Showing papers in "Thesis Eleven in 2007"

Territorial Stigmatization in the Age of Advanced Marginality

Abstract: The comparative sociology of the structure, dynamics, and experience of urban relegation in the United States and the European Union during the past three decades reveals the emergence of a new regime of marginality. This regime generates forms of poverty that are neither residual, nor cyclical or transitional, but inscribed in the future of contemporary societies insofar as they are fed by the ongoing fragmentation of the wage labour relationship, the functional disconnection of dispossessed neighbourhoods from the national and global economies, and the reconfiguration of the welfare state in the polarizing city. Based on a methodical comparison between the black American ghetto and the French working-class banlieue at century's turn, this article spotlights three distinctive spatial properties of `advanced marginality' — territorial fixation and stigmatization, spatial alienation and the dissolution of `place', and the loss of a hinterland — and draws out their implications for the formation of the `pre...

Politicizing Honneth's Ethics of Recognition

Abstract: This article argues that Axel Honneth’s ethics of recognition offers a robust model for a renewed critical theory of society, provided that it does not shy away from its political dimensions. First, the ethics of recognition needs to clarify its political moment at the conceptual level to remain conceptually sustainable. This requires a clarification of the notion of identity in relation to the three spheres of recognition, and a clarification of its exact place in a politics of recognition. We suggest that a return to Hegel’s mature theory of subjectivity helps specify the relationship between the normative demand for autonomous identity and its realization in and through politics.

Transdisciplinarity as a Nonimperial Encounter: for an Open Sociology:

Abstract: In this article I argue for a transdisciplinary approach to the human or social sciences. There is little ontological or epistemological justification for a division among these disciplines. I reco...

Cutting the trees of knowledge: social software, information architecture and their epistemic consequences

Abstract: This article inquires whether and to which degree some fundamental traits of the World Wide Web may encourage us to revise traditional conceptions of what constitutes scientific information and kno...

Between Art and Gameness: Critical Theory and Computer Game Aesthetics

Abstract: This article argues that the computer game can be a locus of aesthetic form in contemporary culture. The context for understanding this claim is the decline of the artwork as bearer of form in the late 20th century, as this was understood by Adorno. Form is the enigmatic other of instrumental reason that emerges spontaneously in creative works and, in the modern era, is defined as that which makes them captivating and enigmatic yet resistant to analytic understanding. Clarification of the ways in which form is at work in game play is sought from aesthetic theory (Kant), ludology (or theory of games), and the idea of a neo-baroque entertainment culture (Ndalianis). Kant emphasized the role of play in the constitution of imaginary realms associated with aesthetic pleasure. Ludology takes play as an anthropological given differentiated historically by the development of game structures. Neo-baroque theory postulates a labyrinthine, complex and de-centred entertainment culture, largely shaped by computing as ...

Review Essay: Settler Capitalism Revisited

Abstract: Over the last quarter of a century, Australian historiography and political analysis has witnessed a significant shift in the dominant terms of reference for thinking about the past, and about its relationship to the present and future. By the early 1980s an influential body of thought had coalesced around the proposition that Australia’s political economy could be best understood through the lens of ‘settler’ or ‘dominion’ capitalism. These terms denote the distinctive forms that capitalism took in the white settler colonies of the British Empire and the temperate zones of South America (Ehrensaft and Armstrong, 1978; Denoon, 1983; Head, 1983; McMichael, 1984; Gerardi, 1985). The key argument was that Australia carried a pattern of family resemblances with these other settler colonies, which arose from their shared historical experience as both colonizers and colonized (Macintyre, 1989: 11). These resemblances included an early and significant degree of political autonomy from the imperial power out of which they were established; the early commodification of land and hence labour, with a corresponding absence of a large peasantry; relative economic prosperity for white settlers, including workers, despite or perhaps because of a highly dependent form of economic development that was disproportionately centred on primary production for the imperial market; mass immigration of white settlers from the metropolitan power and the attendant physical and cultural destruction, or at least the brutal subjugation, of indigenous populations. This final characteristic was the original presupposition and condition for all the other features noted. These contributed to distinctive patterns of interand intraclass relations and political institutions, which continued to shape realities in the settler colonies long after the conditions that gave rise to them had

Space is the Place: The Laws of Form and Social Systems

Abstract: It is well known that Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems is grounded in Spencer-Brown’s seminal Laws of Form (LoF) or ‘calculus of indications’. It is also known that the reception of the la...

