Papers by Rodrigo Chacon
Isonomía: Revista de Teoría y Filosofía del Derecho, 2023
This paper argues that the coming of the Anthropocene requires a shift in the meaning and scope o... more This paper argues that the coming of the Anthropocene requires a shift in the meaning and scope of responsibility. Drawing on Hans Jonas and Bruno Latour, I argue that responsibility is a defining feature of humanity which is nevertheless haunted by its opposite. Indeed, if to be responsible is primarily to be responsive to the claim of the Other, then the culture of 'personal responsibility' that prevails today is a betrayal of both humanity and the Earth. When Jonas formulated such thoughts in 1979 the 'Earth system' was neither a field of scientific study, nor a matter of existential concern. Few scholars took him seriously. However, recent developments in scientific, legal, and environmental thought have vindicated his vision. To test this hypothesis I turn to Latour, who was a careful reader-and critic-of Jonas. Both thinkers regarded the modernist belief that only humans are sources of valid moral claims as an error that ought to be corrected. As the Earth today 'reacts' to our interventions with extreme weather and zoonotic diseases, their message is resounding in growing circles. The Anthropocene upends an era in which only (some) humans were allowed to speak. Now we must teach ourselves how to listen and respond to other living beings and future generations. This responsiveness, I argue, will form the core of emerging regimes of planetary responsibility.
Olga Pellicer y Hazel Blackmore (coords.), Relaciones México-Estados Unidos en 2021: ¿un punto de transición? , 2021
Caderno CRH (Universidad Federal de Bahía, Brasil), 2020
El artículo ofrece una lectura de La Condición Humana (1958) a la luz de Vita Activa (1961). Tras... more El artículo ofrece una lectura de La Condición Humana (1958) a la luz de Vita Activa (1961). Tras hacer un recorrido por la recepción de La Condición Humana desde su publicación en 1958, argumento que se ha marginado a la obra como un todo para extraer de ella fragmentos y supuestos 'modelos' de la política. Considerada como un todo, la obra de Arendt es una reflexión acerca de las condiciones de posibilidad de nuestras experiencias de sentido. Como es evidente sobre todo en la versión alemana, se trata, así, de una investigación fenomenológica. Argumento que tanto la fuerza crítica como la aparente ceguera que encontramos en Arendt se deben a las premisas fenomenológicas de su pensamiento.
Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, 2019
Leo Strauss has been read as the author of a paradoxically nonpolitical political philosophy. Thi... more Leo Strauss has been read as the author of a paradoxically nonpolitical political philosophy. This reading finds extensive support in Strauss's work, notably in the claim that political life leads beyond itself to contemplation and in the limits this imposes on politics. Yet the space of the nonpolitical in Strauss remains elusive. The "nonpolitical" understood as the natural, Strauss suggests, is the "foun-dation of the political". But the meaning of "nature" in Strauss is an enigma: it may refer either to the "natural understanding" of commonsense, or to nature "as intended by natural science," or to "unchangeable and knowable necessity." As a student of Husserl, Strauss sought both to retrieve and radically critique both the "natural understanding" and the "naturalistic" worldview of natural science. He also cast doubt on the very existence of an unchangeable nature. The true sense of the nonpolit-ical in Strauss, I shall argue, must rather be sought in his embrace of the trans-finite goals of philosophy understood as rigorous science. Nature may be the nonpolitical foundation of the political, but we can only ever approximate nature asymptotically. The nonpolitical remains as elusive in Strauss as the ordinary. To approximate both we need to delve deeper into his understanding of Husserl.
Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, 2019
En las décadas de 1960 y 1970 era común llamar “imperio” a Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, en las dé... more En las décadas de 1960 y 1970 era común llamar “imperio” a Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, en las décadas de 1980 y 1990 esta designación fue remplazada por el término más benévolo de “hegemonía”. Hoy ha resurgido el imperio, no solo en la voz de neoconservadores que lo han celebrado, sino también entre los críticos. ¿A qué se debe la fascinación reciente con el imperialismo?
