In 1971, American linguist/social activist Noam Chomsky squared off against French philoso
In 1971, American linguist/social activist Noam Chomsky squared off against French philosopher Michel Foucault on Dutch television ... the program was entitled 'Human Nature: Justice Vs. Power' and offered sharp contrasts between the more traditional view of 'human nature' and what would become a postmodernist perspective ... Chomsky, following a rationalist lineage going back to at least Plato, believes that there is a foundational 'nature' and that its positive aspects (love, creativity, recognizing and embracing justice) must be realized, while Foucault remains skeptical of any such notion... for him, the issue is not so much whether 'justice' or 'human nature' 'exists,' but how they have historically (and currently) function in society ... in regard to justice, he says (this is not included in the clips): "... the idea of justice in itself is an idea which in effect has been invented and put to work in different types of societies as an instrument of a certain political and economic power or as a weapon against that power..." The point of any political struggle, for Foucault, is to alter the 'power relations' in which we all find ourselves ...
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Added: 2 weeks ago
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In 1971, American linguist/social activist Noam Chomsky squared off against French philoso
In 1971, American linguist/social activist Noam Chomsky squared off against French philosopher Michel Foucault on Dutch television ... the program was entitled 'Human Nature: Justice Vs. Power' and offered sharp contrasts between the more traditional view of 'human nature' and what would become a postmodernist perspective ... Chomsky, following a rationalist lineage going back to at least Plato, believes that there is a foundational 'nature' and that its positive aspects (love, creativity, recognizing and embracing justice) must be realized, while Foucault remains skeptical of any such notion... for him, the issue is not so much whether 'justice' or 'human nature' 'exists,' but how they have historically (and currently) function in society ... in regard to justice, he says (this is not included in the clips): "... the idea of justice in itself is an idea which in effect has been invented and put to work in different types of societies as an instrument of a certain political and economic power or as a weapon against that power..." The point of any political struggle, for Foucault, is to alter the 'power relations' in which we all find ourselves ...
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Added: 2 weeks ago
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Danish philosopher and proto-existentialist, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), has his life p
Danish philosopher and proto-existentialist, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), has his life put to animation in this quirky little piece! Watch for his father Michael speaking from the grave and his anti-Hegelianism!
¡Este es grande!
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Added: 6 months ago
Views: 1,809
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In this intriguing overview of his famous notion of the 'trace,' Derrida critiques the lon
In this intriguing overview of his famous notion of the 'trace,' Derrida critiques the long-standing philosophical 'authority of the question' by examining the conditions for questioning itself ... he argues that presence always presupposes 'Otherness' (a 'primary affirmation') which embodies a 'return'...to a 'different temporality older than the past and beyond the future' - a different 'past,' 'present,' or 'future' ...
Derrida seeks a 'rapport' with this Otherness that allows for any conventional understanding of presence or the present ... such rapport, he feels, would promote a different experience with the past or future ...
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Added: 6 months ago
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Here, on German television, Heidegger repeats the importance of his long-standing concern
Here, on German television, Heidegger repeats the importance of his long-standing concern with the forgetting of the question of Being, but then offers an interesting analogy between the (few) physicists who understand how a radio or television works and equally scarce 'thinkers' who have a proper understanding of the question of Being ...
In his 'Introduction to Metaphysics' (1935), Heidegger remarks: "... philosophy is always the concern of the few. Which few? The creators, those who initiate profound transformations. It spreads only indirectly, by devious paths that can never be laid out in advance, until at last, at some future date, it sinks to the level of a common-place; but by then it has long been forgotten as original philosophy."
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Added: 6 months ago
Views: 1,236
Nietzsche's final years (1897-1900) were spent in this Weimar home under the care of his s
Nietzsche's final years (1897-1900) were spent in this Weimar home under the care of his sister Elizabeth ... in the clip, archivist Andrea Bollinger questions the usual syphillis diagnosis, remarking that the philosopher's 11-year vegetative state was not typical of the disease ... also mentioned is Elizabeth's role in editing Nietzsche's last work (left unfinished), "The Will to Power," the famous 'transvaluation of highest values'...
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Added: 1 year ago
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This is from the 'Nietzsche Haus' web site:
"At the beginning of July 1881, Friedrich N
This is from the 'Nietzsche Haus' web site:
"At the beginning of July 1881, Friedrich Nietzsche visited Sils for the first time, staying at the home of the Durisch family (today's Nietzsche Haus), where he rented a room on the first floor. From 1883 to 1888, he returned here every summer. He had found a place that gave him peace and enabled him to concentrate, a landscape which - as he said himself - was "blutsverwandt" (related by blood). Here, he worked on a number of books during his 7 summer stays (1881, 1883-88), e.g. Part 2 of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", whose key idea of eternal recurrence came to him in a moment of inspiration on the shore of the Lake of Silvaplana."
In 'Ecce Homo,' Nietzsche wrote:
"... "this highest formula of affirmation that is at all attainable, belongs in August 1881: it was penned on a sheet with the notation underneath, '6000 feet beyond man and time.' That day I was walking through the woods along the lake of Silvaplana; at a powerful pyramidal rock not far from Surlei I stopped. It was then that this idea came to me."
Nietzsche biographer Leslie Chamberlain offers commentary...
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Added: 1 year ago
Views: 4,580
Heidegger's famous Black Forest cabin at Todtnauberg (where he wrote many of his key works
Heidegger's famous Black Forest cabin at Todtnauberg (where he wrote many of his key works, including 'Being and Time') is shown here by his son Hermann, commented upon by literary critic George Steiner in terms of its influence, and remembered by acclaimed German philosopher, Hans-Georg Gadamer... Gadamer, recalling visits to the cabin, felt that Heidegger looked like a rural Black Forest resident, dressed as a 'handyman,' but that Heidegger's 'eyes' showed great 'imagination' - undoubtedly underscoring Heidegger's unique, philosophical mission...
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Added: 1 year ago
Views: 11,315
Here, literary critic Steiner comments upon the influence of Heidegger's unique view of la
Here, literary critic Steiner comments upon the influence of Heidegger's unique view of language - i.e., that "language speaks us"... Derrida, Foucault, post-modernist views in general, are heavily indebted to Heidegger's rather unconventional perspective...
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Added: 1 year ago
Views: 4,706
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