This book discusses the relevance of philosophy courses within the undergraduate curriculum as in... more This book discusses the relevance of philosophy courses within the undergraduate curriculum as integral to the self-formation that is at the heart of a liberal education. The objective is to provide a historically layered view of what it can still mean to study for its own sake.
The elective university classroom is important because the course of study is chosen out of personal interest and enthusiasm, as opposed to being primarily governed by predetermined disciplinary objectives. It engages the student’s mind directly and freely, and counters the overly specialized minds favoured by the contemporary university as well as the commodification of its degrees.
The discussion builds on the distinction put forward by Raymond Williams between a dominant culture (in this case, university study as contributing to research and/or marketable degrees) and alternative and/or oppositional cultures that have both residual and emergent dimensions. The elective stream of university study is treated as alternative and oppositional to the dominant culture.
The elective university classroom is examined as a combination of a classroom, students, texts, and professors. Each element is explored in terms of its alternative/residual significance as illustrated through the history of philosophy: the classroom and students through the life and death of Socrates; texts through the origins of the university in medieval scholasticism; the professor in the Humboldtian reform of the university at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Berlin.
This work underscores the need to examine history philosophically to better appreciate our free e... more This work underscores the need to examine history philosophically to better appreciate our free engagement with a changing world. Linking a conception of ourselves as free beings to the historical process was of central importance to the classical speculative philosophies of history of the nineteenth century, most notably Hegel's. Michel Foucault's work is often taken to be the antithesis of this kind of speculative approach.
This book argues that Foucault, on the contrary, like Hegel, sees freedom as tied to the self-movement of thought as it realizes and shapes the world. Unlike Hegel, however, he does not see in that self-movement the process of Spirit reconciling itself with the world and thereby realizing itself as freedom. Rather, he sees in the freedom at the core of the self-movement of thought a possible threat around which that movement consolidates itself and gives shape to the world.
Ethics and Time in the Philosophy of History: A Cross-Cultural Approach, edited by Natan Elgabsi and Bennett Gilbert, London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 25-39., 2023
All of us, historians included, grow up in particular places, and are shaped by the experiences a... more All of us, historians included, grow up in particular places, and are shaped by the experiences and events that shaped those places themselves, forming in each of us distinct sensibilities to the world. These sensibilities in turn give shape to the questions we pose not only in terms of the present configurations of that world, and the ethical lives they promote, but in terms that speak from the past if only we attend to them.
Speculative vs. critical philosophy of history; Substantive vs. analytical; History-asa-whole vs.... more Speculative vs. critical philosophy of history; Substantive vs. analytical; History-asa-whole vs. the whole of history; Past-present-future; Meaning, Pattern, Purpose, and Value of history; Res gestae Introduction
A reconsideration of speculative approaches to history should begin where history, in its etymological sense of "inquiry" typically begins, in the commitment to study, still largely within the disciplinary demarcations of the university. "Philosophy of history" in that sense may indeed find itself pulled between two distinct disciplinary engagements, where history either becomes interesting for distinctly philosophical reasons or philosophy (reflection) arises out of historical considerations. Understanding this context may help us to see why speculative approaches remain relevant to this twin pull, even as they are largely marginalized within official programs of academic study.
Speculative philosophy of history is concerned with history as a whole, which includes explicitly... more Speculative philosophy of history is concerned with history as a whole, which includes explicitly relating the past to the present and the present to the future. It proposes a philosophical appreciation of the importance of history in our lives and in our self-knowledge, but where history is understood not only as revealing to us what is past, but also as a shaping of the present, which itself sets the conditions for future developments. The notion of history-as-a-whole I propose to call, for the purposes of discussion, the past-present-future complex and it is this complex that is the explicit concern of the speculative philosopher of history. The speculative philosopher of history is never far from the historian and her work, whose concern is to elucidate the past and reveal its intelligibility, and in that sense, the past remains the privileged “object” of history, precisely because the past, as past, needs to be re-presented in order to be known, and is known through its re-pres...
