This article takes the fiftieth anniversary of the death of American sociologist C. Wright Mills as a cue to revisit his legacy but also the value of sociology today. It argues that the enduring relevance of Mills’ work is his cultivation of a sociological sensibility, which is both an attentive and sensuous craft and also a moral and political project. The article returns to some of the key aspects of Mills’ life and work, and focuses, in particular, on his influential (...) book The Sociological Imagination. Revisiting the opening and closing chapters of this book – entitled ‘The Promise’ and ‘On Intellectual Craftsmanship’ – this article argues that the contemporary social imagination needs to offer its students the capacity to open out to the world through a heightened sensory attentiveness, which in turn makes possible a different kind of social imaginary. In this way Mills’ gift to the future is a sociological sensibility furnished by its tradition, but one also that is constantly re-tuned to the circumstances and problems of the present. (shrink)

This interview reconsiders Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto 21 years after it was first published. It asks what has become of the three boundary breakdowns around which the Manifesto was structured - those between animals and humans, animal-humans and machines, and the ‘physical and non-physical’. Against this backdrop, this interview examines the connection between the Cyborg Manifesto and Haraway’s more recent writings on companion species, along with what it means to read or write a ‘manifesto’ today. Recent notions of the ‘posthuman’ (...) are also placed into question. (shrink)

This paper uses Michel Foucault’s lectures on biopolitics as a starting point for thinking historically about neoliberalism. Foucault’s lectures offer a rich and detailed account of the emergence of neoliberalism, but this account is far from complete. This paper addresses some of the blind-spots in Foucault’s lectures by focusing on the space between the decline of classical liberalism at the end of the 19th century and the subsequent attempt to develop a ‘positive’ or ‘ordo’ liberalism in post-war Germany. The primary (...) concern of this paper is to chart the emergence of a new or neo- liberalism in the writings of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek through the 1920s and 1930s. These writings, which are barely considered by Foucault, are important as they redefine the liberal project against the political economy of the late 19th century and, in particular, against the threat of socialism. In conclusion, it is argued that by returning to the work of Mises and Hayek it is possible to develop a critical sociology of neoliberalism, one that not only engages with the writings of these two thinkers but which also exposes the fracture lines that exist within the neoliberal project, and reconsiders the political positions that neoliberalism initially sought to reject. (shrink)

Given the growing prominence of nudge economics both within and beyond the academy, it is a timely moment to reassess the philosophical and political arguments that sit at its core, and in particular what Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein call libertarian paternalism. The first half of this paper provides a detailed account of the main features of this form of paternalism, before moving, in the second half, to a critical evaluation of the nudge agenda that questions, among other things, the (...) gendered basis of paternalistic governance; the idea of ‘nudging for good’; and the political values that underpin nudge. The final section of this paper builds on the existing work of John McMahon by asking whether libertarian paternalism should be understood as a new, hybrid form of neoliberalism, or, rather, as a post-neoliberal form of governance that has emerged out of, and flourished in, the post-crisis situation. (shrink)

This article expands Michel Foucault's genealogy of liberalism and neoliberalism by analysing the concept of competition. It addresses four key liberal conceptions of competition in turn: the idea of competition as a destructive but progressive and thus necessary force ; economic theories of market equilibrium that theorize competition mathematically ; socio-biological ideas of competition as something natural ; and sociological arguments that see competition as adding value to the social. From this starting point, the article considers the ways in which (...) three main trajectories of neoliberal thought that emerged from the early 1920s onwards – Austrian, German and American – developed and responded to these conceptualizations of competition. In conclusion, it is argued that this history of the concept of competition leads to a new understanding of the tensions that lie at the heart of neoliberal thought, and which are largely missing from Foucault's account. (shrink)

This article uses the work of Friedrich Kittler to address the ways in which media technologies underpin and structure the basis of ‘human’ existence and understanding. Kittler’s ‘media materialism’ is explored through four main influences: the information theory of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, the media analysis of Marshall McLuhan, the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault’s work on power and discourse. These figures are used, in turn, to draw into question the materiality of information technology, and, following (...) this, to develop a post-human approach to media analysis. The final section of this article considers the challenges such an approach poses to the humanistic bias of mainstream sociology and media studies. (shrink)

