41 found
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  1. Spinoza, the Epicurean: Authority and Utility in Materialism.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2020 - Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
    Through a radical new reading of the Theological Political Treatise, Dimitris Vardoulakis argues that the major source of Spinoza’s materialism is the Epicurean tradition that re-emerges in modernity when manuscripts by Epicurus and Lucretius are rediscovered. This reconsideration of Spinoza’s political project, set within a historical context, lays the ground for an alternative genealogy of materialism. Central to this new reading of Spinoza are the theory of practical judgment (understood as the calculation of utility) and its implications for a theory (...)
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  2. Autoimmunities: Derrida, Democracy and Political Theology.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2018 - Research in Phenomenology 48 (1):29-56.
    I argue that a distinction between three autoimmunities is implied in Derrida’s _Rogues_. These are the autoimmunities of democracy as a regime of power, of democracy to come and of sovereignty. I extrapolate the relations between three different autoimmunities using the figure of the internal enemy in order to argue for an agonistic conception of democracy.
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  3. Sovereignty and Its Other: Toward the Dejustification of Violence.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2013 - New York: Fordham University Press.
    Dimitris Vardoulakis asks how it is possible to think of a politics that is not commensurate with sovereignty. For such a politics, he argues, sovereignty is defined not in terms of the exception but as the different ways in which violence is justified. Vardoulakis shows how it is possible to deconstruct the various justifications of violence. Such dejustifications can take place only by presupposing an other to sovereignty, which Vardoulakis identifies with agonistic democracy. In doing so, Sovereignty and Its Other (...)
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  4. Stasis: Beyond Political Theology?Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2009 - Cultural Critique 73:125-47.
    Vardoulakis examines the concept of political theology in terms of the ancient greek term "stasis." The term "stasis" means both mobility and immobility. Vardoulakis explores these seemingly contradictory meanings generate a notion of agonistic politics that challenges perceived ideas about political theology.
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  5. Spinoza Now.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2011 - In Spinoza Now. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
    The Introduction argues for the significance of Spinoza in contemporary philosophical, social and political debates. It also presents the main arguments presented by the contributors to this volume.
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  6. Hobbes or Spinoza? Two Epicurean Versions of the Social Contract.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2020 - InCircolo - Rivista di Filosofia E Culture 9:186-210.
    I argue that both Hobbes and Spinoza rely on a pivot epicurean idea to form their conceptions of the social contract, namely, the idea that the human acts by calculating their utility. However, Hobbes and Spinoza employ this starting principle in different ways. For Hobbes, this only makes sense if the calculation of utility is regulated by fear as the primary political emotion. For Spinoza, there is no primary emotion and the entire construction of the social contract relies on how (...)
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  7. Stasis Before the State: Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2018 - New York: Fordham University Press.
    How is political change possible when even the most radical revolutions only reproduce sovereign power? Via the analysis of the contradictory meanings of stasis, Vardoulakis argues that the opportunity for political change is located in the agonistic relation between sovereignty and democracy and thus demands a radical rethinking.
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  8. Spinoza Now.Dimitris Vardoulakis (ed.) - 2011 - Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
    This collection, the first broadly interdisciplinary volume dealing with Spinozan thought, asserts the importance of Spinoza’s philosophy of immanence for contemporary cultural and philosophical debates.
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  9. Balibar and Transindividuality.Mark G. E. Kelly & Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2018 - Australasian Philosophical Review 2 (1):1-4.
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  10. Conflict as the Quasi-Transcendental: Or, Why Spinoza’s Theologcal Political Treatise Matters for Transindividuality.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2018 - Australasian Philosophical Review 2 (1):107-112.
    Vardoulakis explores what Balibar means by designating transindividuality as ‘quasi-transcendental.’ He does so by turning to Balibar’s readings of Part IV of Spinoza’s Ethics, the Part that is central to Balibar’s understanding of the transindividual in Spinoza. Vardoulakis shows that the quasi-transcendental in Spinoza can only be a form of agonistic relations if his political theory in the Theological Political Treatise is to account for political change.
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  11. The Doppelgänger: literature's philosophy.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2010 - New York: Fordham University Press.
    The Doppelgänger or Double presents literature as the “double” of philosophy. There are historical reasons for this. The genesis of the Doppelgänger is literature’s response to the philosophical focus on subjectivity. The Doppelgänger was coined by the German author Jean Paul in 1796 as a critique of Idealism’s assertion of subjective autonomy, individuality and human agency. This critique prefigures post-War extrapolations of the subject as decentred. From this perspective, the Doppelgänger has a “family resemblance” to current conceptualizations of subjectivity. It (...)
