A picture held us captive : investigations towards an iconoclastic praxeology
Iconoclastic discourse, as a critique of âidolsâ of various kinds, has been appropriated by a range of different thinkers and traditions â often not always explicitly religious â throughout history. One of the more recent targets of iconoclasm is metaphysics, understood as a way of doing philosophy that appeals to an ideal or transcendent ground that is used to offer a totalising explanation of ârealityâ. For some reason, the issue of âmetaphysical idolatryâ has become entangled with the problem of âwritingâ, or ârepresentationâ more generally, which is pictured in some rather strange ways by a range of thinkers and theorists â including philosophers and theologians such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion, and Catherine Pickstock â in order to either challenge, or to be held accountable for, the âidolatryâ of metaphysical thought. It seems, however, that these strange pictures of writing compound rather than solve the problem of metaphysics, and it is towards pictures such as these that we direct our own iconoclastic critique. What many critics of metaphysics have failed to comprehend, we argue, is that metaphysics is a certain type of philosophical practice, and it must therefore
Deary, Janice L.
Iconoclastic discourse and practice ; Post-metaphysical continental philosophy and theology
A picture held us captive : investigations towards an iconoclastic praxeology. Iconoclastic discourse, as a critique of âidolsâ of various kinds, has been appropriated by a range of different thinkers and traditions â often not always explicitly religious â throughout history. One of the more recent targets of iconoclasm is metaphysics, understood as a way of doing philosophy that appeals to an ideal or transcendent ground that is used to offer a totalising explanation of ârealityâ. For some reason, the issue of âmetaphysical idolatryâ has become entangled with the problem of âwritingâ, or ârepresentationâ more generally, which is pictured in some rather strange ways by a range of thinkers and theorists â including philosophers and theologians such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion, and Catherine Pickstock â in order to either challenge, or to be held accountable for, the âidolatryâ of metaphysical thought. It seems, however, that these strange pictures of writing compound rather than solve the problem of metaphysics, and it is towards pictures such as these that we direct our own iconoclastic critique. What many critics of metaphysics have failed to comprehend, we argue, is that metaphysics is a certain type of philosophical practice, and it must therefore
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