I’ve spent the past few months exploring different philosophers and philosophical traditions, German idealism and phenomenology in particular.
Here’s a list of the short philosophical sketches I’ve posted in that time (best read in the order listed):
German idealism: (1) Kant, (2) Kant and Fichte, (3) Fichte and Schelling, (4) Goethe and Kant.
Phenomenology: (1) Merleau-Ponty, (2) Hubert Dreyfus, (3) John McDowell, (4) Barbara Gail Montero, (5) Alva Noë.
The sketches are proving to be a helpful tool for thinking, more like a study for a drawing than an actual completed work, but helpful nonetheless.
Now it’s back to conference papers. I’m close to finished with my talk for the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition (parts of which are strewn about in the links above), and then it’s back to work on my talk for the Media Ecology Association in June.
These are all interesting sketches, individually and as they hang together. The baroque title would be something like: “Nine sketches of concepts and percepts in phenomenological inquiry, or explications of the practice of philosophy after Kant.”
The idea of situating concepts in the body reminds me of the biological notion of conception, i.e., fertilization, with all of its concomitant associations (fecundity, natality, the maternal, etc.). That touches on the phenomenological styles of people like Levinas, Derrida, Irigaray, Butler, and Malabou. My point is just this: one of the benefits of re-situating concepts in the fertile ground of the body is that it recovers a sexuality forgotten or suppressed in most of the occidental philosophical tradition.
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Forgotten or suppressed historically, sure, but wouldn’t we have to concede that these folks have pretty much won the day as far as contemporary continental philosophy goes?
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