References
- Nietzsche , Friedrich . 1968 . The Will to Power , 252 New York : Vintage Press .
- Rawls , John . 1993 . Political Liberalism , New York : Columbia University Press .
- 1985 . 'Justice as fairness: political not metaphysical' . Philosophy and Public Affairs , 14 : 223 – 251 .
- Aronovitch , Milliard . 1997 . "The political importance of analogical argument' . Political Studies , 45 : 78
- Habermas , Jürgen . 1992 . Post-Metaphysical Thinking , Cambridge : Polity Press . John Rawls, op. cit.. Ref. 2, especially the chapter entitled "The idea of an overlapping consensus', and, especially the chapter entitled 'Metaphysics after Kant'
- 1994 . 'Political concepts and ideological morphology' . Journal of Political Philosophy , 2 : 140 – 164 . To clarify, I am not using the term 'ideology' in its negative, depreciatory sense. Rather, the project I have in mind for the study of ideology in this essay is along similar lines to the one outlined by Michael Freeden in his essay, Here Freeden describes his 'third perspective' in the study of ideology as 'locating the analysis of ideologies firmly within the scholarly contest in which political theorists operate. It attempts to respond to the questions: what does an ideology look like? How does it "behave"?' (p. 140). I prefer to substitute the term 'function' for the term 'behave'
- Ricoeur , Paul . 1985 . “ 'Metaphor and the main problem of hermeneutics' ” . In Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences , Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . Ricoeur asserts that the main problem for hermeneutics is that of interpretation, and that by looking at how metaphors work, we may have a better purchase on this process. Thus, the 'predicative function' in metaphor is that which allows for the possibility of an interaction between two absolutely different elements such that they might be in association with one another. For Ricoeur, this interactive moment is what allows us to get beyond the epistemological limits of 'logical absurdity'. Thus he asserts that 'logical absurdity creates a situation in which we have the choice of either preserving the literal meaning of the subject and modifier and hence concluding that the entire sentence is absurd, or attributing a new meaning to the modifier so that the sentence as a whole makes sense' (p. 173). Ricoeur opts for the latter position and concludes that metaphor is 'a semantic innovation which does not have a status in the language as something already established' (p. 174)
- de Certeau , Michel . 1986 . Montaigne in Heterologies , 72 Minneapolis , MN : University of Minnesota Press . The Oxford English Dictionary on CD-Rom, second edition, finds a usage of the word 'diabolic' in the Greek diabolos (d?aß???f--l), meaning to slander or to throw something wildly. It is a projectile (a word, a stick) which can cause harm and produce disorder. It is, one might assume, something which needs to be bound and kept under close scrutiny. The diabolic needs to be contained within the symbolic lest it be injurious. I borrow this distinction from
- Aristotle . 1984 . Poetics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle , Vol. 2 , New York : Princeton University Press . lines 1459a 5-8
- 1989 . Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language , 250 New York : Oxford University Press . As an aside, we might understand the force of Nietzsche's attack on the concept of truth in On truth and lying in an extra-moral sense' in precisely these terms. In this regard Nietzsche states famously that truth is 'a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms, in short, a sum of human relations which were poetically and rhetorically hightened, transferred, and adorned, and after long usage, seem solid, canonical, and binding to a nation' :
- Kant, ibid.
- Kant, ibid., p. 229.
- Kant, ibid., p. 155.
- 1997 . Politics of Friendship , 306 New York : Verso Press . In this sense it is worthwhile to turn, once again, to Jacques Derrida and his most recent discussion of the 'politics of friendship' where, in the concluding pages of his book, he discusses the possibility of a 'democracy to come' (i.e., l'(à)venir): 'For a democracy to come, this is its essence in so far as it remains: not only will it remain indefinitely perfectible, hence always insufficient and future, but, belonging to the time of the promise, it will always remain, in each of its future times, to come: even when there is democracy, it never exists, it is never present, it remains the theme of a non-presentable concept' :, I would like to thank the participants of Seyla Benhabib's seminar, 'Democracy and its others', at the 1999 meeting of the School of Criticism and Theory for helping me think through this point
- Agamben , Giorgio and Sacer , Homo . 'The sacredness of life and death: Giorgio Agamben' s Homo Sacer and the tasks of political thinking' . Theory and Event , 3.1 For further elaboration of the question of the status of political thinking today, see the review of, (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_&_event/v003/3.1r_ panagia.html)
- Deleuze , Gilles . 1993 . “ 'The image of thought' ” . In Difference and Repetition , New York : Columbia University Press . I say 'paradigmatic' here because it is Kant's treatment of analogy in the third critique that establishes a logical connection between analogical reason and common sense: see
- Gill , J. H. 1984 . 'Kant, analogy and natural theology' . International Journal of Philosophy and Religion , 16 : 19 – 28 . With regard to Kant's use of analogy in his moral writings, see
- Arendt , Hannah . 1982 . Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy , Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press . I consider Kant's third critique to be a precursor to much contemporary liberal thinking on deliberative democracy. On this point, see, where he asserts that: '[the art of persuasion] cannot be recommended either for the bar or for the pulpit. For when civil laws or the rights of individual persons are at issue, or the enduring instruction and determination of minds to a correct knowledge and a conscientious observance of their duty are at issue, then it is beneath the dignity of so important a task to display even a trace of extravagant wit and imagination, let alone any trace of the art of persuading people and of biasing them for the advantage of someone or other'
- Kant . 1987 . Republic, considers rhetoric to be an absolute form of evil for any civil society: see his Critique of Judgement , 197 Indianapolis , IN : Hackett Publishing Co. .
