In this episode we delve into Judith Butler’s Giving an Account of Oneself, an illuminating book from 2005 that examines subject-formation and the relationship between the self, other people, and the normative social order. We reconstruct Butler’s efforts to ground a philosophical ethics with positive claims in the insights of three theoretical traditions that have generally been understood to frustrate moral philosophy: post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Our core focus is the question of whether Butler’s conceptions of the ‘relationality’ and ‘opacity’ of the human self can do the kind of ethical heavy lifting that they claim.
This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon:
patreon.com/leftofphilosophy
References:
Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005).
Music:
“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com
“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN
71 TEASER | What is Liberalism? Part IV: Neo-Republicanism
70 | How Does Propaganda Work? w/ Dr. Megan Hyska
69 | Mute Compulsion: Economic Power and Capitalist Domination w/ Dr. Søren Mau
68 | F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom: Competition, Individualism, and the Politics of Reaction
67 TEASER | What is Liberalism? III. John Rawls and Political Liberalism
66 | What's Left of Equality? Between Opportunity and Flourishing
65 | Gramsci's The Modern Prince
64 | What is Aesthetics? Part II. How Does it Feel to be a Problem, Hip Hop Nation? W/ Dr. Michael Thomas
63 Teaser | Lenin's State and Revolution
62 | What is Aesthetics? Part I. Schiller's Letters on Aesthetic Education
61 | Frantz Fanon, Racism, and the Alienation of Reason
60 | Antifascism and Emancipatory Violence with Devin Zane Shaw
59 | Herbert Marcuse B-Sides Mixtape
58 Teaser | Angela Davis: Dialectics of Oppression and Liberation
UNLOCKED: 24 | What's Left of Foucault?
57 | What is Liberalism? Part II. Policing and Political Economy
56 | Special Minisode: Hating on New Year’s Day with Antonio Gramsci
55 Teaser | Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality
54 | Expropriating the Expropriators w/ Dr. Jacob Blumenfeld
53 | Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: Anti-Materialist Sociology
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