Cetin Balanuye

Ethico-political Acts of Desire: in Search of Posthumanist Hopes Cetin Balanuye

The concept of desire has been central to recent philosophical debates. One of the main motivations for this apparent interest in the concept of desire is the result of the increasing awareness of the shortcomings of those presuppositions revolving around an ?autonomous subject?, ?transcendence?, ?representation?, and ?moral subjectivity?. Desire, in this vein, is conceived and put into practice by the traditional philosophy as one among the other attributes that cannot be considered without reference to man. Desire as such is conceived as something that is necessarily controlled and managed by reason. Ethics and politics, in terms of these ill-conceived presuppositions, are narratives erected upon this tension that necessarily refers to a self-conscious subject and her subversive desires. I argue, however, for the possibility of imagining other variants of desire, i.e., something other than traditionally established debates, where desire is no longer conceived in strict reference to human beings. These novel accounts, I hope, will help us see in what ways desire can be considered within the concept of pure immanence and the realm post-humanist ethico-politics.