What Is Philosophy?

“Every written work,” Giorgio Agamben opens the preface to Infancy and History, “can be regarded as the prologue (or rather, the broken cast) of a work never penned, and destined to remain so.” Although that observation applies to any work of writing, the exemplary case is that of a work of philosop...

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المؤلف الرئيسي: Munro, Michael
التنسيق: Online
اللغة:الإنجليزية
منشور في: punctum books 2021
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الوصول للمادة أونلاين:1004491
الوسوم: إضافة وسم
لا توجد وسوم, كن أول من يضع وسما على هذه التسجيلة!
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author Munro, Michael
author_browse Munro, Michael
author_facet Munro, Michael
author_sort Munro, Michael
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description “Every written work,” Giorgio Agamben opens the preface to Infancy and History, “can be regarded as the prologue (or rather, the broken cast) of a work never penned, and destined to remain so.” Although that observation applies to any work of writing, the exemplary case is that of a work of philosophy. While every written work is put to work in its nonexistent successor, a work of philosophy is bereft of even that recourse: philosophy is written in the breakdown of destiny, so that every work of philosophy must first and foremost confront the absolute abandonment of its writing. At work in each and every work of philosophy is the question, “What is a work of philosophy?” More concretely, although well-formed and rigorously structured, What is Philosophy? abstains from work. On even a quick reading that fact must be palpable. A seminar paper? An article, or book chapter? Not in the least. Nor, essentially, may the individual pieces that compose it be so developed. Fragments unrecognizable as at one time a cast, inconceivable at a future time as anything else, the position of each piece with respect to the others thwarts development in order to preserve, in its place, the tension of its absence. As such, the articulations internal to each of the three divisions, and between them, are essential. The first division — What is Philosophy? — takes seriously Deleuze and Guattari’s contention in their book of the same title that “The nonphilosophical is perhaps closer to the heart of philosophy than philosophy itself, and this means that philosophy cannot be content to be understood only philosophically or conceptually, but is essentially addressed to nonphilosophers as well” — including the nonphilosopher in every philosopher. The second division — On Argument — interrogates the status and value of evidence, and self-evidence. The third division — On Not Knowing — generalizes a parenthetical observation of Agamben’s on Heidegger, “If we may attempt to identify something like the characteristic Stimmung of every thinker, perhaps it is precisely this being delivered over to something that refuses itself that defines the specific emotional tonality of Heidegger’s thought”: Might not philosophy be defined, the phil of sophia, precisely, as what it is to be delivered over to something that refuses itself?
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-348442025-01-25T09:24:15Z What Is Philosophy? Munro, Michael philosophy Giorgio Agamben Baruch Spinoza Martin Heidegger Gilles Deleuze Felix Guattari thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDH Philosophical traditions and schools of thought::QDHR Western philosophy from c 1800 “Every written work,” Giorgio Agamben opens the preface to Infancy and History, “can be regarded as the prologue (or rather, the broken cast) of a work never penned, and destined to remain so.” Although that observation applies to any work of writing, the exemplary case is that of a work of philosophy. While every written work is put to work in its nonexistent successor, a work of philosophy is bereft of even that recourse: philosophy is written in the breakdown of destiny, so that every work of philosophy must first and foremost confront the absolute abandonment of its writing. At work in each and every work of philosophy is the question, “What is a work of philosophy?” More concretely, although well-formed and rigorously structured, What is Philosophy? abstains from work. On even a quick reading that fact must be palpable. A seminar paper? An article, or book chapter? Not in the least. Nor, essentially, may the individual pieces that compose it be so developed. Fragments unrecognizable as at one time a cast, inconceivable at a future time as anything else, the position of each piece with respect to the others thwarts development in order to preserve, in its place, the tension of its absence. As such, the articulations internal to each of the three divisions, and between them, are essential. The first division — What is Philosophy? — takes seriously Deleuze and Guattari’s contention in their book of the same title that “The nonphilosophical is perhaps closer to the heart of philosophy than philosophy itself, and this means that philosophy cannot be content to be understood only philosophically or conceptually, but is essentially addressed to nonphilosophers as well” — including the nonphilosopher in every philosopher. The second division — On Argument — interrogates the status and value of evidence, and self-evidence. The third division — On Not Knowing — generalizes a parenthetical observation of Agamben’s on Heidegger, “If we may attempt to identify something like the characteristic Stimmung of every thinker, perhaps it is precisely this being delivered over to something that refuses itself that defines the specific emotional tonality of Heidegger’s thought”: Might not philosophy be defined, the phil of sophia, precisely, as what it is to be delivered over to something that refuses itself? 2021-02-10T12:58:18Z 2019-03-26 23:55 2020-01-23 14:09:07 2020-04-01T10:44:33Z 2012 book 1004491 OCN: 945782716 http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25604 9780615685137 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/34844 eng open access image/jpeg image/jpeg image/jpeg image/jpeg image/jpeg n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/25604/1/1004491.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/25604/1/1004491.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/25604/1/1004491.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/25604/1/1004491.pdf https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/25604/1/1004491.pdf punctum books 10.21983/P3.0011.1.00 10.21983/P3.0011.1.00 12970da4-0116-4486-b8be-fc9756703ab1 9780615685137 ScholarLed 72 Brooklyn, NY open access
spellingShingle philosophy
Giorgio Agamben
Baruch Spinoza
Martin Heidegger
Gilles Deleuze
Felix Guattari
thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDH Philosophical traditions and schools of thought::QDHR Western philosophy from c 1800
Munro, Michael
What Is Philosophy?
title What Is Philosophy?
title_full What Is Philosophy?
title_fullStr What Is Philosophy?
title_full_unstemmed What Is Philosophy?
title_short What Is Philosophy?
title_sort what is philosophy
topic philosophy
Giorgio Agamben
Baruch Spinoza
Martin Heidegger
Gilles Deleuze
Felix Guattari
thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDH Philosophical traditions and schools of thought::QDHR Western philosophy from c 1800
topic_facet philosophy
Giorgio Agamben
Baruch Spinoza
Martin Heidegger
Gilles Deleuze
Felix Guattari
thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDH Philosophical traditions and schools of thought::QDHR Western philosophy from c 1800
url 1004491
work_keys_str_mv AT munromichael whatisphilosophy