Showing papers in "Philosophy & Social Criticism in 2008"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the 'time of hybridity' in the context of a bicultural politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand and draw renewed attention to hybridity's investment in temporality as that which both enables a postcolonial politics and shifts these politics into the realm of Levinasian ethics.
Abstract: Homi Bhabha's idea of hybridity is one of postcolonialism's most keenly debated - and most widely misunderstood - concepts. My article provides some elucidation in the increasingly reductive debates over hybridity in postcolonial studies, suggesting that what is commonly over- looked in these debates is hybridity's complex relationship to temporality. I suggest that this relationship is not given the credit it deserves often enough, resulting in skewed discussions of hybridity as simply (and mistakenly) another form of syncretism. In focusing on the 'time of hybridity' in the context of a bicultural politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand, I draw renewed attention to hybridity's investment in temporality as that which both enables a postcolonial politics and shifts these politics into the realm of (Levinasian) ethics, creating an as yet largely unexplored phenomenon which Leela Gandhi has referred to, in a fortuitous phrase, as an 'ethics of hybridity'.
49 citations
TL;DR: There has been a great deal of philosophical analysis supporting the position that race is semantically empty, ontologically bankrupt and scientifically meaningless as discussed by the authors, and the conclusion often reached is that race cannot be defined.
Abstract: There has been a great deal of philosophical analysis supporting the position that race is semantically empty, ontologically bankrupt and scientifically meaningless. The conclusion often reached is...
38 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a novel approach to the relationship between public space and democracy is developed, which employs the concept of the spectacle to show how public space can serve to destroy or weaken solidarity just as easily as it can foster a democratic ethos of equality.
Abstract: This article develops a novel approach to the relationship between public space and democracy. It employs the concept of the spectacle to show how public space can serve to destroy or weaken solidarity just as easily as it can foster a democratic ethos of equality. A close reading of Rousseau's Letter to M. d'Alembert on the Theatre helps illuminate the political implications of modern public life, which increasingly takes the form of passive individuals assembling in order to view a spectacle. According to Rousseau, spectacles like the theater are depoliticizing because they undermine the opportunity for active participation and interaction with other citizens. By habituating the audience to theatrical modes of self-presentation, they also weaken the capacity for empathy. This article concludes by showing how contemporary theorists including Sennett, Debord and Habermas also contribute to our understanding of the concept of the spectacle.
32 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that the distinction between liberals and republicans along the lines of freedom is purchased at the cost of misdescribing liberal theory, focusing on the work of Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit.
Abstract: Proposed as an alternative political philosophy to liberalism, contemporary republicanism articulates a systematic theory of freedom as non-domination. Does it make sense, however, to think about the difference between liberals and republicans along the lines of freedom? This article answers in the negative, maintaining that the distinction is purchased at the cost of misdescribing liberal theory. Focusing on the work of Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, I maintain that the mischaracterization takes place at two levels. The first is the link that is drawn between Thomas Hobbes and classical and contemporary liberals. The second has to do with republicans' refusal to acknowledge the normative framework in which liberal freedom takes root and is made politically defensible. This framework, I argue, comprises a constellation of other concepts, such as consent, publicity and the rule of law, that are part and parcel of liberal freedom. Once these features are taken into consideration, what emerges is a view ...
26 citations
TL;DR: Although critical of what she calls the ''antipolitical' forces of love and sovereignty, Arendt reluctantly embraces these aspects as the basis of politics itself as mentioned in this paper, which is a paradox.
Abstract: Although critical of what she calls the `antipolitical' forces of love and sovereignty, Arendt reluctantly embraces these aspects as the basis of politics itself. I explain this paradox by arguing ...
25 citations
TL;DR: The authors reconstruct the last unwritten section on judging in Hannah Arendt's Life of the Mind and argue that it can be read as a critique of the life of the'modern' mind, and especially of the differentiation of the modern mind into distinct and reified faculties.
