Open Review of ‘Responsibility Towards the Planetary Nothing: For Infrapolitical Preparation’

12 de octubre de 2023

Dear Rafael,

I think this is a fantastic article, one that aptly emphasizes the infrapolitical turn towards nihilism in order to abandon it. In order to actually abandon nihilism, however, one should escape the sacrificial structure of conventional politics and the long-standing onto-political tradition, by wandering into the no man’s land of the unknown, the real that escapes the conventional representation of reality, and the subject as subjectum, crucial for the modern philosophy of consciousness. In this sense, I believe the article is clear when pointing towards the infrapolitical demand, which far from the humanistic demand, refers to the necessary deactivation of nihilism’s vicious circle. In this sense, I believe your article gives some cues regarding the essential question: How to criticize nihilism without reinforcing it?

Considering then that I agree with the scope, rhythm and argumentative logic of your article and that I consider it as a relevant contribution, I want to point toward three minimal questions:

1. – The use of the word ‘infranscendence’ seems to be relevant as it refers to another than the transcendental and the immanent, but it would be nice if you can dwell a little bit on the way you use this word since, I believe, it is loaded with meaning within your article. I am thinking not only in the question of a transcendental empiricism (Deleuze), but also in the very constitution of the transcendental as something else than the transcendent (in Kant).

2. – It is true that the notion of ‘desistance’ has been used in relation to Heidegger, but the very notion of desistance is central to the English translation of Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe’s works and it is also the title of a crucial essay (originally thought as the prologue to Lacoue-Labarthe’s book in English) by Jacques Derrida. I mention this not to suggest the necessary historical-philological reconstruction of the word, but as a reference to a precise moment in contemporary thought that problematizes a series of convergent points with those of the Infrapolitical.

3. And, finally, I consider your reading of Badiou’s anti-philosophy clever and substantive, and somehow convergent, up to certain point, with Heidegger’s turn towards factical life and the pre-theoretical understanding of Dasein’s historicity. However, and this is just a question: I wonder up to what point Heidegger’s notion of being and nothing, and his understanding of ontology and destruction, could be coherent or consistent with Badiou’s? This is not only a conceptual or terminological problem, precisely because the anti-philosophical path in Badiou led to an ontological rearticulation of the political (and the subject, truth, event) that seems distant and in tension with the infrapolitical de-ontologization. This is, indeed, a complex problem, but I mention it to you as a way to incite you to keep working in this and in the next texts.

Best, Sergio

13 de octubre 2023

Hola Sergio,

¡Muchísimas gracias por tomarte el tiempo para leer el texto y comentarlo! Te lo agradezco sinceramente.

1) Voy a revisar el uso del término ‘infranscendence’. Es verdad que hay una resonancia metafísica en él. Tal vez sin la ‘n’ (infrascendence) ya no queda tan ligado a la estructura metafísica de Deleuze y Kant.

2) Gracias por el apunte sobre el uso de Derrida del término ‘desistance’. Su texto parece muy pertinente para pensar una responsabilidad más allá de la insistencia del sujeto. Definitivamente me lo voy a leer.

3) También tengo las mismas dudas sobre Badiou y su encaje con un pensamiento infrapolítico. He intentado navegar el encaje entre ambos como he podido. Me parece que el pensamiento de Badiou a veces se presta a ser pensado en contra de sí mismo, en contra de la centralidad que el sujeto tiene en él. Es en esta resistencia donde intento, no sin dificultad, articular una posible vía entre una reflexión infrapolítica y el pensamiento alrededor de la nada de Badiou. Esta es una vía que me gustaría poder explorar más en un futuro.

Abrazos,
Rafael