skandalon

―What is a philosopher?
—That is perhaps an anachronistic question. But I will give a modern response. In the past one might have said it is a man who stands in wonder; today I would say, borrowing words from Georges Bataille, it is someone who is afraid.

✖ Via The Infinite Conversation by Maurice Blanchot, trans. Susan Hanson, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993, p. 49.

Here’s the original French version:

―Qu’est-ce qu’un philosophe?
―Voilà une question anachronique, peut-être. Mais j’y ferai une réponse moderne. Jadis l’on disait : c’est un homme qui s’étonne; aujourd’hui, je dirai, empruntant ce mot à Georges Bataille : c’est quelqu’un qui a peur. (L’entretien infini, éd. Gallimard, Paris, p. 70)

• Sep 05, 2010 link notes reblogged from georgesbataille [via] tagged: art book author Blanchot Bataille philosophy wonder fear anguish philosopher

Do you admit to this certainty: that we are at a turning point?
―If it is a certainty, then it is not a turning point. The fact of being part of the moments in which an epochal change (if there is one) comes about also takes hold of the certain knowledge that would whish to determine this change, making certainty as inappropriate as uncertainty. We are never less able to circumvent ourselves then at such a moment: the discreet force of the turning point is first and foremost that.

✖ Via Maurice Blanchot, quoted as the epigraph for Bernard Stiegler’s first volume of his trilogy Technics and Time, tr. R. Beardsworth and G. Collins, Standford University Press, [1994]1998, p. 1 [Amazon]

Here’s the French version:

— Admettez-vous cette certitude : que nous sommes à un tournant?
— Si c’est une certitude, ce n’est pas un tournant. Le fait d’appartenir à ce moment où s’accomplit un changement d’époque (s’il y en a), s’empare aussi du savoir certain qui voudrait le déterminer, rendant inappropriée la certitude comme l’incertitude. Nous ne pouvons jamais moins nous contourner qu’en un tel moment : c’est cela d’abord, la force discrète du tournant.

• Mar 16, 2010 link notes tagged: communication lost space critic crisis history modernity author time Blanchot Stiegler