Abstract: The core argument in this paper is that, to reconstruct the last unwritten section on Judging in Hannah Arendt's Life of the Mind, it is necessary to address what Arendt was doing with the book as a whole and how the different parts relate internally to one another. This is no easy matter, especially as the existing sections on Thinking and Willing are quite different in tone from one another. My proposition is that the work should be read as a critique of the life of the 'modern' mind, and especially of the differentiation of the modern mind into distinct and reified faculties. The work as a whole is an attempt to understand the distorted forms of modernization that result from the division of the life of the mind into opposing faculties. It is, so to speak, a critique of the combined and uneven development of the life of the modern mind. While Arendt famously argues that the activity of thinking itself conditions people against evildoing, the spectre that informs her analysis of both thinking and willing is the danger of nihilism inherent in these mental activities. The work raises vital questions concerning the conditions under which this danger is actualized and the means by which it might be averted. What this entails for our reconstruction of the missing section on judgment is that, rather than see it as the core of Arendt's contribution to political thought or as the promised solution to an impasse, we should explore the equivocations of judging. This aporetic reading of the text helps clarify Arendt's concerns over the separation of the life of the mind from the world and the role of both judging and understanding in renewing its connections to the world.
24 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that the face of the subject communicates an imperative to the subject that obligates her or him to repair the concrete context of action in which the subject encounters the other, and the face is a body.
Abstract: Critics of Levinas reject the notion that the abstract face of the other can ground ethics and generate specific responsibilities. To the contrary, I argue that the face does ground a practical and pragmatic ethics. Drawing on Levinas' phenomenological analyses of the enjoying subject, I show that the face communicates an imperative to the subject that obligates her or him to repair the concrete context of action in which the subject encounters the other. My elucidation takes very seriously the notion that the face speaks and the face is a body. When coupled with a pragmatic account of communication, Levinas gives us a robust elucidation of the phenomenological and pragmatic dimensions of ethical responsibility.
20 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors confront Jurgen Habermas' deliberative model of democracy with Claude Lefort's analysis of democracy as a regime in which the locus of power remains an empty place.
Abstract: In this article I confront Jurgen Habermas' deliberative model of democracy with Claude Lefort's analysis of democracy as a regime in which the locus of power remains an empty place. This confronta...
19 citations
TL;DR: This paper developed an immensely attractive account of judgment, both as a supremely important human mental capacity and with respect to its place in political life, and this account rightly defined the place of judgment in human life.
Abstract: Hannah Arendt develops an immensely attractive account of `judgment', both as a supremely important human mental capacity and with respect to its place in political life, and this account rightly d...
17 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the role of conscience in the justification of human rights and argue that human rights are justified in both the western tradition of natural rights and the non-western traditions, in part, because of their appeal to conscience, and not simply because they issue from a divine source or are based on reason.
Abstract: This paper is an exploration of the role of conscience in the justification of human rights. I argue that in both the western tradition of natural rights and the non-western traditions, human rights are justified, in part, because of their appeal to conscience, and not simply because they issue from a divine source or are based on reason. In contrast, contemporary justifications of human rights primarily look for an objective foundation or simply assert the pragmatic importance of human rights as their justification. While there are distinct advantages to this way of arguing, there are also problems, which I will discuss. As an alternative, I outline Arendt's understanding of conscience as the ability to be with and think with one's self as a secular alternative to both a non-secular version of conscience, and the denial of conscience implicit in contemporary theories. Her view of political judgment helps us to understand how conscience can be understood as subjective but not arbitrary. This paper brings ...
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare Nietzsche's and Arendt's critiques of the juridical concept of responsibility (that emphasizes duty and blame) with the aim of deriving an account of responsibility appropriate for our time.
Abstract: This article compares Nietzsche's and Arendt's critiques of the juridical concept of responsibility (that emphasizes duty and blame) with the aim of deriving an account of responsibility appropriate for our time. It examines shared ground in their radical approaches to responsibility: by basing personal responsibility in conscience that expresses a self open to an undetermined future, rather than conscience determined by prevailing moral norms, they make a connection between a failure of personal responsibility and the way a totalizing politics jeopardizes human plurality. Two differences between Arendt and Nietzsche are also explored: Nietzsche's account of the corporeal and affective dimensions of conscience explains how politics can foreclose the futural, undetermined dimension of conscience; Arendt's account of political community exposes the mutual dependence of personal and political responsibility. By drawing together these aspects of Arendt's and Nietzsche's thought, the article aims to show how a...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue against the view, recently espoused by several authors, that the ''incommensurability of values' and ''political pespectivism'' offer decisive reasons as to why we should break the link between representation and (the quest for) unity.
