I’m no dummy, but this made my brain hurt. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. give a bad account of (oneself) To act or behave in a way that reflects poorly on oneself. 2014: I must say that there was much more that became clear after a second reading of this book. One that comes to mind at the moment is that of Althusser's idea of interpellation and subject formation (the latter is also influenced by Foucault that Butler acknowledge in the book). "Giving an Account" answers Anderson's criticisms and informs further her philosophi. Considering the socially-constructed nature of the self makes even more sense, but can be a challenge to our gut sense of who we are. The last work we are currently studying in my continental philosophy class. And, after having read a fair bit more Butler over all. By focusing on the epistemological limits of knowing one’s self, Butler liberates the human from oppressive structures that use power to dominate and coerce the other. We should be less quick to judge. To be undone by another is a primary necessity, an anguish, to be sure, but also a chance--to be addressed, claimed, bound to what is not me, but also to be moved, to be prompted to act, to address myself elsewhere, and so to vacate the self-sufficient "I" as a kind of possession. The one is, what does it mean to live an ethical life and to what extent can I give an account of living such a life? :D, See 1 question about Giving an Account of Oneself…, Lectures at the College de France, 1981-82: The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Alexis Coe on Why It Matters When Women Write History. Outside of this context, it is an abstract and incomprehensible blabbering string of letters. This leads to a greater focus on the idea of recognition, that in order to become a person one needs to be recognised as a person. Define giving a good account of oneself. The self is constantly re-narrating itself, giving inconsistent narratives as to how the self was formed. The book has many fine moments, and Butler's readings of Levinas, Foucault, Laplanche and Adorno are quite detailed and compelling. It's more expressly engaged with philosophy than the other Butler texts I've read (Gender Trouble, Bodies that Matter, Undoing Gender), with Butler taking up the works of Foucault, Hegel, Levinas, Laplanche, Bollas, Adorno and Nietzsche. She seemed to be moving towards a discursive and communitarian ideal akin to Confucius, Burke, Arendt or Habermas. What allows you to know who you are, and. What is really quite new in this book is a development of this thought because while Butler was careful to point out the institutional side of interpellation in, for example, The Psychic Life of Power, in Giving an Account of Oneself, on the other hand, there is an emphasis on interpersonal interpellation and the side of the Law or Discourse is not as present. The other is, to what extent am I a subject and to what extent am I an object of social relations? ", this question "who are you?" H�dR�n�0��+��!9dٵ��.�V$$$*rC���@p�z���Dy@�(�ǚ�k. But for more on that, have a look at my review on that book. These may have been brilliant arguments, if they had been developed more, but in the end I was left wondering what exactly Butler's ethics consisted in. The lucidity of Butler's prose belies the breadth and depth of her reading. I felt, however, that she did not do enough to make out her central claim, that accepting our opacity to ourselves would lead to a new understanding of ethics. What is important to have in mind when reading this book is that Butler has already argued for the data of the willing subject and that the subject is formed or created in the act of interpellation. Butler transitions from Adorno to Foucault with a comparison of their critiques of Kantian humanism—“Although Adorno faults Kant for not recognizing error as constitutive of the human and Foucault lauds him for apprehending precisely that, they both concur on the necessity of conceiving the human in its fallibility” (111)—and concludes with a consideration of Foucault’s critical self-account. Each scene of address is a scene of dispossession. Coe... To see what your friends thought of this book. Account In the context of bookkeeping, refers to the ledger pages upon which various assets, liabilities, income, and expenses are represented. “[W]e must recognize that ethics requires us to risk ourselves precisely at moments of unknowingness, when what forms us diverges from what lies before us, when our willingness to become undone in relation to others constitutes our chance of becoming human. Even the "greats" can't make sense of themselves. we must first ask, who am I, what stories do I take part? I know some people take issue with her theories of gender, but to them, I say: try this book on for size. She is currently a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley. "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a sentence. This may be one of the best books I've read in the last couple of years! While most would argue that this renders ethics impossible, Butler argues for an ethic of risk, an ethic against ethical violence and demands that the other be fully intelligible and coherent. I will certainly be reading this again. Thus, I must dispossess myself, refuse to lay claim to a stable and autonomous narrative which grounds the subject. 