The Tragedy of Philosophy

Andrew Cooper

Description

In The Tragedy of Philosophy Andrew Cooper challenges the prevailing idea of the death of tragedy, arguing that this assumption reflects a problematic view of both tragedy and philosophy—one that stifles the profound contribution that tragedy could provide to philosophy today. To build this case, Cooper presents a novel reading of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment. Although this text is normally understood as the final attempt to seal philosophy from the threat of tragedy, Cooper argues that Kant's project is rather a creative engagement with a tragedy that is specific to philosophy, namely, the inevitable failure of attempts to master nature through knowledge. Kant's encounter with the tragedy of philosophy turns philosophy's gaze from an exclusive focus on knowledge to matters of living well in a world that does not bend itself to our desires. Tracing the impact of Kant's Critique of Judgment on some of the most famous theories of tragedy, including those of G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Cornelius Castoriadis, Cooper demonstrates how these philosophers extend the project found in both Kant and the Greek tragedies: the attempt to grasp nature as a domain hospitable to human life.
Preface
Note on Citations

Introduction
Tragedy in contemporary philosophy
Method in the history of philosophy

Overview

Part I. Kant’s Critique of Judgment

1. From Disembodied Soul to Embodied Mind
The problem of life
The generation dilemma
The rationalist response
The empiricist response
Embodied mind

2. Reflective Judgment
The need for a third Critique
The power of judgment
Beauty and purposiveness
The antinomy of teleological judgment
From system to method

3. The Ethical Turn
Reason’s double bind
The spiritual character of art
Synthesizing nature and freedom
An enlarged way of thinking

Part II. Tragedy after Kant

4. Hegel: The Philosophy of Tragedy
Aesthetics
A theory of tragedy
Interpreting Hegel
Tragedy and history

5. Nietzsche: Tragic Philosophy
Schopenhauer’s metaphysics
The Apollinian and the Dionysian
The death and rebirth of tragedy
Tragedy and ethics

6. Heidegger: Greek Tragedy
Philosophy and politics
Introduction to Metaphysics
Hölderlin’s Hymn
Tragedy and Being

7. Castoriadis: Tragedy and Self-formation
Identitary logic
Imagination and representation
Tragedy and self-formation
Tragedy and philosophy

Conclusion
Imagination
Ethical complexity
Universality
Transforming philosophy Notes

Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie générale
• Esthétique et philosophie de l'art
• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 30 août 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438461908
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Tragedy of Philosophy
SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

