fragilekeys

Non-philosophy claims to be a science of philosophy, able to observe and isolate a system at work in it globally, so much so that instead of remaining within this system it can treat its various idea-complexes as symptoms. In later texts, this requires the invention of a quantum physics of philosophy or its quantic deconstruction, which will bear on concepts themselves and not just texts. There are two basic sides to the non-philosophical endeavor: to diagnose the philosophical symptoms of transcendence; and to invent its own machines or matrices that modelize radical immanence. Both sides proceed through the use of “oraxioms” emptied of their sufficiency, thus “weakening” discourse. These are the property of no ‘ego’ but of a ‘we’ as “quantum of expression,” at once lived and generic. Non-philosophical texts are everywhere the invention, expression, and practice of these oraxioms. Thus the confusion for many readers who feel confronted with yet another batch of neologisms from yet another eccentric philosopher. It is difficult to recognize that in-the-last-instance they have no recourse to the philosophical languages they transform. Devoted fans are sent down the perilous path of trying to ‘decipher’ yet again the ‘meaning’ of these supposed neologisms, striking deals with philosophy and thus dooming it to mixture and incomprehension. As for philosophers, they develop an uneasy resistance to non-philosophy that is even stronger than their resistance to science, because unlike the latter it cannot be subdued or hierarchized so easily, for non-philosophy has brought, however ‘indirectly’, a scientific-type thought to the terrain of philosophy, while at the same time placing both science and philosophy under the condition of a generic man. Indeed, it is in the name of a generic transformation of all the productive resources of thought that non-philosophy stakes this claim to be a science of philosophy. To liberate those resources from their self-constraint is one of its primary aspirations.

In this installment of the series, we will again opt to do little more than diagnose, hoping that by clearly illustrating the philosophical system we can loosen some resistances to non-philosophy, which in our view is justified in calling itself a radical treatment of that system, even if it is clear that no single text, indeed no text at all, could ‘manifest’ this in a transparent way. Because the material at non-philosophy’s disposal is of philosophical origin, even when it treats it scientifically, the evidential ‘output’ is, or rather objectively appears to be, philosophical. Only the choice to shift the base for thinking will ‘suffice’. A different style of philosophical materiality is required, one that no longer treats concepts as bodies and bricks, as interlocking parts or referential loops, as noematic isolates, in sum, no longer as trajectories arrayed in a predetermined space, whether that be the text in consideration, the tradition, or the world itself. Instead, concepts and styles themselves are to be treated as interfering waves, underdetermining each other by quantic superposition, in a flux of immanence that never forms a field or plane. If we focus provisionally on diagnosis, we do so with this altered materiality of style in mind and try to practice it. This may appear like a lack of concern for detail, like a mess of strokes too broad. These charges are often leveled against non-philosophy, and from the perspective of philosophy rightly so. But it has no need or desire to defend itself against them, quite simply because it has different goals–to defend humans from the constraint the self puts on their productive resources. Suffice it to say, a non-corpuscular but wavelike materiality in concepts implies a different approach to the world of philosophy, and not just when it comes to texts. In the end, it is up to the reader to discern to what extent the collision of conceptual particles in this non-philosophical experimental chamber is not merely a free-associative scramble. Continue reading →

ATTENTION: This essay has been revised and published on Epoche Magazine: https://epochemagazine.org/67/doing-the-nothing-eric-santner-and-giorgio-agamben-on-suspending-the-apparatus-of-glory/. Please reference that article for any reposts or citations. Thank you for reading!

Doing Nothing: On the Unglorious Bodies of Ordinary Messiahs

ABSTRACT: This article begins with Eric Santner’s theories on glory, labor, and the People’s ‘spectral flesh’, as outlined in The Weight of All Flesh. At issue initially is the question of busy work, the buzzing of busy bodies that characterizes the modern world. Why does our busy-ness spill over the limits of normal work hours, tying us to constant availability and rendering social participation an anxious labor? What might explain our attraction to social media and the prosthetic devices which link us to the wider world and our own identities? The answer I will explore is glory, that intangible excess or ‘shine’ related to wealth, fame, and self-image. Glory pertains to our obsession with celebrities, commodities, and spectacles; but behind these phenomena, the production of the ‘spectral flesh’ of the People is at stake. Modern busy-ness is rooted in the need to incarnate and justify the social bond under capitalism, a bond produced, worshipped, and glorified through countless daily updates and secular liturgies. I begin by tracing Santner’s account of the rise of the commodity-form, the instability introduced into the social order with the loss of the Sovereign’s guarantee, and the debt that then devolves to the People to legitimize it. I then discuss the anthropology behind this analysis, in which the human is conceived as originally doubled into two bodies, or rather, suspended over a void between its ‘natural’ body and its ‘spectral’ body. Humans must labor to make sense of this void, to understand this ‘spectral’ dimension as it weights upon their very flesh. I show how capitalism exploits these efforts for the valorization of Value, the fetishization of commodities, and the glorification of abstract identities. At issue finally is how the apparatus of glory might be deactivated and the value-imperative overturned. Drawing from Santner’s notion of ‘idle worship’, I conclude with a meditation on unglorious bodies capable of ‘doing nothing’, with reference to a ‘non-Bartleby’ and to contemporary notions of messianity found in Agamben and Laruelle. Continue reading →

The following is a translation of the Epilogue from Jean-Louis Chrétien’s 2014 book, L’espace intérieur. It is slightly abridged in the middle, splitting it into two parts. The text is then supplemented with a number of “footnotes”; these lead to other quotations from the rest of the book chosen simply for their beauty and wisdom, as well as for the light they shed on the Epilogue itself. The result, I hope, is an adequate representation of the author’s main ideas and intentions. I hope the reader will enjoy the contemplation of this text as much as I have. As preparation, a brief note is in order.

The problematic at play in the book involves the self, subjectivity, and its interiority. Chrétien wants to show that the modern version of this problematic has lost touch with its origin,its founding moments, which he traces to numerous Christian theologians and mystics. The crucial difference is this: where contemporary thought sees an increasingly isolated psyche struggling to gain control of its unconscious tendencies and become master of self and world, the Christian “topic” instead focuses on the edification, exploration, and expansion of an interior space in which God may dwell. Of prime importance here is the presence of infinity or alterity that we “house” potentially within ourselves, or even more strongly, whose residence we are. The book draws on numerous figures present in the Christian tradition from its inception, from the chamber of the heart (Matt. 6:6) to St. Theresa’s Interior Castle, to illustrate the energetic, dramatic, and libidinal-economic dynamics at play in the Christian topic of interior space. Each chapter ends by showing how modern thinkers appropriated and twisted these figures, stripping of them of their God-orientation and tipping them progressively toward the “kingdom of subjectivity.” Chrétien’s aim, however, is not proselytistic but philosophical and schematic: to show the intelligibility of this model of inhabitable personal identity and how it might inform impasses that have proved intransigent for modern thought.

Read from Interior Space