Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Post-Doc, Philosophy and Moral Sciences

Postdoctoral Fellow for the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)

About

Modern philosophy deals with the possible foundations of democracy. How can we protect democracy against anti-democratic currents or ideas?
And can a democracy avoid the Trojan horse of radicalism?
The conflict is clear: pluralism allows for other than liberal discourses in public life, thus also for discourses that seek to diminish or even abolish diversity. But pluralism is the permanent condition of a democratic society, it is not a contingent factor. 

This is the main question of my recent post-doc project  (Research Foundation Flanders - FWO).

The 17th century philosopher Spinoza is the source of inspiration for addressing this question, together with the political thinker he most admired, Machiavelli.
Spinoza and Machiavelli interpret the essence of politics differently than most liberal thinkers. The liberal tradition implies the following anthropological presuppositions: that  human beings are free, rational and that they act according to their self-interest. Spinoza and Machiavelli offer a different perspective: they emphasize the role of the passions in politics. Man although having 'reason', is not always a rational being.  They suppose that conflict, rather than consensus, constitutes politics.  Spinoza's philosophy then serves as a means of questioning the implicit anthropology of modern liberal theory.   

Furthermore, Spinoza's Ethics remains fascinating because he did not determine the essence of the human being. Another aspect of my work concerns the relation between Spinoza's ontology and modern forms of naturalism/Darwinism.

"Spinoza's philosophy of joy" is the title of a book I edited (in Dutch: 'Spinoza, Filosoof van de Blijheid', June, 2009, Brussels: ASP).
The book contains one article of mine on Spinoza and Hobbes, "Blijheid in overvloed. Spinoza over verlangen en macht". In another text, I explore Spinoza's original mind-body conception and what might be a practical path to 'joy' and liberation. I also translated two articles from French to Dutch (Alexandre Matheron, Laurent Bove).

As an independent political commentator, I also participate in the debate in my own country, Belgium, with philosophically inspired articles in different media: on the website of the VRT (www.deredactie.be), in newspapers like 'De Standaard'; 'De Tijd' or 'De Morgen'), for the website of 'Liberales' (liberal thinktank). I equally wrote a piece for 'Policy Network', and a Free Tribune in 'Doorbraak'.


More about my background.

Originally, my phd-research topic was quite different. While writing my thesis, I was fascinated by the possibility of a 'clinical anthropology': studying the specificity of the human being through the study of psychopathology (instead of considering reason or language as the significant difference between humans and other animals). I explored these reflections in the work of Freud and Nietzsche, and published several articles on this topic.

Other subjects of publications: Schopenhauer, Feuerbach and Heidegger (on the importance of 'Being and Time' for French post-war philosophy, showing the opposition between a philosophy of transcendence and Deleuze's philosophy of immanence).
It was Deleuze's work that set me on the way of discovering Spinoza's ontology. And recent political events (historic elections in the US, EU-integration, globalization and a lasting crisis in Belgium) made me want to explore my already existing interest in political philosophy in a more scientific way.

Selected publications on Freud, Nietzsche and Darwin:
Beeckman, T. (2005). ‘Reinterpreting Freud’s Genealogy of Culture’ in The origin and ends of the Psyche: Philosophical essays on psychoanalysis. R. Brassier & C. Kerslake (ed.). Figures of the Unconscious 5. Louvain: Louvain University Press.
- (2005). “A psychoanalytical perspective on the end of ‘imitatio Christi” in (a) The Journal of Culture and the Unconscious (ed. Juliet MacCannell, San Francisco), pp. 43-54.
- (2006). “Enlightenment and Reductionism. Freud’s exemplary theory of religion” In Vroom, H. Schrijvers, J. En Stoker, W. (Eds.). Faith and Enlightenment – Friendly Ennemies?. European Society for the Philosophy of Religion of Religion, series ‘Currents of Encounter’, pp 87-97. 
- (2007).  ‘On Evil, an Immanent Critique’, in H. Vroom & J. Gort, (Eds.) in Wrestling with God and with Evil. Philosophical Reflections. In the series ‘Currents of Encounter'. Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam - New York, pp. 105-116.
- (2008) ‘Nietzsche’s fashionable genealogy: an exercise in anti-reductionist  naturalism’. In Dries, M. (ed.) Nietzsche on Time and History.  Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 38-52.
- (accepted, to appear) “Turning Metaphysics into Psychology: Sigmund Freud and Nietzsche” in New Nietzsche Studies (ed. Babich, New York).

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