Régis Debray and Mediation Studies, or How Does an Idea Become a Material Force?

Abstract: This article presents an outline of Regis Debray's mediology. Situated at the crossroads of philosophy, theology, anthropology, archaeology, history, sociology, political sciences, semiotics, media...

Word and Image: Framing Philology:

Abstract: This text focuses from a philological perspective on media theories and their impact on traditional text-based disciplines. Therefore it looks at the problems that have emerged for Media Studies as well as for traditional studies in philology when reflecting on the concept of self-reference, since their subjects can seemingly no longer rely on the purity of the written word. If research work in the field of humanities is still mainly documented by texts, how does the advance of images as a challenging research subject affect the text that is referring to that subject? Speaking in media terms: how is the medium `text', which still remains text when it is concerned with the medium `image', affected by the `other' medium? This question deals with the problem of self-reference, hence the construction of disciplinary limitations in various academic fields. Beginning with this question, I try to find out how the difference between self-reference (text) and reference (image) has been and still is being organized...

The Ambiguity of the Modern Conception of Autonomy and the Paradox of Culture

Abstract: Grounded in newer French socio-political philosophy, this text deals with the paradoxical situation in which the interpretation of society as well as the relation between the individual and the soc...

Autotranscendence and Creative Organization: On Self-Creation and Self-Organization

Abstract: This article discusses the issue of social and cultural ‘autotranscendence’ - self-production, creativity - in the debates on self-organization. The point of departure is Cornelius Castoriadis’s idea of ‘self-creation’. First, a schisma between mechanical and ontological modeling is indicated and used to introduce the idea of a ‘creative organization’. This is further discussed in relation to Jean-Pierre Dupuy’s concept of social ‘autotranscendence’ by ‘complex methodological individualism’, with particular respect to the incomprehension of the social. Following Johann P. Arnason’s treatment of the question of cultural articulation in Castoriadis, the article argues that the problem of autotranscendence presents a further problem of self-creation discernible in Castoriadis’s notions of phusis/nomos, living being/human, and constraint/magma. The article closes with a consideration of Duncan Watts, Alberto-Laszlo Barabasi and Bernardo Huberman’s sketch of a network sociology.

Castoriadis and the Permanent Riddle of the World: Changing Configurations of Worldliness and World Alienation

Abstract: The problematic of world articulation is central to post-phenomenological approaches. With Castoriadis, it emerges as a significant if shadowy thematic. Its shifting contours in his thought are redolent of the ongoing dialogue between romantic and enlightenment currents. They are also indicative of the ambiguity inherent to cultural articulations of the world in modernity. Here, two world perspectives open up various — and conflicting — interpretative challenges to which a response is necessitated. In Castoriadis's case, these take on particular forms of more general trends of `alienation' and `worldliness'. In particular, the isolation of the social-historical as the sole bearer of creativity tends to result in world alienation, whilst his later shift towards radical physis indicates a trend towards vertical worldliness. Arnason's theorization of world articulation in its twofold sense re-imagines the worldliness of the social-historical both in terms of the world tout court and our concrete stance towar...

Castoriadis and Autopoiesis

Abstract: Castoriadis’s encounter with autopoiesis was a decisive factor for his philosophical trajectory. Its influence can be seen on four interconnected levels of his thought: his reconsideration of Greek sources for his later interpretation of trans-regional being as self-creating; his rethinking of objective knowledge; his ventures into philosophical cosmology; and his re-evaluation of the living being, especially in light of his dialogue with Varela. In brief, Castoriadis’s engagement with autopoiesis was significant for his shift towards an ontology of radical physis. His shift to radical physis does not point so much to a rejection of the project of autonomy, however, as, paradoxically, its simultaneous radicalization and relativization.

The idea of negative Platonism : Jan Patocka's critique and recovery of metaphysics.

Abstract: The idea of negative Platonism, first formulated by Jan Patocka in the early 1950s, can be understood as an interpretation of the history of philosophy, with particular reference to its Greek beginnings, as well as a strategy for critical engagement with the metaphysical tradition and a reformulation of central phenomenological themes. Patocka reconstructs the Greek road to metaphysics as a shift from a non-objectifying comprehension of the world as a totality to a quest for systematic knowledge of ultimate reality. In light of this reclaimed background, he then proposes a new reading of Plato: the realm of ideas, separate from empirical reality, becomes a symbol of human freedom, understood as an ability to transcend the world and in so doing grasp it as a totalizing horizon. The concept of freedom thus links a submerged theme of metaphysics to more explicit concerns of contemporary thought.

