With Agamben's recent invoking of Kojève's idea of the Latin empire against the German dominance in Europe, and with the recent translation of the short manifesto on authority Kojève wrote amidst the Second World War, it is worth revisiting exactly what sort of theory of revolution Kojève was concerned with. My review of The Notion of Authority: … Continue reading The Amputated Father: Kojève’s Theory of Revolution and Authority
Subjectivation: Aufheben or Therapy?
I've just finished After the Future by Franco "Bifo" Berardi, a text that I loved for its effortless prose and ability to convey theoretical ideas with a refreshing sense of clarity. Bifo is an expert on Guattari, and so his whole approach to the question of subjectivity is premised on a non-dialectical approach, one that … Continue reading Subjectivation: Aufheben or Therapy?
What is a Contradiction? Badiou’s Theory of the Subject
In a previous post on Badiou's Theory of the Subject, I described how the subject disappears under the chain of the signifiers, and how the masses inhabit the dimension of the Lacanian real. In this post, I'm going to dig deeper into Badiou's text by looking at his wrestling with the concept of contradiction and … Continue reading What is a Contradiction? Badiou’s Theory of the Subject
The Mythological Being of Reflection
The whole world is inside our head. This seems to just about sum up the post-Kantian problem of reflection. If the self represents itself ipso facto reality becomes a dream like experience, i.e. an appearance of itself. Thus, the German idealism tradition (Schelling, Fichte, Hegel), the self becomes an object just like all others as … Continue reading The Mythological Being of Reflection
