Essaying-in-philosophy as an ephexis in decision

Marina Christodoulou

Marina Christodoulou Dr.Phil. in Philosophy (Alpen Adria Universität Klagenfurt & Université de Toulouse Jean Jaurès) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5721-833X

Keywords: Ephexis, Laruelle, Non-Philosophy, Philosophical Decision, Form, Style, Art, Tragedy, Systematicity, Essay, Aphorism, Nietzsche, Pragmatism, Russian Formalism, ostranenie, defamiliarization, estrangement, Shklovsky, Deleuze, rhizome, Diffraction, Democracy of all thought, epoché, Philosophy and Literature, Philosophy and Philology, de-colonisation

Abstract

I propose that the essay is an extended aphorism or a plurality of aphorisms coming together, and that both the essay as a form and the essayistic style within other forms (fictional and non-fictional ones, e.g. the treatise, and the novel) are to be understood as an Ephexisof/in (philosophical) decision.

References

Acharya, V. (2011): "Nietzsche's Meta-Existentialism", PhD diss., Rice University, Houston, Texas, 2011, pp. 279-280.

Babich, B. (2006): "Nietzsche’s 'Gay' Science", in A Companion to Nietzsche, ed. by K.A. Pearson, Blackwell, 2006, pp. 97-114.

Berry, J.N. (2005): Perspectivism as Ephexis in Interpretation, «Philosophical Topics», vol. 33, n. 2, 2005, pp. 19-44.

Boulous Walker, M. (2016): Slow Philosophy: Reading Against the Institution, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

Bourassa, A. (2009): Deleuze and American Literature: Affect and Virtuality in Faulkner, Wharton, Ellison, and McCarthy, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Braidotti, R. (2005): A Critical Cartography of Feminist Post-postmodernism, «Australian Feminist Studies», vol. 20, n. 47, 2005, pp. 169-180.

Buchanan, I., and J. Marks, eds. (2010): Deleuze and Literature, Edinburgh University Press, 2010.

Cartwright, D.E. (2010): Schopenhauer: A Biography, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Citton, Y. (2018a): "Attention, Distraction and Curiosity in the Age of Digital Mediarchy with Yves Citton", talk given on April 2018 in New York: https://frenchculture.org/events/7725-attention-distraction-and-curiosity.

Citton, Y. (2018b): "De l’écologie de l’attention à la politique de la distraction: quelle attention réflexive ?", in Bébé attentif cherche adulte(s) attentionné(s), ed. by M. Dugnat, Toulouse: Érès, « Questions d'enfance », 2018, pp. 11-27.

Cooke, E. (2005): Transcendental Hope: Peirce, Hookway, and Pihlström on the Conditions for Inquiry, «Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society», vol. 41, n. 3, 2005, pp. 651–674.

Deleuze G. (1962): Nietzsche and Philosophy [Nietzsche et la philosophie, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962], trans. by H. Tomlinson, London, New York: Continuum, 2002 [1st published by The Athlone Press, 1983].

Deleuze G. (1977): "On the Superiority of Anglo-American Literature", in G. Deleuze, and C. Parnet, Dialogues [Dialogues, 1977], trans. H. Tomlinson and B. Habberjam, New York: Columbia University Press, 1987, pp. 36-76.

Deleuze, G. (1962): Nietzsche and Philosophy [Nietzsche et la Philosophie, 1962], trans. H. Tomlinson, New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

Deleuze, G. (1989/1990): "Letter to Reda Bensmaïa, on Spinoza", [Lendemains 53, 1989] in Negotiations, 1972-1990 [Pourparlers, 1972-1990, Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1990], trans. by M. Joughin, New York, Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 1995, pp. 164-166.

Dewey, J. (1903): Emerson-The Philosopher of Democracy, «International Journal of Ethics», vol. 13, n. 4, Jul., 1903, pp. 405-413.

Dewey, J. (1934): Art as Experience, New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1934.