Review Essay: In Search of the Social Space for Solidarity and Justice

Abstract: Perhaps the best way to understand what Jeffrey Alexander is up to in The Civil Sphere is to view him as an intellectual travel guide. To get to his destination Alexander offers his own theoretical map, one he promises is grounded in the actual lay of the land, and to prove his point his map is rich in detail. The title of the book identifies the destination, a term that blends those two most salient concepts that inform his analysis: civil society and the public sphere. It is thus that Alexander (1993) locates his journey with those engaged in what he has elsewhere described as the ‘return to civil society’ (p. 797). This includes the usual suspects, ranging from the critical theory framework of Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen to the distinctive social capital approach of Robert Putnam – all of them in turn building in various ways on civil society discourse from Adam Ferguson forward. It locates Jürgen Habermas’ concept of the public sphere within the parameters of civil society discourse. It also implicitly addresses themes contained in Talcott Parsons’ work, particularly in his idea of the societal community. In this regard, although Alexander (2005: 95) has previously announced his abandonment of an effort to construct a neofunctionalist theory, wherein he sought to revive Parsonian theory while purging it of its manifest defects, he remains rooted in Parsons’ theoretical concerns. Moreover, as quickly becomes apparent, like Parsons’ work, this project is decidedly American in its focus.

The Originating Breaks Up: Merleau-Ponty, Ontology, and Culture

Abstract: In Merleau-Ponty's work there is an intimate and reciprocal involvement of socio-cultural and philosophical concerns, more profound and central than Merleau-Ponty himself acknowledged. This gives r...

Turning Back the Linguistic Turn in the Theory of Knowledge

Abstract: The so-called linguistic turn in philosophy intensified (rather than overcame) the rationalism that has haunted Western ideas about knowledge since antiquity. Orthodox accounts continue to present ...

Religion and the Project of Autonomy

Abstract: Using Castoriadis' theory on the polarisation of autonomy and heteronomy, Smith argues that there is room for religious belief in a autonomous society and that religiosity per see is not incompatible with the project of creating an autonomous society.

On creation, cave art and perception : a doxological approach

Abstract: The discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in the late 19th century entails many problems, some of which are perceptual. Presenting doxology as a post-phenomenological way of approaching epistemic and perceptual questions, this article draws on the problematics of cave art and contemporary cognitive science to discuss the process of perception — what it takes to see what one sees — in caves (and elsewhere). The article concludes that in order to see and perceive anything at all, both our physical and our conceptual resources — the light of the sun as well as the light of the mind, as Empedocles might have said — are needed. The light of the mind is always inextricably linked to doxa. Thus, the article argues that a doxological approach to questions of perception and knowledge is required.

Why Do We Need to Create a Moral Image of the World

Abstract: This article deals with our constructed notions of evil and how an historical appraisal takes shape after specific stories and narratives become important objects of public deliberation, historical criticism, and disclosive views of what constitutes the moral harms of human cruelty. I analyze the historical representations of the meaning of evil in specific historical times through narratives that have made important contributions to our historical understanding of them. I also propose that our learning from them is the result of public debates, of memory wars, and of important interventions from public intellectuals, writers, historians and witnesses. Therefore, deliberating about human cruelty is always a reconstructive effort to understand and judge what has happened and why it could have been prevented. The term evil is a moral filter that allows us to situate the kind of moral harm that needs a specific lens of moral understanding and a reconfiguration of actions that tie perpetrators to sufferers. M...

Memory of the Holocaust: Sources:

Abstract: How will the Holocaust be remembered as its survivors disappear? In this article Janina Bauman reflects upon her own work on the Holocaust in the context of the Holocaust's broader reception. She o...

Radical Finitude Meets Infinity: Levinas's Gestures To Heidegger's Fundamental Ontology

Abstract: This article explores the consecutive modifications that phenomenology underwent in the works of Heidegger and Levinas. In particular, it discusses their importance for contemporary attempts to expand — and transcend — phenomenology in philosophy and the social sciences. Heidegger and Levinas responded to the problem of subjectivity — and intersubjectivity — in diametrically opposed ways and consequently the exposition of their thoughts involves focusing on conceptual dichotomies like finitude and infinity, time and eternity. Ultimately, it is argued that the very conceptions of the human being that the two thinkers furnish under the guise of Dasein and Autrui reveal the impasses associated with western metaphysics and pave the path for the development of more adequate theorizations of subjectivity, radical otherness and communal being.