Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics
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Kafka’s Students and the Inoperation of Knowledge: An Investigation into the Power of Stupidity
Full text linkThis article will explore how configurations of the student in Kafka\u27s literature represent a specific relation to knowledge. The central argument will be that their attitude represents a form of rendering knowledge inoperative, therefore representing a disruption of power structures. The emblematic figure of this posture will be the worst student in Kafka\u27s Abraham. This disruptive posture will be denoted as a form of stupidity.
The interest in stupidity comes from its abundant presence as a motif in contemporary social and political issues. Stupidity is a form of otherness and belongs always to the other: the accusation of stupidity is always directed at the alternative position. The text will use the student in Abraham to challenge the common-sense framing of stupidity as constituting an unwarranted invasion, deemed inconsistent with the age of enlightenment and political progress, and that must therefore be eradicated
Derrida, lecteur de Marx
Full text linkThis paper explores Derrida\u27s readings and commentaries on Marx\u27s writings. The analysis focuses on direct quotations of Marx\u27s reflections in Derrida\u27s Specters of Marx, as well as in seminars, publications, and interviews before and after the book\u27s publication. By examining four themes — money, the market, ideology, and revolution — we will demonstrate which texts Derrida focuses on and how he interprets them. This will enable us to understand how Derrida develops his concept of spectrality, a way of thinking that transcends ontology. The novelty of my approach lies in returning jointly to the details of Derrida\u27s and Marx\u27s texts with the aim to understand Derrida\u27s interpretation of Marx (and its limits) rather than using Marx as a pretext to understand Derrida\u27s overall project
Déconstruction et critique sociale : Derrida lecteur d\u27Althusser
No full textThis contribution explores Derrida\u27s complex relationship with Althusser\u27s work. It seeks to show how Derrida built on certain aspects of Althusser\u27s work, particularly his internal critique of rigid forms of Marxism, while distancing himself from those more concerned with his relationship to science — specifically Althusser\u27s attempt to promote a new science of history. This discussion, which sometimes took the form of a subtle game of \u27positions\u27, initially focused on the theme of ideology. Ultimately, however, it reveals itself to be the bearer of major political issues, such as the way in which social critique should be envisaged, or the place that the motif of exploitation might still occupy in it
A Passion for the Margins: Relativism and Writing after the "Deconstruction of Metaphysics"
Full text linkThis paper reviews the complex and nuanced treatment of metaphysics in the first major works of Jacques Derrida (1967-72), and it supplements deconstruction with existential themes in order to safeguard it from the accusation of nihilistic relativism. The critique of logocentrism, often systematized through a paradoxical \u27ontology of the trace\u27, has been embraced by phenomenology and post-deconstruction, but also seen as insufficient for today\u27s challenges. Returning to Derrida\u27s demonstrations, I explore why metaphysics must be textual if it is to produce two operations constitutive of thinking: a certain technology of forgetting and an experience of meaning as singularized in words. This textuality is, specifically, that of writing, which reveals how, beyond truth, it is meaning-making that is sought by metaphysics and its writers. The techne of writing, then, plays a special role in individual, existential empowerment, but this interpretation of the history of ideas as a power struggle does not amount to moral relativism, because writing can help us sustain a unique and constructive passion for the margins
One of God\u27s "Bad Moods": Kafka\u27s Social Diagnosis and its Multiple Interpretations
No full textIn this editorial for the special issue on Franz Kafka, Yvanka B. Raynova examines Kafka\u27s relationship to Nietzsche as well as the very different and often contradictory interpretations of Kafka\u27s work by philosophers and literary critics. She argues that although Kafka\u27s novels cannot be directly "translated into a philosophical, theological, sociological, or psychoanalytical discourse" (Jürgen Born), they should not be interpreted and evaluated solely from a literary perspective, as they raise institutional questions that have led to socio-critical and political associations that are just as urgent for us today. In this context, she refers to the controversies surrounding Kafka\u27s work in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, to his current socio-political reception in art, and to the Kafkaesque in the contemporary world
La grammatologie comme science positive : Maurizio Ferraris lecteur de Derrida
Full text linkGramatology as a positive science: Maurizio Ferrari\u27s Derrida Reception