Abstract: In this article I argue against the view, recently espoused by several authors, that the `incommensurability of values' and `political pespectivism' offer us decisive reasons as to why we should break the link between representation and (the quest for) unity. I hold that it is of paramount importance to retain this essential link. Since Sir Isaiah Berlin has played a major (and in my view unfortunate) role in linking `politics as the quest for unity and the common good' with the `totalitarian temptation', I proceed to show how it is possible to have an understanding of politics as precisely such a quest, but without succumbing to the temptation to totalitarianism that Berlin alerts us to. I then take issue with Chantal Mouffe's view that the tendency to antagonism, rather than the quest for unity and rational consensus, is `the essence of the political'.
TL;DR: In several lectures, interviews and essays from the early 1980s, Michel Foucault startlingly argues that he is engaged in a kind of critical work that is similar to that of Immanuel Kant as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In several lectures, interviews and essays from the early 1980s, Michel Foucault startlingly argues that he is engaged in a kind of critical work that is similar to that of Immanuel Kant. Given Fou...
TL;DR: In particular, the idea of internal autonomy, which was an important, implicit idea in the ideology critique of the earlier Habermas, falls out of view as mentioned in this paper, and there is no room for this dimension of freedom in political liberalism.
Abstract: The development of the theory of deliberative democracy has culminated in a synthesis between Rawlsian political liberalism and Habermasian critical theory. Taking the perspective of conceptions of freedom, this article argues that this synthesis is unfortunate and obscures some important differences between the two traditions. In particular, the idea of internal autonomy, which was an important, implicit idea in the ideology critique of the earlier Habermas, falls out of view. There is no room for this dimension of freedom in political liberalism and it has largely disappeared from the later Habermas. In so far as others have followed Rawls and Habermas, deliberative democratic theory has converged around a less critical and more accommodationist view of freedom. If we want to keep deliberative democracy as a critical theory of contemporary society, we should resist this convergence. Our starting point should not be `the fact of reasonable pluralism' but rather `the fact of unreflective acquiescence'. Th...
TL;DR: In this article, three strategies for a normative evaluation of positional competition are discussed, and the authors argue that the recognition-based approach has a better response to this question than the externalities-based one, especially with regard to the liberal objection that such interference is a violation of personal freedom.
Abstract: Competition for positional goods is an important feature of contemporary consumer societies. This paper discusses three strategies for a normative evaluation of positional competition. First, it criticizes an evaluation in terms of people's motives to engage in such competition. A reconstruction of an American debate over the status-motivation of consumer behavior shows how such an analysis founders on the difficulties of distinguishing between status and non-status motives for consumption. Second, the article criticizes an approach based on assessing the (positive and negative) externalities of positional competition. This approach is plagued by the methodological difficulty of determining the relevant externalities and their weight. The article then puts forward a third kind of evaluation, in terms of recognition relations. Starting from Axel Honneth's theory of recognition, I will propose to think of positional competition as a struggle for one kind of recognition that is necessary to personal autonomy, i.e. recognition according to the principle of achievement. Finally, the paper discusses the question of how we can assess the legitimacy of interferences with positional competition. I argue that the recognition-based approach has a better response to this question than the externalities-based approach, especially with regard to the liberal objection that such interference is a violation of personal freedom.
TL;DR: The main concern of as discussed by the authors is Weber's antagonism with respect to materialism and the distance or affinity between Marx's and Weber's standpoints, and it focuses on two interconnected issues: the social and political role of religion and the emergence of modern capitalism.
