Vardoulakis Freedom from the Free Will

On Kafka's Laughter
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4384-6241-7
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 212 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Reihe: SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

Brings Kafka’s fiction into conversation with philosophy and political theory.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Vardoulakis, Dimitris

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophie des Geistes, Neurophilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
A Note on Referencing Kafka’s Works
Preamble: Kafka’s Laughter

1. Kafka’s Cages: Laughter and the Free Will
Plots of Confinement and the Kafkaesque Laughter
The Separation of Freedom and Unfreedom: Augustine’s Invention of the Free Will
Freedom From: Negative and Positive Freedom
Laughter and Freedom: On Kafka’s Political Technique
The Cage and Its Relations: Laughter, Freedom, Ontology

2. The Abrahamic Laughter: The Topography of Freedom in “The Judgment” and The Metamorphosis
Abrahamic Laughter: Between the Theological and the Political
Who Is Gustav Blenkelt? The Two Interpretations
The Transformation of the Ideal in “The Judgment”: The Primacy of the Theologico-Political
“The world of freedom” and Its Essential Fault: Blanchot’s Kafka
The Essential Transformation: Laughter in The Metamorphosis

3. The Return of the Body: The Ethics of Laughter
Ethical Freedom: Levinas’s Critique of the Free Will
Ethical Laughter: The Nature Theater of Oklahoma
Regaining the Power to Say “One”: “A Report to an Academy”
The Other’s Laughter: “A Hunger Artist”
“The fall is the proof of our freedom”

4. The Law of Freedom: Reading The Trial through Spinoza
A Cage without Walls: Kafka and Biopolitics
Spinoza’s Ethical Laughter: The Empty Law of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
Empty Law without Truth: The Priest’s Discourse and Existential Torment
The Laughter of Truth: Josef K.’s Hesitation
Agamben’s Antinomianism: The Biopolitical Return of Theology

5. Executing Violence: The Drama of Power in “In the Penal Colony”
Two Executions: The Spectacle of Power
The Death Penalty and Sovereignty
The Tragedy of Modern Sovereignty and the Existential Drama of Biopolitics
The Economy of Substitution: Death and the Free Will
Generalized Violence as Ontology: Mirbeau’s The Torture Garden
The Theater of Laughter: Secondary Characters Center Stage!
Toward an Ontology of Laughter: An Agonistic Economy of Freedom

Postscript: A Triple or a Single Will?
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Dimitris Vardoulakis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western Sydney University, Australia. He has written and edited several books, including (with Andrew Benjamin) Sparks Will Fly: Benjamin and Heidegger, also published by SUNY Press.