Segev Alon - Political Readings of Descartes in Continental Thought

Political Readings of Descartes in Continental Thought

Political Readings of Descartes in Continental Thought

Alon Segev

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First published in Great Britain 2019

Copyright Alon Segev, 2019

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ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-6971-8

ePDF: 978-1-3500-6972-5

eBook: 978-1-3500-6973-2

Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy

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Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy

Presents cutting edge scholarship in the field of modern European thought. The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from across the discipline.

Deleuze and the Diagram: Aesthetic Threads in Visual Organization , Jakub Zdebik

Derrida, Badiou and the Formal Imperative , Christopher Norris

Desire in Ashes: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Philosophy , edited by Simon Morgan Wortham and Chiara Alfano

Early Phenomenology , edited by Brian Harding and Michael R. Kelly

Egalitarian Moments , Devin Zane Shaw

Ernst Bloch and His Contemporaries , Ivan Boldyrev

Jean-Paul Sartres Anarchist Philosophy , William L. Remley

Why There Is No Post-Structuralism in France , Johannes Angermuller

Gadamers Poetics: A Critique of Modern Aesthetics , John Arthos

Heidegger, History and the Holocaust , Mahon OBrien

Heidegger and the Emergence of the Question of Being , Jess Adrin Escudero

Hegel and Resistance: History, Politics and Dialectics , edited by Rebecca Comay and Bart Zantvoort

Husserls Ethics and Practical Intentionality , Susi Ferrarello

Immanent Transcendence: Reconfiguring Materialism in Continental Philosophy , Patrice Haynes

Lacanian Realism: Political and Clinical Psychoanalysis , Duane Rousselle

Language and Being , Duane Williams

Merleau-Pontys Existential Phenomenology and the Realization of Philosophy , Bryan A. Smyth

Mortal Thought: Hlderlin and Philosophy , James Luchte

Nietzsche and Political Thought , edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson

Nietzsche as a Scholar of Antiquity , Helmut Heit

Philosophy, Sophistry, Antiphilosophy: Badious Dispute with Lyotard , Matthew R. McLennan

Philosophy of Ontological Lateness , Keith Whitmoyer

The Poetic Imagination in Heidegger and Schelling , Christopher Yates

Post-Rationalism: Psychoanalysis, Epistemology, and Marxism in Post-War France , Tom Eyers

Revisiting Normativity with Deleuze , edited by Rosi Braidotti and Patricia Pisters

Schizoanalysis and Ecosophy: Reading Deleuze and Guattari , edited by Constantin V. Boundas

Towards the Critique of Violence: Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben , Brendan Moran and Carlo Salzani

To Ada and Immanuel with love

Contents

I began working on the Political Readings of Descartes in Continental Thought over five years ago. The book does not deal with the philosophy of Descartes, but rather discusses the political stance of other people towards Descartess philosophy and the use they make of it in promoting their own political views. I started working on the current book while preparing the publication of my book Thinking and Killing: Philosophical Discourse in the Shadow of the Third Reich . I am currently working on a book on the German theologian Gerhard Kittel. These studies treat entirely different subjects in different historical contexts and from different perspectives. Yet, they are linked through my interest in the relationship between philosophy, theology, history, and politics. Both philosophers and theologians profess to convey the truth to us. Their view is, however, limited by the historical context and, knowingly or unknowingly, they are often motivated by political agendas which determine their theories.

My purpose is not to judge, not to wreak havoc by exposing piquant stories from the biography of this or that person, but rather to try to understand their views. People rushed to judge Heidegger as a rabid Nazi and an anti-Semite following the publication of the notorious Black Notebooks , without trying or even willing to deal with the complex context of those texts, which contain, inter alia, sharp critiques of Nazi ideology, Alfred Rosenberg, unrestrained technological expansion, the world wars and the arms race, the overuse of power, and the outbreak of barbarism in the twentieth century. Likewise, Husserl is commonly seen as the poor rational victim of his irrational, vlkisch disciple; the former is always mentioned in connection with his Jewish origin and the latter has been branded as an evil Nazi. Led by these false prejudices, people overlook Husserls chauvinistic political worldview and overt aversion to non-European people as he voiced in his lectures in 1935. Franz Xaver von Baader has been regarded as an ecstatic irrational Catholic enemy of the Enlightenment. Careful study of his complicated writings and the context in which he wrote reveals his close intellectual friendship with Ignaz von Dllinger and his influence on the foundation of the Old Catholic Church ( Altkatholische Kirche ) which emerged out of the tension with and the separation from the Vatican as well as the attempt to overcome the schism between the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Baaders critique was directed against the rational Enlightenment and nihilism no less than against the irrational pietism of his time. Franz Borkenau has been regarded as a supporter of Stalinism and thus his connection with the Frankfurt School has been cut. Careful reading of his work along with the critique delivered by Henryk Grossmann, who was commissioned by the Frankfurt School to attack Borkenau, reveals his reliance on Karl Marx and an attempted Marxist reading of Descartes.

Since the work on the current book lasted for a long time, during which I was exposed to new material that led me to examine and revise my views very often, the last stage of writing the book consisted mainly of adapting old drafts to my current views. Exchanges with friends, colleagues, and students enriched my perspectives and improved my understanding. I owe them all my gratitude. They are many, and within the limited space of this preface, I can express my gratitude only to those people whose help and support are more closely related to the end product. I would have continued my research on political readings of Descartes ad infinitum without ever reaching the point at which I could stop to write down my ideas and turn them into a printed book had Andreas Oberprantacher not invited me to give a seminar at Innsbruck University on the political readings of Descartes and encouraged me throughout my time at Innsbruck. Richard Wolin and Jerrold Seigel invited me to present my chapter on Husserl at their seminar on intellectual history at the Graduate Center of City University of New York. Their feedback on my text was helpful and led to a fruitful exchange with David Carr, with whom I discussed earlier drafts of my chapters on Husserl and Baader. Andrew Cutroffelo, David Ingram, and Gregory Fried read part of the manuscript and encouraged me to complete it with their insightful comments and suggestions. Rebecca Toueg read the whole manuscript, the earlier and later drafts, and made helpful suggestions on the style and content. I am blessed to have Liza Thompson, Lucy Russell, Frankie Mace, and Daisy Edwards as wonderful editors.