邊緣再思：文化、傷痛、再現─惡與真實：後現代的轉折(1/3)

Abstract

惡是無法根絕的存在本質的一部份，還是外在環境偶然因素造就的特殊現 象？這是哲學史、宗教史上不斷引起爭議的難題。自歐洲出現猶太滅族屠殺之 後，這個問題因為涉及自由與責任的倫理判斷（被動接受命令的殺人者是否有 道德責任），尤其累積了許多深入的討論。本計畫將檢討晚近文化理論對這個 問題的辯論（特別以康德晚年提出的「根本惡」觀念為中心），作為探討邊緣 主體在處理傷痛、暴力、壓迫，重建歷史、記憶的過程中如何選擇政治行動的 理論基礎。計畫將從Hannah Arendt 的立場出發，整合晚近學界的意見，並進 一步援引Lacan 在第十一次講座中對迪卡爾主體的闡發以及第七次講座根據 真實 (the real) 來討論「心理分析的倫理」的立場，釐清其中涉及啟蒙、迪卡 爾主體、身體與符號的牽連等問題，希望找到一種Walter Benjamin 所謂「美 學政治化」的可能性。研究過程中除了整理前人所見、整合理論框架，也將延 續主持人最近提出的後現代「層次塌陷」說，特別考慮在後現代（包括全球化、 危機化）的特殊情境下相關的思考如何離開（或進一步徹底化）現代模式，形 成種種轉折，從而突顯惡與真實對美學分析的重要性，揭示文化研究應該正視 惡的問題，回歸真實的立場來分析邊緣經驗的文化呈現。

Is evil an ineradicable part of being, or something contingently determined by external forces? This is an old question which one can safely assume to have been unsolved by endless philosophical and theological debates. In particular, the Holocaust brought home the urgent need to ponder such issues to come to grips with problems of freedom and responsibility— if an ethical act must be a free act, then how can we hold those who kill while following orders? This project will examine recent debates (centered on Kant’s concept of “radical evil”) as a source of insight in the search for a theory of political action which will enable marginalized subjects to better deal with violence, repression, and other traumatic experiences in the ongoing reconstruction of subaltern history and repressed memory. Using Hannah Arendt’s works as a convenient focal point, a review of relevant positions will be undertaken, and Lacan’s rethinking of the Cartesian cogito in Seminar XI as well as the account of the “ethics of psychoanalysis” from the position of the real in Seminar VII will provide further theoretical grounding to develop an understanding of relevant issues, especially the connection of evil with enlightenment, the cogito, and the distinction (or the possible collapse thereof) between the body and the symbolic. Ultimately our findings should point what Walter Benjamin calls a “politicization of aesthetics.” Beyond a review of scholarship and an attempt at theoretical generalization, the project will also develop what I proposed in a recent paper as the “collapse of differentials” in the newest phase of postmodernity. It will be my major concern that the thinking of evil and the real should be done in full cognizance of such postmodern vicissitudes (globalization, the emergence of risk society, etc.) so as to engage fruitfully with contemporary aesthetic analysis. It will be shown that such rethinking is indispensable in the representation of the marginal.