The Human Difference: Beyond Nomotropism

• Authors: Bielik-Robson Agata
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The main theme of this essay is f i n i t e l i f e, which is the bedrock of modern biopolitics. In the series of lectures devoted to the ‘birth of biopolitics,’ Michel Foucault defines it as a new system of ‘governing the living’ based on the natural cycle of birth and death, and the law of genesis kai phtora, ‘becoming and perishing.’ Foucault’s answer to modern biopolitics is to accept its basic premise – that life is finite, and, consequently, reduced to the natural law of birth and death – and then slightly correct the naive liberal trust in the ‘naturalness’ of human existence by appropriating and internalizing the true essence of the biopolitical paradigm: the disciplining practices. This essay contests Foucault’s minimalist Neostoic program of the ‘care of the self’ by demonstrating that we can still hope for a n o t h e r f i n i t u d e that refrains from any renaturalization of human existence.

Keywords

EN

human difference; biopolitics; philosophical anthropology; psychoanalysis

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Warszawski
• Journal: Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 18–28

Dates

published

2017-09-02

Contributors

author

Bielik-Robson Agata

• Theology & Religious Studies, University of Nottingham
• Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Science

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.26319/EIDOS-001-HUMAN-DIFFERENCE