Scenes of action – criticism of the ending

Abstract

This text investigates the procedurality inaugurated by the action of subjects, which can be seen especially in the developments devoted to the play Antigone, in the Phenomenology of the Spirit. The conflict of irreducible rights entails the creation of a theory of action – in which the ends do not justify the means. Such an ethical requirement, always a posteriori, is imposed when the non-control of the relational world is verified, implying, finally, an open historicity. However, if simply being in the world is an action since it produces effects, we ask ourselves about the conditions (background in a situation governing expectations, but also the history of thought) and potentialities (disruptive emergence that organizes expectations, in becoming) of action. Thanks to externalizations that generate a problematic field, in the form of language, work and desire, we contract alterity relations and arrive at ourselves, through the other, fatally different from the starting point. It is up to philosophy to judge the implications of each particular action.