Locating Europe

Rodolphe Gasché

Description

Is the idea of Europe outdated? The concept of European unity, the animating spirit of the European Union, seems increasingly fragile in the face of far-right populist movements. In Locating Europe , Rodolphe Gasché attempts to answer the question of how to think about Europe. Is it a figure, a concept, or an idea? Is there anything still compelling and urgent about the idea of Europe?

By looking at phenomenologist and postphenomenological thinkers in the second half of the 20th century, Gasché reveals that Europe is more than just one geographical and cultural entity. The idea of Europe is based on common foundations: a distinctive conception of reason, of self-criticism, of responsibility, freedom, equality, human rights, and democracy, and it is these foundations that are under threat.

In Locating Europe: A Figure, a Concept, an Idea? Gasché engages the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Karl Jaspers, Karl Löwith, and others, focuses on the most significant philosophical representations of Europe, and explores the potential, and especially the limits, of the notion of Europe.

Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Archipelago
2. Without a Horizon
3. In Light of Light
4. The Form of the Concept
5. Axial Time
6. Eastward Trajectories
7. Feeling Anew for the Idea of Europe
8. An Idea in the Kantian Sense?
9. Responsibility, a Strange Concept
10. An Immemorial Remainder
11. Beyond the Idea of Europe
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Métaphysique
• Épistémologie
• Philosophie de l'esprit
• Éthique et morale
• Movements
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Phenomenology
• Existentialism

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253054869
• Langue: English

Extrait

STUDIES IN CONTINENTAL THOUGHT
John Sallis, editor
Consulting Editors
Robert Bernasconi
James Risser
John D. Caputo
Dennis J. Schmidt
David Carr
Calvin O. Schrag
Edward S. Casey
Charles E. Scott
David Farrell Krell
Daniela Vallega-Neu
Lenore Langsdorf
David Wood

