Violence and Meaning

This edited collection explores the problem of violence from the vantage point of meaning. Taking up the ambiguity of the word 'meaning', the chapters analyse the manner in which violence affects and in some cases constitutes the meaningful structure of our lifeworld, on individual, social, religious and conceptual levels. The relationship between violence and meaning is multifaceted, and is thus investigated from a variety of different perspectives within the continental tradition of philosophy, including phenomenology, post-structuralism, critical theory and psychoanalysis. Divided into four parts, the volume explores diverging meanings of the concept of violence, as well as transcendent or religious violence- a form of violence that takes place between humanity and the divine world. Going on to investigate instances of immanent and secular violence, which occur at the level of the group, community or society, the book concludes with an exploration of violence and meaning on the individual level: violence at the level of the self, or between particular persons. With its focus on the manifold of relations between violence and meaning, as well as its four part focus on conceptual, transcendent, immanent and individual violence, the book is both multi-directional and multi-layered.

Autorentext

Lode Lauwaert is a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Philosophy in Leuven, Belgium. He teaches philosophy of technology and researches violence, war and technology.

Laura Katherine Smith is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Cultural Studies at Faculty of Arts of the University of Leuven, Belgium. Laura's research focuses on 20th century and contemporary art theory and visual culture.

Christian Sternad is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and Research Associate at the Husserl Archives in Leuven, Belgium. His research specializes in human mortality, the phenomenology of death and ageing, and social and political issues such as the engagement of philosophers in the First World War.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Part I: The Concept of Violence.- 1. Violence as Metaphor, Vasti Roodt.- 2. Violence and Essentialism, Lode Lauwaert.- Part II: Transcendental Violence.- 3. The Temporality of Violence: Destruction, Dissolution and the Construction of Sense, Felix Ó Murchadha.- 4. Reflections on the Meanings of Religious Violence: Phenomenological Exploration, Michael Staudigl.- 5. The Violence of the Singular, Arthur Cools.- 6. Is Violence Inescapable? Derrida, Religion, and the Irreducibly of Violence, Jason Alvis.- Part III: Immanent Violence.- 7. The Double Meaning of Violence: Catharsis and Mimesis, Nidesh Lawtoo.- 8. The Last Second, or Eternity: Ernst Jünger Looking at Photographs of the First World War, Stéphane Symons and Tammy Castelein.- Part IV: Individual Violence.- 9. Torturous Violence: A Phenomenological Approach to the Violence in the Acts of Torture, Jeremy Heuslein.- 10. Oppressed by Shame: From Auschwitz To A Politics of Revolt, Debra Bergoffen.- 11. Forming the Individual: Castoriadis and Lacan on the Socio-Symbolic Function of Violence, Gavin Rae.