Abstract

Thinking Singularity with Immanuel Kant and Paul de Man: Aesthetics, Epistemology, History and Politics

Proceeding from Kant's Critique of Judgement, and de Man's reading of Kant, the article discusses certain specific concepts, first, of singularity and, second, of the relationships between the invidual and the collective, based on this concept of singularity. Although deriving from Kant's analysis of aethetics, this last concept entails radical forms of epistemology and, correlatively, of historicity. This conceptual architecture also translates into a political concept of community or, the article argues, parliamentarity. As a result, aesthetics, epistemology, philosophy, history, and politics become interconnected in a new way, and each field becomes refigured in the process. The aim of the article is to explore the nature of this interconnective reconfiguration.