The meaning
of a critical ontology of the present. A useful starting point for a definition
of the project of a critical ontology of the present is Foucault’s reflection
on Kant’s question on the enlightenment. Accoridng to Foucault, this text is
crucial because it bridges transcendental critique with the ethico-political
perspective of cosmopolitan man.
The
importance of the ‘critical’ attitude to actualite’ consists in a philosophy
that interrogates history with a particular focus neither on its origin nor its
telos, but rather on the question of its belonging to the present. [1]
The situatedness of philosophical thinking renders man both an element and an
agent of the object of critical analysis (DE IV 564-565) and shifts the task of
critique from one of analytics of truth to that of an ontology of ourselves as
diagnosis. [2]
The enquiry
on the present is at the same time enquiry of the present. (DE IV 681) ‘in
classical age the question of the modern was often posed on an axis with two
poles: the ancient and the modern. (…) It was formulated through the concepts
of an authority that one could accept or reject (…) the new question of
modernity has no longitudinal reference to the ancient, but rather a sagittal
relation to its own actuality.’
For both
Kant and Foucault philosophical exercise entails preliminary thinking for
oneself, sapere aude (Wahlspruch) as an invitation, a sign and task of one’s
time.
‘When
Foucault admires Kant for posing the problem of philosophy in relation not to
the eternal but to the Now, he means that the object of philosophy is not to
contemplate the eternal or to reflect History but to diagnose our actual
becomings: a becoming-revolutionary that, according to Kant himself, is not the
same thing as the past, present, or future revolutions.’ D&G WiP p.112-113
The
definition of inferiority pointed to in Kant’s answer to the question is one
that has to do with both an excess of authority and a lack of courage. Hence,
an ontology of the present cannot escape the question of how not to be governed
like this and at this price (l’art de n’etre pas tellment gouverne’.)
To resurrect
the contents of the enlightenment is the worst betrayal to the
enlightenment. The latter can only be enacted as a critical attitude to the
present.[3]
Similarly
Foucault analyses Kant’s writings on the Revolution as spectacle.[4]
As the trigger of that courage to think of limitation as that from which to
liberate oneself, rather than as the framework within which action and thought
are confined. See 1978 and 1984 texts: quotes on necessary limitation as
possible emancipation from it, 1978; plus genealogy of what constituted us and
made us recognisable as subjects of what we say do and think. 1984
The
overcoming of the foundational character of the transcendental perspective
consists in not deducing from the form of what we are what we can do and know,
but in catching from the contingency, that makes us be what we are, the
possibility of not being, not doing and not thinking what we are, do and
think’. 1984
Critique
must become an epreuve d’evenementialisation (1984) (a production of events) on
a plane of pure immanence of singularities (1978), rather than an analytics of
the formal conditions of truth and search for legitimacy.
After Kant modernity ceases to have a relation with the past in counter
posing terms (the classical dispute between ancients and modern). It begins to
relate to itself. What characterises it is not the novum (new) but the modo
(now). Philosophical exercise is preliminarily determined by the choice to
think for oneself, sapere aude, as an invitation of one’s own time, of
one’s own actualité.
Minority is defined by Kant as a situation of authority whereby one is
guided in one’s thoughts by someone else. The exit from this kind of minority
requires a moral-political attitude precisely because it entails a questioning
of authority and its rejection –when this is external-. This explains
Foucault’s association of critique with ‘the art of not being governed, like
this and at this price’. (l’art de n’être pas tellement gouverne’).
Dare not to be governed in your public usage of reason, when you speak
as a world citizen to the world. This use of reason is similar to the cosmic
use of reason, which Kant distinguished from the scholastic use of reason,
which is related to wisdom rather than functional ability, and Foucault
analyses this in his introduction. (AB: Habermas instrumental reason?)
|
Scholastic: knowledge as science with as its only
aim the systematic unity of such knowledge. The scholastic significance of
philosophy makes it a doctrine of ability. Philosopher is the technician of
reason, scholastic philosopher aims to speculative knowledge and provides
rules for any possible aim |
|
Cosmic: science of the relation of each knowledge
with the essential aims of human reason. The cosmic significance makes
philosophy a doctrine of wisdom. Philosopher is (primarily) the legislator of
reason. Authentic philosopher indicates the ultimate aims of human reason,
self-legislation and self-determination. |
On this look at Kant’s moral writings (for the anthropology) and also was heißt sich im Denken orientieren? Conclusive remarks.
This is why, Foucault argues, it
is impossible to go back to the contents of Enlightenment, since that would be
its biggest betrayal. Its heredity must be intrinsic to the attitude to both actualité and the thinking for
oneself. The latter entails a modification in one’s relation to oneself: se dépendre de soi-même.
Freedom is never ethics if it
thinks it can appear as the effect of the elimination of codes and dislocation
of rules: its impatience (freedom’s) is its emptiness and it contradicts the
conviction that the ethical dimension is encountered only in the practice of
its problematisation and in the constant exercise of giving shape and form to
one’s existence, of making it a work of art, as the invitation to an aesthetics
of existence suggests.
AB: surely the whole idea of
modernity as a questioning of authority is extremely important especially is
situated within the debate initiated by Habermas on what constitutes
Enlightenment and how to define its project. Its constant association with the truth and truth claims is indicative
of a certain pressure to maintain an ETHICAL space for theorisation.
[1]
See P. Veyne on the Foucault effect
for an analysis of the philosophy which operates outside the domain of both
eternity and historicity.
[2] History today still designates only the set
of conditions, however recent they may be, from whicjh one turns away in order
to become, that is to say, in order to create something new. D&G WiP?p.96
[3] What is the best way to follow the great philosophers? Is it to repeat what they said or to do what they did, that is, create concepts for problems thatn ecessarily change? D&G, WiP, p28
[4] ‘ As Kant showed, the concept of revolution
exists not in the way in which revolution is undertaken in a necessarily
relative social field but in the ‘enthusiasm’ with which it is thought on an
absolute plane of immanence, like a presentation of the infinite in the here
and now, which includes nothing rational or even reasonable. The concept frees
immanence from all the limits still imposed on it by capital (or that it
imposed on itself in the form of capital appearing as something transcendent).
However, it is not so much a case of a separation of the spectator from the
actor in this enthusiasm as of a distinction within the social action itself
between historical factors and ‘unhistorical vapour’, between a state of
affairs and the event. As concept and as event, revolution is self-referential
or enjoys a self-positing that enables it to be apprehended in an immanent
enthusiasm without anything in states of affairs or lived experience being able
to tone it down, not even the disappointments of reason. Revolution is absolute
deterritorialization even to the point where this calls for a new earth, a new
people.’ (What is philosophy, D&G, p.101)