation, an
indeterminacy par excellence, and it allows (a) a determined universal one to be deceivably
perceivedasaundeterminedexcessand(b) the determinedexcessto be deceivably perceived as
an undetermineduniversal.However,as I claim, this Hegelian deceptive play of contradictions is
authorizedbyanothermore primarygame of deceptionswhichis farcical inits essence. This farce