Stasis

The Theological Remnant of Modernity

Albert Sarkisyants, Anton Syutkin — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Так уж устроено это имя, «политическая теология», что его использование требует какого-то предуведомления, оправдания, введения в историю вопроса. И это объяснимо — поскольку нет ни подобной устоявшейся дисциплины, ни даже в строгом смысле раздела внутри «теологии», это имя каждый раз производит поле борьбы вокруг своих значений, да и исторически оно родилось как полемическое понятие, инициировав спор о том, есть ли внутри христианской традиции у этого термина какое-то правомочие. Но о чем же, в конце концов, идет речь? Чем вообще заняты те, кто относят себя к этому «полю» или хотя бы просто пользуются этим именем? Хотят ли они подсунуть нам какого-нибудь бога или, наоборот, изгнать, наконец, всех богов до последнего, для чего и подвергают ревизии все углы, где они еще могли спрятаться?

Theodicies of Violence: From Benjamin to Žižek

Agata Bielik-Robson — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the theodicy of violence in its two different forms: the antinomian and the hypernomian. The theodicy of violence deliberately blurs the lines between the messianic idiom of Walter Benjamin’s Toward the Critique of Violence (2021), with its stark contrast between mythic and divine violence, and the Lacanian idiom of various subjective positions toward the symbolic order. While the antinomian line turns out to be close to the discursive strategies of the Hysteric, the hypernomian line resembles those of the Pervert. My goal is to present them in purely descriptive and value-free terms. I will thus begin with the close reading of the Critique of Violence, which is, in fact, an apology of a certain form of political violence, and then juxtapose it with another praise of violence, originating in Slavoj Žižek’s deliberately “perverse” reading of both Paul and Benjamin. The difference between them will be revealed by the Benjaminian phrase: for the sake of the living. I will try to prove that while violence for the antinomian/hysterical line can be justified only with regard to life conceived as survival, for the hypernomian/perverse line violence becomes a goal in itself.

Leisure to Attend to Our Spiritual Business

Tom Walker — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Time is central to Martin Hägglund’s discussion of secular faith and spiritual freedom. Time is precisely what is finite in this life and presides over the relationships we value and our risk of losing them. Hägglund adopted the notion of disposable time from Karl Marx’s Grundrisse and reframed it as the more descriptive socially available free time. Following Marx, Hägglund advocates the revaluation of values so that socially available free time would become the measure of value rather than socially necessary labour time.

A close examination of the origin of Marx’s analysis of disposable time suggests that questions of faith and freedom were inherent in the concept as it was expressed in the 1821 pamphlet, The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties that influenced Marx, in the writings of William Godwin that inspired the 1821 pamphlet, and ultimately in theological views on the doctrine of the calling that Godwin secularized in his pioneering advocacy of leisure as a universal human right.

Marx’s innovation was to show that the creation of disposable time is the basis of all wealth. Under capitalism, disposable time is expropriated in the form of surplus labour time, thereby inverting the relationship between necessary and superfluous labour time — the superfluous becomes necessary (for capital) and the necessary superfluous. Marx’s analysis of the inversion of necessary and superfluous labour time bears close resemblance to Ludwig Feuerbach’s critique in The Essence of Christianity, which had influenced the early Marx, of the inversion of collective humanity and the divine.

Hegel's Theology and Schelling's Post-theology: the Beginning and the End of the Dialectical Method as a Political-theological Paradigm

Anastasia Merzenina — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The article examines Schelling's late philosophy (philosophy of revelation, or positive philosophy) that proposes approaches to overcome the metaphysical attitude, as an alternative to the Hegelian dialectical method more common among thinkers. The author assumes that metaphysics and theology are closely related disciplines essentially connected to religion and politics. It is argued that philosophy is always related to political theology as a phenomenon denoting practices aligned with religious or metaphysical conceptions. Thus, metaphysics and theology are not just concepts of the world order, but also practices of imperious assertion of these concepts. On the basis of modern works concerning the problems of political theology in Hegelian philosophy, the article suggests that dialectics is an onto-theological method that has a circular logic and leads to the legitimation of the state, its representative principle and the preservation of political theology. Schelling's notions of revelation, groundlessness, immemorial being, freedom, faith, and Christian fraternity, in turn, can serve as the basis for an alternative project of post-metaphysical, post-theological, and post-political thinking. Contemporary works on political theology in Schelling's philosophy allow us to identify the characteristics of a non-political and extra-historical form of community, as well as to outline possible hallmarks of Schellingian political strategy (such as social antagonism, dissensus, parallax vision) that would resonate with Schelling's idea of post-political Christian fraternity.

