Anarchism and the Various Senses of Anarchy in Reiner Schürmann

This article analyzes Reiner Schürmann’s philosophy of anarchy by distinguishing between the various senses of anarchy used throughout his life. I distinguish between eleven senses of anarchy: thetic, originary, non-causal, practical, ontological, phenomenological, historical, governmental, transgressive, self-constitutive, and differential. Although Schürmann’s philosophy of anarchy goes well beyond political anarchism, it encompasses anarchic praxis as the “political a priori” of thinking in a manner that is entirely compatible with the anarchist tradition: Schürmann praises moments of history in which governance is suspended, arguing that they espouse a fluidity of institutions in accordance with the fluctuations of phenomena. It is precisely Schürmann’s commitment to anarchism which makes him critical of the “classical anarchism” of the nineteenth century, since he reproaches anarchists such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Mikhail Bakunin for positing metaphysical principles for thinking and acting rather than rejecting the metaphysical archē altogether.