Patrick O'Connor recently gave a presentation on some of his current work at the Power, Time and Agency conference at the University of Manchester, 17-18 January 2013.
His presentation involved a position paper on a wider research project on
the notion of atheist temporality. Rejecting the progressive notions of
linear temporality, and the
historical destiny of scientific materialism, it was argued that we
need a revised understanding of temporal and social agency. This
involves a retrieval and engagement with of some of the key insights of
Nietzsche, Derrida, Heidegger and Bergson. Beginning
with taxonomy of the various types of atheism that he was deviating from,
it was argued that that the condition of identities, ethical agency,
and human liberation and political subjectivity relies on a discursive
notion of temporality. Such a discursive notion
of temporality depends on re-casting our understanding of chronological
time towards ecstatic time, everyday temporality towards authentic and
engaged temporality, mechanistic temporality towards embodied
temporality, a discourse on life towards a discourse
on shared mortality and finitude, and the ethical and political in
terms of common temporalities and generic solidarity. The paper provided
an existential atheistic account of atheist temporality with a view to
combatting ethical and political sectionalisation
and marginalization.
0 comments:
Post a Comment