The slogan “the personal is political” captures the distinctive challenge to the public-private divide posed by contemporary feminists. As such, feminist activism is not necessarily congruent with civic engagement, which is predicated on the paradoxical need to both bridge and sustain the public-private divide. Lee argues that rather than subverting the divide, the politics of the personal offers an alternative understanding of civic engagement that aims to reinstate individuals’ dignity and agency.

The slogan “the personal is political” captures the distinctive challenge to the public-private divide posed by contemporary feminists. As such, feminist activism is not necessarily congruent with civic engagement, which is predicated on the paradoxical need to both bridge and sustain the public-private divide. Lee argues that rather than subverting the divide, the politics of the personal offers an alternative understanding of civic engagement that aims to reinstate individuals’ dignity and agency.

Morality exercises a deep and questionable influence on the way we live our lives. The influence is deep both because moral injunctions are embedded in our psyches long before we can reflect on their status and because even after we become reflective agents, the question of how we should live our lives among others is intimately bound up with the more general question of how we should live our lives: our stance toward morality and our conception of our lives as (...) having significance are of a piece. The influence is questionable because morality pretends to a level of objectivity that it may not possess. Moral injunctions are meant to be binding on us in some way that is independent of the desires or preferences we may happen to have. When one asserts that a certain action is morally worthy or shameful one is, prime facie, doing more than merely expressing approval or disapproval or trying to get others to act as instruments of one's own will. If moral assertions were shown, at bottom, to be merely such exhortations, then they would be shown to wear a disguise. Morality would be revealed as pretending to an objectivity it does not have, and such a revelation could not but have a profound impact on our lives. It is doubtful that such a revelation could be kept locked up inside our studies. (shrink)

Morality exercises a deep and questionable influence on the way we live our lives. The influence is deep both because moral injunctions are embedded in our psyches long before we can reflect on their status and because even after we become reflective agents, the question of how we should live our lives among others is intimately bound up with the more general question of how we should live our lives: our stance toward morality and our conception of our lives as (...) having significance are of a piece. The influence is questionable because morality pretends to a level of objectivity that it may not possess. Moral injunctions are meant to be binding on us in some way that is independent of the desires or preferences we may happen to have. When one asserts that a certain action is morally worthy or shameful one is, prime facie, doing more than merely expressing approval or disapproval or trying to get others to act as instruments of one's own will. If moral assertions were shown, at bottom, to be merely such exhortations, then they would be shown to wear a disguise. Morality would be revealed as pretending to an objectivity it does not have, and such a revelation could not but have a profound impact on our lives. It is doubtful that such a revelation could be kept locked up inside our studies. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 9, Page 1302-1328, November 2022. Robinson Crusoe is a mythic character who lives not only in the popular imaginary but through the history of political and social thought. Defoe’s protagonist lives marooned on his island, isolated and apart from society. The narrative is a perfect naturalisation of the ‘bourgeois’ world, dependent on an ontology of the self-sufficient individual. This article analyses this lineage in the social contract theory of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Later, (...) Hegel used the novel to illustrate his dialectic of mastery/servitude. Challenging the atomism of the state of nature, Hegel’s theory of recognition gives an account of positive freedom, where the individual is formed in and through social interdependence. This sociality is continued by Marx, who satirises Defoe's novel in his value-form critique of political economy. The value-form provides insight into Robinson's island labour and Marx's difference with Locke's labour theory of value. For Marx, the myth of ‘natural man’ hides the domination of capitalist development and Robinson Crusoe reflects the internalisation of the abstract rationality of commodity society. However, Marx's immanent critique of the novel points to a radical idea of social life and freedom. (shrink)

The late Imre Lakatos once hoped to found a school of dialectical philosophy of mathematics. The aim of this paper is to ask what that might possibly mean. But Lakatos's philosophy has serious shortcomings. The paper elaborates a conception of dialectical philosophy of mathematics that repairs these defects and considers the work of three philosophers who in some measure fit the description: Yehuda Rav, Mary Leng and David Corfield.

