Dmitri Nikulin

Aufenthalt

Oktober 2009; Mai‒Juli 2012, August 2015‒Januar 2016, August‒Oktober 2019, September 2026

Forschungsthema

»The role of negativity in the constitution of action«

Projektbeschreibung

We cannot think without negation, cannot speak without the »not,« cannot act without considering the possibility of not acting. This project is a philosophical study of the relation between action and its negation in the form of non-action and the prohibition of action. Through a discussion and interpretation of a number of key philosophical and literary texts from various periods, including those of Aristotle, Locke, Schelling, Melville, Lafargue, and Arendt it argues that our action is determined not only by rationally justified prescriptions but also by its negation, which for the most part remains implicit. Against a well-established tradition that considers action as primary, independent, and thinkable without its negation, this approach argues that negativity plays a central role in the constitution of our being, thinking, and action

Veröffentlichungen (Auswahl)

• Non-Being in Ancient Thought, New York: Oxford University Press 2025.
• Critique of Bored Reason: On the Confinement of the Modern Condition, Columbia University Press 2022.
• The Concept of History, Bloomsbury 2017.
• Memory: A History, Oxford University Press 2015.
• Dialectic and Dialogue, Stanford: Stanford University Press 2010.