Ethics and Politics after Poststructuralism

Ethics and Politics after Poststructuralism
Author: Madeleine Fagan
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2013-09-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0748685146

What would political thought look like without the foundation of ethics? Drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, Madeleine Fagan puts forward a radical and far-reaching refusal of foundational ethics. Instead, she proposes an account of the inseparability of ethics and politics. The 'ethical' should not be understood as a label; it does not mean 'good' or 'right', it is not an evaluation or guide. Rather, both the ethical and the political are descriptions of the context in which we find ourselves. The book highlights the necessity of a practice-based rethinking of the relationship between ethics and politics and so denaturalises a series of commonplaces about poststructuralist ethics.

After Poststructuralism

After Poststructuralism
Author: Rosi Braidotti
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 477
Release: 2014-09-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317546806

The end of the Cold War revitalised continental philosophy and, more particularly, interest in it from outside philosophy. "After Poststructuralism: Transitions and Transformations" analyses the main developments in continental philosophy between 1980-1995, a time of great upheaval and profound social change. The volume ranges across the birth of postmodernism, the differing traditions of France, Germany and Italy, third generation critical theory, radical democracy, postcolonial philosophy, the turn to ethics, feminist philosophies, the increasing engagement with religion, and the rise of performativity and post-analytic philosophy. Analyses of the major figures are integrated within the discussion. After Poststructuralism reveals how continental philosophy - fuelled by an intense ethical and political desire to reflect changing social and political conditions - responded to the changing world and to the key issues of the time, notably globalisation, technology and ethnicity.

Ethics and Politics in Contemporary Theory

Ethics and Politics in Contemporary Theory
Author: Mark Devenney
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2004
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0415237378

In addressing the political and theoretical debates between critical and post-Marxist theorists, this book discusses the politics of communication and rationality, subjectivity, sovereignty, ethics and deliberative democracy, considering questions such as: * Does the theory of communicative action justify deliberative democracy? * Is a theory of hegemony compatible with an account which relies upon an ideal of communicative success? * Is autonomy a good which should be fostered? * Can the ideal of democracy extend beyond the nation state? * Does post-Marxism have anything interesting to say about ethics? Analysing the work of Ernesto Laclau and Jürgen Habermas - as representatives of different choices made in regard to theory, politics and morality - Ethics and Politics in Contemporary Theory develops a critical response to the contrasting conclusions of these approaches.

Critical Resistance

Critical Resistance
Author: David Couzens Hoy
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2005-08-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262582635

This book serves as both an introduction to the concept of resistance in poststructuralist thought and an original contribution to the continuing philosophical discussion of this topic. How can a body of thought that mistrusts universal principles explain the possibility of critical resistance? Without appeals to abstract norms, how can emancipatory resistance be distinguished from domination? Can there be a poststructuralist ethics? David Hoy explores these crucial questions through lucid readings of Nietzsche, Foucault, Bourdieu, Derrida, and others. He traces the genealogy of resistance from Nietzsche's break with the Cartesian concept of consciousness to Foucault's and Bourdieu's theories of how subjects are formed through embodied social practices. He also considers Levinas, Heidegger, and Derrida on the sources of ethical resistance. Finally, in light of current social theory from Judith Butler to Slavoj Zizek, he challenges "poststructuralism" as a category and suggests the term "post-critique" as a more accurate description of contemporary Continental philosophy. Hoy is a leading American scholar of poststructuralism. Critical Resistance is the only book in English that deals substantively with the topical concept of resistance in relation to poststructuralist thought, discussions of which have dominated Continental social thought for many years.

Ethics After Poststructuralism

Ethics After Poststructuralism
Author: Lee Olsen
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2020-03-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1476676879

The present era of economic devastation, legacies of colonization and imperialism, climate change and habitat loss, calls for a new understanding of ethics. These essays on otherness, responsibility and hospitality raise urgent questions. Contributors range from the prominent--including Levinas, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben--to recent theorists such as Judith Butler, Enrique Dussell and Rosi Braidotti. The essays emphasize the always vulnerable status of a radically different Other, even as they question what responsibility to that Other might mean.

Poststructuralism and After

Poststructuralism and After
Author: D. Howarth
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2013-10-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137266988

This book articulates the key theoretical assumptions of poststructuralism, but also probes its limits, evaluates rival approaches and elaborates new concepts. Building on the work of Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger, Lacan, Laclau, Lévi–Strauss, Marx, Saussure and Žižek, the book also provides a distinctive version of the poststructuralist project.