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  12. Spectres of Duty: The Politics of Silence in Ibsen’s Ghosts.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2009 - Orbis Litterarum 64 (1):50–74.
    The article examines the concept of duty with reference to Ibsen's play "Ghosts." It offers a brief genealogy of duty while linking the concept of duty to a deconstructive approach.
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  13. Kafka’s Empty Law: Laughter and Freedom in The Trial.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2013 - In Brendan Moran & Carlos Salzani (eds.), Kafka and Philosophy. pp. 33-52.
    Through an analysis of Kafka's "Before the Law," Vardoulakis considers both various philosophical responses to Kafka's story and philosophical conceptions of the law. In particular, Vardoulakis suggests an affinity between Kafka and Spinoza's conceptions of the law.
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  14. Authority and the Law: The Primacy of Justification over Legitimacy in Spinoza.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2018 - In Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela (eds.), Spinoza’s Authority Volume II: Resistance and Power in the Political Treatises. Bloomsbury. pp. 45-66.
    Vardoulakis argues that the notion of law as developed in chapter 4 of Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise does not rely on a notion of legitimacy but rather on how authority justifies itself. To demonstrate this point, Vardoulakis analyzes closely the example of Adam and the Fall used by Spinoza in that chapter of the Treatise.
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  15. Radicalizing Radical Negativity: On Oliver Marchart’s Thinking Antagonism.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2020 - Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics 3 (22):581-605.
    Oliver Marchart constructs an elaborate ontologization of the political that builds on theories developed by the Essex School while relying on Heideggerianism and Hegelianism. This original thought is a powerful and convincing attempt to think the ontology of the political without lapsing into a celebration of essentialist grounding or complete groundlessness, which are equally metaphysical and mutually supporting positions. Tensions arise within Marchart’s own thought when the notion of instrumentality appears to be inscribed solely on the side of politics or (...)
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  16. ‘The Fall is the proof of our freedom’: Mediated Freedom in Kafka.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2011 - In Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela (eds.), Freedom and Confinement in Modernity: Kafka’s Cages. New York, NY, USA: Palgrave. pp. 87-106.
    The paper suggests that Kafka's writings offer a conception of freedom that is incompatible with the free will and it is not reducible to either compatibilism or incompatibilism.
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  17. Not life, but bad literature.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2013 - New Philosopher Magazine.
    In Shame and Necessity, Bernard Williams recounts that colleagues often ask why he analyses literary texts – why can’t he use examples from “real life”? He responds that “it is a perfectly good question, and it has a short answer: what philosophers will lay before themselves and their readers as an alternative to literature will not be life, but bad literature.” This anecdote contains an argument that would be readily embraced by any proponent of “post-structuralism.” Namely, it suggests that no (...)
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  18. The Ends of Stasis: Spinoza, Reader of Agamben.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2012 - In Clare Monagle & Dimitris Vardoulakis (eds.), The Politics of Nothing: On Sovereignty. Routledge. pp. 51-62.
    Vardoulakis explores the connection between sovereignty and stasis in the work of Agamben. It considers some of Agamben's most famous formulations of sovereignty, such in Homo Sacer. But the focus is on some seemingly obscure references to Spinoza in Agamben's works. Vardoulakis argues that these references reveal the logic of Agamben's political philosophy -- including a politics of reading that influences his account of the philosophical tradition.
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  19. Equality and Power: Spinoza’s Reformulation of the Aristotelian Tradition of Egalitarianism.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2018 - In Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela (eds.), Spinoza’s Authority Volume I: Resistance and Power in Ethics. pp. 11-31.
    Vardoulakis argues that the concept of equality is determined by the distinction between three different types of equality in Aristotle. He then shows how Spinoza overcomes the Aristotelian conception by determining equality through a notion of differential power.
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  20. Solon’s Ekstatic Strategy: Stasis and the Subject/ Citizen.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2017 - Cultural Critique 96:71-100.
    The articles considers how the "death of the subject" influences ways in which we understand the aestheticization of the political." It explores how Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility" can contribute to a conception of the political implications of thinking the subject. It also turns to Solon's conception of subjectivity as a way of mediating the current discussion on the subject.
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  21. Freedom as Overcoming the Fear of Death: Epicureanism in the Subtitle of Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2020 - Parrhesia 32:33-60.
