In this dissertation, I establish that Ludwig Wittgensteins and Michel Foucaults thoughts share a common philosophical ethos of freedom which shapes the political dimensions of their works. As opposed to accusations on and interpretations of their works as suggesting and prescribing a conservative line of political thought, I argue that being shaped by the normative demands of the ethos of freedom, their thoughts resist such conservative understandings and press us to read and judge them in the medium of radical transformative politics. This is because while the conservative interpretations of their works diminish the range and effectiveness of Wittgensteins and Foucaults philosophical claims on our political thought, the context of radical transformative politics allow us to appreciate and use their thoughts in a wider and richer range to politically articulate our concerns, discontents, and dissatisfactions. Such an ethos steers their thoughts towards an incessant questioning of the limits and constraints imposed on our lives by grammar and the discursive order. The ethos of freedom, in this sense, conveys a sense of politics as a battle against these false necessities that deny us a wide range of possibilities available in our human form of life. I call such a philosophical/political endeavor politics of grammar because both Wittgenstein and Foucault point to the level of the grammar of our concepts as the site in which these false necessities are formed and sustained. Accordingly, they both suggest that a critique of the grammar of our concepts is a critique of our form of life shaped by the constraints of our grammar. The form of this critique is therapeutic in the sense that it constantly reminds us of the historical contingency of such constraints rendering them accessible and available for political interventions and negotiations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07172013-094719 |
| Date | 29 July 2013 |
| Creators | Oz, Yusuf |
| Contributors | José Medina, Gregg M. Horowitz, Michael P. Hodges, Michael Kelly |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07172013-094719/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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