The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism

The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism
Author: Todd May
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 1994-07-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0271039078

The political writings of the French poststructuralists have eluded articulation in the broader framework of general political philosophy primarily because of the pervasive tendency to define politics along a single parameter: the balance between state power and individual rights in liberalism and the focus on economic justice as a goal in Marxism. What poststructuralists like Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard offer instead is a political philosophy that can be called tactical: it emphasizes that power emerges from many different sources and operates along many different registers. This approach has roots in traditional anarchist thought, which sees the social and political field as a network of intertwined practices with overlapping political effects. The poststructuralist approach, however, eschews two questionable assumptions of anarchism, that human beings have an (essentially benign) essence and that power is always repressive, never productive. After positioning poststructuralist political thought against the background of Marxism and the traditional anarchism of Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Proudhon, Todd May shows what a tactical political philosophy like anarchism looks like shorn of its humanist commitments—namely, a poststructuralist anarchism. The book concludes with a defense, contra Habermas and Critical Theory, of poststructuralist political thought as having a metaethical structure allowing for positive ethical commitments.

After Poststructuralism

After Poststructuralism
Author: Colin Davis
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2004-03-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 113437481X

In the last decades of the twentieth century, French poststructuralist 'theory' transformed the humanities; it also met with resistance and today we frequently hear that theory is 'dead'. In this brilliantly argued volume, Colin Davis: *reconsiders key arguments for and against theory, identifying significant misreadings *reassesses the contribution of poststructuralist thought to the critical issues of knowledge, ethics, hope and identity *sheds new light on the work of Jean-François Lyotard, Emmanuel Levinas, Louis Althusser and Julia Kristeva in a stunning series of readings *offers a fresh perspective on recent debates around the death of theory. In closing he argues that theory may change, but it will not go away. After poststructuralism, then, comes the afterlife of poststructuralism. Wonderfully accessible, this is an account of the past and present fortunes of theory, suitable for anyone researching, teaching, or studying in the field. And yet it is much more than this. Colin Davis provides a way forward for the humanities - a way forward in which theory will play a crucial part.

From the Ethical to Politics

From the Ethical to Politics
Author: Malte Kayßer
Publisher: Verlag Traugott Bautz
Total Pages: 169
Release:
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3959486715

This study is devoted to the often questioned normative substance of Jaques Derrida`s deconstruction in light of recurrent accusations of moral relativism or outright nihilism. The author develops an account of deconstruction ethically oriented toward the other in contradistinction against the fundamental ontology of Martin Heidegger. The latter is shown to contain merely an ethical orientation toward the own self and is therefore judged to be blind for the ethical consequences of one`s own conduct for others. Such self-aggrandisement is criticised by an exegesis of certain key texts of Derrida which are read against the backdrop of the for this purpose important philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas. The ensuing critique has as its goal less the wholesale dismissal of Heidegger than a transcendence which extends his thought by an attentiveness to the ethical significance of the other. The risk of not regarding the other worthy of ethical consideration is exemplified by reference to the case of Ernesto Laclau, whose theory of hegemony exhibits a deconstruction transferred to the realm of political analysis and action, yet which is void of any normative principle. Thus is threatened a regression to the ethical solipsism of Heidegger which indeed is prone to allegations of moral relativism by right and which should be countered by a deconstruction mindful of its own intellectuel heritage. Der vorliegende Band widmet sich der Frage nach dem normativen Gehalt der Dekonstruktion nach Jaques Derrida angesichts fortbestehender Anwürfe des Nihilismus. Hierzu zeichnet der Verfasser vor dem Hintergrund der bewussten Auseinandersetzung mit und in Absetzung von der Fundamentalontologie Martin Heideggers mit Nachdruck ein Bild der ethischen am Anderen orientierten Dekonstruktion. Heidegger wird eine ethische Orientierung lediglich am Selbst nachgewiesen und somit eine Blindheit für die ethischen Auswirkungen eigenen Handelns für Andere. Diese effektive Selbstüberhöhung wird mithilfe der Exegese bestimmter Schlüsseltexte Derridas unter Hinzunahme des hierfür so wichtigen Denkens Emmanuel Lèvinas' einer Kritik unterzogen, die sich zum Ziel setzt weniger Heidegger`s Seinsanalytik zu verwerfen, sondern diese zu überschreiten, indem sie um die Aufmerksamkeit für die ethische Wertigkeit des Anderen erweitert wird. Dieser Band schließt mit einer Betrachtung der sehr gegenwärtigen Hegemonietheorie Ernesto Laclaus ab, um das Risiko zu demonstrieren, welches eine in die politische Analyse und Aktion übertragene Dekonstruktion birgt, die sich gegen die normativen Einsichten Derridas und Lévinas' sperrt und somit einen Rückschritt zum ethischen Solipsismus Heideggers darstellt. Dieser steht berechtigterweise in der Kritik eines moralischen Relativismus und sollte von einer Dekonstruktion abgelöst werden, die ihre eigenen intellektuellen Wurzeln nicht vergessen hat.