Difference, boundaries and violence : a philosophical exploration informed by critical complexity theory and deconstruction

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis is a philosophical exposition of violence informed by two theoretical positions which confrontcomplexity as a phenomenon. These positions are complexity theory and deconstruction. Both develop systemsbasedunderstandings of complex phenomena in which relations of difference are constitutive of the meaning ofthose phenomena. There has been no focused investigation of the implications of complexity for theconceptualisation of violence thus far. In response to this theoretical gap, this thesis begins by distinguishingcomplexity theory as a general, trans-disciplinary field of study from critical complexity theory. The latter isused to develop a critique and criticism of epistemological foundationalism, emphasising the limits to knowledgeand the normative and ethical dimension of knowledge and understanding. The epistemological break implied bythis critique reiterates the epistemological shift permeating the work of, among others, Friedrich Nietzsche andJacques Derrida. In this context, critical complexity theory begins to articulate the idea of violence on two levels:first, as an empirical, ethical problem in the system; and, secondly, as asymmetry and antagonism. Violence inthis second sense is implicated in the dynamic relations of difference through which structure and meaning aregenerated in complex organisation. The sensitivity to difference and violence shared by critical complexitytheory and deconstruction allows for the parallel reading of these philosophical perspectives; and for thesupplementation and opening of critical complexity theory by deconstruction within the architecture of thisthesis. This supplementation seeks to preserve the singularity of each perspective, while exploring the potentialof their points of affinity and tension in the production of a coherent philosophical analysis of violence.Deconstruction offers a more developed understanding of violence and a wealth of related motifs: différance,framing, law, singularity, aesthetics and others. These motifs necessitate the inclusion of other philosophicalvoices, notably, that of Nietzsche, Arendt, Kant, Levinas, and Benjamin. In conversation with these authors, thisthesis links violence to meaning, to its possibility, to its production and to the process by which meaning comesto change. Given these links, violence is conceptualised in relation to the notion of difference on three distinctlevels. The first is the difference between elements in a complex system of meaning; the second is the notion ofdifference between systems or texts around which boundaries or frames can be drawn; and the third is the notionof difference between meaning and the absence of meaning. This discussion examines the relationship betweenthis violence implicated in the constitution of meaning and the more colloquial understanding of violence asatrocity, as rape, murder and other socially, politically and ethically problematic expressions thereof. It is toempirical violence, following Derrida and Levinas, that we are called to respond and to intervene in the sufferingof the other. The ethical and political necessity of response anchors this discussion of violence. And, it istowards the possibility of an adequate response – the possibility of an ethics sensitive to its own violence and apolitics that is directed at the eradication of empirical violence – which this discussion navigates.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University