Donatella Di Cesare - The Political Vocation of Philosophy

1 Cover

2 Title Page The Political Vocation of Philosophy Donatella Di Cesare Translated by David Broder polity

3 Copyright

4 Epigraph

5 1 The saturated immanence of the world Notes

6 2 Heraclitus, wakefulness and the original communism Notes

7 3 The narcosis of light: on the night of capital Notes

8 4 The pólis: a calling

9 5 Wonder – a troubled passion Notes

10 6 Between heavens and abysses Notes

11 7 Socrates’ atopia Notes

12 8 A political death Notes

13 9 Plato – when philosophy headed into exile within the city Notes

14 10 Migrants of thought Notes

15 11 ‘What is philosophy?’ Notes

16 12 Radical questions Notes

17 13 The out-of-place of metaphysics Notes

18 14 Dissent and critique Notes

19 15 The twentieth century: breaks and traumas Notes

20 16 After Heidegger Notes

21 17 Against negotiators and normative philosophers Notes

22 18 Ancilla democratiae: a dejected return Notes

23 19 The poetry of clarity Notes

24 20 Potent prophecies of the leap: Marx and Kierkegaard Notes

25 21 The ecstasy of existence Notes

26 22 For an exophilia Notes

27 23 The philosophy of awakening Notes

28 24 Fallen angels and rag-pickers Notes

29 25 Anarchist postscript Notes

30 Bibliography

31 Index

32 End User License Agreement

1 Cover

2 Table of Contents

3 Title Page

4 Copyright

5 Epigraph

6 Begin Reading

7 Bibliography

8 Index

9 End User License Agreement

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Donatella Di Cesare

Translated by David Broder

polity

Originally published in Italian as Sulla vocazione politica della filosofia © 2018 Bollati Boringhieri editore, Turin

This English edition © 2021 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3943-7

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Di Cesare, Donatella, author. | Broder, David, translator.

Title: The political vocation of philosophy / Donatella Di Cesare ; translated by David Broder.

Other titles: Sulla vocazione politica della filosofia. English

Description: English edition. | Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2021. | “Originally published in Italian as Sulla vocazione politica della filosofia, 2018 Bollati Boringhieri editore, Torino.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This book seeks to redefine the purpose of philosophy for our times. Faced with the saturated immanence of the world, philosophy is summoned to return to its original vocation and, after a long absence in which it lost its voice, it is called on to reawaken the community and protect the life we share in common”-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020041699 (print) | LCCN 2020041700 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509539413 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509539420 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509539437 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Political science--Philosophy. | Philosophy.

Classification: LCC JA71 .D48213 2021 (print) | LCC JA71 (ebook) | DDC 320.01--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020041699LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020041700

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

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[P]hilosophy should not prophesy, but then again it should not remain asleep.

Martin Heidegger 1

So our city will be governed by us and you with waking minds, and not as most cities now which are inhabited and ruled darkly as in a dream.

Plato 2

1 1. Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988, p. 178.

2 2. Plato, Republic, 520c, trans. Paul Shorey.

There’s no longer an outside. Or at least, that’s what the final stage of globalisation looks like. Up till the modern era, the inhabitants of the earth star meditated on the cosmos, turning their eyes to the open sky in admiration, amazement, wonder. The cosmos’s boundless face was, nonetheless, a shelter, for it protected them from the absolute exteriority to which they felt exposed. Yet, when the planet was explored far and wide – circumnavigated, occupied, connected, depicted – a tear opened up in the cosmic sky, and the abyss opened up above them. Their gaze got lost in the icy outside.

This was an unprecedented challenge. The invention of the globe was the history of a ‘spatio-political alienation’. 1The external exercised a magnetic force, simultaneously both attracting and repelling; it was the otherness that had to be reduced, dominated, controlled. Even in that era, there were philosophical models. The cosmic-speculative sphere which had long inspired conjecture, intuition, ideas, was supplanted by the Copernican revolution. Thanks to this revolution – in which even the furthest limits fell one after another – anthropocentrism was proclaimed with great energy. Through complicated rotations and oscillations, the wandering star pursued this course for centuries – but without being able to escape its fate.