Leonard Lawlor

In this paper I examine how well Merleau-Ponty's philosophy can respond to Deleuze's challenge to phenomenology. The Deleuzian challenge is double, that of immanence and that of difference; in other words, the double challenge is what Deleuze calls the paradox of expression. I bring together, in particular, Deleuze's 1969 The Logic of Sense and Merleau-Ponty's 1945 the Phenomenology of Perception, and am able to discover a lot of similarities mainly centered around the notion of a past that has never been present. However, this comparison is not decisive; what alone can decide is an interpretation of expression in Merleau-Ponty's final, unfinished The Visible and the Invisible.

The question confronting thought today is: what is a suicide bomber? But this question is a sign of a greater problem: the problem of the worst, which is apocalypse, complete suicide. Deleuze and Guattari and Derrida have given us the philosophical concepts to formulate this problem with more complexity and precision. Deleuze and Guattari have defined our current situation in terms of the post-fascist figure of the war machine, a figure that is worse, more terrifying, than fascism itself. Similarly, Derrida has defined our epoch in terms of a holocaust that is worse than any holocaust seen in the Bible. The problem of the worst then is so bad today that it requires that we make every effort to find a solution. The essay that follows constructs the beginnings of a solution to the problem of the worst. The solution will consist in a hyperbolic or even revolutionary gesture of inclusiveness that opens out onto an “elsewhere” that still needs a name. As we shall see however, no solution will ever be enough, no solution will ever be sufficient. There will never be enough done, said, or written in the name of what prevents the worst.

Derrida wrote extensively on "the question of the animal." In particular, he challenged Heidegger's, Husserl's, and other philosophers' work on the subject, questioning their phenomenological criteria for distinguishing humans from animals. Examining a range of Derrida's writings, including his most recent _L'animal que donc je suis_, as well as _Aporias_, _Of Spirit_, _Rams_, and _Rogues_, Leonard Lawlor reconstructs a portrait of Derrida's views on animality and their intimate connection to his thinking on ethics, names and singularity, sovereignty, and the notion of a common world. Derrida believed that humans and animals cannot be substantially separated, yet neither do they form a continuous species. Instead, in his "staggered analogy," Derrida asserts that all living beings are weak and therefore capable of suffering. This controversial claim both refuted the notion that humans and animals possess autonomy and contradicted the assumption that they possess the trait of machinery. However, it does offer the foundation for an argument-which Lawlor brilliantly and passionately defines in his book-in which humans are able to will this weakness into a kind of unconditional hospitality. Humans are not strong enough to keep themselves separate from animals. In other words, we are too weak to keep animals from entering into our sphere. Lawlor's argument is a bold approach to remedying "the problem of the worst," or the complete extermination of life, which is fast becoming a reality

This is a review essay on Véronique Fóti’s Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty. It attempts to display the pattern that constitutes “the in filigree tracings” of Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty. In other words, it reconstructs the conceptual features that go into the “unthought” of expression that Véronique Fóti has given us. The reconstruction takes place in two steps. The first reconstructs the concept of expression itself as Fóti sees it in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. Here, we follow Fóti’s analysis and resolution of what Merleau-Ponty himself called “the paradox of expression.” Fóti’s “resolution” of the paradox takes us then to a second step, in which we determine Fóti’s “radicalization” of the paradox. The radicalization of the paradox takes place through specific criticisms that Fóti levels against Merleau-Ponty’s writings on painting. These criticisms allow us to see that the unthought of expression lies in nascency. Fóti’s new concept of expression revolves around the idea of nascency. Nascency allows Fóti not only to envision a metaphysics of expression but also and especially an ethics. However, Fóti’s stress of nascency raises a difficult question that she does not pose. While the word “nascency” appears countless times in Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty, the word “death,” as far as I can tell, appears only twice in the entire book. I argue that the absence of death in Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty conjoined with the stress of nascency opens out onto the question of memory, hence the title of my presentation, “Nascency and Memory.” Tracing Expression in Merleau-Ponty exhibits a compelling combination of modesty and ambition. Undoubtedly, the modesty results from Fóti’s long-standing devotion to Merleau-Ponty’s thought. This devotion, however, did not stop her from recognizing the “failures” of Merleau-Ponty’s thinking. The ability to see beyond the thinking to which one is most devoted is truly one of the marks of a great philosopher.

Further Questions. A Way Out of the Present Philosophical Situation(via Merleau-Ponty)This essay contains a short analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s Eye and Mind. The analysis focuses on the final pages of Eye and Mind, in which Merleau-Ponty speaks of a false imaginary. It is through this consideration of the “false imaginary” that we can determine Merleau-Ponty’s contribution to the idea of overcoming metaphysics, that is, the transformation of who we are, from manipulandum to being, all of us, painters. More generally however, the short analysis of Eye and Mind functions as the means to open a research agenda for what we have called in the twentieth century “continental philosophy.” The research agenda contains four conceptual features: 1) the starting point in immanence (where immanence is understood fi rst as internal, subjective experience, but then, due to the universality of the epoche, immanence is understood as ungrounded experience); 2) difference (where difference gives way to multiplicity, itself emancipated from an absolute origin and an absolute purpose); 3) thought (where thought is understood as language liberated from the constraints of logic, and language is understood solely in terms of its own being, as indefi nite continuous variation); and 4) the overcoming of metaphysics (where metaphysics is understood as a mode of thinking based in presence, and overcoming is understood as the passage to a new mode of thought, a new people and a new land). But, as we shall see, this conception of philosophy really ends up posing “further questions.” My essay attempts to summarize my new book called Early Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011).Altre domande. Una via d’uscita dalla situazione fi losofi ca attuale(via Merleau-Ponty)Questo saggio contiene una breve analisi de L’occhio e lo spirito di Merleau-Ponty. L’analisi si concentra sulle pagine conclusive dell’opera, nelle quali Merleau-Ponty parla di un falso immaginario. È attraverso l’esame di tale “falso immaginario” che possiamo determinare il contributo di Merleau-Ponty all’idea di un superamento della metafisica, ovvero la trasformazione di chi noi siamo, da manipulandum ad essere, noi tutti, pittori. Più in generale, la breve analisi de L’occhio e lo spirito funziona come mezzo per aprire un programma di ricerca per quella che nel XX secolo abbiamo defi nito “filosofi a continentale”. Tale piano di ricerca presenta quattro aspetti concettuali: 1) il punto di partenza nell’immanenza (laddove l’immanenza è intesa dapprima come esperienza interna soggettiva, ma successivamente, a causa dell’universalità dell’epoché, essa è compresa in quanto esperienza non fondata); 2) la differenza (laddove la differenza apre la via della molteplicità, emancipandosi da un’origine e da un fine assoluti); 3) pensiero (inteso come linguaggio liberato dai vincoli della logica, e compreso solamente nei termini del suo essere proprio, come variazione continua e indefinita); e 4) il superamento della metafisica (laddove per metafisica si intende un modo di pensare basato sulla presenza e per superamento s’intende il passaggio ad una nuova modalità del pensiero, un nuovo popolo ed una nuova terra). Ma, come vedremo, questa concezione della filosofi a finisce per porre “ulteriori domande”. Tale saggio si propone anche di compiere una sintesidel mio nuovo libro Early Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011).