{"id":5,"date":"2018-08-08T19:01:52","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T23:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/?page_id=5"},"modified":"2022-05-24T09:52:48","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T13:52:48","slug":"1-13","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/1-13\/","title":{"rendered":"1\/13 | Praxis &#038; Critique &#8211; September 12, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v3LNFY_Qe3A\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/archives.newyorker.com\/?i=1967-02-25#folio=048\">&#8220;Truth and Politics&#8221;<\/a> by Hannah Arendt,\u00a0<span data-sheets-value=\"{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Praxis and Action: Contemporary Philosophies of Human Activity (pp. 1-164)&quot;}\" data-sheets-userformat=\"{&quot;2&quot;:12801,&quot;3&quot;:[null,0],&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:12}\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/bernstein-praxis-action\/\"><em>Praxis and Action<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Richard Bernstein,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/harcourt.praxis.law.columbia.edu\/\"><em>Critique\u00a0&amp; Praxis: A First Draft<\/em><\/a> by Bernard E. Harcourt, and\u00a0<span data-sheets-value=\"{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Theory and Practice: History of a Concept from Aristotle to Marx (selections)&quot;}\" data-sheets-userformat=\"{&quot;2&quot;:12801,&quot;3&quot;:[null,0],&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:12}\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/lobkowicz-theory-and-practice\/\"><em>Theory and Practice<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 by\u00a0Nicholas Lobkowicz<\/span><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Steven Lukes (<a href=\"https:\/\/as.nyu.edu\/content\/nyu-as\/as\/faculty\/steven-lukes.html\">New York University<\/a>),\u00a0Karuna Mantena (<a href=\"https:\/\/politicalscience.yale.edu\/people\/karuna-mantena\">Yale University<\/a>),\u00a0Ann Stoler (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newschool.edu\/lang\/faculty\/Ann-Stoler\/\">The New School<\/a>),\u00a0and Bernard E. Harcourt (<a href=\"https:\/\/cgt.columbia.edu\/about\/people\/committee-faculty\/bernard-e-harcourt\/\">Columbia University<\/a>)<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">introduce<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>Critique and Praxis<\/i><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/1-13\/1-13-block\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4088\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4088\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2018\/10\/1.13-block.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"459\" height=\"170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2018\/10\/1.13-block.png 459w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2018\/10\/1.13-block-300x111.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 459px) 100vw, 459px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This first seminar \u201cPraxis &amp; Critique,\u201d and, for that matter, the series itself, <em>Critique &amp; Praxis 13\/13<\/em>, are not named after Marx, or for Marx\u2014although both terms are so closely associated with him. With Marx, that is, and with other critical thinkers he influenced, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, the members of the Praxis School, or the editorial team of the <em>Praxis<\/em>journal and, later, <em>Praxis International<\/em>. No, this is not a Marxist project, nor a project about Marxism.<\/p>\n<p>But Sartre, Marx, and those other <em>praxis\u00a0<\/em>thinkers manifested in their intellectual engagements, in their lives, in their very being, a distinct attitude or way of doing critical theory that this Praxis 13\/13 series aspires to. A way of doing critique that is oriented towards <em>both\u00a0<\/em>intellectual emancipation <em>and\u00a0<\/em>social change. A way of being that Marx captured so brilliantly, as a young man of 27 years, in his now-famous eleventh thesis on Feueurbach: \u201cThe philosophers have only <em>interpreted <\/em>the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to <em>change <\/em>it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is that way of thinking, of being, of living, of doing that I would like to recover in this seminar series\u2014and begin to explore in this first session. It is a way of being and of engaging our political world that the ancients associated with the life of the citizen in the <em>polis<\/em>. A way of being distinguished from other equally valuable modes of engaging the world\u2014especially the more contemplative mode of philosophy and the more creative mode of poetics.<\/p>\n<p>You will recall that Foucault, reading Kant\u2019s essay \u201cAn Answer to the Question: \u2018What is Enlightenment?\u2019\u201d identified there what he called \u201cthe attitude of modernity\u201d: Foucault identified in Kant the beginning of a new way to think critically in relation to the present.\u00a0It consisted of a new philosophical attitude oriented, genuinely, to the contemporary moment. \u201cBy \u2018attitude,\u2019\u201d Foucault explained, \u201cI mean a mode of relating to contemporary reality; a voluntary choice made by certain people; in the end, a way of thinking and feeling; a way, too, of acting and behaving that at one and the same time marks a relation of belonging and presents itself as a task.\u201d\u00a0According to Foucault, this \u201cattitude of modernity\u201d would bring together philosophical inquiry and critical thought focused on contemporary historical actuality. The contemporary moment\u2014most notably, the French Revolution\u2014became the object of critical thought. Foucault placed Marx in the wake of this new attitude.<\/p>\n<p>In a similar way, I would suggest, Marx inaugurated a \u201cpractical attitude,\u201d pivoting the attitude of modernity not just onto the contemporary moment, but from theoretical to practical engagement\u2014from <em>theoria <\/em>to <em>praxis<\/em>. Richard Bernstein traces this brilliantly in the writings of the young Marx.\u00a0My fear is that, today, that practical attitude of modernity, inflected by <em>praxis <\/em>as a mode of being, has dissipated, such that critical theory now has become too contemplative.<\/p>\n<p>In these times, more than ever, we need to not only diagnoses the crises, but to answer the pressing question of what is to be done. What must we do to avoid descending any further into political chaos? We need to address that question with urgency and a renewed embrace of <em>praxis<\/em>. I fear that the diagnosis of crises\u2014the moment of crisis and critique\u2014is not sufficient anymore, on its own. It must be supplemented with a more engaged discussion of practice. Even if, as Aristotle believed and Bernstein undercores, <em>theoria\u00a0<\/em>is active, it alone is not <em>active enough<\/em>. We need to engage in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/harcourt.praxis.law.columbia.edu\">critique &amp; praxis<\/a>. <\/em>We will explore those notions in this introductory seminar, in relation to other problems of truth, politics, and power.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Bernard E. Harcourt. Read full post <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-introduction-to-1-13-on-theory-and-praxis-and-truth-politics-and-power\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/1-13\/0a68640a-c637-4987-8257-3f07f0283f9c\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3895\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3895 \" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2018\/09\/0A68640A-C637-4987-8257-3F07F0283F9C-e1536930826510.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"562\" height=\"345\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2018\/09\/0A68640A-C637-4987-8257-3F07F0283F9C-e1536930826510.jpeg 2046w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2018\/09\/0A68640A-C637-4987-8257-3F07F0283F9C-e1536930826510-300x184.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2018\/09\/0A68640A-C637-4987-8257-3F07F0283F9C-e1536930826510-768x471.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2018\/09\/0A68640A-C637-4987-8257-3F07F0283F9C-e1536930826510-1024x628.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 562px) 100vw, 562px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Truth and Politics&#8221; by Hannah Arendt,\u00a0Praxis and Action\u00a0by Richard Bernstein,\u00a0Critique\u00a0&amp; Praxis: A First Draft by Bernard E. Harcourt, and\u00a0Theory and Practice\u00a0 by\u00a0Nicholas Lobkowicz Steven Lukes (New York University),\u00a0Karuna Mantena (Yale University),\u00a0Ann Stoler (The New School),\u00a0and Bernard E. Harcourt (Columbia University)&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/1-13\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1603,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}