Subject: RE: Does the Other Exist?
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 08:32:20 -0600



>What I find provocative is that Badiou helps to illuminate this
>tradition in some provocative ways, even when he is muleheaded and
>wrong. Sometimes when a man carries a candle in broad daylight he helps
>reveal things that might otherwise stay hidden.

I loved this. Thanks, eric, for your explanations. I appreciate them.
And...i will read the book. I personally have a lot of problems with
some of Levinas's work, but I get exhausted by the seemingly endless
attempts to dismiss it without first really hearing it. 

I'll get the book. Thnx!

Best, ddd


____________________________________________
  D. Diane Davis
  Division of Rhetoric and Composition
  Department of English
  University of Texas at Austin
  PARLIN 227  (512-471-8765)
  Austin TX 78712-1122

  ddd-AT-mail.utexas.edu
  http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~davis


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu [mailto:owner-
> lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu] On Behalf Of Mary Murphy&Salstrand
> Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:52 PM
> To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: Does the Other Exist?
> 
> Diane:
> 
> I can appreciate your struggle with Badiou. Please understand that I
am
> writing out these summaries to understand Badiou's argument more
clearly
> (and I hope that by stimulating discussion here this will also achieve
a
> similar effect.) That certainly doesn't mean I believe in everything
> Badiou is saying. I am not a Badiou fundamentalist.
> 
> You mention the Deleuze book... (maybe after the ethics, we can
discuss
> this some more) My position is ambivalent, somewhere between what you
> call "outrageous--incredibly arrogant and self-serving" and what Steve
> calls simply a misreading.
> 
> My own view is that Deleuze emerges from this book as a much stranger
> figure, but Badiou does clarify some of the issues regarding Deleuze,
> Heidegger and himself. Badiou regards Deleuze seriously and
respectively
> and his criticisms point toward a greater philosophical understanding
of
> what Deleuze's achievement really is.
> 
> (As you can see, my reading of this book is more positive.  Here again
> though I certainly don't completely agree with the way Badiou
positions
> Deleuze or himself for that matter. With the exception of "The Fold"
> Badiou concentrates on the early Deleuze and pretty much ignores
> Anti-Oedipus and 1,000 Plateaus)
> 
> Regarding Levinas, I think my comments were close to the overall
> argument Badiou is making. (Keep in mind, this is a short book and
very
> polemical.) I would agree Badiou makes Levinas into something of a
straw
> man, but I also think it is possible to make the charge that there is
> something anti-philosophical about Levinas, if only for the way that
he
> attempts to have ethics trump over ontology and the Other over the
> Same.
> (I think this is the basis for some of Lyotard's critique of Levinas
as
> well in the essay "Levinas' Logic" and in the chapter on ethics in
"The
> Differend.")
> 
> This really demands a huge discussion.  I know we started it this past
> summer and never really did it full justice.
> 
> I agree with you that Badiou also doesn't really do justice either to
> the complexity of Levinas' philosophy and the link he makes between
> Levinas and other philosophers of difference with regard to piety
seems
> just a little too facile.
> 
> I confess I did enjoy reading Badiou's Ethics, but also feel somehow
as
> though I was reading Badiou aslant. Certainly the arguments against
> difference did not make the impression on me that they clearly did
with
> Steve.
> 
> I was much more taken with the positive statement on ethics that
Badiou
> makes - the figure of the Immortal. (Even though here as well, there
is
> much that is problematic.  What makes Heidegger's reading of Nazism a
> simulcra and Badiou's reading of the Chinese Cultural Revolution an
> event? I wish I knew the criterion of truth Badiou uses!)
> 
> It would take too long to go into my own philosophical project
tonight,
> but basically I see it as attempting to develop a postmodern
> reconstruction of Epicurean philosophy.
> 
> The classic figures in ethics that seem most relevant for me with
regard
> to ethics are Aristotle (with his ethics centered on eudaemonia and
the
> distinctions made between differing pleasures which prefigures
> Epicurus), Spinoza (who I see as combining both Epicurean and Stoic
> elements in his philosophy) and Kant (who I read more in terms of the
> autonomous and sublime components of his ethics rather than the
> normative and universal. For me, the third critique is ethical in many
> ways.) Then there is Lyotard, of course.
> 
> What I find provocative is that Badiou helps to illuminate this
> tradition in some provocative ways, even when he is muleheaded and
> wrong. Sometimes when a man carries a candle in broad daylight he
helps
> reveal things that might otherwise stay hidden.
> 
> Hope this helps to show you where I am coming from a little bit more.
> 
> eric