We place “philosophy” at the cusp of the “act of mourning” and the “fact of melancholia”. We argue that one side of philosophy has, as if, completed the act of mourning for what it (has) lost.
What has it lost is, however, the question: has it lost, as Arendt (2005) in The Promise of Politics suggests, the old and short-lived Socratic urge to be in the polis, be in polis life; to lead a life tied to the polis, tied to life in the polis?
Has it lost its touch with, as Marx (2002 [1845]) in Theses on Feuerbach suggests, praxis; or as Tagore (2011 [1925]) in Prospectus for ‘A Viswa-Bharati Institute for Rural Reconstruction at Sriniketan’ suggests, coordination of brain and hand?
Has it lost touch with, as Heidegger (1985) in Being and Time suggests, phronesis?
Has it lost its contact, as Lacan (2007) in The Other Side of Psychoanalysis suggests, with the “slave”, with slave life-worlds, and especially with the slave’s “know-how”?
One side of philosophy has, as if, moved on, with manic determination to the side of theoria, sophia, or episteme. It has in turn led to the hyper-separation of “thought and action” (Arendt 2005) and the world of knowing (theoria), world of making (poiesis) and the world of doing (praxis) (Carr 2006).
‘The Other Side of Philosophy’ has, as if, remained melancholic about what it (has) lost.