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danielad's review against another edition
4.0
After Life is, as the table of contents and page 241 show, an examination of three competing interpretations of life. There is, first of all, superlative life as outlined by Pseudo-Dionysius and Eriugena; secondly, there is univocal life as found in Scotus and Spinoza; and, finally, there is Eiugena's and Cusa's pantheistic life. In each case, Thacker argues, life is defined by something other than itself: "[e]very ontology of "life" thinks of life in terms of something-other-than-life" (x).
In the first case, life is thought of in terms of time or in terms of the distinction between living creatures and the Life that makes them possible (the 'that' of life); in the second case, life is examined in terms of its 'what': what is Life? what is the Life that makes it possible for creatures to live? and what is the relation between Life and living creatures? For Aquinas and Henry of Ghent, Life is analogically related to living creatures: there is a dis-junction between the two such that they are neither entirely different (as in Aristotle) nor entirely on the same level (as Deleuze argues). Rather, they are causally related: Life is the cause of living creatures. The third understanding of life - that of Nicholas of Cusa and Gilles Deleuze - focuses on the immanence of life (answering the question, perhaps, of the 'where' of Life). For each of these thinkers, Life and living creatures are related in a somewhat pantheistic way: Life is in the living creatures (though not identical with any one of them). Hence, we have - at least in Deleuze - a sense that Life is immanent; Life is not absolutely other than living creatures (as in Aristotle), nor analogously/causally related (as in Aquinas and Henry of Ghent), nor even emanatively/causally related (as in Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius); rather, Life is thoroughly immanent to itself where "[a] cause is immanent . . . when its effect is 'immanante' in the cause, rather than emanating from it" (Deleuze, as quoted on 217).
So, does Thacker do a good job?
I'd say he does.
But I'd also say that his interpretations of these largely medieval philosophers is somewhat tainted by a Deleuzean lens. Thacker's readings of Pseudo-Dionysius, Aquinas, and Henry of Ghent are fairly good (though he fails to point out the obvious continuities between Dionysius and Aquinas) but his understanding of Scotus could be improved: like many advocates of Radical Orthodoxy and followers of Deleuze, he could gain a lot by reading of Richard Cross's paper "'Where angels fear to tread': Duns Scotus and radical orthodoxy" (a paper Cross gladly e-mailed me upon request). Thacker seems to think, along with Deleuze, that Scotus's univocity of Being is both epistemological and ontological when, in fact, it is bare: it is merely a logical concept that has no content in itself. This point needs to be more emphasized since Scotus is far too often taken to advocate an early kind of panentheistic or monistic framework.
Aside from content, the book also has a lot of grammatical errors. At times I noticed errors on consecutive pages (one important mistake that affects Thacker's argument in on page 132: the final sentence in the second-last paragraph should read "while in the second statement "exists" would mean "having an extra-mental reality in the world"" instead of "while in the second statement "exists" would mean "not having an extra-mental reality in the world"".) This is really unacceptable, especially for a book published by The University of Chicago Press.
In the end, though, Thacker has done an admirable job of bringing to light and interpreting often neglected medieval sources and I'm looking forward to the release of Thacker's promised second volume, Dark Life.
In the first case, life is thought of in terms of time or in terms of the distinction between living creatures and the Life that makes them possible (the 'that' of life); in the second case, life is examined in terms of its 'what': what is Life? what is the Life that makes it possible for creatures to live? and what is the relation between Life and living creatures? For Aquinas and Henry of Ghent, Life is analogically related to living creatures: there is a dis-junction between the two such that they are neither entirely different (as in Aristotle) nor entirely on the same level (as Deleuze argues). Rather, they are causally related: Life is the cause of living creatures. The third understanding of life - that of Nicholas of Cusa and Gilles Deleuze - focuses on the immanence of life (answering the question, perhaps, of the 'where' of Life). For each of these thinkers, Life and living creatures are related in a somewhat pantheistic way: Life is in the living creatures (though not identical with any one of them). Hence, we have - at least in Deleuze - a sense that Life is immanent; Life is not absolutely other than living creatures (as in Aristotle), nor analogously/causally related (as in Aquinas and Henry of Ghent), nor even emanatively/causally related (as in Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius); rather, Life is thoroughly immanent to itself where "[a] cause is immanent . . . when its effect is 'immanante' in the cause, rather than emanating from it" (Deleuze, as quoted on 217).
So, does Thacker do a good job?
I'd say he does.
But I'd also say that his interpretations of these largely medieval philosophers is somewhat tainted by a Deleuzean lens. Thacker's readings of Pseudo-Dionysius, Aquinas, and Henry of Ghent are fairly good (though he fails to point out the obvious continuities between Dionysius and Aquinas) but his understanding of Scotus could be improved: like many advocates of Radical Orthodoxy and followers of Deleuze, he could gain a lot by reading of Richard Cross's paper "'Where angels fear to tread': Duns Scotus and radical orthodoxy" (a paper Cross gladly e-mailed me upon request). Thacker seems to think, along with Deleuze, that Scotus's univocity of Being is both epistemological and ontological when, in fact, it is bare: it is merely a logical concept that has no content in itself. This point needs to be more emphasized since Scotus is far too often taken to advocate an early kind of panentheistic or monistic framework.
Aside from content, the book also has a lot of grammatical errors. At times I noticed errors on consecutive pages (one important mistake that affects Thacker's argument in on page 132: the final sentence in the second-last paragraph should read "while in the second statement "exists" would mean "having an extra-mental reality in the world"" instead of "while in the second statement "exists" would mean "not having an extra-mental reality in the world"".) This is really unacceptable, especially for a book published by The University of Chicago Press.
In the end, though, Thacker has done an admirable job of bringing to light and interpreting often neglected medieval sources and I'm looking forward to the release of Thacker's promised second volume, Dark Life.
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