Thanks for the responses on this topic. I too have been interested by some
of things being said by, for want of a better word, intellectuals. Chomsky's
remarks were very quick of the mark, but I found Zizek's commentary more
penetrating (though I wouldn't agree with all of it). I think Foucault did
speak up on many issues, some of which he may have been better advised
against. The very short occassional pieces that are in along with more
scholarly pieces in Dits et ecrits make interesting reading. But equally
there were times when Foucault refused to make a comment.
Lots of other things arising from this discussion.
I think we do know what Heidegger thought about the holocaust. He thought it
was a symptom of the wider malaise of machination, technology and
calculation. Whilst this is of course inadequate, because it wasn't just
that, it is an interesting analysis all the same. It bears useful comparison
with Adorno and Horkheimer, Arendt, Zygmunt Bauman and Foucault's remarks in
Il faut defendre la societe, and to a lesser extent, the final chapter of
The Will to Knowledge.
I think Derrida's public interventions around a political issues that matter
to him would have to include his Du droit a la philosophie, a highly charged
French debate about the teaching of philosophy.
The relation between politics and the chora/khora is a huge topic that I
think might be best avoided for now. But there is a vast literature on this.
See, for example, Derrida's Khora [English translation in On The Name],
Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics and Plato's Sophist, texts by
Butler, Irigaray, Kristeva, and most recently John Sallis' work, especially
Chorology.
And I do believe that the Foucault/Chomsky encounter was important, but I
seem to remember it was elsewhere (possibly the debate with Deleuze?) that
he made the most explicit comments about the role of the intellectual.
Best wishes
Stuart
of things being said by, for want of a better word, intellectuals. Chomsky's
remarks were very quick of the mark, but I found Zizek's commentary more
penetrating (though I wouldn't agree with all of it). I think Foucault did
speak up on many issues, some of which he may have been better advised
against. The very short occassional pieces that are in along with more
scholarly pieces in Dits et ecrits make interesting reading. But equally
there were times when Foucault refused to make a comment.
Lots of other things arising from this discussion.
I think we do know what Heidegger thought about the holocaust. He thought it
was a symptom of the wider malaise of machination, technology and
calculation. Whilst this is of course inadequate, because it wasn't just
that, it is an interesting analysis all the same. It bears useful comparison
with Adorno and Horkheimer, Arendt, Zygmunt Bauman and Foucault's remarks in
Il faut defendre la societe, and to a lesser extent, the final chapter of
The Will to Knowledge.
I think Derrida's public interventions around a political issues that matter
to him would have to include his Du droit a la philosophie, a highly charged
French debate about the teaching of philosophy.
The relation between politics and the chora/khora is a huge topic that I
think might be best avoided for now. But there is a vast literature on this.
See, for example, Derrida's Khora [English translation in On The Name],
Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics and Plato's Sophist, texts by
Butler, Irigaray, Kristeva, and most recently John Sallis' work, especially
Chorology.
And I do believe that the Foucault/Chomsky encounter was important, but I
seem to remember it was elsewhere (possibly the debate with Deleuze?) that
he made the most explicit comments about the role of the intellectual.
Best wishes
Stuart