2. a. We’d love your help. It has really challenged my research (in a good way) about how democracy asks you to know yourself in order to contribute who you are and what you need to the political process. Chapter Summary for Judith Butler's Giving an Account of Oneself, responsibility laplanche and levinas the primacy of the other summary. Very complex, but also essential to understand the relations between the formation of the self and responsability/ethical pratices. Oh, Judy B. The question of the subject, then, is also bound and not self-subsisting. He's very bright and extremely talented, but he has such terrible people skills that he always gives a bad account of himself around others. This becomes even more obvious in Precarious Life, where I think Butler develops a very interesting view of the body linked with vulnerability. give a good account of oneself Behave or perform creditably, as in Harry gave a good account of himself over the last few months, or The company will probably give a good account of itself in the next quarter. give a good account of oneself. Butler begins the book’s final chapter by drawing on Levinas to argue that responsibility arises not out of freedom, but out of “my capacity to be acted upon” (88), a “becoming responsive to the Other” (91) that emerges when the “I” is persecuted by being made substitutable. Explore Course Hero's library of literature materials, including documents and Q&A pairs. If you say that someone gave a good account of themselves in a particular situation, you mean that they performed well, although they may not have been completely successful . We a, In this book, Butler takes her work on language and performativity and develops a notion of ethics based on address and confession. The team fought hard and gave a good account of themselves. This expression transfers a financial reckoning to other affairs. Ecclesiastes 11:9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these … This is a book that is about two very closely related topics. ��w�~ ����b*�CD
^ƾ+K8t�aHb{'S?l"�̀�?��U�䳀��XJ%��?Z?�Dm�5��Yg�lbB�]��gc������!�rBl�@� �)v6����٩�b�k�J�0�$� ��0����_,n�k�([�ZJ�4[y�/�\ This means, in the way I understand it, that Butler becomes even more radically relational in her understanding of identity formation. This is a wonderful read that offers a different interpretation of how we're ethically responsible in the world today, when we speak about our. Just finished reading Judith Butler's recent collection of lectures and essays, Giving an Account of Oneself (2006). Find a summary of this and each chapter of Giving an Account of Oneself! You've stolen my heart from me, moon-speak and all. In the end, Butler uses Foucault’s account to argue that the inextricability of the “I” from “the impress of social life” means “ethics will surely not only presuppose rhetoric ... but social critique as well” (135). Interestingly, this book was published in 2005, the year prior to Amanda Anderson's "The Way We Argue Now" being released. Because the “I” is performative rather than wholly narrativizable, and given the decentering of the subject engendered by psychology’s “Copernican revolution” (75), moving beyond this fantasy to a self-critical account, one in which the “I” acknowledges “that in the beginning I am my relation to you” (81), is necessary in order to maintain the account’s ethicality. Wading through the philosophical and epistomogical works of Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor Adorno, Butler seeks to discover how responsibility to others, through relationships are informed by an individual's attempt to give an account of oneself. This is really hard work – but hard work that pays dividends. The book has many fine moments, and Butler's readings of Levinas, Foucault, Laplanche and Adorno are quite detailed and compelling. Anderon's book levels the most pointed, sustained criticism to date of Butler's philosophical system of agency and identity. A brilliant set of reflections on morality, and specifically, how any morality is bound up with the question of the subject. In this book, Butler takes her work on language and performativity and develops a notion of ethics based on address and confession. 1 0 obj<>
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H�dR�n�0��+x�A>�%%ʢz�6@�b�[�C�5A�4��m��Q���
٤��ޓ�.�+�ݛ�ֻ��~��R ��.�KP:L��ي���l���xwk����wMrB���Zu���f����{��_���������a�N� K�'a+saƜL���8ɶ�$�2ᵿ�Z6���]7mي��yݻ_�̗FF"�$C����6n�yB) Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist and feminist philosopher who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy and ethics. Giving an Account of Oneself Quotes Showing 1-1 of 1 “[W]e must recognize that ethics requires us to risk ourselves precisely at moments of unknowingness, when what forms us diverges from what lies before us, when our willingness to become undone in relation to others constitutes our chance of becoming human. Never have I so profoundly looked into my. I would not consider myself to be part of Butler's intellectual entourage, but I would consider her somewhat brilliant. Because I find that I cannot give an account of myself without accounting for the social conditions under which I emerge, ethical reflection requires a turn to social theory. Where does you come from? Interrogating constructs of selfhood, of identity and how the self, narrates and constructs itself are important in the development of constructs of selfhood that seek to minimize the stability of self at the expense of the other. What I find especially useful in this newer work are Butler's questions of subjectivation and ideation under social and linguistic conditions which may not be fully available to a subject. n. 1. endstream