This article examines the role of concepts in the so-called 'new' empiricism that is currently emerging from the writings of Gilles Deleuze. It asks what concepts are, and how they might be put to work to present the 'pure difference' of the empirical world. In addressing these questions, a number of parallels and contrasts are drawn between the writings of Deleuze and Max Weber. It is shown that many of Deleuze's key arguments about concepts- in particular, that they are pedagogical, (...) multiple, networked and problem-oriented in basis - are anticipated by Weber's sociological methodology of concept formation. This leads, finally, to a consideration of whether the creation of concepts as a practice belongs primarily within the domain of philosophy (as argued by Deleuze), or if it is a key part of social scientific work more generally. (shrink)

This review article of The Making of Modern Liberalism and Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics centres on the different trajectories of liberal and neoliberal thought that are mapped out by these two works. It is argued that to achieve an understanding of the meeting points, continuities and discontinuities between liberalism and neoliberalism it is necessary to examine the economic and political bases of these forms of governmental reason. By doing so, it is suggested (...) that it is possible to develop a fuller understanding of what was/is new about neoliberalism as both a political and an epistemological project. (shrink)

This brief response to Will Davies clarifies and expands a number of the core arguments of the article ‘The Emergence of Neoliberalism: Thinking through and Beyond Michel Foucault’s Lectures on Biopolitics’ : 3–27). It is argued that it is a mistake to treat Foucault as a neoliberal because his lectures on biopolitics centred on the emergence of different trajectories of neoliberal reason. Instead, Foucault’s genealogy of neoliberalism can be read as a critical history, one that is partial and incomplete but (...) which nonetheless can be used as a starting point to think historically and critically about neoliberalism. It is suggested that a more nuanced history of neoliberalism, however, can be developed by paying closer attention to the complex relationship between neoliberal reason and the earlier liberal ideas of the 19th century – in particular those of John Stuart Mill. Finally, a claim is made for the value of historical analysis for understanding and responding to the challenges of the post-crisis present, to a situation in which neoliberal ideas appear to have a near-hegemonic grip over popular politics and discourse. (shrink)

This review article assesses the core arguments of Quinn Slobodian’s Crack-Up Capitalism. In this book, Slobodian identifies and analyses territorial forms that are central to the creation of capitalist zones of exception that, to a large extent, sit outside the reach of political democracy: ‘islands’, ‘phyles’, and ‘franchise nations’. This article argues that Slobodian’s analysis of these territorial forms – which have been designed to enable the extraction, accumulation and protection of capital to the benefit of the super-rich – is (...) a valuable addition to the existing literature on neoliberalism and libertarianism. However, further conceptual and theoretical work is needed to connect these territorial forms to existing analyses of capitalism, sovereignty and exception that address long-standing historical and political tensions between capitalism and democracy. (shrink)

While Max Weber is commonly treated as a social theorist or a theorist of social stratification, relatively little attention has been paid to the theory of the social that is developed in his work. In view of this, this article turns to Weber’s most explicit theorization of the social: the section of Economy and Society entitled ‘Class, Status, Party’. In this work, Weber treats class as a non-social form, in contrast to status groups and parties, which are seen to emerge (...) through communal or associative modes of socialization. Given this, it is argued that it is a mistake to reduce ‘Class, Status, Party’ to an argument about social stratification. Rather, this work is a general theorization of the social in relation to the spheres of economics and politics. Read in this way, Weber’s work is presented as a possible resource for rejuvenating social theory that goes beyond study of class or ‘societal’ structures, and which privileges analysis of social relationships (including those that go beyond nation-state boundaries) in the competition for social and political power. (shrink)

This article addresses a little-known event in the history of neoliberalism: a conference at Stanford University held in 1982 to reconsider Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means’ The Modern Corporation and Private Property 50 years after its initial publication. This event is important as it is where key members of the neoliberal thought collective sought to define and defend the powers and freedoms of the corporation. First, this article outlines the political commitments of Berle and Means by considering the core arguments (...) of The Modern Corporation and Private Property; second, it addresses key papers from the event published subsequently in the Journal of Law and Economics; and third, it analyses the neoliberal defence of the corporation that emerged from these papers, and reflects on the limitations of the work of Berle and Means for developing a response to their neoliberal critics. (shrink)

The introduction provides a short outline of Kittler’s biographical background and briefly discusses the stages of his work: The initial discourse-analytical stage of the late 1970s that centered primarily on literary text; the media-theoretical stage of the 1980s and early 1990s that focused in particular on electric and electronic media; and a current stage dedicated to rewriting the origin of one the most basic cultural technologies: the alphanumeric notation system.

