How to Think About Catastrophe: Toward a Theory of Enlightened Doomsaying

180 Pages·2023·4.087 MB·English

by  Jean-Pierre Dupuy

How to Think
About Catastrophe
studies in violence, mimesis, and culture
SERIES EDITOR
William A. Johnsen
The Studies in Violence, Mimesis, and Culture Series examines issues related to the nexus of
violence and religion in the genesis and maintenance of culture. It furthers the agenda of the
Colloquium on Violence and Religion, an international association that draws inspiration
from René Girard’s mimetic hypothesis on the relationship between violence and religion,
elaborated in a stunning series of books written over a period of more than forty years. Readers
interested in this area of research can also look to the association’s journal, Contagion: Journal
of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture.
ADVISORY BOARD
René Girard†, Stanford University Raymund Schwager†, University of Innsbruck
Andrew McKenna, Loyola University of Chicago James Williams, Syracuse University
EDITORIAL BOARD
Rebecca Adams, Independent Scholar Hans Jensen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Jeremiah L. Alberg, International Christian Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California,
University, Tokyo, Japan Santa Barbara
Mark Anspach, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Grant Kaplan, Saint Louis University
Sociales, Paris Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Shaw University
Pierpaolo Antonello, University of Cambridge Michael Kirwan, SJ, Trinity College Dublin
Ann Astell, University of Notre Dame Paisley Livingston, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Cesáreo Bandera, University of North Carolina Charles Mabee, Ecumenical Theological Seminary,
Maria Stella Barberi, Università di Messina Detroit
Alexei Bodrov, St. Andrew’s Biblical Theological Józef Niewiadomski, Universität Innsbruck
Institute, Moscow Wolfgang Palaver, Universität Innsbruck
João Cezar de Castro Rocha, Universidade Ángel Jorge Barahona Plaza, Universidad Francisco
do Estado do Rio de Janeiro de Vitoria
Benoît Chantre, L’Association Recherches Petra Steinmair-Pösel, KPH Edith Stein
Mimétiques Martha Reineke, University of Northern Iowa
Diana Culbertson, Kent State University Julia Robinson Moore, University of North
Paul Dumouchel, Université du Québec à Montréal Carolina at Charlotte
Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Stanford University, École Tobin Siebers†, University of Michigan
Polytechnique Thee Smith, Emory University
Giuseppe Fornari, Università degli studi di Verona Mark Wallace, Swarthmore College
Eric Gans, University of California, Los Angeles Nikolaus Wandinger, University of Innsbruck,
Sandor Goodhart, Purdue University Austria
Robert Hamerton-Kelly†, Stanford University Eugene Webb, University of Washington
How to Think
About Catastrophe
Toward a Theory of
Enlightened Doomsaying
Jean-Pierre Dupuy
Translated by
M. B. DeBevoise and
Mark R. Anspach
Michigan State University Press · East Lansing
English translation copyright © 2023 by Michigan State University; Pour un catastrophisme éclairé:
Quand l’impossible est certain copyright © 2002 by Éditions du Seuil
p
Michigan State University Press
East Lansing, Michigan 48823-5245
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Names: Dupuy, Jean-Pierre, 1941– author. | DeBevoise, M. B., translator. | Anspach, Mark Rogin, 1959–
translator.
Title: How to think about catastrophe : toward a theory of enlightened doomsaying / Jean-Pierre Dupuy
; translated by M. B. DeBevoise and Mark R. Anspach.
Other titles: Pour un catastrophisme éclairé. English
Description: First. | East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, [2022] | Series: Studies in violence,
mimesis, and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021056064 | ISBN 9781611864366 (paperback) | ISBN 9781609177065 (pdf) |
ISBN 9781628954746 (epub) | ISBN 9781628964684 (kindle)
Subjects: LCSH: Catastrophical, The
Classification: LCC BD375 D8713 2022 | DDC 133.3—dc23/eng/20211202
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056064
Cover design by David Drummond, Salamander Design, www.salamanderhill.com.
Cover art: Richard Ernest Eurich, Jonah and the Whale, c.1980 (oil on canvas, 50.8x61 cms). Photo ©
Christie’s Images / © Estate of Richard Eurich. All rights reserved 2022 / Bridgeman Images.
Visit Michigan State University Press at www.msupress.org
So the Platonic Year
Whirls out new right and wrong,
Whirls in the old instead;
All men are dancers and their tread
Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong.
—W. B. Yeats, The Tower
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
—T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

Contents
ix Prologue. A Time of Catastrophes
PART ONE | Risk and Fatality
3 chapter 1. A Singular Point of View
13 chapter 2. Sacrifice, Counterproductivity, and Ethics,
or the Logic of the Detour
25 chapter 3. Fate, Risk, and Responsibility
37 chapter 4. The Autonomy of Technology
47 chapter 5. Doomsaying on Trial
PART TWO | The Limits of Economic Rationality
63 chapter 6. Precaution, Between Risk and Uncertainty
75 chapter 7. The Veil of Ignorance and Moral Luck
83 chapter 8. Knowing Is Not Believing
PART THREE | The Limits of Moral Philosophy and the
Necessity of Metaphysics
97 chapter 9. Memory of the Future
105 chapter 10. Predicting the Future in Order to Change It
(Jonah vs. Jonas)
115 chapter 11. Projected Time and Occurring Time
131 chapter 12. The Rationality of Doomsaying
143 notes
161 index
PROLOGUE
A Time of Catastrophes
In order to picture to itself an unknown situation the
imagination borrows elements that are already familiar
and, for that reason, cannot picture it. But the sensibility,
even in its most physical form, receives, like the wake of a
thunderbolt, the original and for long indelible imprint of
the novel event.
—Marcel Proust, The Fugitive
This book has its origins in a talk I gave on March 1, 2001, at the
French economic planning agency, the Commissariat Général
du Plan, as the inaugural lecture of a seminar on new risks facing
France and other advanced industrialized societies. Under the circum-
stances, I might have been expected to strike the managerial tone usually
thought to be appropriate to a gathering of business leaders and senior
government officials. Out of conviction, however, rather than any desire
to shock my listeners, I resolved to adopt the attitude of a doomsayer. The
reader will see exactly what I mean by this in the pages that follow. At all
events, my remarks stimulated debate. Urged to expand the text of my talk
into a book, I drew upon the course of lectures I had prepared for a class
ix