De Negatione: What Does It Mean to Say No?
Keywords:
Aristotle, contradiction, contrariness, dialectics, Hegel, Kant, negativity
Abstract
The article deals with the history of the concept of negativity in western thought. While reproducing the classical approaches in all essential details, the text exceeds the encyclopedia format of encyclopedia since it seeks to describe and systematize the main features of negation as a logical and linguistic operator: its asymmetry with affirmation; its incompletion and infinity; its latency in alternation with hyperbolic repetition. Further, in its reliance on Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, the article emphasizes the crucial role of inversion (correlative, contrary or real opposition) as a scheme and practical realization of negation. The history of negation is then anchored in the socio-political context, where it is shown to be a necessary form of subjectivization in the late modernity, with its excess of inescapable being.
References
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Aristotle (2012). Categories. Trans. E.M. Edghill. University of Adelaide. E-book. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/categories/.
Bataille, George (1991). The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Zone.
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Brodsky, Joseph (2000). Collected Poems in English. Ed. Ann Kjellberg. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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Clair, Jean, ed. (2005). Melancolie, genie et folie en occident: En hommage a Raymond Klibansky, 1905–2005. Exhibition catalog. Paris: Gallimard.
Deleuze, Gilles (1968). Difference et repetition. Paris: PUF.
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Eckhart, Meister (1981). The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense. Trans. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn. New York: Paulist Press.
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Freud, Sigmund (1974). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Ed. James Strachey et al. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Hegel, G.W.F (1977). Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]. Trans. A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Kirk, G.S., and J.E. Raven (1957). The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kojeve, Alexandre (1969). Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. James H. Nichols. New York: Basic Books, 1969.
Lacan, Jacques (1977). Ecrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: W.W. Norton.
Lacan, Jacques (1988). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I: Freud’s Papers on Technique, 1953–1954. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. John Forrester. New York: W.W. Norton.
Lacan, Jacques (1994). Les relations d’objet. Paris: Seuil.
Lacan, Jacques (1997). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959–1960. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Dennis Porter. New York: W.W. Norton.
Marcuse, Herbert (1955). Eros Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Ruse of Social Theory. London: Routledge And Kegan Paul Limited.
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Marx, Karl (1975b). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3: Marx and Engels, 1843–44, 249–346. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Melamed, Yitzhak Y. (2012). “ ‘Omnis determinatio est negation’: determination, negation, and self-negation in Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel.” In Spinoza and German Idealism, ed. Eckart Forster and Yitzhak Y. Melamed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1969). On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo, Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. Ed. Walter Kaufman. New York: Vintage Books, 1969.
Noys, Benjamin (2010). The Persistence of the Negative. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Plato (1892). Dialogues. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Platonov, Andrei (2004). Sochineniia [Works], Vol. 1, Book 2. Moscow: IMLI RAN. Sartre, Jean-Paul (1993). Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square Press.
Schmitt, Carl (1996). The Concept of the Political. Trans. George Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schmitt, Carl (2004). Theory of the Partisan: A Commentary/Remark on the Concept of the Political. Trans. A.C. Goodson. Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press.
Sidney, Philip (2003). Astrophile and Stella, Sonnet 63 (A. Kline, 2003), accessed at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/Sidney55thru81.htm, 17.01.2012.
Zizek, Slavoj (2012). Less than Nothing. New York & London: Verso.2013
Aristotle (1998). Metaphysics. Trans. Hugh Lawson-Tancred. London: Penguin Books.
Aristotle (2001). De Interpretatione. Trans. E.M. Edghill. Originally published by Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1928. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/AriInte.html.
Aristotle (2012). Categories. Trans. E.M. Edghill. University of Adelaide. E-book. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/categories/.
Bataille, George (1991). The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Zone.
Bataille, George (1998). Bataille: A Critical Reader. Ed. Fred Botting and Scott Wilson. Oxford & Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Bergson, Henri (1922). Creative Evolution. Trans. Arthur Mitchell. London: Macmillan.
Benjamin, Walter (1998). The Origin of German Tragic Drama [1928]. Trans. John Osborne. London: Verso.
Benjamin, Walter (1999). Selected Writings, Vol. 3: 1935–1938. Ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press.
