Lecture 'Inordinate Knowledge and the Hidden Mythology of Our Language'
- For whom
- Alumni , Press , Employees , Private individuals , Students
- When
- 18-09-2026 from 17:30 to 19:30
- Where
- Auditorium 3 Suzanne Lilar, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Ghent
- Language
- English
- Organizer
- Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences & Department of History - Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
- Contact
- dries.josten@ugent.be
- Website
- https://www.ugent.be/doctoralschool/en/doctoraltraining/courses/specialistcourses/objective-of-the-humanities-objectivity-politics-and-knowledge-production
Veena Das on the concept of inordinate knowledge in conversation with a discussion of aesthetic emotion from Indian philosophy and aesthetics.
"In this paper I reorient the concept of inordinate knowledge as proposed by Stanley Cavell and Cora Diamond by putting it in conversation with a discussion of aesthetic emotion from Indian philosophy and aesthetics. Drawing from Wittgenstein’s formulation of “primitive reaction” as a response drawn out in relation to the pain of the other, I argue that this primitive reaction is not external or anterior to forms of life. Since we can also invent natural histories for our emotions, I show another region of primitive response in which a curse drawn out at the sight of injustice to another, is sought to be domesticated so that it does not become a curse on the world. If reason fails, the difficulty of reality that Diamond alludes to, might be hosted by the hidden mythology in our language as it allows life to be reinstituted in small acts of acknowledgement."