Földényi, L.F. (2006): Dostoyevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts Into Tears [Dosztojevszkij Szibériában Hegelt olvassa és sírva fakad, 2006], trans. by O. Mulzet, Yale University Press, 2020.

Foucault, M. (1978): "La philosophie analytique de la politique", [Gendai no Kenryoku wo tou (La philosophie analytique de la politique), «Asahi Jaanaru», 2 juin 1978, pp. 28-35. Conférence donnée le 27 avril 1978 à l'Asahi Kodo, centre de conférences de Tokyo, siège du journal Asahi] in Dits et écrits, t. III: 1976-1979, ed. by D. Defert and François Ewald, with the collaboration of Jacques Lagrange, Paris: Gallimard, coll. « Bibliothèque des Sciences humaines », 1994, pp. 534-551 (texte n° 232).

Foucault, M. (1984): The History of Sexuality, Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure [Histoire de la sexualité: L’Usage des plaisirs, Éditions Gallimard, 1984], trans. by R. Hurley, New York: Vintage Books, 1990, pp. 8-9.

Gavin, W.J. (1992): William James and the Reinstatement of the Vague, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.

Grimstad, P. (2013): Experience and Experimental Writing: Literary Pragmatism from Emerson to the Jameses, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Hadot, P. (1974): "Spiritual Exercises", ["Exercices spirituels", 1974] in Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, ed. with an introduction by A.I. Davidson, trans. by M. Chase, Oxford, UK and Cambridge, USA: Blackwell, 1995, pp. 81-125.

Haraway, D.J. (2016): Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press, 2016.

Hookway, C. (2012): The Pragmatic Maxim: Essays on Peirce and Pragmatism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Jacques-Chaquin, N. and S. Houdard, eds. (1998): Curiosité et Libido Sciendi de la Renaissance aux Lumières, 2 vol., coll. «Theoria, ENS Éditions», 1998.

Janaway, C. (2007): "Nietzsche’s Illustration of the Art of Exegesis", in Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 165–185.

Liddell, H.G., R. Scott, H.S. Jones [LSJ] (1940/1843): A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones, with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940 [9th rev. ed.; 1st: 1843]. Online at the Perseus Project < http://www.perseus.tufts.edu>.

Malabou, C. (2020): Le plaisir effacé: Clitoris et pensée, Paris: Payot, Bibliothèque Rivages, 2020.

Montaigne, M. de (1570-1592): Essays [Essais, 1570-1592], trans. and introduction by J.M. Cohen, London: Penguin Books, 1993.

Nietzsche, F. (1873): Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks [Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen, 1873], trans. with an introduction M. Cowan, Washington, DC, Lanham, MD: A Gateway Edition, Regnery Publishing, 1998 [re-print; 1st 1962].

Nietzsche, F. (1881): Daybreak: Thoughts on the prejudices of morality [Morgenröthe, 1881], ed. by M. Clark and B. Leiter, trans. by R.J. Hollingdale, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Nietzsche, F. (1887a): "On the Genealogy of Morals", [Zur Genealogie der Moral: Eine Streitschrift, 1887] in On the Genealogy of Morals & Ecce Homo, ed. and trans. by W. Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale, New York: Vintage, Random House, 1989 [1st: 1967], pp. 1-198.

Nietzsche, F. (1887b): The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs [Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1887], trans. and commentary by W. Kaufmann, New York: Vintage, 1974.

Nietzsche, F. (1888/1895a): "The Anti-Christ", [Der Antichrist, 1888/1895] in The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols and Other Writings, ed. by A. Ridley and Judith Norman, trans. by J. Norman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 1-67.

Nietzsche, F. (1888/1895b): "The Anti-Christ", [Der Antichrist, 1888/1895] in Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, trans. by R.J. Hollingdale, introduction by Michael Tanner, Penguin Books, 1990/2003 [1st: 1968].

Ong, W.J. (1958): Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2004 [1st: 1958].

Panikkar, R. (1975): Cross-Cultural Studies: The Need for a New Science of Interpretation, «Monchanin», vol. 8, n. 3-5, 1975, pp. 12-15.