This review of Wendy Brown’s Undoing the Demos considers the claim that contemporary processes of neoliberalism are damaging the core principles of democracy. It is argued that Brown is right to follow Foucault in defining neoliberalism as a form of political rationality, but that core arguments of the book could be developed further through attention to the following points: the operation of neoliberal politics and practices outside of the US context; the position of Austrian thought within the history of neoliberal (...) reason; the problematic status of homo economicus within neoliberal thought; why the ‘soft power’ of neoliberalism has proved so effective; and how a Marxist theory of capital might be developed alongside Foucauldian critique of neoliberalism. (shrink)

This commentary responds to Nicholas Gane’s article on the early history of neoliberalism. Gane contends that many histories, Foucault’s in particular, do not account for the very earliest period of neoliberal thought, during the 1920s, which was dominated by Ludwig von Mises. Gane also argues that by ignoring this period, critical scholars have misidentified the critical distantiation from John Stuart Mill that was definitive for early neoliberalism. In response to Gane, this piece argues, partly in (...) defence of Foucault, that the key moments in the history of neoliberalism concern the penetration of economic rationalities into the state. Hence, while the history of economics has intrinsic merits, figures such as Mill may be less significant for the shaping of political rationalities. (shrink)

Presents Baudrillard’s key concepts and examines his contribution to the analysis of specific domains, such as postmodernism, feminism, technology, art, war, ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 313-316 [Access article in PDF] Normativity and Pathology Mike Gane Keywords: positivism, sociology, pathology, normativity. THE STRENGTH OF VICTORIA MARGREE'S contribution to the examination of the thematic of pathology and its Nietzschean/Canguilhemian variation is that it reveals the challenging complexity of this theme. My comments on this contribution are developed from an interest in the ways that the concern with pathology was (...) part of the initial program of the social sciences, particularly sociology, as it was inaugurated by Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim in its formative period. Margree touches on the importance of social analysis at the end of her paper; my comments work to some extent in the opposite direction—from the social to the psychological. My concerns lead me to contest a number of her epistemological positions, particularly those concerning the notion of positivism and "objective" analysis.For the first positivist philosophers, positivism was primarily a method; in fact it embraced the set of methods developed by the sciences to obtain the highest degree of objectivity. It was explicitly opposed to methodological reductionism, arguing that each science had specific methods applicable to its own domain. Canguilhem was certainly against methodological reductionism (Renard 1996, 127), but Margree's conception of positivism in psychology as biological reductionism is quite a different and is a later-derived variation of positivism. As such perhaps it should not be conflated with early notions of pathology. Sociological positivism as developed in Durkheim's methodology, although different in many aspects from that of Comte, retained the idea that scientific objectivity was to be the result of epistemological procedures, not what might be called ontological reduction to a physical level of the object. Durkheim tries to clarify the rules governing the analysis of abnormal forms and to define social dysfunction and teratology. The general field of abnormal forms or pathology in the analysis of social life fell into decline after Durkheim and was abandoned in favor of the study of social deviance. The very idea of a study of social pathology itself was critiqued by Szasz and Foucault in particular as a new form of power, which came into existence at the end of the eighteenth century as an essential component of the disciplinary society. Foucault was himself clearly indebted to Canguilhem, and he made this evident on several occasions, such as his lectures at the Collège de France Les Anormaux given in 1974 and 1975 (Foucault 1999). Thus, although the field of pathology and abnormal forms continues in psychology it has been abandoned in sociology, leaving only traces (such as the concept of anomie) in the works of some thinkers such as Baudrillard, whose usage may be ironic more than an attempt to revive the terrain. Could it be that Canguilhem and Foucault [End Page 313] have then more or less swept the field clear of such scientism, even though the reconceptualization in terms of normativity suggested by Canguilhem has not been widely taken on? Indeed there may be important differences between the conceptualization of Canguilhem and Foucault (after all, as Margree points out, Canguilhem can be read as attempting to invert the relation between normativity and normative, not to withdraw from the terrain altogether). Foucault seems to approach a position elaborated in sociology earlier by Max Weber in his rejection of the attempt to use the field of pathology as a way of evading moral choices. Canguilhem discusses responsibility in "Thérapeutique, expérimentation, responsibilité" (1983, 391), noting the importance of professionalization and legal controls on professional practice.The fundamental issues posed by the project of social science continue to be haunted by the same set of problems as established in analysis of pathological phenomena, whether it be conceived in terms of order and disorder (chaos), social breakdown, radical evil, "failed states," even deviation or noncompliance with "correct" forms of language or behavior (harassment, racism, child abuse) and so on, or pathology (perversion, dysfunction, disease, illness, abnormalities). The question in part is: is there anything lost by replacing pathology with more political, religious, moral, and legal terminologies? From Foucault's point... (shrink)

