Rossen Roussev

The text explores interrelations between feminism and deconstruction for purposes of literary critique. The main theoretical sources are Alice Jardine and Jacques Derrida, whose views of ‘gynesis’ and ‘deconstruction’, respectively, are taken as complementary. The views in question are discussed first in order to assemble a joint critical perspective that brings forward their relevant conceptual intersections. Jardine’s concept of gynesis is seen as a more specific form of deconstruction carried from a feminist standpoint, whereas various Derrida’s concepts are brought to bear on the notion of deconstruction in a wider sense. Subsequently, issuing from the critical perspective thus outlined, we offer a reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, in which the main characters, their actions, and specific relations in which they enter are revisited in key terms of the vocabularies of these thinkers. More specifically, concepts like life-affirmation, woman-in-effect, trace, patriarchy, discourse, and phallogocentrism, among others, are transposed in a shifting horizon which carries their discussion from the realm of critical philosophical reflection into that of literary text.

In the perspective of the notion of modernity advanced by Jürgen Habermas, the dynamics of our contemporary world can be identified along the terms of expert knowledge, critical thought, and practical application. While a high-quality expertise is necessary for the solution of any challenging particular problem, an additional type of knowledge associated with critical thinking is indispensable for its adequate application in practice. In line with Habermas’ view of the role of philosophy in modernity as a “mediator” between the spheres of theory and practice, we can identify this additional knowledge as being in its nature philosophical. Furthermore, in distinction from the knowledge of the specialized expertise, this philosophical knowledge can be described as having the character of competence. In this sense, I maintain that thinking critically consists in utilizing philosophical competence, alongside expert knowledge, in solving particular problems. I link this notion of modernity with Michel Foucault’s investigations on what he calls “technologies of the self.” Foucault has traced various forms of self-care and self-knowledge, and has indicated their importance in “the art of living" (tekhne tou biou) from Antiquity onwards. He has emphasized their productive relationship in self-cultivation and social life adding a voice to Nietzsche’s concern that the modern Westerners have neglected the “great and rare art“ of self-creation for the sake of self-knowledge. In my view, this Foucauldian sense of the art of living as self-creation can supplement the Habermasean notion of the mediating role of philosophy in modernity, as they can be both seen as forming distinctive aspects of what was termed philosophical competence. I maintain that in the general case one’s philosophical competence is essentially self-knowledge powered by one’s background of humanistic knowledge and that – in a line with a long tradition of thought – it is a subject of cultivation and active self-creation.

This article discusses the non-foundational character of Lévinas’ concept of justice and its significance for the entire set of relations issuing from the ethical in all forms of discourse, culture, and politics. It is assembled along the observation that while in Lévinas’ philosophy justice serves to reinstate and legitimize these relations within the ethical proximity of the other, it remains all the same transposed within them without a fixed place. This lack of a fixed position for justice, which results from its being constantly questioned within the primordial ethical relation, is taken as an indication of its non-foundational character. Lévinas’ notion of justice is linked with his ardent opposition to the foundationalism of traditional philosophy, which he sees as a philosophy of “interiority” and – via Heidegger – as a philosophy of Being, or ontology. Finally, it is put in the perspective of some contemporary research on its political significance.

Heidegger’s metaphorics of ‘way’ (Weg) and ‘home’ (Heim, House) offers a perspective for understanding both the epistemic and existential aspects of all thinking and philosophizing. His senses of ‘way’ (Weg), ‘waying’ (wëgen, Bewëgung), and ‘woodpaths’ (Holzwege) point to the epistemic character of thinking, whereas the ones of the ‘uncanny’ (Unheimlichkeit), ‘homelessness’ (Heimatlosigkeit), and ‘homecoming’ (Heimkehr) – to its existential motivation. Way as pathway and method, waying as clearing and way-making, and woodpaths as ways with no proper beginning and end link thinking and philosophizing to a phenomenology of movement, or a peculiar type of epistemic journey. For its part, the uncanny state of Dasein in ‘anxiety’ (Angst), later seen as the essential homelessness of the historical man, conditions thinking and philosophizing existentially along a “conquest of the earth” and the “cosmic space,” which would secure – upon a long waying – its anticipated homecoming. Remarkably, a similar sense of waying and homecoming can be isolated in the key concepts of Lao-tse’s Tao-Te Ching. Most generally, for Lao-tse, Tao is the ‘way’ of all existence and Te stands for one’s individual adherence to that way. While Tao remains “beyond the power of words” and is thus ‘wu’ or nothing, it nonetheless designates the harmony and balance of all there is -- all beings. It is thus also the way of Te, of one’s mind and body, thinking and living, which dispels all strife and tension to ensures one’s harmonious and peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world. In this sense, Te can be seen as one’s ‘way’ to and one’s ‘home’ in the harmony of Tao, whereas to the extent that Te becomes pressing in a possible loss of Tao, an actualized Te as a search for Tao is also one’s ‘waying’ and ‘homecoming’. That thinking and philosophizing can be aptly apperceived within the metaphorics of waying and homecoming, can be also attested by the first record of a conjoined usage of ‘philos’ and ‘sophia’, which is found in Herodotus’ Histories. Herodotus uses the verb ‘philosopheîn’ broadly in the sense of love to learn (a conjecture of both existential and epistemic meanings) and links it to traveling around the world “for the sake of seeing” it. Thus, in this primordial usage, philosophy can be seen as a ‘journey’, which within our terms here can be seen also as including ‘waying’ and ‘homecoming’.

I explore the supposition that any form of philosophical and cultural difference involves an interplay of both global and local significations, or a peculiar kind of global conversation. I maintain that the recurrence of the global into the local and vice versa is not accidental, as it makes for a much sought difference of significance both in the life of the single individual and in a variety of cultural and practical senses. I explore specifically its philosophical sense within the thought of Lao-tse, Martin Heidegger, and Richard Rorty. In Lao-tse’s Tao Te Ching, this sense is tied to the concepts of the Tao and Te. Tao is the eternal and inexplicable source of all existence; Te is its localized actualization in the life of each and every person. Tao ensures the universal harmony of the world; Te is the principle of one’s individual relation to that harmony. The same sense could be identified in the work of Heidegger, who transformed the philosophical thinking of the last century by redefining its knowing subject in existence. The subject, thus rediscovered as Dasein (being-there) and as being-in-the-world (in-der-Welt-sein), could disclose the world (Welt) only via its familiar surrounding world (Umwelt) to gradually become aware of its most general (indeed global) epistemic concern of the Being (Sein) of beings (Seinde). Similarly, Rorty, who sees the task philosophy and the rest of culture as set by history on the utilitarian goal of achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, demands starting up locally to achieve it globally. His pragmatic approach also demands utilizing the trustworthy resource of the global cultural tradition, as well as the involvement of the individuals in their locality as problem-solvers (as scientists, artists, engineers, and others).

A recent New York Times article1 has focused attention on Charles Miller's Commission on the Future of Higher Education and its interest in addressing the quality of student learning and its adequacy to the demands of practice. The commission has initiated a debate on the possibility of using “standardized testing” in universities and colleges in order “to prove that students are learning and to allow easier comparisons on quality.”2 Miller is quoted as saying, on the one hand, that “what is clearly lacking is a nationwide system for comparative performance purposes, using standard formats,” and, on the other, that “there…