Abstract: The main concern of this article is Weber's antagonism with respect to materialism and the distance or affinity between Marx's and Weber's standpoints. It focuses on two interconnected issues: the social and political role of religion and the emergence of modern capitalism. These two points are justified because of their strategic importance and because, with them, Weber's distance with respect to materialism apparently reaches its zenith. Through them, this text attempts to expose the main features of the controversy between Marxism and Weberianism, evaluating the alternatives on the matter offered by different perspectives.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors deal with Kant's concept of reflective judgment, and recover it through its links to the aesthetic dimension as its fundamental scenario, and explain why Hannah Arendt understood this important Kantian connection, and why she thought it would allow her to develop it through a political dimension.
Abstract: In this article I deal with Kant's concept of reflective judgment, and recover it through its links to the aesthetic dimension as its fundamental scenario. Then I go on to explain why Hannah Arendt understood this important Kantian connection, and why she thought it would allow her to develop it through a political dimension. Last, having reviewed both Kant and Arendt's contributions to the concept of reflective judgment, I recover my own input to the concept by showing its linguistic dimension based on the Heideggerian notion of world-disclosure. With this in mind, I show how the concept of reflective judgment is the most suitable to analyze evil actions.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider a particular case of Richard Kearney's characteristic hermeneutical exploration of 'the possible' as an 'imaginative' way of casting light upon philosophical issues.
Abstract: The article considers a particular case of Richard Kearney's characteristic hermeneutical exploration of 'the possible' as an 'imaginative' way of casting light upon philosophical issues. This particular case is his recent hermeneutical and phenomenological consideration of 'Otherness' in the context of philosophy of religion. This consideration, strongly influenced by philosophers such as Heidegger, Levinas, Ricoeur and Derrida, is developed in two of his recent works Strangers, Gods and Monsters and The God Who May Be. The article examines how he seeks to navigate an interpretation of divine otherness as an ethical appeal which escapes the dilemma of a God either so transcendent as to be anonymous or so immanent as to be a mere projection. It outlines how, rejecting onto-theology in favour of eschatology, Kearney envisages the divine as an ethically enabling possibility. This possibility, he claims, enables us to achieve, beyond our own intrinsic resources, an ethical order of justice and love through which the kingdom of God - the God Who May Be - is accomplished. There is a co-relativity between the divine as enabling possibility and humanity which accomplishes this possibility. It investigates the way in which Kearney seeks to legitimize, within a phenomenological frame of reference, an experiential affirmation of this conception of divine transcendence as eschatological possibility. It argues that this phenomenological consideration needs to be qualified and complemented by certain metaphysical considerations which Kearney disputes.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the subject develops an understanding of itself as a political subject only by executing decisive political actions or making decisive political interventions and that political agency does not necessarily lead to a definition or a further way of referring to and understanding the subject.
Abstract: One of the more poignant claims Badiou makes is that the subject develops an understanding of itself as a political subject only by executing decisive political actions or making decisive political interventions. In this article I will argue that in order to have a fuller philosophical conception of political subjectivity, and therefore political agency, one must also hold that, first, political interventions do not necessarily lead to a definition or a further way of referring to and understanding the subject. In fact, political events and interventions may consciously aim at and result in the de-politicizing, de-subjectivating or dehumanizing of the subject. Second, political agency need not result in an event or an intervention in order to be political. In other words, failed or non-interventions may still be considered political. Third, despite Badiou's call for an ethics rooted in truth and fidelity, his political philosophy results in a relativism that can easily lapse into violence and injustice.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that both mainstream Christian religion and capitalism perpetuate and entrench discrimination against women and the oppression of the needy through the use of the cultural/philosophical dichotomy between love and justice.
Abstract: This article aims to expose the philosophical and cultural mechanisms, which allow some forms of western religion (in this case mainstream Christianity) to join hands with western capitalism in the oppression of women and of the needy. Focusing on the example of the USA, this article claims that both mainstream Christian religion and capitalism perpetuate and entrench discrimination against women and the oppression of the needy through the use of the cultural/philosophical dichotomy between love and justice and its corollary dichotomy between private and public. Against this background, the second part of the article examines several notions of love and justice, and offers a philosophical alternative to the dichotomous understanding of the two which is based on our claim that neither love nor justice is complete without the other and suggests a combined understanding of these concepts. Finally, the article examines the practical implications of such a theoretical alternative for the social and cultural structures of the capitalist state, religion and the family.