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To be undone by another is a primary necessity, an anguish, to be sure, but also a chance—to be addressed, claimed, bound to what is not me, but also to be moved, to be prompted to act, to address myself elsewhere, and so to vacate the self-sufficient 'I' as a kind of possession. To ask "what ought I do?" The self is constantly re-narrating itself, giving inconsistent narratives as to how the self was formed. What are synonyms for give a good account of (oneself)? She does make a few ethical points along the way, but they had the character of asides. "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a sentence. Giving An Account of Oneself: Part 1 Judith Butler’s text, Giving an Account of Oneself takes up the question of ethics and the role of narrative re-telling … Judith Butler goes deeper than any expectations of a book so short. For Nietzsche, external “injuries” and “accusations” lead to a self-berating subject (10), while Foucault sees subject formation as a creative process by which the self appropriates “codes of morality” (16). In the context of investment banking, refers to the status of securities sold and owned or the relationship between parties to an underwriting syndicate. A reason given for a particular action or event: What is the account for this loss? Interestingly, this book was published in 2005, the year prior to Amanda Anderson's "The Way We Argue Now" being released. She begins her work by examining the work of Adorno and Foucault, moving to the possibility of giving an account of oneself. How do I give an account of myself to the judge, to the psychoanalyst, to a friend interested in my life-experience? Refresh and try again. we must first ask, who am I, what stories do I take part? Antonyms for give a good account of (oneself). Towards the middle I feared she might pursue a purely psychoanalytic approach to self and articulations of self, but I think Butler was just critical enough to use existing ideas while also keeping from essentializing other scholars or her own ideas. A narrative or record of events. I flagged a great number of passages throughout. It's more expressly engaged with philosophy than the other Butler texts I've read (Gende. Trying to find a philosophical method for selfhood, identity and narration is integral to an ethics of responsibility required to live with diversity and others. An Account of Oneself The value of thought is measured by its distance from the continuity of the familiar. Butler asks whether this relationality and opacity can be a resource for rather than an obstacle to ethical responsibility, leading to a scene of recognition in which the self is humbled before the other by its inevitable lack of self-knowledge. Fantastic book about the unknowability of the self and the ethical implications of the preontological encounter with an other and the passivity and dependency that this entails.
The book continues her epistomological/philosophical search in the wake of 9/11 to find arguments for an ethics of care and responsibility. However, it must be contextualized by the grammatical rules of American English for it to make any sense. I particularly love the bit where she used Foucault to interrogate Foucault and found an incoherence in him (by his own rules) which is really relatable and kind of cute. Shifting focus from judgment to psychoanalysis, Butler insists that the goal of psychoanalysis should not and cannot be allowing the analysand to construct “a coherent account of oneself” (53), but—à la Laplanche and Bollas—for the analyst to serve as the object to whom the analysand delivers an inescapably incomplete account for which the analyst does not hold the analysand fully accountable, thus relieving the analysand from the “fantasy of impossible mastery” and the attendant tendency towards ethical violence (65). Butler is nothing short of an absolute genius and I am glad to say that studying this work has absolutely revolutionized my thinking. Tell readers who you are and what you do right off … In a good way, mostly. If we speak and try to give an account from this place, we will not be irresponsible, or, if we are, we will surely be forgiven.”, مافيش حد يشرح لى الأفكار الجوهرية فى الكتاب ده ينوبه فىّ ثواب ? must first be posed to me, I must be addressed, and I must then account for myself. In three chapters, the book demonstrates how difficult it is to give an account of oneself, and how this lack of self-transparency and narratibility is crucial to an ethical understanding of the human. In Giving an Account of Oneself, Judith Butler sets out to “pose the question of moral philosophy within a contemporary social frame” (1), a frame in which such fields as psychoanalysis and social theory have demonstrated that “[t]he ‘I’ is always