Maurizio Ferraris is developing a realist ontology that severely criticizes the main theses of postmodernity for philosophical, ethical, and political reasons. Paradoxically, however, Derrida plays an important role in his thinking. By distinguishing natural objects from ideal objects and, ultimately, from social objects, the author shows that, rather than a criticism of Derrida, Ferraris’ realist ontology aims to limit Derridean thought to the field of social objects, which are above all written and inscribed objects. Through arche-writing and the theory of the trace, Ferraris demonstrates that writing carries the social, because the trace exists only insofar as it is recognized and therefore in a relation. In this way, Derrida\u27s philosophy finds itself at the heart of a field from which we might have thought it had been excluded: contemporary realist ontology
Agamben Reading Kafka: The Animal Way to Paradise
Full text linkThe aim of this paper is to revisit the theme of paradise and animality in the work of Kafka, whilst at the same time elucidate Agamben\u27s complex understanding of these notions with the help of the literary imagery of Kafka. In a world where many find themselves crushed by the anthropological machine, Agamben outlines an intuition Kafka had about animals, that can help humans to reconcile with their animal nature, and let them guide us back to paradise. If animals have never left paradise, and the human realm is not substantially different for the animal realm, then like the animals we have never truly left paradise but only think we did. It is only in trying to uphold a higher, human sphere, through self-subjection and exclusion, that we leave the paradisical realm. Kafka\u27s creatures show us the ridiculousness of these divisions between human and animals
Defending Oneself in the Absence of Goodwill: Nietzschean and Spinozist Critique in Franz Kafka
Full text linkThis essay aims to delineate the structure shared between Kafka’s three novels, Amerika, The Trial, and The Castle, using ideas from Spinoza and Nietzsche, with whom Kafka had familiarity since his youth, namely, Spinoza’s idea that the true essence of religion is justice and charity and Nietzsche’s idea that justice is born from magnanimity, in order to grasp Kafka’s critique of certain unnecessary realities of broadly administered justice. All three novels are structured around an institution - America, the justice system, the castle - as the characters they are composed of operate either as cogs of this institution or demonstrate some function outside of this institution, usually offering some kind of help to the protagonist. However, despite these cogs, the institution never serves its purpose in the same way that, despite these helpers, the protagonist is never helped, precisely because of a schism between the realms of justice and charity
Echoes of the Absent: Hauntology, Narratology, and the Spectral Art of Translation
Full text linkThe aim of this article is to examine the relevance of Jacques Derrida\u27s concept of hauntology to literary criticism and translation studies, with a focus on Edgar Allan Poe\u27s The Raven and its French translations. It demonstrates how hauntology—emphasizing the spectral interplay between presence and absence, origin and trace, and meaning and deferral—reframes texts as sites of revenance: haunted spaces of fragmented meanings and deferred interpretations. By analyzing the challenges of translating The Raven\u27s rhythmic complexity, phonetic resonance, and iconic refrain, "nevermore," this study highlights the text\u27s spectral nature and resistance to closure. Additionally, the paper seeks to provide a new perspective on the dispersion of meaning in translation. It shows how French translations by Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and others exemplify Derrida\u27s notion of dissemination, contributing to contemporary discussions in literary studies, translation theory, and philosophical criticism
Deconstruction et justice en langue de systemes : sur quelques lectures derridiennes d’outre-rhin
Full text linkThis paper explores the reception of Jacques Derrida’s work among system theoreticians, especially those who gravitate around Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann’s readings of Derrida suggest that he saw in deconstruction a contemporary evolution within the system of society. This evolution brought systemic foundation paradoxes to light in an unprecedented way. In Luhmann’s view, however, Systems Theory should precisely reflect on the possible deparadoxification of the problems presented by Derrida. We argue against the oversimplification that suggests a deconstructive penchant for paradoxes juxtaposed with a system-theoretical inclination to resolve them. The intricacies of this interplay become particularly apparent in the examination of the concept of justice. Through an exploration of Derrida and Luhmann’s writings on the subject, we assert that deconstruction does not neatly align with a formula for transcendence, as suggested by Gunther Teubner. Instead, it manifests as an aporetic state, embodying both the condition of possibility and the condition of impossibility of normative systems.