Avenging of Injuries. The Revival of Punishment as an Objective of War

Arseniy Kumankov — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In this essay, I question the modern meaning of punishment to justify the use of military force. First, I trace why and how the punitive doctrine of war appeared. Its authors and operators were Christian theologians who, for a long time, consolidated the punitive concept’s dominance. Punishment was aimed at interrupting and removing sin. This religious approach was revised in early Modern times against the backdrop of the modern state’s strengthening. Next, I consider the legalist approach to war relevant to this period. Its general approach was to recognize just war, which was a response to an offense. States used war as a means of protecting their rights. I note that this approach remains dominant today, but at the same time the idea of punishment is being restored. Finally, I give examples of how the concept of punishment and retribution, including those interpreted religiously, have been used during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. These examples allow us to draw some conclusions about the limitations of the modern primitive concept of war.

Rethinking the Katechon: Towards a Political Theology for a Nuclear Age

Yevgeny Uchaev, Ivan Nikolaev — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It’s about time for political theology to start dealing seriously with the threat of nuclear war. Despite its severity, so far this threat has been either ignored or addressed with inadequate politico-theological approaches: just war theories fail to account for the counterintuitive logic of nuclear strategy; radical pacifism stops short of offering a viable disarmament path; apocalypticism and messianism run the risk of justifying the catastrophe. An unconditional imperative of nuclear war prevention still needs to be effectively integrated into political theology. We argue that the concept of katechon is best suited for this task. However, there are a number of gaps between established traditions of thought about the katechon and nuclear realities that need bridging first. Katechon is believed to restrain the triumph of Evil before the apocalypse, while nuclear catastrophe resembles the Apocalypse itself; katechon is seen to be embodied in individual polities or rulers, but preventing nuclear war requires universalist politics; katechontic function is thought to involve power and coercion, but nuclear threat cannot be eliminated by violent means. We demonstrate that the necessary reinterpretation of the katechon is possible, based on a close reading of Rene Girard’s Battling to the End. The immanent critique of this work allows conceptualizing the katechon as the entire “coercion-legitimacy” antinomy rather than the violent side of it. Consequently, antinomic “double representation” conceived as a non-hierarchical co-existence of temporal (coercion) and spiritual (legitimacy) powers becomes the institutional embodiment of the katechon. If initially implemented at the national level, this politico-theological architecture of “double representation” then might pave the way for the political unity of the world, which is indispensable for avoiding a global catastrophe in the long run.

The Political Ontology of Carl Schmitt: Identity and Representation as the Ways of Self-Assertion of Political Existence

Vladimir Brodskiy — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This work represents an attempt at a historical-philosophical reconstruction of Carl Schmitt's project of political ontology, formed by various elements of works from the Weimar period. The author’s central statement is that Schmitt's ontology reveals two sides of political existence (transcendent and present), which enter a relationship of mutual determination. The basic principles of political form, as identified by Schmitt — identity and representation — are considered in the article as the ways of realization of political being and ontologically necessary conditions for the political existence of the people. Various combinations of these principles form structures that make possible the genesis of political will. Since the political existence of the people arises from the existential differentiation of friend and enemy, identity and representation, which allow it to be realized, have a decisive ontological significance in the author's view. Due to this background political will is considered as the substance of political existence. One of the most important aspects of Schmitt's teaching during the Weimar period, the criticism of the institutions of Rechtsstat (the state of law) and liberal democracy is analyzed in the present article from the perspective of its ontological subtext. The author draws attention to the eventful nature of Schmitt's ontology, finding its most tangible expression in the procedure of acclamation. This work largely continues the research of Professor Michael Marder, developing new perspectives and directions. Thus, the focus of this work is not only the volitional nature of political existence but also the structures that make possible the genesis of political will.

The Cunning of the Rationalist: Descartes as the Chief Enemy of Political Theology

Oleg Goriainov — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article attempts to link Carl Schmitt’s project of political theology to the Cartesian tradition of thought and to point out the aporia of the German jurist’s theory in this way. The analogy of God and the sovereign proposed by Schmitt in his 1922 work is considered in the context of its original formulation as set out in Descartes’ letter to Mersenne. The implications of turning Descartes’ formula «God as sovereign» into the formula «sovereign as God» are examined. For this purpose, the paradoxical place of God in Descartes’ system, which is defined by his constitutive powerlessness, is clarified on the basis of Michael Gillespie’s work. The dependence of Schmitt’s hypothesis on its Cartesian origins reveals the theoretical fragility of the entire construction of political theology. In particular, it is explained that Schmitt’s polemic with Walter Benjamin on the topic of «God’s powerlessness» is the result of a misunderstanding of the real threat to the project of political theology emanating from Descartes’ philosophy.

