How is Philosophy Possible? Blanchot on Secrecy, Ambiguity and the Care for Death

Via The International Journal of Philosophical Studies

By Ammon Allred

Abstract

I examine the contribution that the first part of Maurice Blancot’s recit Death Sentence makes to his understanding of the relationship between philosophy and literature. I use a reading of the Kantian, transcendental account of literature in “How is Literature Possible” as the starting point for an analysis of the way in which Blanchot uses secrets in describing J.’s death in Death Sentence, linking secrecy up with the imaginary, ambiguity and dissimulation. The purpose for this refinement is to challenge the philosophical tradition’s self?understanding, particularly as exhibited in Hegel. This challenge is seen by reading the account of grief in the first part of Death Sentence as a parody of Hegel’s interpretation of Antigone.

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