Benjamin, Walter (2003). Selected Writings, Vol. 4: 1938–1940. Ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press.
Brodsky, Joseph (2000). Collected Poems in English. Ed. Ann Kjellberg. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Bulgakov, Sergei (1914). Svet nevechernii. Sozertsaniia i umozreniia [The unfading light: contemplations and speculations]. Moscow: Put’.
Clair, Jean, ed. (2005). Melancolie, genie et folie en occident: En hommage a Raymond Klibansky, 1905–2005. Exhibition catalog. Paris: Gallimard.
Deleuze, Gilles (1968). Difference et repetition. Paris: PUF.
Derrida, Jacques (1978). “From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve.” In Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference. London: Routledge.
Eckhart, Meister (1981). The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense. Trans. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn. New York: Paulist Press.
Ernout, Alfred and Alfred Meillet (2001). Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine. Paris: Klinksieck.
Frege, Gottlob (1960). Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Ed. Peter Geach and Max Black. Oxford: Blackwell, 1960.
Freud, Sigmund (1974). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Ed. James Strachey et al. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Hegel, G.W.F (1977). Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]. Trans. A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hegel, G.W.F. (2010). The Science of Logic [1812–1816]. Trans. George Di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heidegger, Martin (1977). “What Is Metaphysics?” [1929]. In Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, trans. David Farrell Krell, 91–112. New York: Harper & Row.
Hubener, Wolfgang (1975). “Die Logik der Negation als Ontologisches Erkenntnismittel.” In Positionen der Negativitat (Poetik und Hermeneutik, Vol. 6), ed. Harald Weinrich, 105–142. Munich: Wilhelm Fink.
Jespersen, Otto (2010). Negation in English and Other Languages [1917]. General Books (print on demand). Originally published by A.F. Host, Copenhagen.
Kant, Immanuel (1998). Critique of Pure Reason [1781]. Trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel (1992). “Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy” [1763]. In Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy, 1755–1770, trans. and ed. David Walford, with Ralf Meerbote, 203–242. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kirk, G.S., and J.E. Raven (1957). The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kojeve, Alexandre (1969). Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. James H. Nichols. New York: Basic Books, 1969.
Lacan, Jacques (1977). Ecrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: W.W. Norton.
Lacan, Jacques (1988). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I: Freud’s Papers on Technique, 1953–1954. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. John Forrester. New York: W.W. Norton.
Lacan, Jacques (1994). Les relations d’objet. Paris: Seuil.
Lacan, Jacques (1997). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959–1960. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Dennis Porter. New York: W.W. Norton.
Marcuse, Herbert (1955). Eros Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Ruse of Social Theory. London: Routledge And Kegan Paul Limited.
Marx, Karl (1975a). “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction.” In Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3: Marx and Engels, 1843–44, 3–25. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Marx, Karl (1975b). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3: Marx and Engels, 1843–44, 249–346. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Melamed, Yitzhak Y. (2012). “ ‘Omnis determinatio est negation’: determination, negation, and self-negation in Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel.” In Spinoza and German Idealism, ed. Eckart Forster and Yitzhak Y. Melamed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1969). On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo, Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. Ed. Walter Kaufman. New York: Vintage Books, 1969.
Noys, Benjamin (2010). The Persistence of the Negative. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Plato (1892). Dialogues. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Platonov, Andrei (2004). Sochineniia [Works], Vol. 1, Book 2. Moscow: IMLI RAN. Sartre, Jean-Paul (1993). Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square Press.
Schmitt, Carl (1996). The Concept of the Political. Trans. George Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schmitt, Carl (2004). Theory of the Partisan: A Commentary/Remark on the Concept of the Political. Trans. A.C. Goodson. Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press.
Sidney, Philip (2003). Astrophile and Stella, Sonnet 63 (A. Kline, 2003), accessed at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/Sidney55thru81.htm, 17.01.2012.
Zizek, Slavoj (2012). Less than Nothing. New York & London: Verso.2013
Published
2013-01-09
How to Cite
Magun, A. (2013). De Negatione: What Does It Mean to Say No?. Stasis, 1(1). Retrieved from https://stasisjournal.net/index.php/journal/article/view/55
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