Negativity and Politics: Dionysus and Dialectics From Kant to Poststructuralism

283 Pages·2000·1.24 MB·English

by  Diana Coole

NEGATIVITY AND POLITICS
‘This book offers a highly nuanced and productive reading of the
play of negativity, and its link with politics, within the modern and
late-modern continental tradition of political theory, providing new
insights into the likes of Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, Adorno, Merleau-
Ponty, and Kristeva. ... Both the student and scholar of contemporary
philosophy and political theory will find much to engage with, and
learn from, in this brave and ambitious study.’
Keith Ansell Pearson, University of Warwick
Although frequently invoked by philosophers and political theorists, the
theory of negativity has received remarkably little sustained attention.
Negativity and Politics: Dionysus and dialectics from Kant to
poststructuralism is the first full length study of this crucial problematic
within philosophy and political theory. Diana Coole clearly and skilfully
shows how the problem of negativity lies at the heart of philosophical and
political debate. First, she explores the meaning of negativity as it appears in
modern and postmodern thinking. Second, she sets out the significance of
negativity for politics and our understanding of what constitutes the
political.
A key theme of Negativity and Politics is the recurring hostility between
the dialectical use of negativity found in Hegel and running through
Marxism and critical theory, and the Dionysian use of negativity as
developed by Nietzsche and found in important strands of French thought.
Diana Coole shows how the appropriation of negativity in both cases
threatens but also informs our understanding of politics and the political. A
fascinating and bold intervention in political theory and philosophy,
Negativity and Politics will be of interest to all those in politics, philosophy
and contemporary social theory.
Diana Coole is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory and Head of Department
at the Department of Politics, Queen Mary and Westfield College,
University of London. She is the author of Women in Political Theory
(1988; 2nd edn, 1993).

NEGATIVITY AND
POLITICS
Dionysus and dialectics from Kant to
poststructuralism
Diana Coole
London and New York
First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2000 Diana Coole
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coole, Diana H.
Negativity and politics : Dionysus and dialectics from Kant to
poststructuralism / Diana Coole.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Negativity (Philosophy) 2. Political science–Philosophy.
I. Title.
B828.25.C66 2000
149–dc21 99-052690
ISBN 0-203-13135-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17734-7 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-03176-1 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-03177-X (pbk)
CONTENTS
Note on textual sources ix
Acknowledgements x
Introduction: negativity and politics 1
Exploring negativity 1
Pursuing the political 7
1 Negativity and noumena: critical reason at the limit 13
Kant’s transcendental method and the limits of theoretical reason 13
The ambiguities of the subject and the refutation of idealism 22
The divided subject 22
The challenge of scepticism 24
Negativity and noumena 27
Totality and disintegration 35
Conclusion: critical reason and negativity 40
2 Hegel and his critics: dialectics and difference 43
Hegelian dialectics 45
The rhythms of negativity 45
A question of method 51
The undecidability of the Hegelian dialectic 54
Negativity and materialism: the Marxian dialectic 61
From nature to communism: a materialist history 63
The politics of negation 68
Marx’s dialectical method 70
From dialectics to différance 72
3 Nietzsche: negativity as will to power 85
Primordial contradiction 89
v
CONTENTS
Negativity as will to power 93
Cosmology and methodology 97
‘[L]ife itself is will to power’ 103
Man ‘is the sick animal’ 106
Will to power and the political 114
4 Negativity as invisibility: Merleau-Ponty’s dialectical adventures 122
Rationalism and dialectic: the problematic of the negative 124
Nature: a dialectical ontology 128
The phenomenal body and the flesh of the world 129
Perception and the visual field 132
Subject–object: subjectivity, philosophy and language 136
A phenomenology of mind 136
Perception, thinking, are ‘structured as a language’ 137
Phenomenology and hyperdialectics 139
Intersubjectivity: history and politics 141
Humanism and coexistence 142
Towards a philosophy of history 144
Negativity as praxis 147
Subject–subject and subject–object dialectics: Merleau-Ponty and
Habermas 151
5 Subject–object relations again: identity, non-identity and negative
dialectics 156
Materialism and epistemology: the project of a critical theory 158
Dialectic of enlightenment 162
Adorno’s ‘Subject and Object’ 168
‘The Actuality of Philosophy’ 172
From Hegelian dialectics to negative dialectics 180
Conclusion: practising negativity: philosophy and politics 185
6 Subjectivity and the semiotic: gendering negativity 195
A materialist negativity 195
Subjects and objects 195
Freudian energetics 197
Semiotic negativity 205
Negativity and its representation 210
Language, negativity and politics 215
Negativity and sexual difference 218
vi
CONTENTS
The maternal body 219
Negativity and the feminine 221
The mothering subject 223
Feminist politics: the third generation as third-degree negativity 225
Conclusion: politics and negativity 230
Deleuzean interlude 237
Notes 246
Index 268
vii

NOTE ON TEXTUAL SOURCES
I have tried to keep footnotes to a minimum. Because I have made extensive
use of primary texts, I have incorporated the main references into my own
text. These are given as abbreviations followed by page number, in
parentheses. Lists of abbreviations and the bibliographic details of editions
can be found at the beginning of the notes for each chapter. The references
given are for English translations. I have not included a bibliography, but
references to all material that has been explicitly used, plus selected
references to texts of particular relevance to my arguments, are included in
the notes.
ix