Of Minimal Things: Studies on the Notion of RelationOf Minimal Things is an exploration and reassessment of the philosophical notion of relation. In contrast to the scholastic, ontological conception of relation as a thing of diminished being, this book views relation as the minimal and elemental theme and structure of philosophy. Drawing radical conclusions from the classical understanding of relation as a being-toward-another, it argues that rethinking relation engages the very possibility and limits of philosophical discourse. In the author's studies of Nietzsche and Benjamin, Husserl and Heidegger, Derrida and Blanchot, relation is shown to be central to their thought and to undergo elaborations that escape the ontological, categorial, and formalist ways in which the concept has traditionally been interpreted. Comprehending relation in terms of determination, foundation, mediatization, translation, or communication, these authors are shown to draw out and refine a host of structural implications of the notion that unseat its formalist and categorial conception. Studying the writings of Mallarmé and Kafka, the author argues that rethought from, and in light of the other to which a relation tends, philosophy necessarily opens up to and is implicated in its others, one such possible other being literature. |
Contents
Introduction I | 1 |
Ecce Homo or The Written Body | 17 |
TypeWriting Nietzsches Self | 39 |
Tearing at the Texture | 61 |
Cutting in on Distance | 83 |
Floundering in Determination 105 ཎྜ ཚྭ | 122 |
Canonizing Measures | 141 |
Like the RoseWithout Why | 154 |
IO On the Nonadequate Trait | 195 |
Joining the Text | 221 |
On RePresentation | 242 |
Reading Chiasms | 263 |
A Relation Called Literary | 285 |
The Felicities of Paradox | 309 |
Notes | 347 |
| 375 | |
Other editions - View all
Of Minimal Things: Studies on the Notion of Relation Rodolphe Gasche,Rodolphe Gasché No preview available - 1999 |
Common terms and phrases
already ambiguity Anaximander appears Aristotle aura auratic becomes beginning Benjamin Bestimmung Blanchot body calls canon characterizes chiasm chiastic cognition comportment concealed conceive concept condition of possibility constituted contradictions Dasein death determination dialectical difference discourse distinction double Ecce Homo essay essential eternal return experience finitude Friedrich Nietzsche function fundamental Hegel Heidegger writes Heidegger's hence human Husserl hysteron proteron insofar interpretation Jacques Derrida legein linguistic literary literature logic logos Mallarmé Martin Heidegger Maurice Blanchot meaning metaphysics metron minimal thing modalities mode Nature of Language negation Nietzsche Nietzsche's notion object ontological origin originary perhaps phenomenology Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe philosophy poetry precisely present present-at-hand presupposes primordial priori question reading reference Reiner Schürmann relation repetition representation Schürmann sense simply singular speak Stimmung structure sublation textual thinking thought tion trait trans transcendental translation unity University Press Wagner Walter Benjamin Warminski whole word Zarathustra zigzag