Infinitely demanding : ethics of commitment, politics of resistance / Simon Critchley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Critchley, Simon, 1960-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political ethics.

Anarchism.

Physical Description:

viii, 168 pages ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Verso, 2007.

Summary:

A new political ethics that confronts the injustices of liberal democracy. "Infinitely Demanding" is the clearest, boldest and most systematic statement of Simon Critchley's influential views on philosophy, ethics, and politics. Part diagnosis of the times, part theoretical analysis of the impasses and possibilities of ethics and politics, part manifesto, "Infinitely Demanding" identifies a massive political disappointment at the heart of liberal democracy and argues that what is called for is an ethics of commitment that can inform a radical politics. Exploring the problem of ethics in Kant, Levinas, Badiou, and Lacan that leads to a conception of subjectivity based on the infinite responsibility of an ethical demand, Critchley considers the possibility of political subjectivity and action after Marx and Marxism. "Infinitely Demanding" culminates in an argument for anarchism as an ethical practice and a remotivating means of political organization.

Contents:

Introduction: The possibility of commitment 1

a Nihilism - active and passive 3

b Motivational deficit 6

c The argument 8

1 Demanding approval - a theory of ethical experience 14

a Ethical experience 14

b Ethical subjectivity 19

c Justifying reasons and exciting reasons 23

d Kant, for example - the fact of reason 26

e The auto-authentification of the moral law - some contemporary Kantians 27

f The autonomy orthodoxy and the question of facticity 32

2 Dividualism - how to build an ethical subject 38

a Alain Badiou - situated universality 42

b Knud Ejler Logstrup - the unfulfillable demand 49

c Emmanuel Levinas - the split subject 56

d Jacques Lacan -the Thingly secrecy of the neighbour 63

3 The problem of sublimation 69

a Happiness? 70

b The tragic-heroic paradigm 73

c Humour 77

d We still have a great deal to learn about the nature of the super-ego 82

e Having conscience 85

4 Anarchic metapolitics - political subjectivity and political action after Marx 88

a Marx's truth 94

b Capitalism capitalizes 97

c Dislocation 99

d The names are lacking - the problem political subjectivity 103

e One needs to search for the struggle 105

f Politics as interstitial distance within the state 111

g True democracy 114

h Ethics as anarchic meta-politics 119

i A new language of civil disobedience 123

j Dissensus and anger 128

Appendix Crypto-Schmittianism - the Logic of the Political in Bush's America 133

Explanatory note 149.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1844671216

9781844671212

OCLC:

144610508