Leo Strauss has been understood as one of the foremost critics of Heidegger, and as having provid... more Leo Strauss has been understood as one of the foremost critics of Heidegger, and as having provided an alternative to his thought: against Heidegger’s Destruktion of Plato and Aristotle, Strauss enacted a recovery; against Heidegger’s “historicist turn,” Strauss rediscovered a superior alternative in the “Socratic turn.” This paper argues that, rather than
opposing or superseding Heidegger, Strauss engaged Heidegger dialectically. On fundamental philosophical problems, Strauss both critiqued Heidegger and retrieved the kernel of truth contained in Heidegger’s position. This method is based on Strauss’s zetetic conception
of philosophy, which has deep roots in Heidegger’s 1922 reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
Scholars of International Relations (IR) confront the unenviable task of conceiving and represent... more Scholars of International Relations (IR) confront the unenviable task of conceiving and representing the world as a whole. Philosophy has deemed this impossible since the time of Kant. Today's populist reaction against "globalism" suggests that it is imprudent. Yet IR must persevere in its quest to diagnose emerging global realities and fault lines. To do so without stoking populist fears and mythologies, I argue, IR must enter into dialogue with the new realism in philosophy, and in particular with its ontological pluralism. The truth of what unites and divides us today is not one-dimensional, as the image of a networked world of "open" or "closed" societies suggests. Beyond anonymous networks, there are principles such as sovereignty; there are systemic dynamics of inclusion/exclusion, and there is the power of justifications.
El triunfo electoral de Donald Trump marca el retorno de lo reprimido. Las emociones que por años... more El triunfo electoral de Donald Trump marca el retorno de lo reprimido. Las emociones que por años permanecieron latentes encontraron un cauce de expresión. Si en octubre de 2016 era vergonzoso presumir un acoso sexual como lo hizo Trump, en noviembre se volvió aceptable. Se esfumó la censura de las élites y despertaron monstruos. Comentaristas y académicos hablan del "enojo y el luto" de la derecha estadounidense, de la "política del resentimiento" de las clases rurales y del whitelash que llevó a la victoria de Trump. Alrededor del mundo vemos algo semejante: un malestar generalizado que encuentra expresión en movimientos tan diversos como los Indignados en España, el hinduismo militante de Narendra Modi, la Primavera Árabe y el sadismo del Estado Islámico. Si la década de 1950 marcó el comienzo de la era de la ansiedad, hoy somos testigos de la globalización de la ira.
Desde la década de 1990, el mundo ha visto una proliferación de estados de excepción. La detenció... more Desde la década de 1990, el mundo ha visto una proliferación de estados de excepción. La detención indefinida de “combatientes enemigos”, la acelerada construcción de barreras fortificadas entre países y el aumento de la población mundial considerada “ilegal” ejemplifican la tendencia mundial a normalizar las excepciones. Donald Trump es el caso más burdo
—no por ello menos alarmante— de esta tendencia.
This essay focuses on the Heidegger that is closest to Plato, and on the Plato who comes closest ... more This essay focuses on the Heidegger that is closest to Plato, and on the Plato who comes closest to Heidegger. The point where both thinkers meet, I argue, is the Socratic Turn described in the Phaedo. Heidegger’s thought brings to light a series of foundational problems in the Socratic Turn, which give rise to the sciences of “fundamental ontology” and “political philosophy.”
Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía -Leo StrauSS y otroS compañeroS de pLatón -N.º 4 -Abril 2016 139 h... more Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía -Leo StrauSS y otroS compañeroS de pLatón -N.º 4 -Abril 2016 139 heidegger Rodrigo Chacón [Traducción Roberto Vivero] El así llamado platonismo es tan solo una huida del problema de Platón.
Among the great philosophers of the twentieth century, only
one, perhaps, shared Leo Strauss’s un... more Among the great philosophers of the twentieth century, only
one, perhaps, shared Leo Strauss’s understanding of “ideas” as fundamental problems: his teacher Husserl. Throughout his work, Strauss heeded Husserl’s call to return to the “things themselves” and “the problems connected with them.” I argue that “natural right” is one such phenomenon or problem which Strauss seeks to recover—and reactivate—from centuries of sedimented interpretations. I further propose that “natural right” may be a “sense-formation” analogous to Husserl’s “geometry.” If this is true, Natural Right and History may be modeled on Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences.
