Draft:Broken Hegemonies
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 | This article consists almost entirely of a plot summary. (December 2023) |
| Original title | Des Hégémonies brisées |
|---|---|
Publication date | 1996 |
Published in English | 2001 |
Broken Hegemonies (Des Hégémonies brisées) is a book by the philosopher Reiner Schürmann published posthumously in 1996 by the French philosopher Gérard Granel.
Content[edit]
Reiner Schürmann's opening phrase describes the book as “a contribution to the age old “doctrine of principles”. Upon perusing his entire œuvre, we identify a crucial focal point: the tension between existence and principle. According to Schürmann, the philosophical tradition has been primarily defined and preoccupied by the enterprise of searching and securing stable principles of thought. However, our current epoch seems to almost be defined by the exhaustion and withering of all principles of thought. While principles seem to have exhausted their efficacy and withered away as the main determinants of the horizon of possibility of our epoch, Schürmann observes that we should raise the pertinent question of whether thinking has caught up with this loss of all ultimate referents.
Leaving the question unanswered, Schürmann describes the task of thinking in our current epoch as follows: “To think is to linger on the conditions in which one is living, to linger on the site where we live. Thus to think is a privilege of that epoch which is ours, provided that the essential fragility of the sovereign referents becomes evident to it”. To think, then, is to be attuned to the time and the conditions under which we both think and act. In describing thought as such, Schürmann is clearly not offering any specific preference to philosophy as such. As a matter of fact, Schürmann is quite critical of the philosophical industry throughout the general introduction and conclusion of Broken Hegemonies. Instead, Schürmann gives precedence to the kind of thought that can achieve “the task of showing the tragic condition beneath all principled constructions”. In other words, the kind of thought that seems to be adequate for our current epoch is described as the one capable of revealing the fissure in principial constructions.
While Schürmann's description of thought relies primarily on this ability to identify the exhaustion and withering away of principles, his project is traversed by another exigency that can perhaps be described as more affirmative. Schürmann offers us a glimpse of this other side of thought in posing the following question: “What, then, is at stake in the fantasmatic “addition” and in every sobering elimination? Could it be life?”. In this passage, Schürmann clearly defines what is at stake in thinking through the exhaustion and withering of principles—the emergence of life. Existence appears as that which has sub-ceded all principial constructions. The consequence of the emergence of existence is that thinking must attend to the manner in which existence emerges after the exhaustion and withering of principles. Once again, philosophy does not offer much aid in thinking existence in this register since its aim has traditionally been understood as the incessant search of edifying principles. Schürmann suggests that philosophy’s main obstacle derives from the fact that it does not arrive to the realization that the justifications of principles are fantasmatic. Insofar as principles unify phenomena in a specific movement, Schürmann terms them hegemonic fantasms. With this description, Schürmann has offered us a renewed identification of what poses an obstacle to thought.
The main impediment that hegemonic fantasms pose for thought is the “price [with which] fantasms render the world livable”. As long as hegemonic fantasms subsume existence, thought is unable to think the appearance of the singular existent. Rather, thought must be limited to thinking the particular, which is as problematic as the hegemonic fantasms, because they attempt to produce a simplified depiction of the singular existent. In this context, Schürmann's whole œuvre can be understood as an attempt to think the refusal of paying the fantasmatic price by thinking the singular existent against the hegemonic principles that subsume existence. In the present essay, we follow Schürmann's reading of one of his principal interlocutors concerning the problem of existence and principle—Meister Eckhart—with the aim of understanding the manner in which Schürmann begins to develop the tension between existence and principle. While we will focus primarily on Schürmann's reading of Eckhart, we will also develop our interpretive reading of Schürmann throughout by referring to his other main interlocutor—Martin Heidegger. Our main aim is not to perform a merely exegetical reading of Schürmann's œuvre, but to determine the manner in which he develops his reflections on existence and principle. Finally, our intention is to critically engage Schürmann's project in conversation with the project of infrapolitics since the latter is also a relevant attempt to develop this theme of existence and principle.[1]
References[edit]
External links[edit]
- Granel devoted to Schürmann's testament a study: "Untameable Singularity (Some Remarks on Broken Hegemonies)".