The Post-Foundational Condition: Simon Critchley as a Post-Foundational Thinker of Politics

This master’s thesis proposes that Simon Critchley’s philosophy of politics is in the tradition of the post-foundational political thought. To prove this, the thesis takes three central features of Oliver Marchart’s definition of the post-foundational political thought and sets them as the criteria that a philosophy of politics must fulfil to be post-foundational. These criteria are: 1) there is no final ground for society, the ground is always contingent; 2) although there is no final ground, there must be some ground for society; and 3) post-foundational political thought includes a Heideggerian splitting between ontic “politics” and ontological “the political”. The thesis investigates if Critchley’s philosophy fulfils these three criteria.

The examination of the first criterion shows that Critchley’s view on politics is influenced by Ernesto Laclau’s theory of hegemony. Critchley supplements the descriptive theory with a normative dimension which is provided by the ethics of deconstruction. This ethics, which emphasizes respect for the other and opposes totalization, makes the question of the contingency of grounds an ethical question. For Critchley, democracy is the most ethical form of society because it includes constant questioning of those in power, and thus is explicitly without a final ground. As Critchley defends democracy, he commits himself ethically to the first criterion.

In the case of the second criterion, for Critchley the lack of final grounds expresses itself in the life of individuals as feelings of religious or political disappointment. These disappointments cause motivational deficit in people, which prevents political action and leads to nihilism. To counter nihilism and to provide a contingent ground for social life Critchley suggests the ethics of infinite demand, which he derives from the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas. In it, the ethical demand that is faced in concrete life functions as a motivation for political action and forming of political associations. In his later works Critchley adds “the supreme fiction” as a further condition for ethical politics. This is a political fiction one knows to be a fiction, but believes in nevertheless. This ground for political action, which recognizes its own contingency, proves that the second criterion is there in Critchley’s philosophy.

To conclude, the thesis investigates how Critchley’s thinking relates to the third criterion. One can read in Critchley a description of social life where concrete politics on the ontic level is conditioned ontologically by the incessant movement between grounding and ungrounding caused by the lack of final ground and the necessity of some ground. This movement is the essence of the political. However, the thesis notes Critchley’s aversion to ontology and the critique Marchart’s definition has garnered. Hence, the thesis suggests that Critchley’s post-foundational view of politics does not arise from ontological investigation but from phenomenological descriptions of how the post-foundational condition discloses itself in the average everydayness of human life.