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Retreating the Political
The relationship between philosophy and the political is as old as philosophy itself. Since Plato's discussion of the polis in the Republic, the philosophical has also been the political and vice versa. Yet today, what would it mean to re-treat this relationship and question the essence of the political philosophically?
This collection of essays presents, for the first time in English, some of the key issues at the heart of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy's work. Including several unpublished essays, Retreating the Political offers some highly original perspectives on the relationship between philosophy and the political. The authors force us to confront the fact that the political has become the unsurpassable horizon of our time. If, today, everything is political, how can we re-treat the political on the basis of its retreat from any specificity whatsoever?
The authors ask if we can speak of an a priori link between the philosophical and the political; they investigate the significance of the 'figure' - the human being as political subject - in the history of metaphysics; and they inquire how we can 're-treat' the political today in the face of those who argue that philosophy is at an end.
Retreating the Political brings together some of their responses to these investigations. We see as a result some of the key motifs that have characterized their work: their debt to a Heideggerian pre-undersanding of philosophy, the centrality of the 'figure' in Western philosophy and the totalitarianism of both politics and the political. Through contemporary readings of the political in Freud, Heidegger, and Marx, they reveal how philosophy relies on the political for its reinvention and representation and how it has done so since Socrates.
This collection of essays presents, for the first time in English, some of the key issues at the heart of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy's work. Including several unpublished essays, Retreating the Political offers some highly original perspectives on the relationship between philosophy and the political. The authors force us to confront the fact that the political has become the unsurpassable horizon of our time. If, today, everything is political, how can we re-treat the political on the basis of its retreat from any specificity whatsoever?
The authors ask if we can speak of an a priori link between the philosophical and the political; they investigate the significance of the 'figure' - the human being as political subject - in the history of metaphysics; and they inquire how we can 're-treat' the political today in the face of those who argue that philosophy is at an end.
Retreating the Political brings together some of their responses to these investigations. We see as a result some of the key motifs that have characterized their work: their debt to a Heideggerian pre-undersanding of philosophy, the centrality of the 'figure' in Western philosophy and the totalitarianism of both politics and the political. Through contemporary readings of the political in Freud, Heidegger, and Marx, they reveal how philosophy relies on the political for its reinvention and representation and how it has done so since Socrates.
- GenresPhilosophyPoliticsTheory
222 pages, Paperback
First published May 15, 1997
46 people want to read
About the author
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
60 books23 followersPhilippe Lacoue-Labarthe—philosopher, literary critic, and translator—is one of the leading intellectuals in France. He teaches philosophy and aesthetics at the University of Strasbourg. Among his works translated into English is Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics (Stanford paperback edition, 1998).
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May 29, 2024
The retreat of the political is doubly marked in the question of the political (both of these phrases turning round the double genitive) - that is, the retreating from the "political" or politics that the political as question would entail, a retreat which demands being treated, again, still, encore in terms of its fundamental withdrawal of all grounding; this being the question of the essence of the political, the "what it is" of the political, which is the very question demanded, interminably, by the political "itself" in its retreat before thought (anterior to thought, also tracing the retreat which draws thought forward by way of its questioning, setting it in the abyss of the question).
Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy expand in these essays upon their previous engagements with the question of the political, attempting to draw out the question by way of drawing towards a political exigency (for thought, upon thought) to which neither politics, political theory, nor even political philosophy, can respond. The political can only come to thought, to be thought, as the "to be thought" of this demand, by retreating from the political figurations of the past which continue to operate in the identifications of the present. This retreat does not entail refusing to think these politics and their figures - on the contrary, it entails re-treating them, not in terms of politics, but by way of the question of the political, questioning the figuration of identification, the fictioning of totality, and the power that this sets in practice.
The writings herein are but a call, echoing the demand for this questioning, this retreating of the retreating. The exigency to continue to pursue the retreatment of this question (of the political) remains before us, in retreat, even as it did for the group who undertook the initial treatment in the early 80s. These writings are schematic, laying out the framework (which is not to say the figure, but more the gestures) for such a questioning. Thankfully, and necessarily, there are no "answers." Thankfully, that is, because the question of the political remains, today, as exigent - if not moreso - than ever before (as we feel, perhaps, the void of politics lapsing (in catastrophe) ever more by the day, marking the disappearance of the ever before which the question of the political, in its retreat, traces...).
Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy expand in these essays upon their previous engagements with the question of the political, attempting to draw out the question by way of drawing towards a political exigency (for thought, upon thought) to which neither politics, political theory, nor even political philosophy, can respond. The political can only come to thought, to be thought, as the "to be thought" of this demand, by retreating from the political figurations of the past which continue to operate in the identifications of the present. This retreat does not entail refusing to think these politics and their figures - on the contrary, it entails re-treating them, not in terms of politics, but by way of the question of the political, questioning the figuration of identification, the fictioning of totality, and the power that this sets in practice.
The writings herein are but a call, echoing the demand for this questioning, this retreating of the retreating. The exigency to continue to pursue the retreatment of this question (of the political) remains before us, in retreat, even as it did for the group who undertook the initial treatment in the early 80s. These writings are schematic, laying out the framework (which is not to say the figure, but more the gestures) for such a questioning. Thankfully, and necessarily, there are no "answers." Thankfully, that is, because the question of the political remains, today, as exigent - if not moreso - than ever before (as we feel, perhaps, the void of politics lapsing (in catastrophe) ever more by the day, marking the disappearance of the ever before which the question of the political, in its retreat, traces...).
Displaying 1 of 1 review