[lit-ideas] SOS - The Modern Self and Antihumanism
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 08:18:27 -0700
I still don't have Taylor's book, but in keeping with Omar's search for a
definition, Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut have written a book that bears upon
that, French Philosophy of the Sixties, An Essay on Antihumanism. They
don't use the term "Self" or "Person." They use the term "subject." At the
birth of Humanism, the Renaissance Man was subject and all the world was
object. He believed he had few limits. But as time went on, especially in
the twentieth century, man as subject has been diminished. He had become
more and more an object.
In their book they consider the main philosophers who have contributed to a
diminishing of man as Subject. What follows is a vast oversimplification of
their arguments, but it should provide a sufficient number of hints in that
everyone already knows about these philosophers but hasn't necessarily tied
them all together and drawn any conclusions about their anti-humanism..
Foucault describes malevolent social institutions that take away man's
freedom: prison and asylums.
Freud and Lacan describe a powerful subconscious that has a will of its own
and can act without our knowledge and despite our intentions.
Marx and Bourdieu describe powerful Social Forces that whisk us along
deterministically despite our will.
Heidegger and Derrida argue that we don't know what we think we know. Our
understanding of almost everything has been faulty.
Ferry and Renault argue that these philosophers make man the object of
social institutions and forces, the subconscious, and the traps of language
that we have fallen victim to.
I shall be interested in learning whether Taylor takes these philosophical
restrictions of self into consideration.
Lawrence
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