Bulletin Philosophy and Society 35/2 2024

The second issue in 2024 of the journal Philosophy and Society (Philosophy and Society 35/2) brings a thematic section: Hegel and Postmodernism. Moreover, in this issue readers can find original scientific papers on engagement, Kristeva’s semiotic chora and Lacan’s notion of lalangue, and on an-archic ethos and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. Finally, this issue also contains a review of Terry Pinkard’s book titled Practice, Power and Form of Life: Sartre’s Appropriation of Hegel and Marx.

The thematic section Hegel and Postmodernism starts with the editors’ paper George Hristov and Saša Hrnjez: “Hegel and Postmodernism: A Reengagement”. The authors of this paper question new perspectives in understanding the engagement between Hegel and his postmodern critics, and investigate Habermas’, Lyotard’s, and Vattimo’s engagement with Hegel. The final part of this article provides an overview of the contributions in this issue.

In her paper “Hegel and Postmodernity: Towards In-Finitude”, Bara Kolenc proposes the thesis that postmodernity is not an epoch that succeeded modernity, but rather a transitional phase contributing to the decline of modernity itself. According to the author of this article, Hegel points to the mechanism through which modernity can be transcended. In that sense, she defines the revised human engagement with finitude and infinity, which is at the core of this transition, as “In-Finitude”, or “Un-Endlichkeit”.

In the article titled “Hegel and the End of the End of Grand Narratives” by Gary Browning, the end of the end of grand narratives is examined, and it is argued that grand narratives can be considered useful and productive if engaged critically. The author maintains that Hegel is highly relevant as a theorist today and that his thinking should be seen as open-ended rather than fixed and closed.

Manuel Tangorra‘s paper titled “Peoples, Nations and Social Heterogeneity. From Hegel to Laclau and Back”opens a dialogue between the Hegelian philosophy of history and Laclau’s post-foundationalism as a fruitful way of overcoming the stalemate in grasping the logic of contingency in post-modern political philosophy. According to the author, Laclau’s evocation of the notion of peoples without history allows for an exploration of the radical heterogeneity implied in the situational, somatic, and affective rootedness of the formation of historical identities.

Ionuț Văduva in his article “Hierarchies of the Dialectic: Hegel on Identity and Difference” argues that it is necessary to rely on a categorial reading of Hegel’s notions of identity and difference in order to properly understand their non-hierarchical relationship in Hegelian dialectics. The author points out that it is essential to prevent dialectical thinking from falling into the trap of understanding the relationship of these concepts as hierarchical. For this reason, the elucidation of the hierarchical question is possible through the inquiring of Hegel‘s speculative configuration of onto-logical categories.

In the paper titled “After Hegel: A Postmodern Genealogy of Historical Fiction”, Angelo Narváez León and Fernanda Medina Badilla focus on key moments in the critical discourse of modernity and analyse the role of Kantian criticism in the formation of a postmodern imaginary associated with the notions of useful fiction and linguistification. From a Hegelian perspective, they consider the validity of the idea of universal history and its connections to emancipatory narratives.

Iñigo Baca Bordons in his article “The Empire Never Ended: Hegel, Postmodernism and Comedy” argues that Hegel’s socio-historical relevance today hinges on drawing a connection between Jameson’s periodization of Realism-Modernism-Postmodernism and Hegel’s aesthetic cultural categories of Epic-Tragedy-Comedy, and not Greece-Rome-Christianity. Accordingly, the author concludes that the Phenomenology of Spirit stands as Hegel’s own “cognitive map”, for which comedy designates a problematic extreme of a social regime of representation commensurate with the contemporary cultural logic of late and imperial capitalism.

In her paper “Madness and Subjective Destitution: Toward a Possible Exit from Capitalism”, Cynthia Cruzguided by Hegel’s assertion that madness is a state through which each of us passes whenever we acquire a new habit, argues that subjective destitution is like madness, an inherent state, one each of us moves through in our initial state of being. According to the author, these two states converge in a novel configuration that replicates the spirit’s process of becoming, albeit differing from it.

Timo Ennen in his article “Countering Postmodern Genealogies: Brandom, Hegel and the Logic of Self-Determination” raises objections against Brandom’s reading of Hegel, and holds on to his idea that Hegelian philosophy counters subversive postmodern genealogies. The author of this paper, unlike Brandom, focuses on the end of the “Spirit” chapter in Hegel’s Phenomenology and draws on Hegel’s logic of self-determination.

The last paper in this thematic section titled “Deleuze and the Hegelian State” by Julián Ferreyra analyses Gilles Deleuze’s political philosophy in relation to the Hegelian concept of the State. By comparing Deleuze’s political philosophy with Hegel’s, the author demonstrates that the forms of socius in Deleuze’s system occupy the conceptual place of the State in Hegel’s framework. Through an exploration of the role of differential calculus in the ontology of both philosophers, he establishes the groundwork for a philosophical examination of the dominant social relation in the modern world and the prerequisites for a novel political socius.

The section Studies and Articles opens with Etienne Balibar’s paper “What is Engagement?”. In his paper Balibar explores the nuances of choice and consequence through the philosophical lenses of Pascal and Sartre. The article contrasts Pascal’s transcendental faith-based approach with Sartre’s terrestrial decision-making, emphasizing the inherent paradox of engagement beginning before choice. It argues that authentic choice demands embracing the unknown and its extreme consequences, rejecting the spectator’s role for active participation.

Srđan Đurđević in his paper “Heterogeneity of the Freudian Sign: Kristeva’s Semiotic Chora and Lacan’s Notion of Lalangue” examines the interplay between the approaches of Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan and their concepts that can account for the heterogeneity of Freudian sign. The author argues that Kristeva’s critique stems from a misinterpretation of certain key concepts that Lacan put forth in the 1970s.

The last article in this issue is by Christos Marneros titled “Towards an An-Archic Ethos”. In his paper, the author argues that a close attention Deleuze’s philosophical thought manifests an ethos which calls us to ponder the possibility of creating a way of being that is profoundly an-archic, which opposes a notion of ‘a ground’ or origin – an ἀρχή [archē]. The examination of this an-archic ethos is manifested through Deleuze’s distinction between ethics and morality and his reading of Friedrich Nietzsche and Baruch Spinoza.