Showing papers in "Thesis Eleven in 2009"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors review claims for creativity in the economy and in education distinguishing two accounts: "personal anarcho-aesthetics" and "the design principle" and conclude that creativity emerges from deep subconscious processes, involves the imagination, is anchored in the passions, cannot be directed and is beyond the rational control of the individual.
Abstract: This article reviews claims for creativity in the economy and in education distinguishing two accounts: 'personal anarcho-aesthetics' and 'the design principle'. The first emerges in the psychological literature from sources in the Romantic Movement emphasizing the creative genius and the way in which creativity emerges from deep subconscious processes, involves the imagination, is anchored in the passions, cannot be directed and is beyond the rational control of the individual. This account has a close fit to business as a form of 'brainstorming', 'mind-mapping' or 'strategic planning', and is closely associated with the figure of the risk-taking entrepreneur. By contrast, 'the design principle' is both relational and social and surfaces in related ideas of 'social capital', 'situated learning', and 'P2P' (peer-to-peer) accounts of commons-based peer production. It is seen to be a product of social and networked environments — rich semiotic and intelligent environments in which everything speaks. The art...
54 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that only when the cultural dimension of economic action is understood will it be possible to comprehend migrant spending on houses, and demonstrate the ways in which houses as memorials serve as idioms of ties of relatedness within kin groups and the broader community.
Abstract: Putting migrant remittances into house construction and rebuilding is generally seen as either conspicuous consumption or productive investment, but in both cases the perspective is economistic. This article argues that only when the cultural dimension of economic action is understood will it be possible to comprehend migrant spending on houses. Specifically, this article seeks to understand why, in the case of the rural Tagalog village in this study, located in upland Batangas Province in the Philippines, overseas labour migrants build houses that they do not even live in, but are given to parents or simply left unoccupied. The explanation is framed in relation to the meanings of houses in a culture of bilateral kinship, which the Philippines shares with most parts of Southeast Asia, but inflected by distinct colonial influences. The article demonstrates the ways in which houses as memorials serve as idioms of ties of relatedness within kin groups and the broader community, ties that are being transforme...
53 citations
TL;DR: The relationship between creativity and interdisciplinarity in science has been examined in this paper, where small interdisciplinary groups of graduate students were tasked with producing an innovative scientific research problem and an integrative research proposal.
Abstract: Csikszentmihalyi (1999: 314) argues that 'creativity is a process that can be observed only at the intersection where individuals, domains, and fields intersect'. This article discusses the relationship between creativity and interdisciplinarity in science. It is specifically concerned with interdisciplinary collaboration, interrogating the processes that contribute to the collaborative creation of original ideas and the practices that enable creative integration of diverse domains. It draws on results from a novel real-world experiment in which small interdisciplinary groups of graduate students were tasked with producing an innovative scientific research problem and an integrative research proposal. Results show that while bisociative thinking assists in the creation of original research problems, both disciplinary skills and an interdisciplinary disposition are core to the integration of creative research proposals. Extrapolating from the results of this experiment, the article discusses the feasibilit...
53 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors find that public goods are readily annexed from commercial research and trade in intellectual property to open source knowledge, which is expanding even more rapidly than global markets and poses the problem of assigning stable and defensible value to free floating knowledge goods.
Abstract: The fecund growth of open source knowledge goods in the global communicative environment underlines their public good character. Once knowledge goods are disseminated, their cost and price tend towards zero. It is now obvious (as apparent in recent OECD policy documents) that commercial research and trade in intellectual property capture only a small fraction of open source knowledge, which is expanding even more rapidly than global markets. But for policy makers this poses the problem of how to assign stable and defensible value to free floating knowledge goods. Across the world, research universities have been positioned in a networked competition of institutions with globally mobile personnel and converging goals and organizational cultures. In rapid time global university ranking and the associated technologies of publication and citation ordering and counting have proved potent in arranging status, assigning value and shaping behaviours in higher education. We find that public goods are readily annex...
52 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present some of the main results of contemporary French psychodynamics of work, and demonstrate that the definition of work that Dejours and Clot operate with, as a result of their focus on its psychological function, speaks directly, in substantial and critical ways, to all disciplines with an interest in work, to philosophers, social theorists and social scientists, including economic theorists.
Abstract: This article aims to present some of the main results of contemporary French psychodynamics of work. The writings of Christophe Dejours constitute the central references in this area. His psychoanalytical approach, which is initially concerned with the impact of contemporary work practices on individual health, has implications that go well beyond the narrow psycho-pathological interest. The most significant theoretical development to have come out of Dejours's research is that of Yves Clot, whose writings will constitute the second reference point in this article. The article attempts to demonstrate that the thick definition of work that Dejours and Clot operate with, as a result of their focus on its psychological function, speaks directly, in substantial and critical ways, to all disciplines with an interest in work, to philosophers, social theorists and social scientists, including economic theorists.
