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2008 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2008-001
This guest column suggests that we should follow Hannah Arendt in resisting the urge to expound doctrines or systems and, instead, should disclose the processes of our thought as they are “in motion.” While we should not hesitate to express judgments, our aim in intellectual work should be to occasion (and experience) surprise. Like Arendt, we should candidly express “the bliss of thought” as we think and write. On this basis, the political arena can become “a space for self-analysis and (by analogy with psychoanalysis) continuous rebirth.” And it is only on this basis, Kristeva argues, that reconstruction, after a century of unprecedented destruction, be accomplished without our succumbing to nostalgia. Efforts at reconstruction must be undertaken, as Arendt undertook them, “in light of the history of nihilism” and “in the name of sheer survival.” Kristeva joins Arendt in advising against a return to foundationalism while at the same time urging the development of a kind of “re-foundationalism.” Kristeva concludes by showing how, in these attitudes, Arendt's thinking was—despite her notorious dismissal of psychoanalysis—in tune with those of Freud.
2008 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2008-002
No other natural kind receives as much abuse in the Aristotelian corpus as the octopus, and an instructive itinerary through that corpus can be constructed by following the manifestations of such abuse. Specifically, the octopus is judged “stupid” and endowed with poor, rudimentary structure; together with fellow cephalopoda and mollusks, it is even regarded as behaving “contrary to nature.” The moral that emerges from following this path is that Aristotle may be expressing here a deep conflict between two different models equally present in his work, though they are assigned very different emphasis. Also, importantly, mollusks are said to be “mutilated,” which aligns the treatment they receive with the one Aristotle famously reserves for women.
2008 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2008-003
“The Case of `The Yellow Notebook'” contains reminiscences of Wittgenstein's conversations with the philosopher Tatiana Gornshteyn (1904-80) on his visit to Leningrad in 1935. The reminiscences are contained in a document written by her daughter Ludmila. It records a story about a “Yellow Notebook” of his work (in the genre of his so-called Blue and Brown Books)—a notebook that, it is claimed, Wittgenstein gave to Tatiana and was subsequently lost. Attempts have been made to find it in Russia and all have failed. Biographical and historical context is provided in an introductory essay by the translator.
Tamen, Miguel; Andersen, Wayne; Rao, Velcheru Narayana; Subrahmanyam, Sanjay; Rowland, Ingrid D.; Hunter, J. Paul; Wong, Yoke-Sum
2008 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2008-004
The essay discusses the presumption of one's singularity, the uniqueness of one's time, the picturesqueness of one actions, and the capacity of human beings, whether corporately or individually, to begin everything or indeed anything again from scratch. Such presumptions are indeed present in some varieties of contemporary fanaticism, but, more to the point, it is suggested that the feeling of doing something for the first time is the oldest feeling in the world.
2008 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2008-005
This essay forms part of an “elegiac symposium” on “what gets lost during paradigm shifts,” and it replies to an earlier contribution to that symposium, “Regarding Change at Ise-Jingu” by Jeffrey M. Perl (14, no. 2 (2008): 208-20; DOI 10.1215/0961754X-2007-069)) . Andersen argues against or supplements Perl's contention that Japanese attitudes toward change differ radically from those that are standard in the West. Andersen expands on arguments made by Roland Barthes—an explicator and partisan of Japanese thought—to show that at least one Greek myth (that of the unchanging ship Argo) deals with change, originality, updating, fakes, and replication in a way similar to those standard in Japanese culture. Andersen then pursues his argument, as well, with respect to works by Rodin, Sade, and Leonardo da Vinci.
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