This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.org
2021 by Rodolphe Gasch
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First edition 2021
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gasch , Rodolphe, author.
Title: Locating Europe : a figure, a concept, an idea? / Rodolphe Gasch .
Description: First edition. | Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, 2021. | Series: Studies in continental thought | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020044839 (print) | LCCN 2020044840 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253054838 (hardback) | ISBN 9780253054852 (paperback) | ISBN 9780253054845 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Europe-Philosophy.
Classification: LCC B105.E68 G385 2021 (print) | LCC B105.E68 (ebook) | DDC 940.01-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044839
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044840
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Archipelago
2 Without a Horizon
3 In Light of Light
4 The Form of the Concept
5 Axial Time
6 Eastward Trajectories
7 Feeling Anew for the Idea of Europe
8 An Idea in the Kantian Sense?
9 Responsibility, a Strange Concept
10 An Immemorial Remainder: The Legacy of Europe
11 Beyond the Idea of Europe
Bibliography
Index
PREFACE
E VEN THOUGH THIS BOOK IS PRIMARILY DEVOTED TO phenomenologist and postphenomenologist thinkers in the second half of the twentieth century who have made significant philosophical contributions to Europe as a philosophical issue, I wish to begin these prefatory remarks with a bold statement by a philosopher who not only comes from a different philosophical tradition but, in her own words, also from a part of Europe whose extremism at times brings to light certain deep European roots, which Europe deliberately conceals. 1 I am referring to the Spanish modernist philosopher Maria Zambrano. 2 La Agonia de Europa , published in 1945 in Buenos Aires, where she sought refuge after the rise to power of the fascists in Spain, is, in light of the death that Europe underwent at that time, an inquiry into what Europe had been. However much she is committed to the Greek heritage, she is also a deeply, though in many ways, heretical, Christian philosopher. One of the distinctly original points of Zambrano s work is, indeed, her claim that Saint Augustine is the father of Europe, the main protagonist of European life. 3 But he, significantly enough, is not a European. He came, as Zambrano offers, from abroad in order to nurture Europe by familiarizing it with the wisdom of forgotten and far away Africa. 4 In other words, the Christian origin of Europe, rather than something native to Europe, comes from abroad. However, the figure of Saint Augustine is not just a stand-in for the Christianity of Europe. On the contrary, he is the main actor of Europe in that with him a specific conception of Europe takes form. Indeed, after the death of the ancient world, it is a Christian Europe in which Greek philosophy and Roman law undergo a resurrection through Christian faith that, at the same time, transforms this faith itself. What comes into being with Saint Augustine is something that cannot die, and will always resurrect through the amalgamation of the Christian conception of hope with the Greco-Roman heritage concerning a polis for all human beings here on Earth. Within the frame of the history of salvation that characterizes Saint Augustine s thought, a new way of discovering the subject s innermost self is discovered. Indeed, as Zambrano points out, at the transition of antiquity to modernity, Saint Augustine creates a new genre-the confessions -aimed at acquiring knowledge about oneself, a knowledge that becomes important at that moment at which one wants to be reborn, in which one wishes to resurrect, not only once, but as often as is necessary in order to become whole. 5 This new genre is also the form that the subject Europe takes, beginning with Saint Augustine. Its heart is constituted by this unrelenting self-reflection and self-critique at the moments of its many deaths, and which seeks to accomplish a self-transparency so as to be resurrected. In short, if Saint Augustine is the father of Europe it is because with him a Europe comes to life that is constituted by rebirth from its many deaths. According to Zambrano, it is precisely this hope of resurrection at the heart of Europe, grafted on its Greek and Roman origins, that gives it its Christian character. To reflect not only on the wealth of its diverse forms and the multiple styles of European life but also on the decay of these forms and styles in order to discover what about Europe is indispensable, this is, the Spanish philosopher holds, the way of keeping Europe alive; of bringing it to life again. She avers, Europe will live when it gets our mental powers going. 6 This is the context in which she makes the following statement: Europe is not dead, Europe cannot die completely; it decays. For Europe is perhaps the only thing-in history-that cannot die; it is the only thing capable of resurrection. 7
In a political and cultural climate such as today s, when unified Europe is not only threatened from within by right-wing and populist authoritarianisms but from outside as well, by Russia s aggressive attempt to divide the European Union and by the current protectionist US administration that wants if not to dismantle, then at least to weaken it as an integrated and multilateralist institution, a statement like the above sounds like a deluded and chimerical dream. Is it just a coincidence if in North American academia a similar attempt to get rid of Europe is underway in several respects? It is under attack, first, as far as the shape of the institution of the humanist university itself is concerned; second, regarding the context of the present study, in its form of being a mode of thinking that seeks an intelligibility in which everyone can participate. In academia, this attack is waged by tribal culturalism. Here, Zambrano s statement will be judged not only to be deluded but to be the expression of European arrogance.
In no way do I wish to question the fact that new efforts to include domains and topics hitherto excluded or underrepresented in academic work have led to signal contributions in scholarship. But the nativist mentality that more than occasionally is part and parcel of these studies is as disquieting as the concerted political efforts of the illiberal and nationalistic forces that seek to undermine Europe s transnational project. Indeed, there is a call in a considerable part of North American academia to wall itself off and to police its boundaries in order to be able to feel safe from concepts and ideas that- because initially they originated in Europe or came with a demand of universal rational accountability and of responsibility to the other-are judged imperial and to override differences and particularities. In extreme cases, this is a call to feel safe from any other who might be seen as a threat to one s identity. Needless to say, in the context of such a culture of particularism, Zambrano s statement sounds completely out of tune.
So why continue to be concerned with Europe, which Hegel, distinguishing it from the New World, already characterized as Old Europe ? 8 Why not drop the issue once and for all? Yet, before even beginning to ponder such a question it might be appropriate to remind oneself of what the name Europe stands for. As the title of this book already suggests, rather than as a geographical, geopolitical, or economic entity, Europe is here being considered philosophically, as a figure, a concept, or an idea. It is the name for a cluster of interrelated, at times aporetic, exigencies or injunctions such as the following: rationality, self-accounting, self-criticism, responsibility toward the other, freedom, equality (including for the different sexes), justice, human rights, democracy, and the list goes on. To hold that Europe is a topic that no longer deserves reflection is to demonstrate a lack of historical judgment and, ultimately, to dismiss all these ideas and values that make up the core of the European heritage. By contrast, to reflect on these concepts, values, and ideas that historically have their origin in Europe, is to reflect on Europe and to measure it against them; in turn, to consider that the idea of Europe is still important today is to hold that these concepts, values, and ideas still matter, not only in relation to Old Europe but also to all parts of the world without distinction, in fact, more than ever, in a now transnational and multicultural world. But in the context of this philosophical approach to the question of Europe, it must be recalled that the name Europe also stands for a distinct mode of thinking, namely philosophical thinking. In phenomenological thought in particular, to which almost all the analyses in this book are consecrated, Europe as a concept or idea is synonymous with rational, scientific, and philosophical thought. But this mode of thinking is also one that, because of its