38 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors critique the idea of instrumental justification for violent means seen in Hannah Arendt's writings, arguing that it does not really do the work arendt needs it to in relation to rival theories.
Abstract: This article critiques the idea of instrumental justification for violent means seen in Hannah Arendt's writings. A central element in Arendt's argument against theorists like Georges Sorel and Frantz Fanon in On Violence is the distinction between instrumental justifications and approaches emphasizing the `legitimacy' of violence or its intrinsic value. This doesn't really do the work Arendt needs it to in relation to rival theories. The true distinctiveness of Arendt's view is seen when we turn to On Revolution and resituate the later arguments of On Violence in the context of her ideas about the separation between revolution and liberation. Arendt's commitment to the American discovery in revolutionary politics of a means that needs no further ends to justify it permits a rereading of her conception of liberation as an attempt to envisage a violence that, while tactically instrumental, is at the same time politically non-instrumental. But while Arendt's view is distinct, the article also highlights imp...
27 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that the key architects of non-violent revolutions in 1989 were well aware of the contingent nature of all political actions, and were thus willing to take risks in their pursuit of freedom.
Abstract: The series of Velvet revolutions in 1989, which brought about the collapse of communism in Europe, seem to have vindicated those political theorists and activists who believed in the possibility of non-violent power. The relative success of the 1989 revolutions has validated a new paradigm of revolutionary change based on the assumption that radical changes were attainable through moderate means. Yet the legacy of these non-violent revolutions also points towards the limits of political strategies fundamentally opposed to violence. The article shows that the key architects of non-violent revolutions in 1989 were well aware of the contingent nature of all political actions, and were thus willing to take risks in their pursuit of freedom.
10 citations
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TL;DR: The authors distinguish and reconstruct three contexts of solidarity in which Taylor's general approach is developed: the civic, the socio-economic, and the social order, and distinguish the three contexts in which this approach was developed.
Abstract: After characterizing Taylor’s general approach to the problems of solidarity, we distinguish and reconstruct three contexts of solidarity in which this approach is developed: the civic, the socio-e...
10 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that modern democracy is revolutionary when viewed as an open and self-instituting articulation of political power, starting in the Italian Renaissance city-states, the German free cities, and the Swiss federation where urban autonomy was matched by the creation of elected forms of rulership.
Abstract: This article develops three interconnected arguments concerning the image of modernity as a revolutionary epoch and the way in which this image has been understood and theorized. These three lines of conceptualization, which can only be sketched in less rather than greater detail here, concern the constellation or figuration of modernity, its democratic dimension, and in reference to each, the work of Max Weber, especially The City. More specifically, the article argues that modern democracy is revolutionary when viewed as an open and self-instituting articulation of political power. Its modern revolutionary impulse begins in the Italian Renaissance city-states, the German `free' cities, and the Swiss federation where urban autonomy was matched by the creation of elected forms of rulership and the development of federated circulations of power.
10 citations
TL;DR: Gauchet and Swain this article argued that the history of modern civilization represents a recognition of the mad, rather than their exclusion, and examined the relationship between disciplinary practices and a wider democratic context.
Abstract: This article reveals how Marcel Gauchet and his late wife Gladys Swain revise Foucault's history of madness and modernity by arguing that the history of modern civilization represents a recognition of the mad, rather than their exclusion. Turning to the French Revolution, the article then examines the relationship between disciplinary practices and a wider democratic context. It shows that while Foucault reduces democratic societies to proto totalitarian practices, Gauchet and Swain give a broader and more historically complex account of asylums and the democratic context in which they emerge. This allows them to see resistance in the asylum and in democratic societies in general: while Foucault thought the panoptic asylum revealed modernity's ultimate success, for Gauchet and Swain it proved only its failure. However, the article ends by arguing that, despite all their differences, Gauchet and Swain's critique of contemporary societies remains in some respects indebted to Foucault.
9 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a critical approach to innovation from a historical perspective of postwar systems theory and Castoriadis's philosophy of 'the imaginary institution of society' with issues of innovation in a knowledge society and a new notion of innovation as creative organization is presented.