Práticas da História, n.o 11 (2020): 181-198, 2020
This essay explores Chakrabarty’s introduction of the expression “provincializing Europe” as a pr... more This essay explores Chakrabarty’s introduction of the expression “provincializing Europe” as a privileged way of understanding history in modern conditions. The theoretical challenge it presents is to make sense of a commitment both to universality and to the particularity of its forms of expression through an appeal to history. While Chakrabarty invokes Marx and Heidegger in order to meet this challenge, developing a distinction between a (universal) History 1 and (particular) History 2s, I argue that Hegel’s philosophical history – as recently discussed by Terry Pinkard – provides a better account of how to theorize the way universality particularizes itself in individual efforts to instantiate it (something that Chakrabarty’s own case studies seem to illustrate). Hegel’s work seems especially relevant when we consider how he can be seen to be explicitly “provincializing Europe” in his jurisdictional concern with the universal claim of justice as freedom.
The Clean Place: Honouring Indigenous Spiritual Roots of Turtle Island, edited by Michael Hankard. Vernon: JCharleton Publishing., 2019
My contribution to a volume edited by Michael Hankard on the importance of Indigenous spiritualit... more My contribution to a volume edited by Michael Hankard on the importance of Indigenous spirituality. I do not pretend to speak for, or from, such a spirituality, but I do want to record my acknowledgement of its significance for understanding our shared world.
Review of Ethan Kleinberg, Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past. Stanford:... more Review of Ethan Kleinberg, Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-5036-0338-7 Published on the International Network for the Theory of History (INTH) website – Review section. https://www.inth.ugent.be/content/haunting-history-deconstructive-approach-past
In this article, I argue that we can best appreciate those works that appeal to the notion of " p... more In this article, I argue that we can best appreciate those works that appeal to the notion of " political genealogy " as distinct forms of study by situating them between moral enquiry and political theory. They draw from moral enquiry the concern with how we ought to live but are not themselves prescriptive. They address the political constitution of our social lives but not as a theoretical object. Reversing the relation between enquiry and truth, political genealogies are historiographical studies motivated by forms of resistance that expose the will to truth of the present ordering of discourses, thereby releasing the hold such orderings have on what we think, say, and do to their ongoing agonistic relations.
This book discusses the relevance of philosophy courses within the undergraduate curriculum as in... more This book discusses the relevance of philosophy courses within the undergraduate curriculum as integral to the self-formation that is at the heart of a liberal education. The objective is to provide a historically layered view of what it can still mean to study for its own sake.
The elective university classroom is important because the course of study is chosen out of personal interest and enthusiasm, as opposed to being primarily governed by predetermined disciplinary objectives. It engages the student’s mind directly and freely, and counters the overly specialized minds favoured by the contemporary university as well as the commodification of its degrees.
The discussion builds on the distinction put forward by Raymond Williams between a dominant culture (in this case, university study as contributing to research and/or marketable degrees) and alternative and/or oppositional cultures that have both residual and emergent dimensions. The elective stream of university study is treated as alternative and oppositional to the dominant culture.
The elective university classroom is examined as a combination of a classroom, students, texts, and professors. Each element is explored in terms of its alternative/residual significance as illustrated through the history of philosophy: the classroom and students through the life and death of Socrates; texts through the origins of the university in medieval scholasticism; the professor in the Humboldtian reform of the university at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Berlin.
This work underscores the need to examine history philosophically to better appreciate our free e... more This work underscores the need to examine history philosophically to better appreciate our free engagement with a changing world. Linking a conception of ourselves as free beings to the historical process was of central importance to the classical speculative philosophies of history of the nineteenth century, most notably Hegel's. Michel Foucault's work is often taken to be the antithesis of this kind of speculative approach.
This book argues that Foucault, on the contrary, like Hegel, sees freedom as tied to the self-movement of thought as it realizes and shapes the world. Unlike Hegel, however, he does not see in that self-movement the process of Spirit reconciling itself with the world and thereby realizing itself as freedom. Rather, he sees in the freedom at the core of the self-movement of thought a possible threat around which that movement consolidates itself and gives shape to the world.
Ethics and Time in the Philosophy of History: A Cross-Cultural Approach, edited by Natan Elgabsi and Bennett Gilbert, London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 25-39., 2023
All of us, historians included, grow up in particular places, and are shaped by the experiences a... more All of us, historians included, grow up in particular places, and are shaped by the experiences and events that shaped those places themselves, forming in each of us distinct sensibilities to the world. These sensibilities in turn give shape to the questions we pose not only in terms of the present configurations of that world, and the ethical lives they promote, but in terms that speak from the past if only we attend to them.
