On Thu, 23 Dec 1999 03:47:14 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> >From Henry Staten, "'Radical Evil' Revived: Hitler, Kant, Luther,
> Neo-Lacanianism," _Radical Philosophy_ 98:
> ***** [Joan] Copjec and [Jacob] Rogozinski are both concerned, though in
> different ways, to save Kant from his optimistic turn in order to liberate
> from his text what they consider his crucial insight: the ineradicable evil
> of human nature. But if this is what they are looking for, why not look to
> Luther and Calvin, who do truly assert just such a doctrine? No doubt
> Luther and Calvin lack the philosophical authority of Kant, but that is not
> the only reason they will not serve Copjec's and Rogozinski's purpose; they
> also deny the freedom of the will, which Copjec and Rogozinski want to
> save.
I don't think so, Copjec and Rogozinski are preserving an "open space" where freedom *might* exist politically. In other words, they refuse to define freedom in favour of a sustained critique. In other words, universality qua freedom is preserved as an absent centre of a political ontology.
> Thus the free will they propose to hold responsible for evil must be one
that, although free, nevertheless fails to will the Law and is therefore
perpetually 'guilty'.
Subjectivity is constituted retroactively. In other words, our traditions, our cultural meanings only hold "true" *for us* insofar as we recognize them as holding "true" and "meaningful" *for us.* This is a choice, it's a *forced* choice (like the demand, "you're money or you're life"). We have to take responsibility for it, because we chose it, but we really didn't have much of a choice after all. What C and R are defending here is an ethical and political model of responsibility and accountability.
> Since the free will they propose is ineradicably skewed toward evil, however,
it is practically indistinguishable from the 'will in bondage to evil' of
Luther and Calvin....
Yes, for a very specific reason - because the Kantian notion of the highest good and diabolical evil are *identical* - so if the law is to make sense as the law (a tautology) then its content is empty - it is a sheer command - OBEY! DO YOUR DUTY! and so on. But the law does not disclose what your duty is, so you have to translate the law into a concrete guide - which betrays the law because it substitutes content for form - so instead of DO YOUR DUTY - the law is translated into "FEED THE HUNGRY!" The ethical feeling of guilt here is related to the fact that you can't be sure this is what the law *told you* to do - aware of the transgression in the translation, you feel guilty (ie. you recognize the transgressive nature of the translation and remain "conscious" of the violation - ie. radical evil).
> Reduced to its bare bones, there is nothing new about this claim: it is the
> idea that when human beings stop believing in God, they start to think they
> _are_ God.
With the *highly* important qualification, "God does not exist." The merit of C and R's reading is this: that it provides a reading of the law which remains politically relevant. What is new is the fact there C and R provide a psychological account of the law (like Freud's reading of religion).
> In the aftermath of Kant, Heidegger and Lacan, this claim is restated in a
way that preserves the structure of the old claim while volatilizing...the
God-concept into notions like 'the empty place of the Law' and 'the invisible
horizon of transcendence'....
Yep. Negative dialectics baby, "a ruthless criticism of everything existing."
ken