The increasingly lively controversy over scientific realism has become one of the principal themes of recent philosophy. 1 In watching this controversy unfold in the rather technical way currently in vogue, it has seemed to me that it would be useful to view these contemporary disputes against the background of such older epistemological issues as fallibilism, scepticism, relativism, and the traditional realism/idealism debate. This, then, is the object of the present book, which will recon sider the newer concerns about scientific (...) realism in the context of these older philosophical themes. Historically, realism concerns itself with the real existence of things that do not "meet the eye" - with suprasensible entities that lie beyond the reach of human perception. In medieval times, discussions about realism focused upon universals. Recognizing that there are physical objects such as cats and triangular objects and red tomatoes, the medievels debated whether such "abstract objects" as cathood and triangularity and redness also exist by way of having a reality indepen dent of the concretely real things that exhibit them. Three fundamen tally different positions were defended: (1) Nominalism. Abstracta have no independent existence as such: they only "exist" in and through the objects that exhibit them. Only particulars (individual substances) exist. Abstract "objects" are existents in name only, mere thought fictions by whose means we address concrete particular things. (2) Realism. Abstracta have an independent existence as such. (shrink)

In mainstream analytic epistemology, Reformed theology has made its presence prominently felt in Reformed epistemology, the view of religious belief according to which religious beliefs can be properly basic and warranted when formed by the proper functioning of the sensus divinitatis, an inborn capacity or faculty for belief in God that can be prompted to generate certain religious beliefs when presented with things (e.g., certain majestic aspects of creation). A major competitor to Reformed epistemology is Wittgensteinian quasi-fideism, a position drawn (...) from the epistemology of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, according to which some foundational religious commitments are not properly basic beliefs but some kind of apodictic, unshakeable certainties that form part of the structure of one’s rationality and worldview. I argue that the Reformed tradition has contained elements of quasi-fideism at least as far back as Calvin’s account of faith from the Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 3, chapter 2. (shrink)

How can we think about things in the outside world? There is still no widely accepted theory of how mental representations get their meaning. In light of pioneering research, Nicholas Shea develops a naturalistic account of the nature of mental representation with a firm focus on the subpersonal representations that pervade the cognitive sciences.

A clearly written, authoritative introduction to Taylor's work.

This is a book about the meanings of words and how they can combine to form larger meaningful units, as well as how they can fail to combine when the ...