Speculative vs. critical philosophy of history; Substantive vs. analytical; History-asa-whole vs.... more Speculative vs. critical philosophy of history; Substantive vs. analytical; History-asa-whole vs. the whole of history; Past-present-future; Meaning, Pattern, Purpose, and Value of history; Res gestae Introduction
A reconsideration of speculative approaches to history should begin where history, in its etymological sense of "inquiry" typically begins, in the commitment to study, still largely within the disciplinary demarcations of the university. "Philosophy of history" in that sense may indeed find itself pulled between two distinct disciplinary engagements, where history either becomes interesting for distinctly philosophical reasons or philosophy (reflection) arises out of historical considerations. Understanding this context may help us to see why speculative approaches remain relevant to this twin pull, even as they are largely marginalized within official programs of academic study.
Speculative philosophy of history is concerned with history as a whole, which includes explicitly... more Speculative philosophy of history is concerned with history as a whole, which includes explicitly relating the past to the present and the present to the future. It proposes a philosophical appreciation of the importance of history in our lives and in our self-knowledge, but where history is understood not only as revealing to us what is past, but also as a shaping of the present, which itself sets the conditions for future developments. The notion of history-as-a-whole I propose to call, for the purposes of discussion, the past-present-future complex and it is this complex that is the explicit concern of the speculative philosopher of history. The speculative philosopher of history is never far from the historian and her work, whose concern is to elucidate the past and reveal its intelligibility, and in that sense, the past remains the privileged “object” of history, precisely because the past, as past, needs to be re-presented in order to be known, and is known through its re-pres...
Práticas da História, n.o 11 (2020): 181-198, 2020
This essay explores Chakrabarty’s introduction of the expression “provincializing Europe” as a pr... more This essay explores Chakrabarty’s introduction of the expression “provincializing Europe” as a privileged way of understanding history in modern conditions. The theoretical challenge it presents is to make sense of a commitment both to universality and to the particularity of its forms of expression through an appeal to history. While Chakrabarty invokes Marx and Heidegger in order to meet this challenge, developing a distinction between a (universal) History 1 and (particular) History 2s, I argue that Hegel’s philosophical history – as recently discussed by Terry Pinkard – provides a better account of how to theorize the way universality particularizes itself in individual efforts to instantiate it (something that Chakrabarty’s own case studies seem to illustrate). Hegel’s work seems especially relevant when we consider how he can be seen to be explicitly “provincializing Europe” in his jurisdictional concern with the universal claim of justice as freedom.
The Clean Place: Honouring Indigenous Spiritual Roots of Turtle Island, edited by Michael Hankard. Vernon: JCharleton Publishing., 2019
My contribution to a volume edited by Michael Hankard on the importance of Indigenous spiritualit... more My contribution to a volume edited by Michael Hankard on the importance of Indigenous spirituality. I do not pretend to speak for, or from, such a spirituality, but I do want to record my acknowledgement of its significance for understanding our shared world.
Review of Ethan Kleinberg, Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past. Stanford:... more Review of Ethan Kleinberg, Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017. ISBN: 978-1-5036-0338-7 Published on the International Network for the Theory of History (INTH) website – Review section. https://www.inth.ugent.be/content/haunting-history-deconstructive-approach-past
In this article, I argue that we can best appreciate those works that appeal to the notion of " p... more In this article, I argue that we can best appreciate those works that appeal to the notion of " political genealogy " as distinct forms of study by situating them between moral enquiry and political theory. They draw from moral enquiry the concern with how we ought to live but are not themselves prescriptive. They address the political constitution of our social lives but not as a theoretical object. Reversing the relation between enquiry and truth, political genealogies are historiographical studies motivated by forms of resistance that expose the will to truth of the present ordering of discourses, thereby releasing the hold such orderings have on what we think, say, and do to their ongoing agonistic relations.
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Books by Real Fillion
The elective university classroom is important because the course of study is chosen out of personal interest and enthusiasm, as opposed to being primarily governed by predetermined disciplinary objectives. It engages the student’s mind directly and freely, and counters the overly specialized minds favoured by the contemporary university as well as the commodification of its degrees.