    It is often put forward that the entire political project of epicureanism consists in the overcoming of fear, whereby its scope is deemed to be very narrow. I argue that the overcoming of the fear of death should actually be linked to a conception of freedom in epicureanism. This idea is further developed by Spinoza, who defines the free man as one who thinks of death least of all in the Ethics, and who develops this idea more in the Theological (...)
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  22. Agonistic Equality in Rancière and Spinoza.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2016 - Synthesis 9:14-34.
    Jacques Rancière’s conception of equality as an axiomatic presupposition of the political is important, because it bypasses the tradition which defines equality in terms of Aristotle’s conception of geometric equality. In this paper, I show that Rancière’s theory both espouses a monism, according to which inequality implies equality, and relies on a concept of the free will, which is incompatible with monism. I highlight this tension by bringing Rancière’s theory into conversation with the great monist of the philosophical tradition, Baruch (...)
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  23. Spinoza’s Law: The Epicurean Definition of the Law in the Theological Political Treatise.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2019 - Radical Philosophy 5 (2):23-33.
    In the first few pages of chapter 4 of his Theological Political Treatise (1670), Spinoza defines his conception of the law. In fact, he defines the law twice, first in terms of compulsion or necessity and then in terms of use. I would like to investigate here these definitions, in particular the second one, as it is Spinoza’s preferred one. The difficulty with understanding this definition is that it contains an expression, ratio vivendi, that is repeated several times in the (...)
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  24. Behrouz Boochani and the Biopolitics of the Camp: The New Primo Levi?Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2019 - Public Seminar.
    Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains, a literary sensation upon its publication in Australia in August 2018, deserves a place alongside classics of the prison writing genre. At the same time, it contains important lessons for everyone thinking about power in the contemporary world. In particular, it prompts to reconsider the kind of power that is exercised in camps, where it comes from and how it could be resisted.
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  25. Spinoza’s Empty Law: The Possibility of Political Theology.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2012 - In Beth Lord (ed.), Spinoza Beyond Philosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 135-48.
    The article considers the position of Spinoza within the discourse of political theology.
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  26. Spinoza’s Authority in the Treatises: An Introduction.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2018 - In Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela (eds.), Spinoza’s Authority: The Political Treatises. pp. 1-6.
    The chapter introduces the function of authority in Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise and Political Treatise.
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  27. Freedom from the Free Will: On Kafka’s Laughter.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2016 - Albany, NY, USA: SUNY.
    Vardoulakis examines the history of the free will, arguing that there is no necessary connection with the concept of freedom. To illustrate this point, Vardoulakis turns to the stories of Franz Kafka, an author obsessed with narratives that show characters in confinement. However, these situations of confinement are only produced by the comical attempts of the characters to assert their free will.
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  28. Kafka’s Cages.Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela - 2011 - In Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela (eds.), Freedom and Confinement in Modernity: Kafka’s Cages. New York, NY, USA: Palgrave. pp. 1-6.
    It explains the importance of the concept of freedom in Kafka's work.
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  29. The Greek Utopia: Aris Alexandrou’s The Mission Box.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2012 - In Peter Marks (ed.), Literature and Politics. pp. 13-40.
    It examines the concept of utopia through an analysis of a major work of Greek literature, Aris Alexandrou's "The Mission Box.".
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  30. Introduction. The Negativity of Sovereignty, Now.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2012 - In Clare Monagle & Dimitris Vardoulakis (eds.), The Politics of Nothing: On Sovereignty. Routledge. pp. 1-6.
    The Introduction to this collection explains how Bataille's conception of sovereignty as "nothing" is still relevant in thinking about sovereignty today.
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  31. A Matter of Immediacy: The Artwork and the Political in Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2015 - In Andrew E. Benjamin & Dimitris Vardoulakis (eds.), Sparks Will Fly: Benjamin and Heidegger. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 237-257.
    Vardoulakis examines the connection between the political and aesthetic commitments of the philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin. He compares "The Origin of the Work of Art" to "The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility.".
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  32. The C** Word: Covid-19 and Calculation.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2020 - The Philosophical Salon.
    Calculation is omnipresent in the current pandemic. And yet, Continental philosophers never talk about calculation: it seems to be the c** of philosophy. Why is that so? Has it always been like that?
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  33. Was Donald Trump Elected Because He Is Laughable? Reflections on Trump and Sovereignty.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2016 - Public Seminar.
