{"id":304,"date":"2019-10-12T15:04:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-12T19:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/?p=304"},"modified":"2019-10-16T08:48:41","modified_gmt":"2019-10-16T12:48:41","slug":"bernard-e-harcourt-introduction-to-critique-3-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-introduction-to-critique-3-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard E. Harcourt | Introduction to Critique 3\/13"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bernard E. Harcourt\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a very recent paper on the question of truth in these post-truth times, titled \u201cThe Last Refuge of Scoundrels: The Problem of Truth in A Time of Lying,\u201d which I just posted on SSRN<\/a>, I proposed in passing a critical return to Simone de Beauvoir\u2019s brilliant text, The Second Sex<\/em>. I offered Beauvoir\u2019s intervention as perhaps the perfect illustration of what I describe as the need to always challenge our own unmaskings. I argued that successful critical texts unveil illusions, but do not reveal the truth, so much as another place from which we will need to unmask and unveil again. I wrote the following:<\/p>\n

To give an overly simplistic but quick illustration of this unending cycle of critique, or what I call radical critical philosophy of illusions: Simone de Beauvoir\u2019s brilliant writings on The Second Sex <\/em>were a crucial critique and step forward that unveiled many of the illusions of patriarchy and male superiority; but they nevertheless reinforced notions of binary sexes and a certain essentialism that, even if it was better at the time, would later be unveiled and critiqued by queer theory, which would then be critiqued by trans* theory. De Beauvoir moved us forward and unveiled illusions, but did not reveal genuine interests or real truths, just better interpretations at the time that would call for more critical work.<\/p>\n

The same could be said of Foucault\u2019s writings: his analysis in The Punitive Society <\/em>and Discipline and Punish<\/em>exposed the illusion of Western Enlightenment thinking in the punishment field. It revealed that, instead of punishing less, they learned to punish better through mechanisms of discipline that included normalization, regimentation, and panopticism. Those interpretations of the punitive society and of disciplinary power were better, at the time in the early 1970s; but even Foucault himself, by 1979, would critique them for still placing too much emphasis on the coercive dimensions, for failing to highlight the pastoral elements of governing, for inadequately theorizing our own role in governance\u2014the dimension of subjectivity. Foucault was actually one of the first to point these deficiencies out and to critique his own at-the-time better interpretations.<\/p>\n

In my work, then, I develop a radical critical philosophy of illusions that unveils not to discover truth, but to offer a better interpretation that will quickly need to be critiqued. In this, I embrace the terminology of \u201cillusions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In conversation with the philosopher Sabina Bremner, who has graciously agreed to translate Professor Judith Revel\u2019s intervention for this seminar, I realized that Judith Butler had made a consonant point many years earlier in her article on Beauvoir<\/a> in 1986. Butler\u2019s piece, though, emphasized the element of \u201cbecoming\u201d in Beauvoir\u2019s work\u2014an element that Judith Revel will focus on in her intervention. I anticipate that our discussion will focus on that aspect of Beauvoir\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

That element, however, raises a challenge to the reading I had proposed: if indeed Beauvoir\u2019s text is primarily about \u201cbecoming,\u201d might there not be inscribed in the critical move itself the possibility of overcoming the fixity of sex (above and beyond queering gender)? That is the question that I ask myself as I approach this critical rereading and return to Beauvoir\u2019s\u00a0The Second Sex<\/em>. I hope you will join us for this conversation.<\/p>\n

Welcome to Critique 3\/13!<\/p>\n

Welcome to Critique 3\/13 on Simone de Beauvoir\u2019s The Second Sex<\/em>. I am delighted to welcome back Professor Judith Revel, a brilliant philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Paris\u2014Nanterre.<\/p>\n

We are at the new experimental campus for social inquiry at Aubervilliers, just north of Paris. The campus itself, which is called the Campus Condorcet, is in construction, this room, it feels like, is the only finished area, and everything else around here feels like a construction site in full operation\u2014so thank you all for even finding this building (it took me several attempts).<\/p>\n

We will conduct this session in both French and English. For the portions spoken in French, there are English translations of our presentations on the Critique 13\/13 website. If you go to the 3\/13 tab, on the right, you will see the blog posts: there, you will find English versions of our presentations in order to follow along when we turn to French. As I am about to do \u2013 so, for English speakers, please click on the post titled \u201cIntroduction.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

We turn today \u2013 or as I have suggested in the earlier seminars, we \u201creturn\u201d today \u2013 to a brilliant, transformative critical text from 1948: The Second Sex.\u00a0<\/em>And not just to a brilliant critical text, but as well, to two remarkable and equally brilliant critical texts that engage Beauvoir\u2019s book in precisely the manner that I was hoping to deploy: the critical method.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been discussing at length, in the previous seminars, this idea of a critical method of reading, and I think that Judith Revel\u2019s intervention is a perfect illustration of the critical method I have tried to identify:<\/p>\n