Dr. Vivaldi Jean-Marie, “Memory, the Jewish Intellectual and Cartesian Cogito in Jean Amery’s At the Mind’s Limits”

Dr. Vivaldi Jean-Marie

Associate Professor of Philosophy, CUNY

Adjunct Associate of Philosophy and African-American Studies, Columbia University

Harvard Faculty Club, Room 4

Monday, November 9th, 2015

7:00 P.M.

For Jean Amery, Auschwitz rids the intellect of its Western ideals, and reduces it to a playful logical framework, and is therefore representative of the Cartesian Cogito.

Jean-Marie begins by discussing the role of memory in Amery’s account in At the Mind’s Limits, and then moves on to cover Amery’s account of Jewish intellectuals in Auschwitz. He finishes by discussing the resemblance of Amery’s view of the intellect to Cogito in his meditations.