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Summer Second Term Philosophy 780 Contemporary Continental Philosophy
The New Humanism and The Politics of Difference
Instructor: Don Callen
Tues/Thurs 1-4:15
For some time “continental” philosophy and the cultural theory it has inspired have framed their thought of political struggle
and political institutions around the concept of difference. Accordingly, the primary imperative of politics is a struggle
for the right to be different and political institutions need to be shaped with a view to an accommodation of political differences.
Only such a politics will be adequate to a “multi-cultural” society, it is supposed. The alternative to a politics of difference
is an “essentialist” politics, one framed in terms of a concept of some essentially human characteristic which will necessarily
exclude culturally variable ideas of human life made possible and realized in the inventive powers of language or discourse.
One of the problems with a politics of difference is, however, that of how to conceive of a community or a political structure
that is able to accommodate a range of differences which are by definition significantly incommensurable. Even a politics
of consensus, which might be thought to be able to respect such differences, depends for success on a suppression or suspension
of difference. The thinkers who fall under the rubric of “the new humanism” claim in effect that there is a false dilemma
in arguing that one must choose between a politics of difference and a humanist politics. Practically, this issue is of enormous
importance in our time as we see a multitude of political differences coming into high relief with violence and warfare a
common result. The new humanist philosophers offer proposals for a new politics, one that is better than the politics of
difference, that does not fall into the traps of totalizing or totalitarian political systems and that is ethically preferable
to the current politics of the marriage of democracy and liberal capitalism. Their ideas are developed through a reading
of the political history of the 20th Century and the political situation of the 21st. This course will focus on a close reading of a few of the main texts of these thinkers, Alain Badiou and Alain Finkelkraut.
We will critically compare their views with those of the late Derrida (the ethics of hospitality). Also we will bring Hannah
Arendt into the discussion, looking at her conceptions of violence and the public space, both key dimensions of the problem.
Texts: Alain Finkelkraut, In Defense of Humanity: Lessons of the 20th Century; AlainBadiou, Infinite Thought; Hannah Arendt, On Violence; Jacques Derrida and Anne Dufourmantelle, Of Hospitality.
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