Freedom from the Free Will: On Kafka’s Laughter

214 Pages·2016·3.14 MB·English

by  Dimitris Vardoulakis

Freedom from the Free Will
SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy
—————
Dennis J. Schmidt, editor
Freedom from the Free Will
On Kafka’s Laughter
DIMITRIS VARDOULAKIS
Cover art by Lita Cabellut / “Franz Kafka” / 280 (cid:61) 200 cm / mixed media on canvas
Portrait of Human Knowledge 2012 / Photography: Studio Tromp
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Vardoulakis, Dimitris, author.
Title: Freedom from the free will : on Kafka's laughter / Dimitris Vardoulakis.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2016. | Series:
SUNY series in contemporary continental philosophy | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016005982 | ISBN 9781438462394 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781438462417 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Kafka, Franz, 1883–1924—Criticism and interpretation. |
Kafka, Franz, 1883–1924—Humor. | Liberty in literature. | Free will and
determinism in literature.
Classification: LCC PT2621.A26 Z957 2016 | DDC 833/.912—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016005982
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Lukás

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Referencing Kafka’s Works xi
Preamble: Kafka’s Laughter xiii
1. Kafka’s Cages: Laughter and the Free Will 1
Plots of Confinement and the Kafkaesque Laughter 1
The Separation of Freedom and Unfreedom: Augustine’s
Invention of the Free Will 3
Freedom From: Negative and Positive Freedom 7
Laughter and Freedom: On Kafka’s Political Technique 15
The Cage and Its Relations: Laughter, Freedom, Ontology 18
2. The Abrahamic Laughter: The Topography of Freedom in
“The Judgment” and The Metamorphosis 27
Abrahamic Laughter: Between the Theological
and the Political 27
Who Is Gustav Blenkelt? The Two Interpretations 31
The Transformation of the Ideal in “The Judgment”:
The Primacy of the Theologico-Political 37
“The world of freedom” and Its Essential Fault:
Blanchot’s Kafka 45
The Essential Transformation: Laughter in
The Metamorphosis 49
3. The Return of the Body: The Ethics of Laughter 57
Ethical Freedom: Levinas’s Critique of the Free Will 57
Ethical Laughter: The Nature Theater of Oklahoma 61
viii Contents
Regaining the Power to Say “One”: “A Report to
an Academy” 66
The Other’s Laughter: “A Hunger Artist” 71
“The fall is the proof of our freedom” 75
4. The Law of Freedom: Reading The Trial through Spinoza 81
A Cage without Walls: Kafka and Biopolitics 81
Spinoza’s Ethical Laughter: The Empty Law of the
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus 88
Empty Law without Truth: The Priest’s Discourse and
Existential Torment 93
The Laughter of Truth: Josef K.’s Hesitation 99
Agamben’s Antinomianism: The Biopolitical Return
of Theology 106
5. Executing Violence: The Drama of Power in
“In the Penal Colony” 115
Two Executions: The Spectacle of Power 115
The Death Penalty and Sovereignty 118
The Tragedy of Modern Sovereignty and the
Existential Drama of Biopolitics 121
The Economy of Substitution: Death and the Free Will 123
Generalized Violence as Ontology: Mirbeau’s
The Torture Garden 131
The Theater of Laughter: Secondary Characters
Center Stage! 134
Toward an Ontology of Laughter: An Agonistic Economy
of Freedom 138
Postscript: A Triple or a Single Will? 145
Notes 149
Bibliography 177
Index 187
Acknowledgments
There are several people to thank for accompanying me in the writing of
this book. There are, first, my students at the Western Sydney University,
where I have taught the material contained in this book three times, in
2009, 2011, and 2014. I would particularly like to thank Norma Lam-Saw
and Aleksandra Ilic for reading and commenting on chapter 4. I was
especially lucky to have excellent teaching assistants while delivering these
courses. I single out here Chris Conti and Hal Ginges, who produced their
own articles in response to the material taught in the course. Thanks also
to Mridula Chakraborty, Helen Koukoutsis, and Simon Fleming.
I am in the enviable position of being surrounded by intellectu-
ally stimulating colleagues whom I regard at the same time as friends.
For discussions, intellectual stimulation, and for “being there,” I’d like to
thank Diego Bubbio and Charles Barbour, John Hadley and Jess Whyte,
Anthony Uhlmann and Peter Hutchings, Alex Ling and Sabrina Achilles,
and Mark Kelly and Lorrain Sim.
Over the years, I organized two Sydney Seminars for the Arts and
Philosophy on Kafka. I am grateful to the Library of New South Wales
for hosting the seminar, and to ABC RN for broadcasts related to the
seminars. The first was seminar 14, titled “Kafka’s Cages,” which took
place on July 3, 2009. The participants were Kiarina Kordela and Chris
Fleming. The second was seminar 17, “Kafka and Philosophy,” which took
place on February 9, 2012. The participants were Henry Sussman, Paul
Alberts, and Chris Conti.
In addition, I have learned a lot from all the colleagues who col-
laborated on the volume Freedom and Confinement in Modernity: Kafka’s
Cages (New York: Palgrave, 2011). I am particularly indebted to Kiarina
Kordela, my coeditor for this volume and the fiercest interlocutor I have
had the fortune to encounter.

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