The discussion builds on the distinction put forward by Raymond Williams between a dominant culture (in this case, university study as contributing to research and/or marketable degrees) and alternative and/or oppositional cultures that have both residual and emergent dimensions. The elective stream of university study is treated as alternative and oppositional to the dominant culture.
The elective university classroom is examined as a combination of a classroom, students, texts, and professors. Each element is explored in terms of its alternative/residual significance as illustrated through the history of philosophy: the classroom and students through the life and death of Socrates; texts through the origins of the university in medieval scholasticism; the professor in the Humboldtian reform of the university at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Berlin.
This book argues that Foucault, on the contrary, like Hegel, sees freedom as tied to the self-movement of thought as it realizes and shapes the world. Unlike Hegel, however, he does not see in that self-movement the process of Spirit reconciling itself with the world and thereby realizing itself as freedom. Rather, he sees in the freedom at the core of the self-movement of thought a possible threat around which that movement consolidates itself and gives shape to the world.
For a preview:
https://books.google.ca/books/about/Foucault_and_the_Indefinite_Work_of_Free.html?id=82ukDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Papers by Real Fillion
A reconsideration of speculative approaches to history should begin where history, in its etymological sense of "inquiry" typically begins, in the commitment to study, still largely within the disciplinary demarcations of the university. "Philosophy of history" in that sense may indeed find itself pulled between two distinct disciplinary engagements, where history either becomes interesting for distinctly philosophical reasons or philosophy (reflection) arises out of historical considerations. Understanding this context may help us to see why speculative approaches remain relevant to this twin pull, even as they are largely marginalized within official programs of academic study.
https://www.inth.ugent.be/content/review-and-discussion-history-times-unprecedented-change-theory-21st-century
https://www.inth.ugent.be/content/work-history-constructivism-and-politics-past
Published on the International Network for the Theory of History (INTH) website – Review section. https://www.inth.ugent.be/content/haunting-history-deconstructive-approach-past
The elective university classroom is important because the course of study is chosen out of personal interest and enthusiasm, as opposed to being primarily governed by predetermined disciplinary objectives. It engages the student’s mind directly and freely, and counters the overly specialized minds favoured by the contemporary university as well as the commodification of its degrees.
The discussion builds on the distinction put forward by Raymond Williams between a dominant culture (in this case, university study as contributing to research and/or marketable degrees) and alternative and/or oppositional cultures that have both residual and emergent dimensions. The elective stream of university study is treated as alternative and oppositional to the dominant culture.
The elective university classroom is examined as a combination of a classroom, students, texts, and professors. Each element is explored in terms of its alternative/residual significance as illustrated through the history of philosophy: the classroom and students through the life and death of Socrates; texts through the origins of the university in medieval scholasticism; the professor in the Humboldtian reform of the university at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Berlin.
This book argues that Foucault, on the contrary, like Hegel, sees freedom as tied to the self-movement of thought as it realizes and shapes the world. Unlike Hegel, however, he does not see in that self-movement the process of Spirit reconciling itself with the world and thereby realizing itself as freedom. Rather, he sees in the freedom at the core of the self-movement of thought a possible threat around which that movement consolidates itself and gives shape to the world.
For a preview:
https://books.google.ca/books/about/Foucault_and_the_Indefinite_Work_of_Free.html?id=82ukDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
A reconsideration of speculative approaches to history should begin where history, in its etymological sense of "inquiry" typically begins, in the commitment to study, still largely within the disciplinary demarcations of the university. "Philosophy of history" in that sense may indeed find itself pulled between two distinct disciplinary engagements, where history either becomes interesting for distinctly philosophical reasons or philosophy (reflection) arises out of historical considerations. Understanding this context may help us to see why speculative approaches remain relevant to this twin pull, even as they are largely marginalized within official programs of academic study.
https://www.inth.ugent.be/content/review-and-discussion-history-times-unprecedented-change-theory-21st-century
https://www.inth.ugent.be/content/work-history-constructivism-and-politics-past
Published on the International Network for the Theory of History (INTH) website – Review section. https://www.inth.ugent.be/content/haunting-history-deconstructive-approach-past