Panikkar, R. (1988): "What is Comparative Philosophy Comparing?", in Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy, ed. by G.J. Larson and E. Deutsch, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, pp. 116-136.

Petrushevski, M.D. (1954a): Παθημάτων κάθαρσιν или πραγμάτων σύστασιν?, «Živa antika», vol. 4, n. 2, 1954, pp. 209-250.

Petrushevski, M.D. (1954b): Pathêmatôn Katharsin ou bien Pragmatôn Systasin?, «Živa antika» / «Antiquité Vivante», vol. 4, n. 2, 1954, pp. 209–250.

Petrushevski, M.D. (1973): Le texte d'Aristote, Poét. 1450b35-1451a6 est-il entièrement authentique?, «ZAnt», vol. 23, 1973, pp. 209-211.

Pihlström, S. (2009): Pragmatist Metaphysics: An Essay on the Ethical Grounds of Ontology, London and New York: Continuum, 2009), pp. 111-116 ("Pragmatist metaphysics of hope").

Schopenhauer, A. (1851): "On Philosophy and its Method", in Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, trans. by E. F. J. Payne, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974 [reprint, 2001], pp. 3-20 (§1-§21).

Shapiro, G. (2017): "Nietzsche and Anaximander: The Innocence of Becoming, or Life Without a Mortgage", in Nietzsche and the Philosophers, ed. by M.T. Conard, New York and London: Routledge, 2017, pp. 86-103.

Shklovsky, V. (1917): "Art as Technique", ["Iskusstvo, kak priyom", Sborniki II, 1917] in Twentieth-Century Literary Theory: A Reader, ed. by K. McMillan Newton, New York: Macmillan Education, 1997 [1st: 1988], pp. 3-5.

Sloterdijk P., with H.-J. Heinrich (2001): Neither Sun Nor Death [Die Sonne und der Tod: Dialogische Untersuchungen, 2001], trans. by S. Corcoran, Semiotext(e), 2011.

Sloterdijk, P. (2011): Stress and Freedom [Streß und Freiheit, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2011], trans. by W. Hoban, Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA, USA: Polity Press, 2016, pp. 1-3

Sloterdijk, P. (2021): "L'origine de la philosophie, c'est le mépris", Émissions: Les Chemins de la Philosophie par Adèle Van Reeth, Épisode 11 (France Culture, June 11, 2021: 59min). https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/les-chemins-de-la-philosophie/cours-particulier-1180-peter-sloterdijk-lorigine-de-la-philosophie-ce-nest-pas-letonnement-cest-le.

Stegmaier, W. (2009): After Montinari: On Nietzsche Philology, trans. L.M. Anderson, «Journal of Nietzsche Studies», vol. 38, 2009, pp. 5-19.

Stuhr, J.J. (2016): Pragmatic Fashions: Pluralism, Democracy, Relativism, and the Absurd, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2016.

Stuhr, J.J. (2021a): "Radical Empiricism: William James and Gilles Deleuze", lecture given on February 04, 2021. This lecture was given as part od the PhD Course Philosophy as a Method of thinking Practices: Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Post-Structuralism in the Light of Pragmatism, State University of Milan.

Stuhr, J.J. (2021b): Personal email communication, February 07, 2021.

Triche, S. and D. McKnight (2004): The quest for method: the legacy of Peter Ramus, «Journal of the History of Education Society», vol. 33, n. 1, 2004, pp. 39-54.

Wash, L. (2021): "On Nietzsche's 'Philology as Ephexis in Interpretation'", talk given on January 7, 2021 at the Society for Classical Studies Annual Meeting: https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/152/abstract/nietzsches-philology-ephexis-interpretation.

Westbrook, R.B. (2005): Democratic Hope: Pragmatism and the Politics of Truth, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.

Wilm, J. (2016): The Slow Philosophy of J. M. Coetzee, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

Žižek, S. (1992): Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out, New York and London: Routledge, 2008, with a new Preface [1st:1992].