Second Finitude, or the Technics of Address: A Response

Philosophy & Rhetoric Nov 2014

Second Finitude, or the Technics of Address: A Response

Cary Wolfe Rice University

Abstract

AbstractThis response article argues that the question of “extrahuman relations” obtains on not just one level but two. It is not just a question of our relations to nonhuman forms of life—such as, for example, the embodiment and finitude we share with other beings. It's also a question of a second form of finitude that obtains in our prosthetic subjection to any semiotic system whatsoever that makes possible “our” concepts, “our” recognition and articulation of our “nonhuman relations” in the first place. By examining the bird poems of Wallace Stevens, I demonstrate that with the question of extrahuman relations we are always talking, in other words, not about a thematics but about a technics of address.

Journal: Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published: 2014-11-01
DOI: 10.5325/philrhet.47.4.0554
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multimodality body and rhetoric

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

Stormer et al. (2017)

Thinking Ecologically About Rhetoric's Ontology: Capacity, Vulnerability, and R…

Philosophy & Rhetoric

Cites in this index (0)

No references match articles in this index.

Also cites 3 works outside this index ↓

Cavell, Stanley. 1990. Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism. Chic…

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Critchley, Simon. 2005. Things Merely Are: Philosophy in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens. London: Routledge.

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Derrida, Jacques. 2002. “The University Without Condition.” In Without Alibi, ed. and trans. Peggy Kamuf, 202…

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