Between Philosophy and Non-Philosophy

Description

Hugh J. Silverman was an inspiring scholar and teacher, known for his work engaging and shaping phenomenology, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, structuralism, poststructuralism, and deconstruction. As Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at Stony Brook University, State University of New York, Silverman's work was marked by "the between," a concept he developed to think the postmodern in the space between philosophy and non-philosophy. In this volume, leading scholars explore and extend Silverman's philosophical contributions, from reflections on the notions of care, time, and responsibility, to presentations of the practices and possibilities of deconstruction itself. They provide an assessment of Silverman's life and work at the intersection of philosophy, ethics, and politics.
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

1. Introduction
Donald A. Landes

Part 1. Inscriptions and Textualities: Silverman’s Deconstructive Practice

2. Enacting the “Between”: Silverman and Continental Philosophy
Gary E. Aylesworth

3. Between Inscriptions: Intertextuality as Philosophical Method
Donald A. Landes

4. Autobiographical Textualities: Hugh J. Silverman on Writing the Self
Galen A. Johnson

Part 2. Silverman and Derrida: Justice/Hospitality/Writing

5. In Memoriam—An Indecidable: For HJS
Michael Naas

6. Of Philosophy, Friendship, and Justice
Debra Bergoffen

7. Return to Sender: The Atopia and Non-Synchronicity of Autobiographizing
Eduardo Mendieta

Part 3. Postmodern Heroes, Subjects, and Responsibilities

8. The Space-in-Between: The Frame and Excess in the Thought of Hugh J. Silverman
Leonard Lawlor

9. From the Death of the Subject to Stories of Natality: Foucault, Arendt, and Silverman
Ewa Płonowska Ziarek

10. The Murderer, the Journalist, and the Responsibility between Us
Peter Gratton

11. Postmodernisms: On a Posthumous Book
Gertrude Postl

Part 4. Care/Time/Community: Remembering Hugh J. Silverman

12. Hugh Silverman’s Cosmopolitan Hospitality
Kelly Oliver

13. Hugh—Taking Time and Taking Care
Edward S. Casey

14. The Silverman Network
Gail Weiss

Afterword

15. The Final Between—Being Inbetween Self: Epigrams Inbetween Epigraphs and Epitaphs
Lee Silverman

Selected Bibliography of Works by Hugh J. Silverman
Kathleen Hulley

Works Cited
Contributors
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de l'esprit
• Philosophie du langage
• Philosophie de la langue
• Philosophy
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie
• Epistémologie

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438463377
• Langue: English

Extrait

Between Philosophy and Non-Philosophy
Between Philosophy and Non-Philosophy
The Thought and Legacy of
Hugh J. Silverman
Edited by
Donald A. Landes
with Leonard Lawlor
and Peter Gratton
Cover image: Hugh J. Silverman, Place Monge, Paris, France, 2008
Image by Donald A. Landes
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, Diane Ganeles
Marketing, Fran Keneston
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1. Introduction
Donald A. Landes
P ART 1
Inscriptions and Textualities : Silverman’s Deconstructive Practice
2. Enacting the “Between”: Silverman and Continental Philosophy
Gary E. Aylesworth
3. Between Inscriptions: Intertextuality as Philosophical Method
Donald A. Landes
4. Autobiographical Textualities: Hugh J. Silverman on Writing the Self
Galen A. Johnson
P ART 2
Silverman and Derrida: Justice/Hospitality/Writing
5. In Memoriam—An Indecidable: For HJS
Michael Naas
6. Of Philosophy, Friendship, and Justice
Debra Bergoffen
7. Return to Sender: The Atopia and Non-Synchronicity of Autobiographizing
Eduardo Mendieta
P ART 3
Postmodern Heroes, Subjects, and Responsibilities
8. The Space-in-Between: The Frame and Excess in the Thought of Hugh J. Silverman
Leonard Lawlor
9. From the Death of the Subject to Stories of Natality: Foucault, Arendt, and Silverman
Ewa Płonowska Ziarek
10. The Murderer, the Journalist, and the Responsibility between Us
Peter Gratton
11. Postmodernisms: On a Posthumous Book
Gertrude Postl
P ART 4
Care/Time/Community: Remembering Hugh J. Silverman
12. Hugh Silverman’s Cosmopolitan Hospitality
Kelly Oliver
13. Hugh—Taking Time and Taking Care
Edward S. Casey
14. The Silverman Network
Gail Weiss
Afterword
15. The Final Between—Being Inbetween Self: Epigrams Inbetween Epigraphs and Epitaphs
Lee Silverman
Selected Bibliography of Works by Hugh J. Silverman
Kathleen Hulley
Works Cited
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
The editors would like to acknowledge a very important debt of gratitude to the faculty and students in the Department of Philosophy at Stony Brook University, and particularly to the chairperson at the time, Eduardo Mendieta. Without their efforts in organizing the Silverman Memorial Symposium (held at Stony Brook University, September 2013), where several of the papers here were first read, this collected volume would not have been possible. In addition, we would like to offer a very sincere acknowledgement to the continuous support and advice from feminist philosopher Gertrude Postl, Hugh’s spouse. We would also like to offer our thanks to Hugh’s friends and colleagues who offered us advice or support throughout this process, especially those persons who are continuing Hugh’s work through the International Association for Philosophy and Literature and the International Philosophical Seminar. Finally, we offer our thanks to all of the contributors to this volume, whose efforts have made possible the timely publication of this collection. This volume itself, of course, stands as its own monument to the debt of gratitude we individually and collectively owe to Dr. Hugh J. Silverman himself.
Abbreviations DA Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Image—Music—Text , trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill Wang, 1977), 142–48. ER Hugh J. Silverman, “Excessive Responsibility and the Sense of the World (Merleau-Ponty and Nancy),” Chiasmi International 10 (2008): 307–17. HC Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition , 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). I Hugh J. Silverman, Inscriptions: After Phenomenology and Structuralism , 2nd ed. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1997). LN Julia Kristeva, “Life as a Narrative,” in Hannah Arendt , trans. Ross Guberman (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 3–99. PC Jacques Derrida, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond , trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987). RR Hugh J. Silverman, “The Mark of Postmodernism: Reading Roger Rabbit ,” Cinémas: Revue d’études cinématographiques/Cinémas: Journal of Film Studies 5, no. 3 (1995): 151–64. RSS Julia Kristeva, Revolt She Said , trans. Brian O’Keeffe (New York: Semiotext(e), 2002). SS Hugh J. Silverman, “The Postmodern Subject: Truth and Fiction in Lacoue-Labarthe’s Nietzsche,” in Subjects and Simulations: Between Baudrillard and Lacoue-Labarthe , ed. Anne O’Byrne and Hugh J. Silverman (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), 47–56. T Hugh J. Silverman, Textualities: Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction (New York: Routledge, 1994). W Henry David Thoreau, Walden , ed. Jeffrey S. Cramer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004). WT Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text,” in Image—Music—Text , trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill Wang, 1977), 155–64.
Other Abbreviations IAPL International Association for Philosophy and Literature IPS International Philosophical Seminar SPEP Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
1

