Bodenlosigkeit
The modern fear that nothing is given or certain: a thrilling yet unbearable freedom for the avant-garde, philosophy's missing foundation for Husserl.
In lecture order, as Marci Shore presents each view. The time opens that minute of the lecture on YouTube.
Despite his dull bourgeois domesticity, Husserl is the avant-garde's alter ego: he attacks the same problem, groundlessness, from the opposite flank, sharing their maximalism and the earlier modernists' radical subjectivity.
Put simply Shore: despite his dull, respectable home life, Husserl is the avant-garde's opposite twin. He fought their fear that nothing is solid underfoot from the other side, sharing their all-or-nothing ambition and the early modernists' focus on the inner self.
Modern philosophy's basic trouble is that it has no ground to stand on. The remedy is Descartes' experiment: discard everything you think you know and ask what survives as certain.
Put simply Husserl: modern philosophy's basic problem is that it has nothing solid to build on. The fix is Descartes' experiment: throw out everything you think you know and ask what you can still be certain of.
Shore places structuralism with the other answers to God's death: one more attempt to fill religion's empty place and quiet the alienation and groundlessness it left behind.
Put simply Shore: structuralism is another answer to the loss of God, one more attempt to fill religion's empty place and ease the feeling of homelessness and having no firm ground that it left.
Shore finds deconstruction thrilling and provoking, but it ultimately leaves us hanging as the avant-garde was: the leap opens every possibility and offers no handhold.
Put simply Shore finds deconstruction thrilling and provocative, but in the end it leaves us dangling, as the avant-garde artists were: once you jump, anything is possible, but there is nothing to hold on to.
Links from these claims to others in the course. Each shows the earlier claim, then the later one that answers it. “Our inference” marks a link Shore does not state outright.
ShoreThe avant-garde's trajectory ended in politics: Marinetti and the Italian futurists went right, to Mussolini's fascists; most others, the Russians above all, went left, to the Bolshevik revolution. L10 · 45:30
ShoreDespite his dull bourgeois domesticity, Husserl is the avant-garde's alter ego: he attacks the same problem, groundlessness, from the opposite flank, sharing their maximalism and the earlier modernists' radical subjectivity. L11 · 5:48
Shore casts Husserl as the avant-garde's alter ego, answering the same modern problem of groundlessness.
HusserlModern philosophy's basic trouble is that it has no ground to stand on. The remedy is Descartes' experiment: discard everything you think you know and ask what survives as certain. L11 · 9:55
HusserlEurope slid into barbarism because people stopped believing in reason and in the possibility of absolute truth; convince them that such truth is reachable and the world could be saved. L11 · 49:50
The search for a foundation acquires political stakes: without absolute clarity, Europe slides into irrationalism and barbarism.
DescartesKnowledge should be rebuilt from scratch: treat as false whatever admits the slightest doubt, and see what survives to serve as a foundation. L2 · 12:40
HusserlModern philosophy's basic trouble is that it has no ground to stand on. The remedy is Descartes' experiment: discard everything you think you know and ask what survives as certain. L11 · 9:55
Husserl adopts Descartes's radical start from zero, but thinks Descartes didn't go far enough.
Throughlines that pass through one of these claims.
Terms that appear in the same claims.