In opposing foundationalism to antifoundationalism, recent political theory betrays its blindness... more In opposing foundationalism to antifoundationalism, recent political theory betrays its blindness to a third alternative. As suggested by the most influential critics of Kant, the ground of meaning and normativity is neither the human mind—or autonomous constructions of reason—nor historically given forms of life, but the interaction between them, that is, the human openness to the intelligibility granted us by “the things themselves.” This paper articulates that ground in its historical genesis, as it arises in Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s defense of a classical conception of reason against modern rationalism, and further developed by Edmund Husserl and the young Leo Strauss. I argue that critics and followers of Strauss have forgotten the phenomenological grounds of his thought in the “fundamental problems” arising from the structure of human experience.
This paper provides an interpretation of the movement of Arendt’s thought in her Denktagebuch, fr... more This paper provides an interpretation of the movement of Arendt’s thought in her Denktagebuch, from 1950 to 1973. This movement results in an incipient political philosophy based on new concepts of freedom, equality, and solidarity. As a contribution to debates on the normative foundations of Arendt’s political thought, the paper seeks to show that her incipient political philosophy is based on an ethical understanding of the human condition as constituted by its openness
to the divine, the worldly, and the (human) Other. Despite its fragmentary nature and its politically problematic indebtedness to theological traditions, Arendt’s private thought nevertheless allows us to rethink her place in the history of European ideas. Beyond that, it also provides a powerful alternative to the view that ethical and political thought must remain ‘political not metaphysical’.
It has often been noted that Leo Strauss developed his understanding of political philosophy thro... more It has often been noted that Leo Strauss developed his understanding of political philosophy through a critical engagement with Heidegger. Yet most analyses focus on Strauss’s American works while neglecting his earlier response during the crisis years of the Weimar Republic. The article seeks to overcome this limitation by ‘deconstructing’ Strauss’s American definitions of political philosophy in light of both his Weimar understanding of politische Wissenschaft and his 1922 discovery of Heidegger’s Aristotle. I argue that Strauss’s conception of political philosophy originated in Heidegger’s subversion of the traditional distinction between theory and praxis. I thus propose a way to read Strauss from the start following his own changing views of that distinction.
Teaching Documents by Rodrigo Chacon
Cree a aquellos que buscan la verdad, duda de los que la han encontrado.
—André Gide
Descripción del curso: El curso provee una introducción a la historia de los Estados Unidos de la... more Descripción del curso: El curso provee una introducción a la historia de los Estados Unidos de la era colonial a los años ochenta del siglo XX. Para cada periodo leeremos fuentes primarias y secundarias poniendo especial énfasis en la historia del pensamiento político. Si bien se trata de dar una visión global de las principales condiciones socioeconómicas, eventos y corrientes de pensamiento que definen a los Estados Unidos, buscaremos ahondar en momentos específicos dependiendo de los intereses de la clase. Para ello, la bibliografía incluye una extensa lista de lecturas recomendadas.
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Papers by Rodrigo Chacon
opposing or superseding Heidegger, Strauss engaged Heidegger dialectically. On fundamental philosophical problems, Strauss both critiqued Heidegger and retrieved the kernel of truth contained in Heidegger’s position. This method is based on Strauss’s zetetic conception
of philosophy, which has deep roots in Heidegger’s 1922 reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
—no por ello menos alarmante— de esta tendencia.
one, perhaps, shared Leo Strauss’s understanding of “ideas” as fundamental problems: his teacher Husserl. Throughout his work, Strauss heeded Husserl’s call to return to the “things themselves” and “the problems connected with them.” I argue that “natural right” is one such phenomenon or problem which Strauss seeks to recover—and reactivate—from centuries of sedimented interpretations. I further propose that “natural right” may be a “sense-formation” analogous to Husserl’s “geometry.” If this is true, Natural Right and History may be modeled on Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences.
to the divine, the worldly, and the (human) Other. Despite its fragmentary nature and its politically problematic indebtedness to theological traditions, Arendt’s private thought nevertheless allows us to rethink her place in the history of European ideas. Beyond that, it also provides a powerful alternative to the view that ethical and political thought must remain ‘political not metaphysical’.
Teaching Documents by Rodrigo Chacon