Diogenes washing vegetables: a parabole about philosophy and politics
Some authors affirm that the following also belongs to him: that Plato saw him washing lettuces, came up to him and quietly said to him, “Had you paid court to Dionysius, you wouldn’t now be washing lettuces,” and that he with equal calmness made answer, “If you had washed lettuces, you wouldn’t have paid court […]
Terrence Malick’s Introduction to The Essence of Reason by Martin Heidegger
Where Heidegger talks about “world” he will often appear to be talking about a pervasive interpretation or point of view which we bring to the things of the world. This, in any case, has been the view of many commentators. But there is little sense in speaking of “a point of view” here since precisely […]
Bataille’s “unemployed negativity” as an opening with no issue
If action (“doing”) is –as Hegel says– negativity, the question arises as to whether the negativity of one who has “nothing more to do” disappear or remains in a state of “unemployed negativity.” Personally, I can only decide in one way, being myself precisely this “unemployed negativity” (I would not be able to define myself […]
“The Gaze of Interruption”: on ‘Goodbye to Language’ by Jean-Luc Godard
A 3200-word essay I wrote on Jean-Luc Godard’s 3-D film Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language) has been published at Berfrois: see “The Gaze of Interruption”. I discovered Berfrois a couple of years ago through a review of Michel Foucault’s Leçons sur la volonté de savoir written by Stuart Elden. Berfrois is a well-established “literary-intellectual […]