Introduction
D ONALD A. L ANDES 1
It would be presumptuous to claim that a man is essentially one thing or another, that he is social, political, or rational, that he is a tool-maker, or that he is a user of symbols, etc. He is clearly not any one of these, since surely he is all of them. … What remains unclear is the particular sense in which he is ambiguous.
—Hugh J. Silverman 2
Drawn from the introduction to Hugh J. Silverman’s doctoral dissertation (Stanford University, 1973), this passage captures something persistent in his thought and in his person. Silverman was never comfortable with a simple answer, and it is hardly surprising that those who know his work best regularly reach for the word “between” to characterize both him and his work. From his first formulation of “the between” in the concept existential ambiguity to his rich later characterization of it via the “Silvermanian twist” he brought to the deconstructive term indecidability , Silverman’s self-conscious efforts were always toward thinking the between . In his work, he cultivated the space between phenomenology, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, structuralism, poststructuralism, and deconstruction; he moved between an enormous range of philosophical guides, from Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and Beauvoir to Foucault, Deleuze, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Lévinas, Irigaray, Barthes, Nancy, Kristeva, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Stiegler, and he thereby explored a staggering number of philosophical concepts and deconstructive strategies.
Indeed, Silverman’s career was marked by “the between” in several ways, and he always managed to cultivate a between that was between many, and never just between two. At Stony Brook University, Silverman held a joint appointment as Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literary Cultural Studies, and this between was enriched via active affiliation with the Department of Art as well as the Department of European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, and further punctuated by an incredible international presence as a visiting professor at institutions around the world. 3 Silverman was incredibly active in cultivating places of intellectual exchange that mark continental philosophy and the intersection between philosophy and literature. Not only did he serve as executive co-director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) (1980–1986) and as long-time executive director of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature (IAPL), 4 but he was also the co-founder and director of a much different, more intimate annual seminar (the International Philosophical Seminar [IPS] 5 that met at the border between Austria and Italy each year for a week of intensive study of a book written by a living author), and this too was further complemented by Silverman’s regular organization of weekend conferences and symposia at Stony Brook and elsewhere. Even his list of awards, grants, and fellowships reveals a “between”—the between of a teacher-scholar who remained committed to both aspects of his academic career. This between of teaching and research was itself further punctuated by various other activities within the core functioning of the university (such as his long service on the Senate at Stony Brook) and the discipline more broadly (such as service on department review boards). If we turn our attention to his publication activities, not only did Hugh author two important books ( Inscriptions: Between Phenomenology and Structuralism 6 and Textualities: Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction , 7 both of which exist in translation into Korean and the latter also into Arabic, German, and Italian), but he also edited and coedited twenty-two volumes, served as series editor for key international publishing houses in continental philosophy, 8 and was an active Advisory Board member for a long list of top academic journals and other book series.
Given the sheer weight of Hugh’s 120-page curriculum vitae—with its sprawling list of international presentations, publications, graduate dissertation committees, tenure-case committees, review boards, university service, conference organization, courses taught as a visiting professor at other universities, and so forth—it is hard to imagine anyone to be a more connected, a more networked member in th