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Retreating the Political
This collection of essays presents, for the first time in English, some of the key essays on the political by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy. Including several unpublished essays, Retreating the Political offers some highly original perspectives on the relationship between philosophy and the political.
Through contemporary readings of the political in Freud, Heidegger and Marx, the authors ask if we can talk 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'.
Through contemporary readings of the political in Freud, Heidegger and Marx, the authors ask if we can talk 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'.
- GenresPhilosophyPoliticsTheory
224 pages, Hardcover
First published May 15, 1997
About the author
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
65 books26 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 - 1 of 1 review