Showing papers in "Critical Horizons in 2001"
TL;DR: In this paper, a critique of liberal multiculturalism in the case of indigenous peoples within the white settler states is presented, and the possibilities offered by a reconstructed Proudhonian federalism are described.
Abstract: The allocation of self-determination rights to minority groups is a highly charged issue around the world, but the difficulties are particularly acute in the case of indigenous peoples within the white settler states. While liberal multiculturalism offers a ‘solution’ to this ‘problem of diversity’ through a system of differentiated citizenship rights, this comes only at the expense of excluding dissenting voices from the intercultural dialogue. Through an engagement with the multi-faceted critique of liberal multiculturalism advanced by Native American political theory, the limits of the recognition paradigm are identified, and the possibilities offered by a reconstructed Proudhonian federalism are described.
47 citations
TL;DR: The authors identifies a point of convergence between economically oriented, distributive approaches to social justice and culturally oriented, identitarian ones, and argues that this is best accomplished through a conception of equality promoting human agency in both the cultural and economic spheres.
Abstract: This essay identifies a point of convergence between economically oriented, distributive approaches to social justice and culturally oriented, identitarian ones. The primary problem of difference politics, I claim, is insuring that disadvantaged groups have equal abilities to participate in the social processes that construct and value identities. I argue that this is best accomplished through a conception of equality promoting human agency in both the cultural and economic spheres.
14 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine two turns towards the idea of the creative imagination in contemporary critical theory in the works of Axel Honneth and Cornelius Castoriadis and conclude that the primary autism of creative imagination can be thrown into relief by Hegel's Jena Lectures.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine two turns towards the idea of the creative imagination in contemporary critical theory in the works of Axel Honneth and Cornelius Castoriadis. Honneth's work subsumes the idea of the creative imagination under the paradigm of mutual recognition. Castoriadis constructs the idea of the creative imagination from an ontological perspective. However, Castoriadis' idea of the primary autism of the creative imagination can be thrown into relief by Hegel's Jena Lectures. Hegel's and Castoriadis' work opens onto a subjectivity in tension, that is, a subjectivity that is forged out of a combination of subjective interiority, as well as the patterns of interaction that are multidimensional in their scope and create social spaces that force the subject beyond an initial closure.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that Weber ought to be read as a comparative ethicist who brings his German intellectual inheritance, especially Schopenauer and Nietzsche, to a dialogue with ethical traditions in India and China, and that Weber not only had a supple understanding of the tensions within Hindu ethics, his own account of value often closely corresponds to Hindu axiology and was enriched by an encounter with it.
Abstract: This paper argues that Weber ought to be read as a comparative ethicist who brings his German intellectual inheritance, especially Schopenauer and Nietzsche, to a dialogue with ethical traditions in India and China. It shows that Weber not only had a supple understanding of the tensions within Hindu ethics, his own account of value often closely corresponds to Hindu axiology and was enriched by an encounter with it.
6 citations
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that this post-structuralist approach leaves the subaltern in a politically pre-carious position and should be exchanged for the kind of hermeneutic approach that makes possible a genuine politics of recognition.
Abstract: The concept of emancipation has an increasingly ambivalent status in postcolonial criticism. Under the influence of poststructuralism, the idea that the subaltern subject might overcome colonial relations of cultural domination through acts of self-representation has been thrown into disrepute. If there is to be emancipation, according to this view, it will not come through the recovery of an authentic speaking subject, but through strategies of ‘strategic essentialism’. Here it is argued that this postructuralist approach leaves the subaltern in a politically pre carious position and should be exchanged for the kind of hermeneutic approach that makes possible a genuine politics of recognition.
5 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the zone of onto logical contestation Taylor has engaged by defending a notion of the self that does not succumb to a narrowing or partiality of vision.
Abstract: Charles Taylor's attempt to map the complexity and fullness of the modern identity has led him to recuperate its moral sources. This paper explores the zone of onto logical contestation Taylor has engaged by defending a notion of the self that does not succumb to a narrowing or partiality of vision. Taylor's criticisms of Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas are examined to draw out the features of his project and its own limitations.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that over time our understanding of the political has been progressively shaped by the secular rational calculations of modern European political thought, and they aim to critique these rational calculations with reference to crucial moments of departure and flight within western philosophy itself.
Abstract: Over time our understanding of the ‘political’ has been progressively shaped by the secular rational calculations of modern European political thought. This paper aims to critique these ‘calculations’ with reference to crucial moments of departure and flight within western philosophy itself. It concludes by reclaiming fin de siecle radicalism/philosophy as a forgotten instance of empirical-metaphysical hybridity: a form of politics or ethics capable of housing the imperatives of both desire and prayer.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that democracy is universalisable as a theory and practice that fails to be identical with itself, and that it can be put into practice only in particular terms and contexts.
Abstract: This paper argues that democracy is universalisable as a theory and practice that fails to be identical with itself. Firstly, the paradox that democracy's universality can be put into practice only in particular terms and contexts is discussed. Then four models of democratic universality are presented and assessed: (i) empirical or actual universality; (ii) hybrid universality; (iii) cosmopolitan universality; (iv) impossible universality. The final argument is that democracy can be universalised because of the impossibility of making the demos identical with political authority, which is akin to the impossibility of being identical to ourselves.
1 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the two main phases of Agnes Heller's attempt to construct a post Marxist radical philosophy and argued that Heller's contemporary position represents a sophisticated attempt to overcome the limitations of former left radicalism and address the continuing need for orientation in contemporary modernity.
Abstract: This paper considers Agnes Heller's attempt to construct a post Marxist radical philosophy. It examines the two main phases of this project: beginning with her late seventies A Radical Philosophy, it charts her development towards the position she now characterises as reflective post-modernism. It shows that despite a constant commitment to rational critique, Heller's concept of philosophical radicalism has shifted from an emphasis on total critique to that of maintaining balance between the rival technological and historical imaginations that exercise a ‘double-bind’ over the modern individual. The paper explains the rationale of this evolution, highlights the features of each phase and critically analyses their weaknesses. Finally it argues that Heller's contemporary position represents a sophisticated attempt to overcome the limitations of former left radicalism and address the continuing need for orientation in contemporary modernity.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the relations that mammals and hominids form with their environments, other species and within their own social groupings arise from the relations they form with each other.
Abstract: Paleoanthropologists have long worked with the assumption that bipedism and brain enlargement evolved together in a cycle of cause and effect powered by the production of tools and instrumental manipulation. Rather, this paper argues, following the work of Paul Shepard, that discernments, or specific kinds of mentalities, arise from the relations that mammals and hominids form with their environments, other species and within their own social groupings.
1 citations
TL;DR: Using Ricoeur's notion of the metaphorical imagination, and drawing on Dussel's work on ethical hermeneutics, the authors argues that, in the act of remembering, other social imaginaries can be created as possibilities that go beyond the concrete present, and which occur from the vantage points of oppressed others.
Abstract: The imagination opens onto a reconciliation of the past with the future, especially when it is activated as a retrieval of the memories of collective suffering. This is especially the case with the Latin American experience, with its history of military governments and their ‘dirty wars’ against their civilians. Using Ricoeur's notion of the metaphorical imagination, and drawing on Dussel's work on ethical hermeneutics, this paper argues that, in the act of remembering, other social imaginaries can be created as possibilities that go beyond the concrete present, and which occur from the vantage points of oppressed others.