Poses of the World

<p><i>Poses of the World</i> develops a theory of the pluralistic coexistence of politics with aesthetic, scientific, ethical and economic procedures that have sought to influence, dominate or even replace politics.</p><p>We are accustomed to saying that everything is political. It is true that politics has throughout history ventured into the domains that used to be non-political, be they art, science or economy. However, rather than being totally dominated by politics, our societies are marked by the coexistence of diverse procedures, whose logics are distinct but nonetheless remain in contact, ranging from frontal conflict to lasting syntheses. This book develops a theory of this pluralistic coexistence. It builds upon the findings of the first two volumes of Void Universalism to outline an account of pluralism that affirms the incommensurable character of the procedures that regulate the manners of our being and acting in the world. Neither reducible to nor insulated from each other, politics, ethics, art, economy, science and numerous other procedures persist in errancy without ever cohering into any overarching unity. The book demonstrates how the abandonment of the aspiration for such coherence opens up new perspectives on the key sociopolitical debates of our time, from the critique of neoliberalism to concerns over cancel culture.</p><p>Systematic and accessible, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies as well a wider readership beyond academia.</p> <p>Introduction: On This and That</p><p><i>In Praise of Poseurs</i></p><p><i>Rethinking Pluralism</i></p><p><i>Politics and its Others</i></p><p><i>What is a Procedure?</i></p><p><i>Pluralism beyond Reductionism and Parallelism</i></p><p><b>PART 1. MAPPING THE PLURAL: ETHICS, AESTHETICS, GOVERNMENT, THEORY</b></p><p>Chapter 1. Ethics: The Deposition of the Self</p><p><i>In Excess of Every Totality</i></p><p><i>The Privilege of Asymmetry</i></p><p><i>The Expelled Other </i></p><p>Chapter 2. Aesthetics: The Composition of Forms</p><p><i>The Idle Work</i></p><p><i>The Ambivalence of Political Art</i></p><p><i>Becoming Beautiful</i></p><p>Chapter 3. Government: The Disposition of Things</p><p><i>The Providential Machine</i></p><p><i>Order and Equivalence</i></p><p><i>(Dis)Ordering Worlds</i></p><p>Chapter 4. Theory: The Exposition of the World</p><p><i>Capacity for Elaboration</i></p><p><i>The Paradoxes of Theoretical Politics</i></p><p><i>Omnipotence and Truth</i></p><p><i>Politics Revisited</i></p><p><b>Part II. NAVIGATING THE PLURAL: TEN THEOREMS OF PLURALISM</b></p><p>Chapter 5. Manners of Appearance: Procedures, Worlds and Objects</p><p><i>Procedures and Worlds</i></p><p><i>Procedures and Objects</i></p><p><i>A Tentative Typology </i></p><p>Chapter 6. From Plurality to Pluralism: Navigating between the Incommensurable</p><p><i>Beyond Reductionism: Saving Appearances</i></p><p><i>Beyond Parallelism: Coexistence without Coordination</i></p><p><i>Errancy: The Irreducibility of the Incommensurable</i></p><p><i>The Archipelago</i></p><p><i>Passages: From Domination to Synthesis</i></p><p>Chapter 7. Against the Temptation of Coherence</p><p><i>Integrity and the Limits of Politicization</i></p><p><i>The Incoherent: On Martin Heidegger and Michael Jackson</i></p><p><i>Objections: Domination, Revolution, Democracy</i></p><p>Chapter 8. The Shimmer of the World: Pluralism vs. Paradoxico-Criticism</p><p><i>The Many and the Fractured One</i></p><p><i>Is There a Monoculture?</i></p><p><i>The Powerless Paradox</i></p><p><i>Co-Appearance: Be</i></p><p><i>Beyond Event and Truth</i></p><p><i>Appendix: Ten Theorems of Pluralism</i></p><p><i>Bibliography</i></p><p><i>Index</i></p>