TL;DR: A number of academic disciplines are seeking to rearticulate the distinction between the natural and the normative by rethinking the position humans occupy within nature as discussed by the authors, and the main target of the current battles for recognition between disciplines is the public, which is becoming the ultimate epistemic authority in a game with high political stakes.
Abstract: A number of academic disciplines are seeking to rearticulate the distinction between the natural and the normative by rethinking the position humans occupy within nature. This article surveys this interdisciplinary debate in which the possibility of understanding humans as normative beings is often called into question. The aim of this survey is to identify the stakes involved in such debates and to reveal the underlying policy dimension of current discussions about human nature. This article concludes by arguing that the main target of the current battles for recognition between disciplines is the `public', which is becoming the ultimate epistemic authority in a game with high political stakes.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors elaborate an Arendtian ''inessential coalition'' viewed as the development of Young's reworking of the concept of social groups, arguing that social groups remain the instruments to acknowledge and reproduce patterns of injustices, yet mechanisms to enhance effective inclusion of marginalized groups do not depend on political mobilization around groups' shared backgrounds.
Abstract: Young proposes an extremely important definition of social groups, which champions the flexible nature of the concept over attempts to freeze and fix the content of groups' identity on a cultural basis. Young shows an increasing disaffection with claims for groups' legislative presence that results in the abandoning of an essential definition of groups and the promotion of an analytical one. This entails that social groups remain the instruments to acknowledge and reproduce patterns of injustices, yet mechanisms to enhance effective inclusion of marginalized groups do not depend on political mobilization around groups' shared backgrounds. This increasing rejection of social groups as privileged instruments of political mobilizations leads me to elaborate an Arendtian `inessential coalition', viewed as the development of Young's reworking of the concept of social groups.
TL;DR: In this article, Lafont's recent reading of Heidegger offers a powerful formulation of the widespread view that once one recognizes our ''facticity'' and the role of language in shaping it, there is no room...
Abstract: Cristina Lafont's recent reading of Heidegger offers a powerful formulation of the widespread view that once one recognizes our `facticity' and the role of language in shaping it, there is no room ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors look at the potential conflict between the values of free speech and equal respect and argue that the only way these two values can be meaningfully weighed against each other is if their competition can be understood within the broader framework of liberalism and democracy.
Abstract: This article looks at liberalism as a political tradition encompassing competing and, at times, incommensurable values. It looks in particular at the potential conflict between the values of free speech and equal respect. Both of these are foundational values for liberalism, in the sense that they arise as normative ideals from the very inception of the liberal tradition itself. Yet from the perspective of this tradition, it is by no means clear which of these values should be prioritized in those instances where they come into conflict. This article insists that the only way these two values can be meaningfully weighed against each other is if their competition can be understood within the broader framework of liberalism and democracy. Within this broader framework it is possible to find criteria which enable us to choose between these values in a non-circular manner — i.e. in ways which do not already presuppose a commitment to the value we wish to support.
TL;DR: This article argued that Marcuse's vision of the good life as centered on libidinal self-realization, if actualized, would threaten the freedom of individuals and potentially undermine their sense of self-integrity.
Abstract: Analyzing Eros and Civilization, in this article I argue that Marcuse is incapable of offering an account of the empirical dynamics that may lead to the social change he envisions, and that his appeal to the benefits of automatism is blind to its negative effects. I then claim that Marcuse's vision of the good life as centered on libidinal self-realization, if actualized, would threaten the freedom of individuals and potentially undermine their sense of self-integrity. Comparing Marcuse's position with that of Adorno, I argue that the former fails to take temporality and transience properly into account. Unlike Adorno, Marcuse has no genuine appreciation of the need for mourning. Instead, Marcuse's concept of primary narcissism, which is meant to represent the gist of his utopian vision, leads him to recommend an essentially melancholic position. I finally argue that political action requires a stronger ego-formation than what Marcuse's conception allows for.
TL;DR: This paper examined Fraser's attempt to repair the apparent schism between economic and cultural struggles for justice, and showed that recent revisions to the social theory underpinning Fraser's account call into question the diagnosis of the schism that her framework seeks to resolve, and undercut her arguments for a perspective dualist approach to social theory.
