The Philosophy of 9/11: A Critical Analysis of the Main Debates

by Alberto Di Felice

June 2009

Abstract

The primary purpose of this dissertation is to critically review and evaluate some of the most significant theories and debates that have sprung up following the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. The approach taken is a broadly philosophical one, with preference given to the opinions of philosophers, but the works covered are quite diverse, ranging from political philosophy to cultural studies.
The general aims of the discussion are twofold: firstly, to highlight and examine the political meaning behind the various speculations and theories presented; secondly, to advance a possible philosophical conceptualization of 9/11 as a properly political act that can overcome the most evident shortcomings of the theories under study.
The dissertation is divided into three chapters. The first chapter presents an investigation of the characteristics of terrorism in general, and of 9/11-type terrorism in particular. The idea of a “new terrorism,” most famously described by Walter Laqueur and largely influential on the 2002 U.S. security strategy, is challenged. Emphasis is placed on the political goals of terrorism.
The second chapter focuses on the scathing cultural critiques offered by Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Žižek. Terrorism is here tackled as an abstract and symbolic attack on American hegemony. These much-celebrated contributions are subjected to considerable criticism in an effort to expose their failures to provide workable political frameworks.
The third chapter pulls together the two strands of the argument in the preceding chapters by presenting the views of Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, and contextualizing them in a wider discussion of democracy and the nature of politics. Finally, it champions a constructivist account of politics and morality that reconciles Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political with Joseph Margolis’s moral theory of “partisan interests.”