to some extent dispossessed by the social conditions of its emergence” (8). Be warned. So, our self-referent dialogues, in order to be communicated, are limited by the confines of the social order within which we reside. A place at once more hospitable and more challenging than it has been, less exclusionary and less indifferent than is. This defies the concept of differentiation (individuation) inherent to the notion of the Self. Synonyms for give a good account of (oneself) in Free Thesaurus. Just a paragraph will do. Preceding, we have looked at Levinas, Foucault, Merleau Ponty. After all, if the “I,” and even the relation of the “I” to others, ends up “used by the norm” (26), how can it be accountable? This study guide for Judith Butler's Giving an Account of Oneself offers summary and analysis on themes, symbols, and other literary devices found in the text. Here is the dilemma. The book continues her epistomological/philosophical search in the wake of 9/11 to find arguments for an ethics of care and responsibility. Similarly, Butler posits that the Self cannot be iterated without context; namely, that one cannot discuss one's Selfhood without the preontological conception of the Other, both a recipient of and critic of this discourse. In order to wholly iterate the terms of one's own identity and existence, the Individual must be interchangeable with the Other. Butler’s prose is remarkably clear and her arguments are lucid. In this context, the chapter considers the critique of a Hegelian model of recognition offered by Adriana Cavarero, a feminist philosopher who draws on … We are incapable of articulating ourselves coherently and consistently. There is a pre-ontology before us, that creates our subjectivity. The “you” is necessary to the account of the “I,” an account that is always an accounting-to dependent on the self’s “non-narrativizable exposure” and the partially opaque set of “primary relations” and historically conditioned “structure[s] of address” out of and in which the “I” emerges (39). Quite interesting. Butler's sense of our 'opacity' to ourselves is poetic and enticing. I have to say I'm rather surprised she doesn't pay any lipservice to Jessica Benjamin, who clearly provides quite a bit of fodder here, re: Butler's notions of encountering the other (see Benjamin's concept of mutual recognition in The Bonds of Love; both Benjamin and Butler are, as they admit in this regard, following Hegel). phrase. While difficult to read (I will probably need a few re-reads), I found this book to interrogate many assumptions and ideas I take for granted about selfhood, the "I", and how it is possible (or not) to understand oneself. Translation memories are created by human, but computer aligned, which might cause mistakes. So often the philosophical and epistomological act of constructing our own identities is at odds with that of someone else. Historian Alexis Coe's new book, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, arrived in U.S. bookstores in February. It is probably not surprising that the questions Butler asks are similar to those that concerned Foucault in his last works. However, it must be contextualized by the grammatical rules of American English for it to make any sense. She argues that we remain opaque to ourselves, thus it is an impossibility to truly give an account of our selves and our formation. Thinking of ethics as contextual makes sense, but has some troubling implications. This dialogue of the Self is thereby limited by social norms, or by a greater extension, what is accepted by the Other as Truth. A truly great work of theory. To ask "what ought I do?" Following questions and themes raised in earlier works, specifically Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence (2004) Butler moves her focus from the subject's relationships with others to how the subject formulates itself. Such a scene must rely on a suspension of judgment, as the “I” who judges—in its haste to condemn the other and thus externalize its own opacity—risks practicing a form of punishment that is life-destroying rather than life-sustaining. Butler complicates the logic around accountability and subjectivity by appealing to a profound relationally that lies at the heart of human existence. Account. 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Never have I so profoundly looked into myself in that job interview today Rhetoric and Comparative literature at. S “ the Judgment ” as want to read you 've stolen my heart from me, I be! Chapter is one of the single best essays I have ever read of reflections on morality, and one! ) inherent to the notion of ethics based on address and confession of an! Others, and specifically, how any morality is bound up with the other on,... Goes deeper than any expectations of a book so short specifically, how any is... Is constantly re-narrating itself, Giving an account of myself to the possibility of Giving account., the Individual must be contextualized by the grammatical rules of American English for it to any... A pairs thought is measured by its distance from the continuity of single! Have liked to for an ethics of care and responsibility studying this has! The reader and a scenes of addressed the lucidity of Butler 's Giving an account of was initial destitution.