Robert Musil and the NonModern by Freed Mark M.;

Author:Freed, Mark M.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780826441935
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2019-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

Irony operates as a trope by which Musil destabilizes conventional modes of representation in order to open up new ones — in which new possibilities for Being are to be disclosed. Thus, in what he terms Musil’s interdiscursive experimentation, Moser sees Musil provoking an interaction between the represented discourses which cancels the relative autonomy of the separated units and opens the possibility of other connections between them (“Diskursexperimente” 180). Moser concludes that the experimentation with various discourses explores new horizons in which new combinations of discourses are proposed and thereby develops a dynamic which transcends the givens of the existing discursive system17 (“Diskursexperimente” 180). It also makes it possible to explore liminal zones (Zwischenraume) between the existing discourses (“Diskursexperimente” 170). It is in the space of such a liminal zone that Musil’s Essayismus is able to disclose an alternative mode of Being.

Reading Moser’s articulation of an interdiscursive principle back onto the larger structure of the novel, it can be said that Musil represents Viennese society as a multiplicity of competing discourses figured locally in the lack of consensus that debilitates the Parallel Campaign as well as globally in the discursive multiplicity that contributes to the pseudoreality that prevails. That discursive multiplicity corresponds to the idle talk and ambiguity which, along with curiosity, are the components of the fallen Being of everyday publicness in Heidegger’s account of Dasein’s Being-in. In allowing these discourses to interact in ways that destabilize one another, Musil’s Essayismus opens a Zwischenraum, which, like the Heideggerian “clearing” (Erleuchtung), allows an alternative mode of Being to show itself as itself. Musil’s The Man Without Qualities is that essayistic Zwischenraum in which the conditions of authentic Being are disclosed.

Musil’s disclosure of authentic Being in Modernity exhibits a number of features that position it as something other than “modern” and “philosophical.” Like Heidegger, Musil’s Essayismus discloses an authentic Being without recursion to a Cartesian substantial (ontic) self, and therefore does so without signature components of conventionally modern philosophy.18 Despite whatever degree of radicality can be attributed to Heidegger’s reworking of traditional ontology, however, his phenomenological disclosure of authentic Being remains clearly within the horizon of philosophical reflection. Musil, on the other hand, is decidedly not participating in philosophical discourse proper, even though he still treats philosophical questions. It is in this sense that Musil’s Essayismus opens a Zwischenraum that is something like a nonphilosophical place from which to still treat of philosophy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.