- It is important to keep in mind that the Greek 2µa?o? a (the Latin analogia), originally a mathematical term, refers to the agreement and proportion of ratios: see Oxford English Dictionary on CD-Rom, second edition.
- Kant, ibid., p. 88.
- Derrida , Jacques . 1982 . “ 'White mythology: metaphor in the text of philosophy' ” . In Margins of Philosophy , 219 Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press .
- Derrida, ibid., p. 213.
- 1968 . What is Called Thinking? , 100 New York : Harper and Row . It is in these moments of lament, found throughout Derrida's writings, that he comes closest to other thinkers in the post-Nietzschean tradition. Here I am thinking specifically of Heidegger, Deleuze and Foucault-all of whom recognize the importance of a creative and artistic element in thinking. In this regard, Heidegger (and Deleuze, Foucault and Derrida similarly) asserts that through time 'it becomes clear that all metaphysics leaves something essential unthought: its own ground and foundation. This is the ground on which we have to say that we are not yet truly thinking as long as we think only metaphysically':, It is this ground of metaphysics (the unthought that calls us to think) that will be crucial in our discussion of Kant's use of analogy
- Butler , Judith . 1993 . “ 'Arguing with the real' ” . In Bodies that Matter , London : Routledge Press . For an insightful discussion of the democratic potential of catachresis, see
- For an illuminating treatment of Kant's use of topographical metaphors as metaphors for thinking, see Simone Pinet's essay, 'Archipelagos for thought: Kant's aesthetic and the island imaginary' (forthcoming).
- Kant, ibid.
- Kant . 1959 . Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals , 16 Indianapolis , IN : Bobbs-Merrill Education Publishing .
- Kant, ibid.
- Deleuze , Gilles and Guattari , Felix . 1987 . “ 'Nomadology' ” . In A Thousand Plateaus , Minneapolis , MN : University of Minnesota Press . This language of striated spaces and territoriality is taken from, seminal work on territoriality
- In this regard, Kant states that 'it must be possible to think of nature as being such that the lawfulness in its form will harmonize with at least the possibility of [achieving] the purpose that we are to achieve in nature according to the laws of freedom': Kant, ibid., p. 14.
- Kant, ibid.
- Derrida . 1989 . The Truth in Painting , 36 Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press . Jacques Derrida points out this phenomenon in his writings on Kant's third critique: 'Parergon'. In this regard, he asserts that 'the analogy of the abyss and of the bridge is an analogy which says that there must surely be an analogy between two absolutely heterogeneous worlds, a third term to cross the abyss, to heal over the gaping wound and think the gap. In a word, a symbol' :
- Kant, ibid.
- Kant, ibid.
- Kant, ibid., p. 226 (emphasis added).
- This is where my reading of common sense differs from Arendt's. In her Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy (pp. cit., Ref. 8) she describes common sense as the condition for communicability and enlarged mentality, and asserts further that One can communicate only if one is able to think from the other's standpoint; otherwise one will never meet him, never speak in such a way that he understands' (p. 74). On Arendt's more generous reading of Kant, individuals are permitted to have different standpoints and must work to negotiate their differences. On my reading, based on his comments regarding 'respect' in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (see Ref. 26), Kant leaves no room for such perspectivilism. We can put ourselves in an other's shoes, not because we have an ability to encounter the other's difference with our own horizon of understanding, but rather because we are all always already the same vis-à-vis the moral law. Common sense is not an ability individuals have to understand difference (which is what Arendt seems to be suggesting). It is the a priori condition of communication which places everyone on the same footing and ensures universal understanding.
- Deleuze, ibid.
- Rancière , Jacques . 1999 . Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy , 99 Minneapolis , MN : University of Minnesota Press .
- Flathman , Richard . 1998 . “ 'Ruling, rules, and rule following: mainstay or mirage, miracle or misfortune?' ” . In Reflections of a Would-Be Anarchist , Minneapolis , MN : University of Minnesota Press . I find affinities here with the discussions of rule and rule-following in the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations. For an elaboration of this point, see