Locating Europe: A Figure, a Concept, an Idea?

258 Pages·2021·2.826 MB·English

by  Rodolphe Gasché

LOCATING EUROPE
STUDIES IN CONTINENTAL THOUGHT
John Sallis, editor
Consulting Editors
Robert Bernasconi James Risser
John D. Caputo Dennis J. Schmidt
David Carr Calvin O. Schrag
Edward S. Casey Charles E. Scott
David Farrell Krell Daniela Vallega-Neu
Lenore Langsdorf David Wood
LO C ATIN G
EU ROPE
STUDIES IN CONTINENTAL THOUGHT
John Sallis, editor
A Figure, a Concept, an Idea?
Consulting Editors
James Risser
Dennis J. Schmidt
Calvin O. Schrag
Charles E. Scott
Daniela Vallega-Neu
David Wood
Rodolphe Gasché
IndIana UnIversIty Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.org
© 2021 by Rodolphe Gasché
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First edition 2021
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gasché, Rodolphe, author.
Title: Locating Europe : a figure, a concept, an idea? / Rodolphe Gasché.
Description: First edition. | Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University
   Press, 2021. | Series: Studies in continental thought | Includes
   bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020044839 (print) | LCCN 2020044840 (ebook) | ISBN
   9780253054838 (hardback) | ISBN 9780253054852 (paperback) | ISBN
   9780253054845 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Europe—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC B105.E68 G385 2021 (print) | LCC B105.E68 (ebook) |
   DDC 940.01—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044839
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044840
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xvii
1 Archipelago 1
2 Without a Horizon 12
3 In Light of Light 29
4 The Form of the Concept 49
5 Axial Time 65
6 Eastward Trajectories 87
7 Feeling Anew for the Idea of Europe 110
8 An Idea in the Kantian Sense? 133
9 Responsibility, a Strange Concept 150
10 An Immemorial Remainder:
The Legacy of Europe 168
11 Beyond the Idea of Europe 193
Bibliography 225
Index 233

