Projects
The focal point of the present research project will be the problem of the relation of possibility to negativity. Negativity has been linked to possibility ever since Aristotle (in Physics and Metaphysics; in Physics he even states that the problem of steresis, or privation, is another way to describe the problem of dunamis), and there is a long tradition, leading up to Heidegger and beyond that deals with their relationship. In this tradition, however, there are two dominant oppositions, which a vigorous study should overcome. The first one is the opposition between negativity and positivity; the second, the opposition between possibility and impossibility. Opposing negativity to positivity opens the way for an affirmative interpretation of negativity and in fact predetermines the meaning of negativity through the concept of negation seen as an act. This means that negativity is seen as having affirmative force of its own, which makes it affirmative. (This was the argument of Frege in his study of Negation.) Negativity is negative only to the extent that it is not an act. It is not opposed to the act (and, therefore to affirmativity), because it is not posed at all. If negativity is not an act, it should be thought of on the side of possibility, or potentiality. But in the possible it is what cannot be actualized, and therefore, what remains impossible. The impossible is not opposed to the possible; it traverses it as its own impotentiality and thus marks its internal limits. It is for this reason that possibility is never reducible to what was already conditioned, or predetermined, or pregiven.
I believe, that it is precisely the relationship of negativity and possibility that couldl help philosophy overcome the simple opposition between possibility and impossibility, on the one hand, and to grasp better the actualization which does not presuppose anything pregiven, on the other.
The task of rethinking the correlations possibility - actuality and negativity - affirmativity was already partially fulfilled in the works of Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida, or Agamben. These debates were brought to the Bulgarian philosophical scene and developed recently by Boyan Manchev and Dimitar Vatsov. In the present project some of the positions in these debates will be reconsidered and reevaluated, and new theses will be proposed.
I believe that this research project will help rearticulate basic issues in the field of literary theory, political philosophy, sociology, critical theory.