Abstract: The article confronts Cornelius Castoriadis's philosophy of 'the imaginary institution of society' with issues of innovation in a knowledge society and outlines a new notion of innovation as creative organization It will take a critical approach to innovation from a historical perspective of postwar systems theory and introduce Castoriadis's philosophy as an interesting option in this regard It proceeds in four parts: (a) First, it debates the limits of the commonplace metaphor of diffusion and adoption in today's debate on innovation (b) Second, it will present aspects of Castoriadis's thought as an alternative, in particular his debate on imagination and the proto-institution of legein/teukhein — ordered action (c) On this background it will treat a case from the Danish innovation industry, the firm Zentropa WorkZ's programme of 'Dramatic Innovation' as an interesting example of an innovation format addressing creativity (d) In conclusion, it will briefly debate creative knowledge formation in a kn
TL;DR: The authors examined the 2008 report of the Quebec Government's Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences, which was co-authored by Charles Taylor, and concluded that:
Abstract: This article examines the 2008 report of the Quebec Government’s Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences which was co-authored by Charles Taylor. Summariz...
TL;DR: Smith as discussed by the authors argues that reclaiming our sense of ourselves as porous subjects permeated by the world around us as well as disengaging and reflecting on our lives will let us make sense or ourselves and reinterpret the human condition.
Abstract: Charles Taylor has created a vast body of work over 50 years of writing, exploring Western conceptions of human being. Reclaiming our sense of ourselves as porous subjects permeated by the world around us as well as disengaging and reflecting on our lives, Smith believes, will let us make sense or ourselves and reinterpret the human condition.
TL;DR: For example, this paper pointed out that the revolutions of 1989 emphasize what actually is true of previous revolutions: they cannot coherently be thought of as extra-political, as opposed to previous revolutions.
Abstract: John Locke (1632—1704) and Georges Sorel (1859—1922) are commonly understood as representing opposed positions vis-a-vis revolution — with Locke representing the liberal distinction between violence and politics versus Sorel's rejection of politics in its pacified liberal sense. This interpretation is shown by a close reading of their works to be misleading. Both draw a necessary link between revolution and violence, and both mediate this link through the concept of `war'. They both depoliticize revolution, as for both of them `war' is understood as extra-political. The revolutions of 1989 emphasize what actually is true of previous revolutions: they cannot coherently be thought of as extra-political.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the ways in which the imagination might be mobilized to support researchers to develop transgressive research imaginations and communities with the capacities to think, 'be' and 'become' differently in a world of research increasingly governed by rampant reductionist rationality.
Abstract: In this article we explore the ways in which the notion of the imagination might be mobilized to support researchers to develop transgressive research imaginations and communities with the capacities to think, 'be' and 'become' differently in a world of research increasingly governed by rampant reductionist rationality. To assist us we draw from the evocative views of imagination developed by Cornelius Castoriadis, the imagination's most radical exponent. In this article his ideas about knowledge and its links to the imagination will be deployed as we discuss the following questions: What does the notion of the imagination mean in the everyday world of university research? Is all research an act of the imagination? What might it mean to globalize the research imagination? We will also illustrate the ways in which the imagination is mobilized in (globalizing) research practice.
TL;DR: The French Revolution has ceased to be the paradigm case of progressive social revolution as discussed by the authors, arguing that totalitarianism is too blunt a category to distinguish between varying experiences of revolution and further questions if revolutionary outcomes are ideologically determined.
Abstract: The French Revolution has ceased to be the paradigm case of progressive social revolution. Historians increasingly argue that the heart of the revolutionary experience was the Terror and that the Terror prefigured 20thcentury totalitarianism. This article contests that view and argues that totalitarianism is too blunt a category to distinguish between varying experiences of revolution and further questions if revolutionary outcomes are ideologically determined. It argues that by widening the set of revolutions to include 17th and 18th century cases, as well as the velvet revolutions of the 1990s, we can reinterpret the French Revolution as a characteristic case of democratic transition with particular features.
TL;DR: This article argued that Taylor's understanding of the implications of religion and revolution significantly differentiates his standpoint from that of pragmatism and theories of democratic creativity, and argued that the dilemma of the modern immanent frame were prefigured in the French Revolution's inability to generate an institutional form consistent with its understanding of democracy and that social creativi...
Abstract: Charles Taylor’s conception of the relationship between democracy and social creativity developed through a critical synthesis of various traditions, including the Romantic Movement and liberal political philosophy. However, it is argued that Taylor’s understanding of the implications of religion and revolution significantly differentiates his standpoint from that of pragmatism and theories of democratic creativity. Taylor’s defence of religious transcendence is shown to give rise to tensions with the latter perspective. The theorists of democratic creativity suggest that democracy originates in the rupturing of religious significations and their closure of meaning. Taylor essentially inverts these arguments and perceives that the loss of transcendence may lead to a closed world structure. Taylor claims that the dilemmas of the modern immanent frame were prefigured in the French Revolution’s inability to generate an institutional form consistent with its understanding of democracy and that social creativi...
