Defining Dialectics and Analectical Moments

    On January 19th, we discussed "Chapter 5: From Science to the Philosophy of Liberation" in Enrique Dussel's The Philosophy of Liberation. Our conversation began with a focus on section "5.3: The Analectical Moment" and how this concept was similar to or different from a dialectical method. We considered the extent to which the analectical moment exceeds dialectical thought and consequently provided a meta-lens through which to examine totality and its exteriority. In doing so, we discussed whether the analectical moment was an affirmation of exteriority in its negation of the negation of the system. 

   This led us to a discussion of the following questions: Why does Dussel frame the analectical moment as a moment and not as a method? To what extent does Dussel seek to distinguish himself from a dialectical method? This conversation about method versus moment drew us back to topics we discussed the previous week about ontology and metaphysics. We discussed how the analectical moment is a kind of metaphysics that goes beyond what is, and that beyond indicates the exteriority through which Dussel establishes a firm commitment to the Other. In contrast to Emmanuel Levinas's universal Other, Dussel sees the Other as particular and as the oppressed against whom the totality defines itself. Members pointed out that the analectical moment disappears in Dussel's later work, to be replaced in part by his concept of transmodernity. This move away from dialectics is in keeping with Adorno and a rejection of a dialectics as a dominant form of thought. 

    We then discussed how Dussel's exteriority defines difference, leading us to the following questions: How does Dussel address difference within the category of the oppressed? Does the negation of the negation actually affirm? Is there an erasure of difference in the project of liberation? How do you navigate competing demands without establishing a hierarchy of oppression? How do we conceptualize a heterogeneous exteriority? While Dussel has a marked interest in colonized cultures, he does not talk about differences within that group, for instance, of sexuality, gender, ethnicity, or race. Members noted that Dussel is distancing himself from Hegel, who drew on dialectics to affirm totality. Dussel wants to recognize something outside that totality. Others in the group noted that this use of universalizing categories is in keeping with contemporary theories that were emerging, for example, in world-systems theory. We also briefly discussed the concept of proyecto in the text, which indicates both a project and the idea of thrownness associated with Heidegger. The idea of thrownness in Heidegger, members pointed out, indicates a grasping or a grappling that is distinct from and pauses teleology. 

    While many questions were left unanswered, the points we raised through our discussion gives us a solid foundation through which to further examine Dussel's intervention as we read some of his later work next week before moving on to Spivak. We considered, for instance, how Dussel's grounding in European philosophy contrasts with that of Édouard Glissant. The idea of history as a totality in European philosophical traditions raise questions about the extent to which we can think about exteriority. Does this ultimately become a project of listening to the absences and silences or the mechanisms of silencing? Or are there other ways of thinking through which we might be able to account for difference in a philosophy of liberation?