How is consciousness possible? What biological purpose does it serve? And why do we value it so highly? In Soul Dust, the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, a leading figure in consciousness research, proposes a startling new theory. Consciousness, he argues, is nothing less than a magical-mystery show that we stage for ourselves inside our own heads. This self-made show lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent. Thus consciousness paves the way for spirituality, and allows (...) us, as human beings, to reap the rewards, and anxieties, of living in what Humphrey calls the "soul niche." Tightly argued, intellectually gripping, and a joy to read, Soul Dust provides answers to the deepest questions. It shows how the problem of consciousness merges with questions that obsess us all--how life should be lived and the fear of death. Resting firmly on neuroscience and evolutionary theory, and drawing a wealth of insights from philosophy and literature..."--Jacket. (shrink)

This volume is about abstract objects and the ways we refer to them in natural language. Asher develops a semantical and metaphysical analysis of these entities in two stages. The first reflects the rich ontology of abstract objects necessitated by the forms of language in which we think and speak. A second level of analysis maps the ontology of natural language metaphysics onto a sparser domain--a more systematic realm of abstract objects that are fully analyzed. This second level reflects the (...) commitments of real metaphysics. The models for these commitments assign truth conditions to natural language discourse. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

In this entertaining and provocative introduction, Royle offers lucid explanations of various key ideas, including deconstruction, undecidability, iterability, differance, aporia, the pharmakon, the supplement, a new enlightenment, and the democracy to come. He also gives attention, however, to a range of less obvious key ideas of Derrida, such as earthquakes, animals and animality, ghosts, monstrosity, the poematic, drugs, gifts, secrets, war, and mourning. Derrida is seen as an extraordinarily inventive thinker, as well as a brilliantly imaginative and often very funny (...) writer. Other critical introductions tend to highlight the specifically philosophical nature and genealogy of his work. Royle's book proceeds in a new and different way, in particular by focusing on the crucial but strange place of literature in Derrida's writings. He thus provides an appreciation and understanding based on detailed reference to Derrida's texts, interwoven with close readings of such writers as Shakespeare, Coleridge, P.B. Shelley, Poe, Emily Brontë, Franz Kafka and Elizabeth Bowen. In doing so, he explores Derrida's consistent view that deconstruction is "a coming-to-terms with literature". He emphasizes the ways in which "literature", for Derrida, is indissociably bound up with other concerns, such as philosophy and psychoanalysis, politics and ethics, responsibility and justice, law and democracy. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

We discuss the rational role of highly inattentive experiences, and argue that they can provide rational support for beliefs.

I take pseudoscience to be a pretence at science. Pretences are innumerable, limited only by our imagination and credulity. As Stove points out, ‘numerology is actually quite as different from astrology as astrology is from astronomy’ (Stove 1991, 187). We are sure that ‘something has gone appallingly wrong’ (Stove 1991, 180) and yet ‘thoughts…can go wrong in a multiplicity of ways, none of which anyone yet understands’ (Stove 1991, 190). Often all we can do is give a careful description of (...) a way of pretending, a motivation for pretence, a source of pretension. In this chapter I attempt the latter. We will be concerned with the relation of conviction to rational belief. I shall be suggesting that the question of whether an enquiry is a pretence at science can be, in part, a question over the role of conviction in rational belief, and that the answer is to be found in the philosophical problem of the role of values in rational belief. (shrink)

The authors explore the history of experiments in economics, provide examples of different types of experiments and show that the growing use of experimental methods is transforming economics into an empirical science.

Identifying arguments -- Formal analysis of arguments -- Presenting your case -- Attacking an argument -- Defending your case -- Cause-and-effect reasoning.

This volume sets out to reverse the neglect.

Block’s well-known distinction between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness has generated a large philosophical literature about putative conceptual connections between the two. The scientific literature about whether they come apart in any actual cases is rather smaller. Empirical evidence gathered to date has not settled the issue. Some put this down to a fundamental methodological obstacle to the empirical study of the relation between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness. Block (2007) has drawn attention to the methodological puzzle and attempted to (...) answer it. While the evidence Block points to is relevant and important, this paper puts forward a more systematic framework for addressing the puzzle. To give it a label, the approach is to study phenomenal consciousness as a natural kind. The approach allows consciousness studies to move beyond the initial means of identifying instances of the kind, like verbal report, and to find its underlying nature. It is wellrecognised that facts about an underlying kind may allow identification of instances of the kind that do not match the initial means of identification (cp. non-liquid samples of water). This paper shows that the same method can be deployed to investigate phenomenal consciousness independently of access consciousness. (shrink)