3. ‘Where Heidegger talks about “world,” he will often appear to be talking about about a pervasive interpretation or point of view which we bring to the things of the world. This, in any case, has been the view of many commentators. But there is little sense of speaking of a “point of view” here since precisely what Heidegger wants to indicate with the concept is that none other is possible. And there is not more sense in speaking of an interpretation when, instead of an interpretation, the “world” is meant to be that which can keep us from seeing, or force us to see, that what we have is one. Heidegger’s concept is quite like Kierkegaard’s “sphere of existence” and Wittgenstein’s “form of life,” and, as with them, it enters his inquiry only at the limits, when a problem moves out of his depth, or jurisdiction.’

    Terrence Malick, The Essence of Reasons, xv.

  4. ‘Non-philosophy is a programme for appropriating philosophy itself as necessary relation to the world, since our “experience” is the world as such. Non-philosophical cognition does not relate to the world as an entity or to entities in the world (as objects or forms of knowledge): it is transcendental and exposes the reality of a cognition that relates to philosophy as the world’s a priori form, as “knowledge” or “existence” of the world.’

    Francois Laruelle, What Can Non-Philosophy Do?, 188.

  7. ‘Aisthesis is a Greek word which means both feeling and understanding, which means the connection between a capacity of feeling and a capacity of understanding. It is from the structure of the human aisthesis that Aristotle deduces the political nature of the human animal. Now the point is that this deduction proves controversial from the very beginning because of a small problem: slaves too understand language but it is impossible to see them as political animals; so the human aisthesis has to be divided: understanding language, Aristotle says, does not mean possessing language. But this is not the whole picture: Aristotle opposes the speech which is the manifestation of the human capacity to the voice which only expresses the the animal sensations of pleasure and pain. The point is: how do you recognize the mouthing of pain from the voicing of an argument? This division of the aisthesis is still at work in any moment of the present: for instance when strikers take to the streets to discuss the decision of rulers or managers while the latter only hear their slogans as the shouts of the grumbling expressing their anxieties. So political conflict is a aesthetic matter from the very beginning, to the extent that it deals with the very interpretation of what people do with their mouth.’

    Jacques Ranciere, A Few Remarks on the Method of Jacques Ranciere, 121.

  9. For what makes an individual singular (as opposed to merely different) has nothing to do with personal qualities or styles. Singularity comes from the unique shape of what is yet to take place, lodged in the heart of the figure of one’s self—making space for what is yet to come and what has yet to be done, in order to fully be.

    Paul Chan, The Unthinkable Community