This article suggests first that the concept of interpersonal recognition be understood in a multidimensional (as opposed to one-dimensional), practical (as opposed to symbolic), and strict (as opposed to broad) way. Second, it is argued that due recognition be seen as a reason-governed response to evaluative features, rather than all normativity and reasons being seen as generated by recognition. This can be called a response-model, or, more precisely, a value-based model of due recognition. A further suggestion is that there is (...) a systematic basis for distinguishing three dimensions of recognition, depending on whether recognition is given to someone qua a person, qua a certain kind of person, or qua a certain person. Finally, it is argued that recognition is a necessary condition of personhood, but whether it is of direct or indirect relevance depends on our theories of personhood (social vs. capacity-theory) and practical identity (dialogical definition model vs. feature-model). Despite the apparent opposition, it is shown that interpersonal recognition is both a response to value and a precondition of personhood. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Hegel's views on the determination of intentions. The main point is that it pays to distinguish sufficiently clearly four perspectives to human action: 1) The agent's "moral" perspective and the understanding and description under which the agent acted; from this perspective we can thematize the operative intention-in-action and distinguish "action" from "deed". 2) The agent's retrospective awareness and appropriation of the action: was what I did really justified and did it express my true goals? 3) (...) The retrospective takes of others concerning the action, from within relevant social practices and the prevailing Sittlichkeit. 4) The perspective of Reason or Idea as emerging in the world history. In this paper I use this differentiation of perspectives to discuss Hegel's views on action. I defend the primacy of the individual herself in the first aspect mentioned, in what Hegel calls the "moral" perspective. Robert Pippin's idea of "retrospective" determination of intentions is analyzed and (on some readings) criticized. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 2, Page 229-243, June 2022.

We establish the thesis that in moral education, particularly in the first years of the child’s development, unreflexive acts or unreflexiveness in certain behaviours of adults is a condition for the development of the personality structure and virtues that enable autonomous ethical reflection and a relation to the Other. With the notion of unreflexiveness we refer to resolvedness in the response of adults when it is necessary to establish a limit, or cut, in the child’s demand for pleasure, as well (...) as to resolvedness as one of the structurally essential elements in behaviours with which the adult subordinates the child to the symbolic order or language. In philosophy, a symptomatic position in this context is represented by Kant’s theory of education. On the basis of the “traditional” concept of “negative education”, and through Freud’s and Lacan’s psychoanalytic concepts, we identify two principles that should, in contemporary times, be an essential part of the moral educational behaviours of adults: the principle of a delimited response to the child’s demand for the satisfaction of pleasure, and the principle of reasoned, reflected, but nevertheless certain, persevering, resolved unreflexiveness in the subordination of the child’s desire to the symbolic order . On the basis of the preceding analysis, we highlight certain consequences of this structure of the subject for the contexts of particular theoretical discussions and for school practice. (shrink)

Recent debates about Hegel's theoretical philosophy are marked by a surprising lack of agreement, extending all the way down to the most basic question:what is Hegel talking about?On the one hand, proponents of ‘metaphysical’ interpretations generally read Hegel as aiming to articulate the overall structure or organisation of reality itself, and the nature of a highest or most fundamental being. Particularly influential is the idea that Hegel is reviving and modifying a form of Spinoza's metaphysical monism, according to which the (...) organised whole of everything is the highest being, providing a ground or reason for everything real. On the other hand, proponents of ‘non-metaphysical’ interpretations argue Hegel's topic is something else entirely. The idea is that Hegel agrees with Kant in finding pre-critical forms of metaphysics to be uncritical or dogmatic. And the topic of Hegel's positive project is supposed to be not the nature of reality itself, nor any most fundamental being, but rather ‘forms of thought’ akin to Kant's categories and the objectivity, legitimacy, or normative authority of those forms of thought.This is of course only a rough sketch of the most basic recent debate, about which there is more to say than can fit in this paper. My focus here is on what Hegel has to say about nature and natural kinds, in ‘Observing Reason’ from thePhenomenology, and also in similar material from theLogicandEncyclopedia. I intend to argue that this material suggests a surprising way of stepping beyond the fundamental debate sketched above. There can of course be no question of elaborating and defending here a complete interpretation of Hegel's entire theoretical philosophy. I will have to restrict myself to arguing for the unlikely conclusion that there is an approach that can combine and integrate the strongest points made by both sides in the most basic debate shaping recent Hegel interpretation. (shrink)