TL;DR: Two general sorts of responses to the suffering caused by the 9/11 attacks are distinguishable in the statements of public officials, journalists, and citizens: one manifests a tragic sensibility, another takes the form of theodicy as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Two general sorts of responses to the suffering caused by the 9/11 attacks are distinguishable in the statements of public officials, journalists, and citizens: one manifests a tragic sensibility, another takes the form of theodicy. Each response entails a distinctive set of expectations about the nature of political agency and solidarity in a democracy. With its claim of access to a transcendental form of truth, theodicy promises a robust sense of political solidarity and agency based on a shared religious belief. Tragic modes of appeal muster their consolatory effects by appealing to intuitions or taste rather than religious belief and therefore potentially remain open to more diverse public audiences.
TL;DR: This article argued that Derrida invidiously marginalizes some important non-messianistic idioms, sources and traditions of thinking about religious history and its bearing on contemporary social and political self-understanding.
Abstract: Jacques Derrida's vision of 'messianicity' in his book Specters of Marx and the essay 'Faith and Knowledge: The Two Sources of “Religion” at the Limits of Reason Alone' has been widely appreciated by scholars. Yet little fundamentally critical engagement appears to have been made with some important historical-sociological questions raised by Derrida's ideas in these texts. Drawing on earlier reference-points in 20th-century critical theory and sociology, the present article argues for some objections to Derrida's presentation of the significance of religious messianism in modern Western social and political thought. The central claim defended is that Derrida invidiously marginalizes some important non-messianistic idioms, sources and traditions of thinking about religious history and its bearing on contemporary social and political self-understanding.
TL;DR: Taylor's approach is phenomenological-hermeneutics, and his anthropology can be summarized in his claim that human beings are "self-interpreting animals" as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This issue of Thesis Eleven celebrates the work of Charles Taylor, one of the most prolifi c and infl uential philosophers in the Western world today. Perhaps most widely recognized as a political philosopher, Taylor’s work spans the fi elds of moral philosophy, epistemology and ontology; he is a philosophical anthropologist in the broadest and richest sense of the term. Taylor’s approach is phenomenological-hermeneutics, and his anthropology can be summarized in his claim that human beings are ‘self-interpreting animals’. As Ruth Abbey notes in this issue, Taylor is distinctive among political philosophers for his combination of theoretical and practical work, a theme that has persisted throughout his intellectual career, taking various forms, including having stood as a candidate for elected offi ce in his early career, and penned important papers such as ‘Social Theory as Practice’ in a different context. Abbey points out that Taylor’s theoretical work always retains a practical focus, motivated by a desire not merely to interpret the world but to do so in such a way as to change it. Taylor’s landmark work, Sources of the Self (1989), aims for nothing less than to reinterpret modern society’s self-interpretations in the belief that clearer and more accurate self-understandings will lead to different – and hopefully better – modes of being. His most recent magnum opus, A Secular Age (2007), likewise aims for a reinterpretation of the place of religion in modern society, arguing that the secularization thesis was mistaken from the start. This work inspired the creation of a blog, The Immanent Frame (www. ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame), which has hosted vigorous debate from prominent scholars in the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences, as well as theologians. He has also contributed extensively to public debates and government policies regarding multiculturalism and the politics of identity, amongst other things. Each of the papers presented here provides some overview and background to the particular aspects of Taylor’s work with which they are dealing:
TL;DR: De la Fuente as discussed by the authors reviewed three books, namely, The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the Sixties edited by Alan Sica and Stephen Turner; Sociologists in a Global Age: Biographical Perspectives edited by Matthieu Deflem; and The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalization by Anthony Elliott and Charles Lemert.
Abstract: De la Fuente reviews three books, namely, The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the Sixties edited by Alan Sica and Stephen Turner; Sociologists in a Global Age: Biographical Perspectives edited by Matthieu Deflem; and The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalization by Anthony Elliott and Charles Lemert.
TL;DR: Harrison C. White has produced a stream of large-scale, innovative and path-breaking work from the mid-1960s to his last major book, Markets from Networks (2002), and is still publishing.
Abstract: Harrison C. White has produced a stream of large-scale, innovative and path-breaking work from the mid-1960s to his last major book, Markets from Networks (2002), and is still publishing. Each of his books made significant impacts in their field by breaking new conceptual ground and implementing and demonstrating innovative research strategies and paths of analysis. They look at significant sociological questions from unexpected angles and have often inspired whole new approaches and research traditions. Such achievement would not be so remarkable if we were talking of one, maybe two such seminal classics. With Harrison White, however, we may be talking about three, four, five, or even more landmark achievements of this kind. His early work on kinship structures, Anatomy of Kinship (1963), developed a comprehensive logico-mathematical algebra of kinship relations that was a milestone for anthropological analysis but which he translated, along with other examples, into a charter and demonstration of mathematical sociology. Two years later he and his wife Cynthia produced a study of the preand post-revolutionary French art worlds that set out the interplay of social