After Life

by Thacker, Eugene

• ISBN13: 9780226793726
• ISBN10: 0226793729
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Life is one of our most basic concepts, yet when examined directly it proves remarkably contradictory and elusive, encompassing both the broadest and the most specific phenomena. We can see this uncertainty about life in our habit of approaching it as something at once scientific and mystical, in the return of vitalisms of all types, and in the pervasive politicization of life. In short, life seems everywhere at stake and yet is nowhere the same.

Author Biography

Eugene Thacker is associate professor in the Media Studies program at the New School.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Life and the Living (On Aristotelian Biohorror)	p. 1
Supernatural Horror as the Paradigm for Life	p. 1
Aristotle's De Anima and the Problem of Life	p. 6
The Ontology of Life	p. 11
The Entelechy of the Weird	p. 22
Superlative Life	p. 25
Life With or Without Limits	p. 25
Life as Time in Plotinus	p. 28
On the Superlative	p. 34
Superlative Life I: Pseudo-Dionysius	p. 36
Negative vs. Affirmative Theology	p. 37
Superlative Negation	p. 41
Negation and Preexistent Life	p. 45
Excess, Evil, and Nonbeing	p. 50
Superlative Life II: Eriugena	p. 56
Negation in the Periphyseon	p. 58
The quaestio de nihilo: On Nothing	p. 60
The quaestio de nihilo: Superlative Nothing	p. 68
Dark Intelligible Abyss	p. 74
Apophasis	p. 75
The Apophatic Logic	p. 76
Negation in Frege and Ayer	p. 78
Negation vs. Subtraction in Badiou	p. 81
Negation and Contradiction in Priest	p. 84
The Dialetheic Vitalism of Negative Theology	p. 88
Ellipses: Suhrawardi and the Luminous Void	p. 91
Univocal Creatures	p. 96
On Spiritual Creatures	p. 96
Life as Form in Aristotle	p. 99
The Concept of the Creature	p. 104
Univocity I: Duns Scotus vs. Aquinas	p. 107
Univocity in Aquinas' Summa Theologica	p. 108
Univocity in Duns Scotus' Opus Oxoniense	p. 113
The Common Nature of the Creature	p. 118
Univocity II: Duns Scotus vs. Henry of Ghent	p. 125
Univocity in Henry of Ghent	p. 126
Negative vs. Privative Indetermination	p. 130
Absolute Indetermination	p. 131
Univocity III: Deleuze's Scholasticism-Three Variations	p. 135
Variation I: Spinoza et le Problème de l'Expression	p. 137
Variation II: Différence et Répétition	p. 141
Variation III: Cours de Vincennes	p. 146
Univocal Creatures	p. 151
Ellipses: Dogen and Uncreated Univocity	p. 156
Dark Pantheism	p. 159
Everything and Nothing	p. 159
Life as Spirit in Aquinas	p. 161
The Concept of the Divine Nature	p. 167
Immanence I: Eriugena's Periphyseon	p. 170
Natura and the Unthought	p. 171
Universal Life	p. 177
Four Statements on Pantheism	p. 181
Immanence II: Duns Scotus' Reportatio IA	p. 184
Univocal Immanence	p. 185
Actual Infinity	p. 188
The Pathology of the Triple Primacy	p. 191
Immanence III: Nicholas of Cusa's De Docta Ignorantia	p. 198
The Coincidence of Opposites	p. 199
The Folds of Life	p. 201
Absolute vs. Contracted Pantheism	p. 204
Speculative Pantheism (Deleuze's Interlocutors)	p. 209
Pantheism and Pure Immanence	p. 212
The Insubordination of Immanence in Deleuze	p. 215
Scholia I: The Isomorphism of Univocity and Immanence	p. 220
Scholia II: The Vitalist Logic of Common Notions	p. 222
Scholia III: The Life of Substance	p. 225
Dark Pantheism	p. 228
Ellipses: Wang Yangming and Idealist Naturalism	p. 234
Logic and Life (On Kantian Teratology)	p. 239
The Wandering Line from Aristotle to Kant	p. 239
Critique of Life	p. 242
Spectral Life and Speculative Realism	p. 249
Ontotheology in Kant, Atheology in Bataille	p. 257
The Night Land	p. 266
Notes	p. 269
Index	p. 293
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