Communism: a hypothesis for philosophy, an impossible name for politics?
Balso, Judith.
Philippe Beck's work already guzzles 15 books of poetry, if I am not mistaken ... some of his works, but too few have been translated to english.
Balso, Judith. "The Concepts of Poetry and Reading." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2009.
This presentation leads me to insist upon one first singularity. For Philippe Beck every poem is subordinated to the conception of 'book' as a whole.
Balso, Judith. "The Concepts of Poetry and Reading." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2009.
This crucial link between the elaboration of one single poem and one book, but also between the finished books and the new books coming must be referred to Beck's desire as he describes it in Rude merveilleux ...distinct things in the same manner, not the same thing differently. This desire could be called, according to me of course, Beck's own ethics; his own poets' ethics. The poet assumes here that ... it is good, or right, to the take direction to go to the place where it occurs. There is nothing neither to be announced nor to be promised. So poetry must be a trajectory, a long trip, a whole life trip.
Balso, Judith. "The Concepts of Poetry and Reading." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2009.
The idea of the life as identitical to the progression of the thought is a serious idea. And poetry builds up the road for thought.
Balso, Judith. "The Concepts of Poetry and Reading." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2009.
Philippe Beck says that also in striking terms ... the text is country, in it one's his country. And, the book of poetry is a book of history. So poetry as geography and history of thought. What is at stake is to size, (Ii quote him again) the truth of the time. To copy what in everybody is dense or beating, like an accompanist of the self.
Balso, Judith. "The Concepts of Poetry and Reading." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2009.
In one sense Beck's vision of poetry is deeply democratic. Not at all in the representative meaning of democracy which has become a total deception, pure and simple lie, but in a very particular sense ...
Balso, Judith. "The Concepts of Poetry and Reading." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2009.
I would say the same about the possible relations between philosophy and poetry. According to me, three main positions exist. At least two of them were of great consequences about philosophy itself. I want to speak of course of the Platonic one and of the Heideggerian one. At least twice philosophy decided about what thinking is, what truth is, and what politics should be, in a tight face-to-face with poetry.
Balso, Judith. "Jacques Roubaud. Poetry and Mathematics." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2007.
As you know, maybe, the relationship between poetry and philosophy is inaugural for philosophy ... the true inventor of the philosophy Plato banishes poets from his Republic.
Balso, Judith. "Jacques Roubaud. Poetry and Mathematics." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2007.
The inaugural link between philosophy and poetry is conflictual. Philosophy establishes its own discursivity through its separation from poetry. Plato's conflict with poets is both ontological and political. First of all, he feels that poetry has no ontological capacity. Ontology for Plato is a matter of objects and idea of the object, of appearances and essences. To reach the idea and depart from appearances philosophy has to produce discursive method inspired by mathematical demonstrations. That is why Plato asks everybody who wants to learn philosophy to do philosophy. To be first geometer.
Balso, Judith. "Jacques Roubaud. Poetry and Mathematics." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2007.
According to Plato poetry works with the appearances of the object. It never passes from the object to the ideas of the object. It never reaches the ideas. It only imitates the appearances and appearances are misleading and deceitful; they belong to the world of opinions, they let people live in a world of mistakes. Poetry is made of simulacra false imitations of being .. according to Plato.
Balso, Judith. "Jacques Roubaud. Poetry and Mathematics." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2007.
Beyond ideal objectivity, there is what Plato calls the good or the one which is not an idea, which is according to Plato's expression, beyond substance, beyond ideal beings ... To sum up, in order to pass beyond the givenness of being, discursivity is insufficient.
Balso, Judith. "Jacques Roubaud. Poetry and Mathematics." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2007.
Heidegger's vision is that philosophy has to put an end to metaphysics which has been initiated by Plato. He criticizes the metaphysical dualism of appearance and essence, object and the idea of object and proposes a new vision of being as pure givenness.
Balso, Judith. "Jacques Roubaud. Poetry and Mathematics." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2007.
Poetry, according to him (Heidegger) would have been the shelter of being against its metaphysical forgetting. You see how Heidegger is reversing, here, Plato's vision of poetry. According to him poetry has an eminent ontological capacity ... poetic language is what expresses being, poems are the places where being as pure givenness as presence is hidden.
Balso, Judith. "Jacques Roubaud. Poetry and Mathematics." (Video Lecture). in: European Graduate School. 2007.
Source: European Graduate School (EGS)