    The article shows that Donald Trump used three distinct but mutually supportive strategies to ascent to power in the 2016 elections. It argues that sovereignty in general uses these three strategies to justify its power. But it is only one of them, the one linked to a biopolitical conception of sovereignty, that allows for lack of authority. Trump used this strategy to great effect in 2016, but the article argues that it will be hard to pursue the same strategy from (...)
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  34. Taking a Stand, or Why the ‘No’ Vote is a ‘Yes’ to the Idea of Europe.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2015 - Chronos.
    It examines the context of the referendum in Greece in the summer of 2015 in view of theories of sovereignty and theories of judgment.
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  35. Total imagination and ontology in R. G. Collingwood.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2006 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 14 (2):303 – 322.
    In The Principles of Art, R. G. Collingwood pursues, on the one hand, a ‘definition’ of art, and, on the other, a ‘metaphysics’. The Principles is divided into three Books. Book I is devoted mostly to craft, while Book II pertains largely to metaphysics. The fact that Book II is twice the size of Book III, where the discussion of ‘art proper’ takes place, is proof enough that the metaphysical part of the Principles is not a mere excursus. Collingwood’s ontology (...)
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  36. « Le plus grand logicien du vingtième siècle » : la liberté selon Derrida.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2014 - Rue Descartes 82 (3):145-148.
    J’ai découvert l’oeuvre de Jacques Derrida quand j’étais étudiant dans un département de philosophie analytique. L’un de mes professeurs – un spécialiste du positivisme – parlait d’un philosophe français comme du « plus grand logicien du vingtième siècle ». Ce philosophe français, c’était Derrida. -/- J’aimerais prendre au sérieux cette assertion, en la mettant à l’épreuve d’une rencontre entre la conception philosophique occidentale de la liberté et la logique derridienne. Rencontre que je propose de mettre en scène sous la forme (...)
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  37. Sparks Will Fly: Benjamin and Heidegger.Andrew E. Benjamin & Dimitris Vardoulakis (eds.) - 2015 - Albany: State University of New York Press.
    Collected essays consider points of affinity and friction between Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger. Despite being contemporaries, Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger never directly engaged with one another. Yet, Hannah Arendt, who knew both men, pointed out common ground between the two. Both were concerned with the destruction of metaphysics, the development of a new way of reading and understanding literature and art, and the formulation of radical theories about time and history. On the other hand, their life trajectories and (...)
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  38. The Politics of Nothing: On Sovereignty.Clare Monagle & Dimitris Vardoulakis (eds.) - 2012 - Routledge.
    This book questions what sovereignty looks like when it is de-ontologised; when the nothingness at the heart of claims to sovereignty is unmasked and laid bare. Drawing on critical thinkers in political theology, such as Schmitt, Agamben, Nancy, Blanchot, Paulhan, The Politics of Nothing asks what happens to the political when considered in the frame of the productive potential of the nothing? The answers are framed in terms of the deep intellectual histories at our disposal for considering these fundamental questions, (...)
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  39. Freedom and Confinement in Modernity: Kafka’s Cages.Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela (eds.) - 2011 - New York, NY, USA: Palgrave.
    Kafka's literary universe is organized around constellations of imprisonment. Freedom and Confinement in Modernity proposes that imprisonment does not signify a tortured state of the individual in modernity. Rather, it provides a new reading of imprisonment suggesting it allows Kafka to perform a critique of a modernity instead.
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  40. Spinoza’s Authority Volume I: Resistance and Power in Ethics.Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela (eds.) - 2018
    Spinoza's political thought has been subject to a significant revival of interest in recent years. As a response to difficult times, students and scholars have returned to this founding figure of modern philosophy as a means to help reinterpret and rethink the political present. Spinoza's Authority Volume I: Resistance and Power in Ethics makes a significant contribution to this ongoing reception and utilization of Spinoza's political thought by focusing on his Ethics. By taking the concept of authority as an original (...)
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  41. Spinoza’s Authority Volume II: Resistance and Power in the Political Treatises.Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela (eds.) - 2018 - Bloomsbury.
    Spinoza's political thought has been subject to a significant revival of interest in recent years. As a response to difficult times, students and scholars have returned to this founding figure of modern philosophy as a means to help reinterpret and rethink the political present. Spinoza's Authority Volume II makes a significant contribution to this ongoing reception and utilization of Spinoza's 1670s Theologico-Political and Political treatises. By taking the concept of authority as an original framework, this books asks: How is authority (...)
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