PREFACE
Even though this book is primarily devoted to phenomenologist
and postphenomenologist thinkers in the second half of the twentieth
century who have made significant philosophical contributions to “Europe”
as a philosophical issue, I wish to begin these prefatory remarks with a bold
statement by a philosopher who not only comes from a different philosoph-
ical tradition but, in her own words, also from a part of Europe whose “ex-
tremism at times brings to light certain deep European roots, which Europe
deliberately conceals.”1 I am referring to the Spanish modernist philosopher
Maria Zambrano.2 La Agonia de Europa, published in 1945 in Buenos Aires,
where she sought refuge after the rise to power of the fascists in Spain, is, in
light of the death that Europe underwent at that time, an inquiry into what
Europe had been. However much she is committed to the Greek heritage,
she is also a deeply, though in many ways, heretical, Christian philosopher.
One of the distinctly original points of Zambrano’s work is, indeed, her
claim that Saint Augustine is “the father of Europe, the main protagonist of
European life.”3 But he, significantly enough, is not a European. He came, as
Zambrano offers, from abroad “in order to nurture Europe by familiarizing
it with the wisdom of forgotten and far away Africa.”4 In other words, the
Christian origin of Europe, rather than something native to Europe, comes
from abroad. However, the figure of Saint Augustine is not just a stand-in
for the Christianity of Europe. On the contrary, he is the main actor of Eu-
rope in that with him a specific conception of Europe takes form. Indeed,
after the death of the ancient world, it is a Christian Europe in which Greek
philosophy and Roman law undergo a resurrection through Christian faith
that, at the same time, transforms this faith itself. What comes into being
with Saint Augustine is something that cannot die, and will always resur-
rect through the amalgamation of the Christian conception of hope with
the Greco-Roman heritage concerning a polis for all human beings here on
Earth. Within the frame of the history of salvation that characterizes Saint
Augustine’s thought, a new way of discovering the subject’s innermost self
is discovered. Indeed, as Zambrano points out, at the transition of antiquity
to modernity, Saint Augustine creates a new genre—the “ confessions”—
aimed at acquiring “knowledge about oneself,” a knowledge that “becomes
vii
viii | Preface
important at that moment at which one wants to be reborn, in which one
wishes to resurrect, not only once, but as often as is necessary in order to
become whole.”5 This new genre is also the form that the subject “Europe”
takes, beginning with Saint Augustine. Its heart is constituted by this unre-
lenting self-reflection and self-critique at the moments of its many deaths,
and which seeks to accomplish a self-transparency so as to be resurrected.
In short, if Saint Augustine is the father of Europe it is because with him
a Europe comes to life that is constituted by rebirth from its many deaths.
According to Zambrano, it is precisely this hope of resurrection at the heart
of Europe, grafted on its Greek and Roman origins, that gives it its Chris-
tian character. To reflect not only on the wealth of its diverse forms and the
multiple styles of European life but also on the decay of these forms and
styles in order to discover what about Europe is “indispensable,” this is, the
Spanish philosopher holds, the way of keeping Europe alive; of bringing it
to life again. She avers, “Europe will live when it gets our mental powers
going.”6 This is the context in which she makes the following statement:
“Europe is not dead, Europe cannot die completely; it decays. For Europe
is perhaps the only thing—in history—that cannot die; it is the only thing
capable of resurrection.”7
In a political and cultural climate such as today’s, when unified Europe
is not only threatened from within by right-wing and populist authoritari-
anisms but from outside as well, by Russia’s aggressive attempt to divide
the European Union and by the current protectionist US administration
that wants if not to dismantle, then at least to weaken it as an integrated
and multilateralist institution, a statement like the above sounds like a de-
luded and chimerical dream. Is it just a coincidence if in North American
academia a similar attempt to get rid of Europe is underway in several re-
spects? It is under attack, first, as far as the shape of the institution of the
humanist university itself is concerned; second, regarding the context of
the present study, in its form of being a mode of thinking that seeks an
intelligibility in which everyone can participate. In academia, this attack is
waged by tribal culturalism. Here, Zambrano’s statement will be judged not
only to be deluded but to be the expression of European arrogance.
In no way do I wish to question the fact that new efforts to include do-
mains and topics hitherto excluded or underrepresented in academic work
have led to signal contributions in scholarship. But the nativist mentality
that more than occasionally is part and parcel of these studies is as dis-
quieting as the concerted political efforts of the illiberal and nationalistic
Preface | ix
forces that seek to undermine Europe’s transnational project. Indeed,
there is a call in a considerable part of North American academia to wall
itself off and to police its boundaries in order to be able to “feel safe” from
concepts and ideas that—because initially they originated in Europe or
came with a demand of universal rational accountability and of respon-
sibility to the other—are judged imperial and to override differences and
particularities. In extreme cases, this is a call to “feel safe” from any other
who might be seen as a threat to one’s identity. Needless to say, in the
context of such a culture of particularism, Zambrano’s statement sounds
completely out of tune.
So why continue to be concerned with Europe, which Hegel, distin-
guishing it from the New World, already characterized as “Old Europe”?8
Why not drop the issue once and for all? Yet, before even beginning to pon-
der such a question it might be appropriate to remind oneself of what the
name Europe stands for. As the title of this book already suggests, rather
than as a geographical, geopolitical, or economic entity, Europe is here being
considered philosophically, as a figure, a concept, or an idea. It is the name
for a cluster of interrelated, at times aporetic, exigencies or injunctions such
as the following: rationality, self-accounting, self-criticism, responsibility
toward the other, freedom, equality (including for the different sexes), jus-
tice, human rights, democracy, and the list goes on. To hold that Europe is a
topic that no longer deserves reflection is to demonstrate a lack of historical
judgment and, ultimately, to dismiss all these ideas and values that make up
the core of the European heritage. By contrast, to reflect on these concepts,
values, and ideas that historically have their origin in Europe, is to reflect
on Europe and to measure it against them; in turn, to consider that the idea
of Europe is still important today is to hold that these concepts, values, and
ideas still matter, not only in relation to Old Europe but also to all parts of
the world without distinction, in fact, more than ever, in a now transna-
tional and multicultural world. But in the context of this philosophical ap-
proach to the question of Europe, it must be recalled that the name Europe
also stands for a distinct mode of thinking, namely philosophical thinking.
In phenomenological thought in particular, to which almost all the analy-
ses in this book are consecrated, Europe as a concept or idea is synony-
mous with rational, scientific, and philosophical thought. But this mode of
thinking is also one that, because of its inherent self-questioning and self-
criticism, never comes to an end. European thinking is not only character-
ized by a methodology that leads to universally verifiable results but also by