240–241 in Corpus Christianorum - Series Latina V. Saint Augustine of Hippo, De libero arbitrio, Bk. John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization (Toronto: Anansi, 1996). This very much hearkens back to the Fichtean self-positing ego. This use of the Latin verb cogito/cogitare is meant to parallel both Baudrillard’s and Guillaume’s use of the term assimiler/inassimilable I employ the word cogito in the root sense of literally drawing things together. 9–27.īaudrillard and Guillaume, Figures de l’altérité, op. Jean-François Lyotard, Le Postmoderne expliqué aux enfants (Paris: Editions Galilée, 1988), pp. He does, however, call for an ars vitae Jean-François Lyotard, Economie libidinale (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1974), p. See Economie libidinale where Lyotard discusses the impossibility of an ethics due to the investment of the driven libido by different individuals. Baudrillard and Marc Guillaume, Figures de l’altérité (Paris: Descartes et Cie 1994), p. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. Postmodernity has sought to “resolve” the perennial problematic of unity and multiplicity within the structure of the Ego of différends or de l’altérité. Yet, we must also try to preserve the inherent difference which is concomitant with each individual ego. We are all conscious free-acting egos and our universal political goal is to preserve such an inalienable reality. In other words, that which makes some islands of unity possible, and not one unity,is the fact that we are all Egos of difference - a basic logical fact. The result of such a rarefaction is a totalisation (Levinas) of the individual as “difference” over the idealistic comm-unity, thereby resulting in a conception of the individual which is essentially cut off from the possibility of a common universal ground or unity - an individual so radically different that he or she can only relate to another on purely logical terms, as human beings are reduced to categorical islands of difference with no real Übergänge to other archipelagos of disjunct meaning. Second, the trend in postmodern thinking and acting has tended to further rarefy the relation between the individual and the community by dismissing the possibility of a common ground or in Lyotard’s words, a “grand narrative”. First, the modern Western tradition of liberal democracy has resulted in an ethic wherein the primacy of the individual is of significant value within the wider framework of the political community, namely the state. Politically and philosophically speaking, there are two main forces which support such a thesis. If the philosopher had to identify a common trend or principle which “unifyingly” transcends the particularity or “many-ness” of cultures and traditions in the West while concomitantly striving to preserve what is essentially distinct or différent among this seemingly disparate array of cultures and traditions, one could nominate the West’s insistence on the autonomy of the Ego and its inalienable right to self-determination through actualising its own will-to-power.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |