Philosopher that I became the most disillusioned with.

As the most overrated philosopher meme continues to circle, I wanted to try a variation.

Levi pointed to Badiou for him as the most overrated philosopher. But it contained a level of disillusionment. After an initial excitement with Badiou, there was a let down. I think this might be a more interesting way to do this. After all, for most of us feeling a thinker is overrated is never liking them. But there are any number of reasons that could be true, and not particularly insightful. I believe thinkers that caused excitement an then stopped being useful is a different category all together.

For me, that'd be Paul Virilio. When I first ran across his work as an undergrad I was really excited by him. There was a particular kind of marxist strain at the time that I was finding suffocating, and he and Delanda were the main thinkers who opened up a path out of that. But, shortly after I was no longer there I was increasingly annoyed by Virilio (though I continue to find Delanda provocative and useful). His apocalyptic visions, while perhaps the stuff of a great graphic novel, didn't seem very useful for doing philosophy. And whereas calling Derrida a one-trick pony, whatever, but Virilio really is.

Most overrated philosopher: Sartre edition.

This is the most recent meme from all the usual suspects (I need to get to bed, so forgive me to not doing the links tonight). And it is kinda fun, especially the parts of the rules different people discuss.

I'm not sure I wouldn't tell you who I think the most overrated philosopher is, if I knew. My real problem is that when I run into a thinker whose thought doesn't match the hype, I stop reading. Which makes me a bad judge to know if they are overrated.

One of the more interesting comments has been the re-evaluation of Sartre. Which I have seen not just from this conversation but in general. Sartre in general, but particularly the Sartre of the Critiques of Dialectical Reason, has being considered to be a serious thinker again. The general feeling seems to be, Sartre at his peak probably was overrated, but nowadays he is downright underrated. Which I agree with. But I think he may still be overrated with those who take French existentialism seriously. For whatever reason, Simone de Beauvior continues to under appreciated and under read, regulated to a niche group of readers, whom mostly read her for history of women's studies reasons. Yet, I cannot see how, in her work broadly, she isn't simply the more original and provocative thinker of the two.

Maybe I will try to say something productive on the case of Derrida tomorrow. If it isn't productive, I won't bother. I don't need to defend him.

Adorno, tell them how it is!

"That we cannot tell what man is does not establish a peculiarly majestic anthropology; it vetoes any anthropology." -Negative Dialectics, p. 124.

Critique outside of anthropocentrism: Butler on Whitehead

There is an amazing lecture given by Judith Butler on Whitehead.

I should not have even taken the time to listen to this yet (I am trying to finish up applications to get funding for next year). But I wanted to suggest this lecture. I think it is by far the strongest and most philosophical explanation of Butler's (rather recent) non-anthropocentric ontology.

24 mins in starts Whitehead on the non-human.

31 mins in starts an explanation of Butler's own work.

49 mins in are a series of propositions of what we can do with a twisted ontology of the human and the non-human.

Q&A (very interesting) starts 51 mins in.

Hopefully I will give a longer analysis and explanation later. But I am on an anti-blogging regime until my applications are done (funding next year needs to be focused on).

I look forward to seeing other people reflections on this, particularly those who know Whitehead better than I.

How things have changed since the mid-90s

I just took advantage of this one day sale from Indiana UPress (hurry, and some of you may be able to, as well). Well, I picked up a copy of Reinventiong Biology, which is an edited collection dealing with experimental biology and animals published in 1995. When looking at the Amazon.com description of the book, the closing lines of the review caught me eye:

A welcome addition to the literature critiquing science and an excellent resource for courses on the conceptual framework of science or objectivity in science.

What is worth noting here is that a book that is primarily about the intersection of science and animals (with some about plants and other non-human beings), is being sold for courses about science rather than courses about science and/or animals. I have no real proof of this, but I have trouble believing such a description would be written about the book if it were being published today. I think in general the idea that we have courses on animals or something called critical animal studies or animal studies or whatever exists.
Just a random throwaway thought before I get back to work.

Peter and Paul

Peter Gratton has an interview up with Paul Ennis. Go read it.

Back

I just got back yesterday from a weekend birthday trip. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to blogging tomorrow or so. When I got back my reader said I had 156 new posts to read. So, uhm, I didn't do that. If I missed anything interesting, please let me know (self-promotion always encouraged).

And I'll leave this with a song that's been listening to on repeat for a while.