I argue that Fichte (rather than Kant or Hegel or some amalgam of the two) was the primary historical model for the ethical standpoint described in Kierkegaard's Either/Or II. I then explain how looking at Kierkegaard's texts with Fichte in mind helps in interpreting the criticism of the ethical standpoint in works like The Sickness unto Death and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, as well as the significance of the discussion of secular ethics in Fear and Trembling. I conclude with a brief (...) look at the relevance for contemporary Kantian ethics of Kierkegaard's characterization and his criticism. (shrink)

Sohn-Rethel’s theory undermines the line of thought that, from Kant to deconstruction, severs being or the thing from representation, by showing that the Kantian a priori categories of thought are a posteriori effects of the relations of things, to the point that it is ‘only through the language of commodities that their owners become rational beings’. This is the thesis of Marx’s theory of ‘commodity fetishism’, and Sohn-Rethel’s work develops the methodology that follows from it. ‘ Realabstraktion’ means that the (...) commodification of things amounts to their transformation into the language that provides the a priori categories of human thought. As a result, far from being inaccessible to representation, being is precisely that which reveals itself whenever the transcendental categories of representation are laid out. Therefore, Sohn-Rethel’s theory entails that not only can one not separate economy from thought but also economy and thought from being, so that there are no three distinct fields – economy, ontology and epistemology – but one: an economic epistemontology. Just as Marx’s ‘commodity fetishism’ introduced the unconscious in both subjectivity and economy – ‘they do this without knowing it’ – Sohn-Rethel analysed all economic, intellectual and practical spheres in terms of the fundamental distinction between consciousness and the unconscious. The article also points to certain corrections that Marx’s own theory indicates need to be made in Sohn-Rethel’s account, particularly regarding the source of abstraction, the role of coined money, and the difference between capitalist and pre-capitalist modes of production and exchange. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Hegel's complete and mature view of crime and punishment is more robust than many interpretations of the Unrecht passage in the ‘Abstract Right’ section of Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right suggest. First, I explain the value of revisiting the interpretation of Hegel as a simple retributionist in the contemporary debate. Then, I look at Hegel's treatment of crime and punishment in the section on abstract right to show the role of punishment in (...) Hegel's account. Next, I argue that this needs to be situated in Hegel's broader social philosophy and that we can accomplish this by looking at how the Unrecht passage fits in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right’s dialectical structure. I do so by building on the sections on civil society and state in the part of Elements of the Philosophy of Right dealing with ethical life (Sittlichkeit), which include considerations of prevention and rehabilitation. I contend that this analysis reveals an account of punishment as more complicated than simple retribution. (shrink)

When I was first studying Hegel I encountered quite divergent readings of his views on religion. The teacher who first presented Hegel to me was a Jesuit, Quentin Lauer at Fordham University, who read Hegel as a Christian theologian providing a better metaphysical system for understanding the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation. When I studied at Yale, Kenley Dove read Hegel as the first thoroughly atheistic philosopher, who presented the conditions of thought without reference to any foundational absolute being. (...) Meanwhile, also at Yale, John Findlay read us a deeply Neo-Platonic Hegel who taught about absolute forms held in a cosmic mind. In giving my own reading I want to talk about the ways Hegel redefines both metaphysics and religion. I would like to approach these issues by way of the medieval controversy over double truth, which was a previous conflict between religion and science. (shrink)

This article is an argument for furthering the understanding, role and scope of critical theology in reflection on the act, content and implications of theological thought through appropriation of...

