Notes on Butler’s Gender Trouble: Discursive Mediation and Transcendental Subjectivity

In the concluding section of Gender Trouble, Butler reflects on some of the broader implications of their critical analysis of gender performativity in the book. What began with a question about who the ‘we’ is in feminist theory opens onto a much broader set of questions about identity and agency, about the nature of the subject, and therefore about the possibility of ethics and political engagement.

Notes on Dialectic of Enlightenment, ch. 1

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944, published 1947) is an account of the endogenous failures of modernity as rooted in the core presuppositions of enlightenment rationality. “Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to myth.” Not a romantic call for a return to myth then; rather an attempt to diagnose the pathologies of the whole complex arising from this abstract opposition and a dialectical progression rooted in fear and a correlative desire for mastery.

In fact what would need to change is the structure of society itself. This is a philosophical analysis of a series of problems that philosophy cannot solve. It calls for the abolition of the principle of exchange and the division of labor predicated on class antagonism.

Obscurity and Involvement

This is the presentation I gave at my dissertation defense at DePaul University on March 15th, 2019. The dissertation is entitled “Obscurity and Involvement: On the Unconscious of Thought in Leibniz, Spinoza, and Hume.”

Perhaps I should begin by reminding myself, and sharing with you, a bit about how I got here. This is not the dissertation I set out to write, which of course is fine. Some of you may recall that a few years ago I planned to write a dissertation on the concept of the miraculous. The miraculous, I still think, is an extremely rich concept in early modernity, sitting as it does at the intersection of a host of discourses: metaphysics and theology, epistemology, physics, politics, and economics. In each case, I wanted to argue, the miraculous exhibits a necessary contradiction, one internal to that discourse and also in that discourse’s relation to the others.

Podcast on Spinoza and Ideology

I recently appeared as a guest on Poststructuralist Tent Revival, a podcast about contemporary philosophy, theology, and political theory. I talked about why I think Spinoza is especially helpful for thinking about problems of ideology and why his metaphysics of ideas remains compelling and relevant. It was a lovely time!

Listen here.

Régis’ Refutation of Spinoza

Pierre-Sylvain Régis was a significant systematizer and proponent of Cartesian philosophy. In 1691 he published in three volumes the Cours entier de philosophie, ou Systeme general selon les principes de M. Descartes, contenant la logique, la metaphysique, la physique, et la morale. His work can be seen as a more faithfully Cartesian competitor to the occasionalist vector developed by Malebranche and Louis la Forge; the nature of ideas, the metaphysical status of causal relations, and the limits and possibility of knowledge of external things all remained matters of heated debate. But in the background of that whole debate, naturally, lay the specter of Spinoza. Eventually, of course—who hasn’t had this happen to them?—Régis was accused of Spinozism by his occasionalist rivals, and so deemed it worthwhile to clarify just how non-Spinozist he really was. That turns out to be: pretty non-Spinozist!

Hume’s Dialogues on Natural Religion, V-VIII

Part V. Consequences of Anthropomorphism

Philo. Cleanthes denies a priori arguments for the existence of God, but thinks he can prove God’s existence and nature based on experience alone. The best candidate for an experience that might get us there is that of order in nature. The principle of his argument is as follows. We draw an analogy between two causal relations; based on the similarity of effects we infer a similarity of causes. The closer the similarity, the better the inference. He claims that insofar as we find it to be ordered, the universe is like a work of human design, and infers that the world was created by an intelligent designer, akin to a human mind.

This analogy is disastrous.

Hume’s Dialogues on Natural Religion, I-IV

Part I. On Skepticism

Demea. It’s good, Cleanthes, that you’re training Pamphilus in the correct order: Logic, ethics, physics, then finally theology. The last is hardest and most abstract.

Philo. Isn’t there a danger in keeping theology for last, since it’s so important?

Demea. Well, piety and good reverent habits can be taught from an early age; theology as a science should wait.

Philo. The vulgar hate philosophy; those who have studied a little bit are hubristic, thinking that human reason can reach everything and solve all problems. But we philosophers recognize that human reason is extremely limited. Once you’ve seen how contradictory and unsolvable the great philosophical problems are, how could one remain confident in dogmatic theological statements? Better to be a skeptic.

Philosophy of God

I am very excited to be teaching Philosophy of God for the first time this upcoming quarter. The syllabus can be found here.

Here are a few thoughts I’ve had while designing the course.

Newly Published Article on Deleuze and Scotus

Just a bit of news: An essay I wrote on Deleuze’s concept of the virtual and the problem of individuation in Duns Scotus has been published in the new issue of Deleuze and Guattari Studies.

Link