How to Think About Catastrophe: Toward a Theory of Enlightened Doomsaying PDF
Preview How to Think About Catastrophe: Toward a Theory of Enlightened Doomsaying
How to Think About Catastrophe studies in violence, mimesis, and culture SERIES EDITOR William A. Johnsen The Studies in Violence, Mimesis, and Culture Series examines issues related to the nexus of violence and religion in the genesis and maintenance of culture. It furthers the agenda of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, an international association that draws inspiration from René Girard’s mimetic hypothesis on the relationship between violence and religion, elaborated in a stunning series of books written over a period of more than forty years. Readers interested in this area of research can also look to the association’s journal, Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture. ADVISORY BOARD René Girard†, Stanford University Raymund Schwager†, University of Innsbruck Andrew McKenna, Loyola University of Chicago James Williams, Syracuse University EDITORIAL BOARD Rebecca Adams, Independent Scholar Hans Jensen, Aarhus University, Denmark Jeremiah L. Alberg, International Christian Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California, University, Tokyo, Japan Santa Barbara Mark Anspach, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Grant Kaplan, Saint Louis University Sociales, Paris Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Shaw University Pierpaolo Antonello, University of Cambridge Michael Kirwan, SJ, Trinity College Dublin Ann Astell, University of Notre Dame Paisley Livingston, Lingnan University, Hong Kong Cesáreo Bandera, University of North Carolina Charles Mabee, Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Maria Stella Barberi, Università di Messina Detroit Alexei Bodrov, St. Andrew’s Biblical Theological Józef Niewiadomski, Universität Innsbruck Institute, Moscow Wolfgang Palaver, Universität Innsbruck João Cezar de Castro Rocha, Universidade Ángel Jorge Barahona Plaza, Universidad Francisco do Estado do Rio de Janeiro de Vitoria Benoît Chantre, L’Association Recherches Petra Steinmair-Pösel, KPH Edith Stein Mimétiques Martha Reineke, University of Northern Iowa Diana Culbertson, Kent State University Julia Robinson Moore, University of North Paul Dumouchel, Université du Québec à Montréal Carolina at Charlotte Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Stanford University, École Tobin Siebers†, University of Michigan Polytechnique Thee Smith, Emory University Giuseppe Fornari, Università degli studi di Verona Mark Wallace, Swarthmore College Eric Gans, University of California, Los Angeles Nikolaus Wandinger, University of Innsbruck, Sandor Goodhart, Purdue University Austria Robert Hamerton-Kelly†, Stanford University Eugene Webb, University of Washington How to Think About Catastrophe Toward a Theory of Enlightened Doomsaying Jean-Pierre Dupuy Translated by M. B. DeBevoise and Mark R. Anspach Michigan State University Press · East Lansing English translation copyright © 2023 by Michigan State University; Pour un catastrophisme éclairé: Quand l’impossible est certain copyright © 2002 by Éditions du Seuil p Michigan State University Press East Lansing, Michigan 48823-5245 Printed and bound in the United States of America. 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Names: Dupuy, Jean-Pierre, 1941– author. | DeBevoise, M. B., translator. | Anspach, Mark Rogin, 1959– translator. Title: How to think about catastrophe : toward a theory of enlightened doomsaying / Jean-Pierre Dupuy ; translated by M. B. DeBevoise and Mark R. Anspach. Other titles: Pour un catastrophisme éclairé. English Description: First. | East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, [2022] | Series: Studies in violence, mimesis, and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021056064 | ISBN 9781611864366 (paperback) | ISBN 9781609177065 (pdf) | ISBN 9781628954746 (epub) | ISBN 9781628964684 (kindle) Subjects: LCSH: Catastrophical, The Classification: LCC BD375 D8713 2022 | DDC 133.3—dc23/eng/20211202 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056064 Cover design by David Drummond, Salamander Design, www.salamanderhill.com. Cover art: Richard Ernest Eurich, Jonah and the Whale, c.1980 (oil on canvas, 50.8x61 cms). Photo © Christie’s Images / © Estate of Richard Eurich. All rights reserved 2022 / Bridgeman Images. Visit Michigan State University Press at www.msupress.org So the Platonic Year Whirls out new right and wrong, Whirls in the old instead; All men are dancers and their tread Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong. —W. B. Yeats, The Tower This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper —T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men Contents ix Prologue. A Time of Catastrophes PART ONE | Risk and Fatality 3 chapter 1. A Singular Point of View 13 chapter 2. Sacrifice, Counterproductivity, and Ethics, or the Logic of the Detour 25 chapter 3. Fate, Risk, and Responsibility 37 chapter 4. The Autonomy of Technology 47 chapter 5. Doomsaying on Trial PART TWO | The Limits of Economic Rationality 63 chapter 6. Precaution, Between Risk and Uncertainty 75 chapter 7. The Veil of Ignorance and Moral Luck 83 chapter 8. Knowing Is Not Believing PART THREE | The Limits of Moral Philosophy and the Necessity of Metaphysics 97 chapter 9. Memory of the Future 105 chapter 10. Predicting the Future in Order to Change It (Jonah vs. Jonas) 115 chapter 11. Projected Time and Occurring Time 131 chapter 12. The Rationality of Doomsaying 143 notes 161 index PROLOGUE A Time of Catastrophes In order to picture to itself an unknown situation the imagination borrows elements that are already familiar and, for that reason, cannot picture it. But the sensibility, even in its most physical form, receives, like the wake of a thunderbolt, the original and for long indelible imprint of the novel event. —Marcel Proust, The Fugitive This book has its origins in a talk I gave on March 1, 2001, at the French economic planning agency, the Commissariat Général du Plan, as the inaugural lecture of a seminar on new risks facing France and other advanced industrialized societies. Under the circum- stances, I might have been expected to strike the managerial tone usually thought to be appropriate to a gathering of business leaders and senior government officials. Out of conviction, however, rather than any desire to shock my listeners, I resolved to adopt the attitude of a doomsayer. The reader will see exactly what I mean by this in the pages that follow. At all events, my remarks stimulated debate. Urged to expand the text of my talk into a book, I drew upon the course of lectures I had prepared for a class ix
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