Dennis J. Schmidt, editor
The Tragedy of Philosophy
Kant’s Critique of Judgment and the Project of Aesthetics
Andrew Cooper
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2016 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Emily Keneston
Marketing, Kate Seburyamo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cooper, Andrew,
Title: The tragedy of philosophy : Kant’s critique of judgment and the project of aesthetics / Andrew Cooper.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2016. | Series: SUNY series in contemporary Continental philosophy | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015042621 (print) | LCCN 2016028395 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438461892 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438461908 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804. | Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804. Kritik der Urteilskraft. | Judgment (Aesthetics) | Aesthetics. | Tragedy. | Philosophy of nature.
Classification: LCC B2798.C757 2016 (print) | LCC B2798 (ebook) | DDC 111/.85092—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015042621
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
… nothing conclusive has yet taken place in the world, the ultimate word of the world and about the world has not yet been spoken, the world is open and free, everything is still in the future and will always be in the future.
—Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics
Contents
Preface
Note on Citations
Introduction
Tragedy in contemporary philosophy
Method in the history of philosophy
Overview
Part I. Kant’s Critique of Judgment
1. From Disembodied Soul to Embodied Mind
The problem of life
The generation dilemma
The rationalist response
The empiricist response
Embodied mind
2. Reflective Judgment
The need for a third Critique
The power of judgment
Beauty and purposiveness
The antinomy of teleological judgment
From system to method
3. The Ethical Turn
Reason’s double bind
The spiritual character of art
Synthesizing nature and freedom
An enlarged way of thinking
Part II. Tragedy after Kant
4. Hegel: The Philosophy of Tragedy
Aesthetics
A theory of tragedy
Interpreting Hegel
Tragedy and history
5. Nietzsche: Tragic Philosophy
Schopenhauer’s metaphysics
The Apollinian and the Dionysian
The death and rebirth of tragedy
Tragedy and ethics
6. Heidegger: Greek Tragedy
Philosophy and politics
Introduction to Metaphysics
Hölderlin’s Hymn
Tragedy and Being
7. Castoriadis: Tragedy and Self-formation
Identitary logic
Imagination and representation
Tragedy and self-formation
Tragedy and philosophy
Conclusion
Imagination
Ethical complexity
Universality
Transforming philosophy
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
To consider Kant as a thinker of tragedy is to embark on a controversial project. My aim in this book is to contribute to the growing interest in a side of Kant that has often been overlooked, namely, his sensitivity to humanity as an organic form of being—as a part of nature—endowed with the visceral capacity for feeling pleasure and displeasure that, on a level that precedes cognition, promotes the continuity of life. In Critique of Judgment , the capacity for feeling pleasure and displeasure constitutes a bridge between the two facets of experience that permeate Kant’s work: the experience of nature as an already constituted region of causality, and of ourselves as moral, free beings. The need for this project became apparent to me somewhat tangentially as I discovered the burgeoning philosophical literature on Greek tragedy. This literature suggests that the paradigm of nature often assumed in philosophy and the natural sciences misconstrues the natural sphere as a domain that can be mastered by human knowledge. It searches for a more complex and multifaceted paradigm of nature in the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and the subsequent tradition in philosophy inspired by their work.
What was of particular interest to me in this literature is that it attempts to salvage a dynamic picture of nature from within philosophy itself; that is, from a tragedy that is specific to philosophical inquiry, or The Tragedy of Philosophy , as I refer to in the title of this book. It considers the work of Kant, and his presentation of an impassable barrier between nature’s order and human spontaneity, as expressive of philosophy’s systematic attempt to hold the fixity of metaphysics apart from organic vitality. From this point the literature bifurcates: one side argues that Kant’s presentation of this barrier opens his successors to the task of reconciling the duality of human experience in a single picture of nature; the other claims that Kant’s failed attempt to salvage philosophy reveals that philosophy itself must be abandoned in favor of the mode of thinking expressed by the ancient tragedians, one attuned to particularity and difference.
While I share the conviction that we require an expansive picture of nature capable of holding human spontaneity in genuine union with natural events, I begin by arguing that these representations of Kant misread the relation between philosophy and tragedy. This is not least for the reason that they portray tragedy as a form of presentation that is, for philosophy’s contemporary concern, lifeless and dead. My aim is thus to provide an alternative representation of Kant that highlights the organic relation between tragedy and philosophy. Building from Kant’s acknowledgment of the failures of philosophy in the eighteenth century, I claim that tragedy is an ongoing problematic in philosophy that opens an experience of nature in union with human spontaneity. Thus understood, Kant’s Critique of Judgment represents a sustained engagement with the tragedy of philosophy; my aim is to show that this engagement is not surpassed but rather extended in the work of philosophers who continue the project of aesthetics.
I received a great deal of support in developing this project. I am particularly grateful to my doctoral supervisors John Grumley and Vrasidas Karalis, who helped me to see research in the history of philosophy as a creative engagement with the present. Countless hours spent in conversation with Vras taught me to embrace the specificity of human life over and against theorization, particularly when it comes to tragedy. I would also like to thank those who patiently read the manuscript and provided invaluable comments, including Paul Redding, Dennis Schmidt, Richard Eldridge, Jonathan Dunk, and Yarran Hominh. I am grateful for the time and effort they put into my writing, and I hope they feel that the book is greatly improved as a result. To Denny in particular, your belief in my work means more to me that I can say. I received encouragement from many others at key stages of this project, including Simon Critchley, Jeff Malpas, Julian Young, and Nathan Lyons. Their contributions have added considerable depth and clarity to my work. I am also thankful for the reports provided by my anonymous reviewers, which offered insightful suggestions I have attempted to include in the book. At SUNY Press Andrew Kenyon has been an incredibly efficient editor and a constant source of support, and Emily Keneston has been equally helpful in seeing the book through its various stages to production. My thanks go also to Markus Gabriel, for hosting me in the lively philosophy faculty at the University of Bonn during the final stages of writing. And this project would not have been possible at all without the financial support of several generous sources, including the Australian government, the University of Sydney, St Paul’s College, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD).
Perhaps the greatest source of inspiration for this book came from the lives and stories of homeless young people in Sydney with whom I have worked during the past eight years. It was through conversations with homeless youth that I became interested in the idea of tragedy as a way of framing the competing demands of human experience. And it was through these conversations that I became discontent with theories of tragedy that end in the satisfaction of the spectator rather than in action. The remarkable courage of homeless youth taught me that freedom does not lie beyond our material conditions, but within them. My thanks go to them, and to the team at The Bridge Youth Refuge, for giving me the opportunity to learn that effective practice begins with discovering one’s own homelessness.
A portion of the introduction appeared previously in a slightly different form as “Philosophy’s Tragedy,” Metaphilosophy 47 (2016): 59–74.
Note on Citations
Citations to Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment are to volume 5 of Kants gesammelte Schriften , Akadamie Ausgabe. Citations to the Critique of Pure Reason are to the customary A/B page numbers from the first and second editions. Translations quoted are from the Cambridge University Press editions unless otherwise stated.
Citations of the Greek tragedies are from The Complete Greek Drama , two volumes, edited by Whitney Oates and Eugene O’Neil, unless otherwise stated and use the standard line numbering system. Citations to Aristotle are taken from The Complete Works of Aristotle , two volumes, edited by Jonathan Barnes, and use the standard marginal key fro