Not just visitors: Cosmopolitanism, hospitality, and refugees

Recent philosophers, political scientists and cultural theorists have suggested that the concept of cosmopolitanism is useful to theorize an ideal relationship between different nations, and to confront the problems faced by asylum-seekers and refugees. Here, La Caze discusses Immanuel Kant's view of cosmopolitanism which occurs in the context of his teleological philosophy of history and his views on politics.

The state of history and the empire of metaphysics [Review]

One of the curious things about this challenging book is that its ostensible subject— the Saxon medical and political scientist Hermann Conring (1606–1681)— is not mentioned in the title. Constantin Fasolt argues that we cannot know what Conring really thought or meant in his writings, which means that his topic cannot be Conring as such and must instead be that which occludes our knowledge of him, the titular limits of history. Given that we do in fact learn a good deal about Conring from Fasolt’s book, we can only hope that the decapitation of its subject will be rectified in a subsequent edition, or perhaps by the restorative work of librarians putting together subject headings. And yet Fasolt’s decision is understandable, for Conring is indeed a stalking-horse for a much bigger quarry: historiography and the historical consciousness. By “history” Fasolt understands a way of imposing intelligibility on the world, which is founded on the twin assumptions that the past is gone and unchangeable, and that the meaning of texts can be determined by placing them in their historical contexts (ix). In challenging this mode of intelligibility, Fasolt is not attempting to improve professiona history—it’s already as good as it can be—but to displace it. He regards his work as a declaration of “independence from historical consciousness” (32). At the same time, Fasolt insists that he is not simply jumping from historiography to philosophy, or attempting to preempt history with ontology (37-39). That has been tried by Nietzsche and Heidegger, who have been tainted by Nazism (Fasolt thinks unfairly). It has also been attempted by modern philosophers from Gadamer to Foucault and Charles Taylor who, in failing to address the “violence” that its mode of intelligibility does to the world, have not succeeded in outflanking history. Perhaps, Fasolt wonders, it is only the personal experience of those who have been subject to this violence—the experience of those who have been subject to historical examination—that can break the spell of history. Fasolt’s disclaimer notwithstanding, in the course of these remarks I shall argue that he is indeed jumping from history to philosophy, or attempting to outflank history by subjecting it to a particular metaphysical understanding. I shall do so in part by sketching the recent intellectual history of this move—a historical examination that I hope inflicts as little violence as possible on Fasolt’s argument.

Charlatan philosopher and wise enchantress: Seduction and authority in eighteenth-century French discourses on happiness

In late 1757 Rousseau wrote a series of moral letters on happiness to Mme Sophie d'Houdetot. He distinguished himself and his teaching from the empty babble and hypocrisy prevalent in 'the century of philosophy and reason'. Philosophers were charlatans peddling happiness. This paper shows how Rousseau's critique of philosophy reworks the standard image of charlatans in the public square. It highlights a questioning and a gendering of reason implicit in the issue of credentials for teaching happiness. Against the dubious authority of the philosopher, Rousseau casts Sophie as the wise enchantress whose gentle influence inspires her tutor. He places moral authority outside the public square in a private, feminine domain. Rousseau's ideal woman cannot be a tainted charlatan like him. Yet the very opposition puts her in her place. (Author abstract)

From the sublime to the subliminal: Fear, awe and wonder in international politics

Key events in international politics, such as terrorist attacks, can be characterised as sublime: our minds clash with phenomena that supersede our cognitive abilities, triggering a range of powerful emotions, such as pain, fear and awe. Encounters with the sublime allow us an important glimpse into the contingent and often manipulative nature of representation. For centuries, philosophers have sought to learn from these experiences, but in political practice the ensuing insights are all too quickly suppressed and forgotten. The prevailing tendency is to react to the elements of fear and awe by reimposing control and order. We emphasise an alternative reaction to the sublime, one that explores new moral and political opportunities in the face of disorientation. But we also stress that we do not need to be dislocated by dramatic events to begin to wonder about the world. Moving from the sublime to the subliminal, we explore how it is possible to acquire the same type of insight into questions of representation and contingency by engaging more everyday practices of politics.

La Mettrie and charlatanism: The dynamics of recognition and denunciation

This paper contributes to a genealogy of charlatanism by tracing two figures which eventually come to overlap: the street charlatan or operator, known for his eloquence and deceptive skill, and the comically incompetent doctor, represented classically in France in the theatre of Molière. The paper argues that eighteenth-century France gives the term 'charlatan' new moral weight while extending it to fields outside medicine, most notably to philosophy. Some examples of the denunciation of charlatans are examined, and it is suggested that denunciation was usually both extensible and reversible. La Mettrie appears in this regard as the very type of the denouncer denounced. He was a doctor-philosopher who vigorously decried the Paris Faculty of Medicine as a group of charlatans, even though his own medical qualifications were anything but impressive, and he was in turn reviled by Diderot as the most charlatanic and unworthy of philosophers.