An Essay on the Primacy of the Minimal: A Contribution to the Establishment of Negative Engagement
The thesis of this book is simple: there is room for installing and justifying (as well as, of course, disputing) the idea of “negative engagement.” Three “negative” theoretical conceptions of contemporary philosophy renounce “maximalist” explanatory, even prescriptive claims, for the sake of some or something “minimal” that could be distilled and stylized, and analyzed by a persistent “negative” attitude, and preserved from perversion and forgery. These conceptions insist on the reorientation or even transformation of thought, such that it avoids the challenge of confessing and preaching “positively” oriented doctrines or visions. A theoretically – but not only theoretically – responsible conception of negative engagement should rely on models of that “negativity turn,” which, among other things, judges correctness of thought and action towards evident evil, suffering, injustice, lies.
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