Papers by Robert Bernasconi
Suomen antropologi, Jun 7, 2019
The Logic of the Gift, 2014
What Goes Around Comes Around: Derrida and Levinas on the Economy of the Gift and the Gift of Gen... more What Goes Around Comes Around: Derrida and Levinas on the Economy of the Gift and the Gift of Genealogy Robert Bernasconi i In" Force of Law," Derrida distinguishes between two styles of deconstruc-tion:" One takes on the demonstrative and apparently ahistorical allure of ...
Although lip service is widely given to institutional racism, it tends to be marginalized with mo... more Although lip service is widely given to institutional racism, it tends to be marginalized with more attention being given to individual racist acts. Furthermore, institutional racism is reduced to a knowledge of the rates of death, disease, poverty, and so on, among racial minorities as compared with Whites, and this knowledge is often divorced from any kind of real understanding on the part of Whites of the lives of those reflected in the statistics. To combat this lack of understanding, which is in large part a product of the distance that separates the races, one must break free of analytic reasoning. The problem begins with the way racial categories are often interpreted as the products of a false biology, whereas they were initially thought of as geographical. When, as a result of migration and race mixing, these spatial divisions no longer held in their original form, attempts were made to recreate them through segregation. Learning to read the way racism reproduces itself wit...
Current Continental Theory and Modern Philosophy
Klopffechtereien - Missverständnisse - Widersprüche?, 2011
Debating African Philosophy, 2018
Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 1999
Dans le cadre du trentieme anniversaire de la Societe anglaise de phenomenologie celebre les 11-1... more Dans le cadre du trentieme anniversaire de la Societe anglaise de phenomenologie celebre les 11-13 avril 1997 a Oxford dans le cadre d'un colloque consacre au theme du renouveau de la phenomenologie, l'A. analyse la conception du troisieme parti developpee par Levinas en trois moments : 1) dans l'article «Le moi et la totalite» («Revue de metaphysique et de morale», 1954, 59, pp. 353-73); 2) dans le chapitre «L'autre et les autres» dans «Totalite et infini»; 3) dans le paragraphe «Du dire au dit, ou la sagesse du desir» au chapitre 5 de «Autrement qu'etre ou au-dela de l'essence». Distinguant trois sens de la tertialite (le tiers, la troisieme personne et l'illeite), l'A. mesure la place du troisieme dans la relation ethique du face a face comme condition de possibilite de la justice, d'une part, et comme localisation de l'interhumain et de la fraternite a l'intersection de l'ethique et du politique, d'autre part
Genocide and Human Rights, 2005
Philosophy’s involvement in genocide can be usefully appraised by exploring the fact that neither... more Philosophy’s involvement in genocide can be usefully appraised by exploring the fact that neither Immanuel Kant nor G. W. F. Hegel advocated mass killing, but those magisterial figures in the tradition of Western thought unwittingly contributed to the formation of a culture of genocide. They did so by proposing philosophies of history that were designed to give meaning to humanity as a species, while nevertheless embracing an idea of progress from which some races were excluded because they allegedly lacked the talents that would enable them to be full participants in humanity’s future. Their findings “answered” the question of why the “white race” existed, but did little to explain the existence of the races whose historical agency had been denied. That is to say, the Kantian and Hegelian philosophies of history left unresolved the problem of finding a meaning, a place in history, for the so-called “backward” races in a world dominated by Europe.
Difficulties of Ethical Life, 2008
The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon
Eco-ethica, 2017
Emmanuel Levinas can be read as challenging the legal principle that everybody must be treated in... more Emmanuel Levinas can be read as challenging the legal principle that everybody must be treated in the same way without fear of favor, no matter who they are or what status they hold. He did so by highlighting the private suffering that goes unnoticed if justice is blind, as is suggested by the image of Iustitia wearing a blindfold. What this unspeakable suffering means for justice is explored through a reading of Jean Améry’s At the Mind's Limit and Jill Stauffer’s Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of Not Being Heard.
Eco-ethica, 2020
The emergence of citizenship out of subjecthood at the end of the eighteenth century presented a ... more The emergence of citizenship out of subjecthood at the end of the eighteenth century presented a series of problems for which the United States, among other countries, seems to have been unprepared: it was unclear who qualified for citizenship, what privileges it afforded, and what duties it demanded. Nevertheless, this uncertainty could be manipulated pragmatically to take advantage of any given situation without regard for consistency or future implications. By examining the obstacles placed on the path to citizenship of Native Americans, African Americans, women, and Chinese Americans, this article shows how the (non-)category of the non-citizen was weaponized. Indeed the mistreatment of non-citizens becomes the best indication of the value of citizenship.
Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, 1995
Heidegger Circle Proceedings, 1982
Fanon, Phenomenology, and Psychology, 2021
Perspektiven der Philosophie, 1992
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Papers by Robert Bernasconi