The Courage for Infininity

In their new article, Patrick O'Connor and Frederick Aspbury investigated the tensions between finite and infinite versions of ethics in the philosophy of Alain Badiou.  They argued that there is an irreconcilable tension between the historical and anhistorical in Badiou's ontology, stemming from the way Badiou bases his ethics on his mathematical ontology. The consequence is that while Badiou is a very valuable resource for thinking progressive forms of political thought, his work needs to be supplmented with a more historicized understanding of the human being. This the authors argue, in the last analysis, should focus on a mortal  and realistic understanding of courage.  

Patrick O'Connor and Frederick Aspbury (2013), The courage for infinity: mortal and immortal ethics in Alain Badiou. The Journal of the British Society of Phenomenology, 44 (2).

Atheist Temporality

Patrick O'Connor recently gave a presentation on some of his current work at the Power, Time and Agency conference at the University of Manchester, 17-18 January 2013.

His presentation involved a position paper on a wider research project on the notion of atheist temporality. Rejecting the progressive notions of linear temporality, and the historical destiny of scientific materialism, it was argued that we need a revised understanding of temporal and social agency. This involves a retrieval and engagement with of some of the key insights of Nietzsche, Derrida, Heidegger and Bergson. Beginning with taxonomy of the various types of atheism that he was deviating from, it was argued that that the condition of identities, ethical agency, and human liberation and political subjectivity relies on a discursive notion of temporality. Such a discursive notion of temporality depends on re-casting our understanding of chronological time towards ecstatic time, everyday temporality towards authentic and engaged temporality, mechanistic temporality towards embodied temporality, a discourse on life towards a discourse on shared mortality and finitude, and the ethical and political in terms of common temporalities and generic solidarity. The paper provided an existential atheistic account of atheist temporality with a view to combatting ethical and political sectionalisation and marginalization.

Foucault: Power, Politics, Pleasure

Patrick O'Connor recently co-edited (with Keith Crome) a special edition of the Journal of British Society for Phenomenology (Vol 43, 1), entitled Foucault: Politics, Power, Pleasure. Contributors in this collection of essays focused around Foucault's use and treatment of the themes of power and pleasure. The twin axes of power and pleasure are at the heart of Foucault's studies of madness, medicine, punishment and sexuality and the thematic focus allowed contributors to focus on range of Foucault's work considering a range of issues (e.g. biopolitics, governmentality and the aesthetics of the self) in an effort to discuss some points of contact, contrast and conflict between Foucault's work and the phenomenological tradition in relation to the themes of power and pleasure.