Abstract: This paper examines Nancy Fraser's attempt to repair the apparent schism between economic and cultural struggles for justice. Fraser has argued that the only analysis equipped to theorise the relationship between economic and cultural injustices is a "perspectival dualist" one, which treats the two forms of injustice as analytically separate and irreducible, at the same time as providing tools for theorising potential harmonies between the claims of groups agitating for economic and cultural justice. Fraser's contribution has been hugely influential, but this paper investigates how a series of significant shifts in her position have cast doubt on the coherence and utility of her approach. Specifically, it examines recent revisions to the social theory underpinning Fraser's account, and shows how a number of (necessary) concessions to "anti-dualist" positions call into question the diagnosis of the schism that her framework seeks to resolve, and undercut her arguments for a "perspectival dualist" approach to social theory. In light of concerns over Fraser's social theory, this paper also questions whether the political ideals of recognition and redistribution retain their critical or analytical value.
TL;DR: Trainor argues that the current hostility of political theorists towards the idea of the common good is in part due to the influence of Isaiah Berlin's concept of value pluralism.
Abstract: Brian Trainor argues that the current hostility of political theorists towards the idea of the common good is in part due to the influence of Isaiah Berlin's concept of `value pluralism', or the in...
TL;DR: In this article, a critical examination of Marcuse's speculations about the possibility of determining a biological foundation for ethical norms is presented, with three key objections to this project: that Marcuse fails to adequately define needs, that he misinterprets Freud, and that, details aside, he fundamentally misunderstands what a ''biological' foundation for ethics would entail.
Abstract: The article is a critical examination of Marcuse's speculations about the possibility of determining a biological foundation for ethical norms. It considers three key objections to this project: that Marcuse fails to adequately define needs, that he misinterprets Freud, and that, details aside, he fundamentally misunderstands what a `biological' foundation for ethics would entail. The objections are accepted, to varying degrees, as regards the content of Marcuse's argument. The article concludes, however, with a different account of biological foundations designed to rescue the deeper aims of Marcuse's project.
TL;DR: This article argued that it is possible to remain faithful to Frankfurt's metaphysical premises while not falling into some moral relativism, by shifting Frankfurt's frontier between contingency and necessity and by exploiting his concept of wholeheartedness.
Abstract: Harry Frankfurt's conception of care and love has largely been considered a seductive theory of personality, but an untenable and irresponsible theory of moral normativity. Contrary to that interpretation, this article aims at showing that it is possible to remain faithful to Frankfurt's metaphysical premises while not falling into some moral relativism. First, by comparing Frankfurt's and Heidegger's conceptions of care, I show that Frankfurt's subordination of ethics to carology apparently commits him to a neutral foundationalism. In the next step, I argue that his calling into question of the relation between rationality and morality does indeed subject moral normativity to some subjective and contingent limits. And finally, I show that the objections raised against such a conclusion can be answered by shifting Frankfurt's frontier between contingency and necessity and by exploiting his concept of wholeheartedness.
TL;DR: In this article, the notion of sensus communis, as articulated by Kant in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, is discussed from the vantage point of the author's project of exporting the model of exemplary universalism underlying reflective and, specifically, aesthetic judgment beyond the realm of aesthetics.
Abstract: In this paper the notion of sensus communis, as articulated by Kant in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, is discussed from the vantage point of the author's project of exporting the model of exemplary universalism underlying reflective and, specifically, aesthetic judgment beyond the realm of aesthetics. In the first section, the relevance of such a project relative to an appraisal of the new and unsuperseded philosophical context opened by the Linguistic Turn is elucidated. Then the centrality of sensus communis, for making sense of the specific universalism inherent in reflective judgment, is highlighted. In the second section, the limitations inherent in two opposite strategies for conceptualizing sensus communis are discussed: namely, the hermeneutic idea of a `horizon' and the phenomenological notion of a life-world on one hand, and the Kantian minimalist, naturalized concept of sensus communis on the other. The former is argued to become entangled in relativism, the latter to run against our in...