Spring 2013

Conveners: Carmen Dege, Lisa Gilson, Samuel Loncar

This reading group hopes to come to new perspectives on the role of metaphysics in contemporary political and social thought. This term we plan to focus on critiques of metaphysics, moments of skepticism and conflict that have profoundly shaped contemporary thinking about religion, philosophy, and society: the Spinozism/pantheism debate, Marx’s charge of religion as the opiate of the masses, the normative deficit thesis of modernity from Weber to Habermas, and radical atheism as it appears in Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida. We want to understand the quality of these moments. How did they change our understanding of politics, history and society, and transform the role of religion? To which extent does their transgression of metaphysics come with new metaphysical thinking? In what sense can we understand skepticism as the legitimate child of philosophy that keeps coming back? A better grasp of these questions will help us to reengage with ontology in premodern and modern texts next year.

The nature of the reading group is interdisciplinary, both in its composition and its focus, representing fields that range from law, sociology, and political science to philosophy and religion. If you have questions about the reading group or would like to join the group’s email list, please contact Carmen Dege (carmen.dege@yale.edu).