Discussions on Modern Gnosticism in Post-War Germany and the Performative Aspect of the "Gnostic Recidivism" Concept by Odo Marquard

Artem Solovev — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The theories of modern Gnosticism in post-war Germany are being examinedinthe paper. These theories provide the context for the formation of the concept of the “Gnostic Recidivism” by German philosopher Odo Marquard (1928-2015). The paper defines the specific contours of the performative aspect of his concept. It proposes to use the methodological approach of the Cambridge School of Intellectual History for this purpose. Contemporary studies either overlook the question of the performative aspect of Marquard's concept of the “Gnostic Recidivism” or characterize it in a highly generalized manner. The paper identifies the positions of the main participants in the discussion on the connection between Gnosticism and Modernity in German thought during the second half of the 20th century. This is necessary to determine the performative side of Marquard's concept of Neognosticism. The main contours of Marquard's philosophical anthropology and philosophy of Modernityare determined. Hisunderstanding of Modernity as a means to overcome medieval Gnosticism and the philosophies of history of the New Age as antimodern gnostic phenomena is examined. Ultimately, through the concept of “hermeneutical civil wars”, Marquard's performative aspect of the concept of the “Gnostic Recidivism” is defined as a call to renounce the struggle for an “absolute text” and to cultivate pluralistic hermeneutics, “polymythicity”,“multiversal history”,“enlightened polytheism”, and “acceptance of the world as it is”. From his point of view, this can be achieved through a “separation of powers”, that is, through skepticism that eliminates the possibility of establishing monopolies in any sphere of societal life.

Utopia and Event: two Modes of Producing the New

Daniel Nedolyan — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The emergence of the new is a question that has always been of extreme importance for social philosophy. In order to grasp it in its unity, we should look at it in a state of disruption. In this article I will try to demonstrate through a comparison of the ontological concepts of Ernst Bloch and Alain Badiou what two such different ways of producing the new as utopia and event have in common. In the philosophies of Bloch and Badiou it is easy to find many common features: the questions of the subject, of the ontological immanentization of the transcendent, of the opposition between communism and fascism, of rupture and unity. But despite all the similarities there is also a significant difference, which runs through the question of their ontological appeal to the new. Through the comparison of important aspects of the systems of the two authors, the structure that allows us to talk about the commonality of their project without elimination of differences will be revealed.

Рим, которого не было, чистый virtus и творение вечных истин — в саду основ

Lolita Agamalova — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

В настоящем очерке исследуются границы и возможности трансцендентального, понятого в качестве мыслительного, а значит, реального ограничения всякой возможной онтологии; иначе говоря, — всяких возможных, а значит, утопических, миров, абсолютным модальным рубежом которых является противоречие. Принцип, который, согласно Канту, объединяет феноменальное и ноуменальное в единый континуум contra contradictions, подпитывает континуум не-сущего — как аналитически невозможного, — структурированного противоречием. Этот континуум может быть помыслен по крайней мере как негативный объект, который, однако, не выходит (так кажется на первый взгляд) за границу ментального сущего (ens rationis), как максимум же — скандализированного Кантом экзистенциального квантора; но если, согласно Крипке, способность мыслить различные модальные пропозиции выдает его, предиката существования (∃), необходимость, то следует пересмотреть понятийные (а значит, реальные) границы возможных (а значит, утопических) миров, включив в эти последние как минимум некоторые невозможные миры, которые не подчиняются принципу как традиционному рубежу и сознания, и бытия. В работе предлагается спекулятивное моделирование таких миров, показывающее, что, с одной стороны, трансцендентальное гораздо шире, чем традиционно принято считать (например, принцип непротиворечия обходят миры с нелинейным временем), с другой же стороны, отрицание трансцендентального есть наиболее чистое проявление революционной негативности — потому именно революционной, что моделирование и исследование миров, которые по праву называются невозможными (в работе они, в конечном счете, именуются негативными), сходятся в родовом понятии утопии, пробивающей себе дорогу в вечной своей диалектике как возможное и как невозможное; в конечном счете, это дает перспективу для пересмотра политической субъектности — с опирой на чистую возможность невозможного (утопии) через фигуру вероятного как подсчета, пересборки и настраиваемого двигателя чистого возможного вообще.