JBSP Online: Daan Keij – Affirming Affectivity: Philosophy in Lyotard’s Later Works

journal update

Available now, a new essay from Daan Keij for the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, advance published online.

Daan Keij – ‘Affirming Affectivity: On The Task of Philosophy in Lyotard’s Later Works’ (Originally published online: 15 July 2019).

Abstract: Jean-François Lyotard famously described the task of philosophy as “bearing witness to the differend”, a differend being a conflict that cannot be equitably solved due to the lack of a rule applicable to all parties involved. Lyotard expanded the notion of differend in his later works. With the name of “the differend itself”, Lyotard seeks to signal a more radical conflict: between articulate meaning and affect. This development changes the task of philosophy. In this article, bearing witness to the differend itself is conceptualized as a twofold process, consisting of a negative and a positive aspect. On the one hand, the differend itself cannot as such be written into language. On the other hand, however, philosophizing presupposes affect as its impetus. To signal this, an openness to affect and a freedom with regard to style are required, thereby showing that reason and affect are not opposed but presuppose each other.

Full article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2019.1638138

Daan Keij, Radboud University Nijmegen, Faculty of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

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