Several recent interpretations see Hegel's theory of the Concept as a form of conceptual realism, according to which finite reality is articulated by objectively existing concepts. More precisely, this theory has been interpreted as a version of natural kind essentialism, and it has been proposed that its function is to account for the possibility of genuine explanations. This suggests a promising way to reconstruct the argument that Hegel's theory of objective concepts is based on—an argument that shows that the possibility (...) of explanation rests on metaphysical preconditions and that natural kind essentialism gives the only adequate account of those preconditions. But in order for such a reconstruction to be successful, one needs to spell out the metaphysical features in virtue of which Hegelian natural kinds can account for the possibility of explanation. The article takes up this challenge. It offers the first detailed analysis of the modal fine-structure of Hegel's natural kind essentialism and shows how Hegel's position, thus understood, provides the details needed to complete the explanation-based argument. (shrink)

This article considers aspects of the social imaginary underlying early Russian realist thought and narrative by exploring two canonical novels from the 1840s, Ivan Gončarov’s Obyknovennaja istorija and Aleksandr Gercen’s Kto vinovat?, in light of Vissarion Belinskij’s activist reception of Hegel’s political philosophy. The Russian texts are read symptomatically against their western counterparts as illustrating the intriguing transformations that dominant European models of narrative and sociality undergo as they migrate to Russia.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel developed the concept of institutionalized education, which reflected public schooling and its legitimacy in the context of rapid transformation of European feudal societies to modern societies. The concept of school reflects the Hegelian theory of Bildung and the concept of modern society. What makes Hegel’s philosophy interesting is his conviction that the processes of Bildung can take place only in the context of social institutions and in the highly organized forms of human interaction regulated by those (...) institutions. Hence the development of an individual, according to Hegel, depends exclusively on institutionalized forms of interaction. In modern society, pedagogical institutions have a specific function: on the one hand, schooling is essentially an institutional form of initiating the process of Bildung in which an individual acquires culture and applies it to life—a life which consequently becomes consciously led by an individual self; on the other, schooling is essentially a way for modern society to ensure its self-preservation by preparing the individual to respond to the demands of civic society so that she or he can take part in the economic production and reproduction of modern society. (shrink)

InMind and World,John McDowell claims that we need to steer our way between bald naturalism and rampant platonism as two ways to explain our capacity to use concepts. Performing this task requires an explanation of how concepts can be both socially charged and, at the same time, genuinely involving the world as it really is. I suggest that McDowell’s explanation is insufficient and that Wilfrid Sellars’s idea of sense impressions might be used to clarify the relationship between social practices and (...) conceptual knowledge without incurring too much damage to the overall architectonics of McDowell’s theory.DansMind and World, John McDowell affirme que nous devons nous éloigner du naturalisme dépouillé et du platonisme exubérant comme étant deux manières d’expliquer notre capacité à utiliser des concepts. Pour accomplir cette tâche, il est nécessaire d’expliquer comment les concepts peuvent être à la fois chargés socialement et réellement engagés avec le monde tel qu’il est. Je suggère que l’explication de McDowell est insuffisante et que l’idée de Wilfrid Sellars des impressions sensorielles peut être utilisée pour clarifier la relation entre les pratiques sociales et la connaissance conceptuelle, et ceci sans faire encourir trop de dégâts à l’architectonique générale de la théorie de McDowell. (shrink)

Patterns in contemporary conflict highlight the failures of traditional views of the relationship between humanity and technology. This paper proposes that modern conflict is characterized by something called “dissimulation,” referring to numerous phenomena together emphasizing the inadequacies of conceiving man as the overseeing creator of technological advancement. It shows rather that man, particularly man in conflict, is always already implicated and concealed within complex technological networks and mediums, wherein humanity is just another player amongst others. This paper diagnoses and defines (...) the condition of “dissimulation” in drone warfare, modern partisanship and terrorism, raising further the question of the conceptualization of a technological object in doing so. It highlights the danger of an observed technological tendency too, particularly in terms of its shaping of contemporary conflict as well as our relationship to space and time. Having considered dissimulation’s characteristic phenomena and effects, a strategy for dealing with it is then suggested. (shrink)

In philosophy and political theory, the term paradox is often used synonymously with antinomy, contradiction and aporia. This article clarifies the meaning of these terms through tracing their respective etymology. We see that antinomy denotes a deep-seated conceptual opposition, whereas contradiction and aporia represent alternative responses to antinomy. The former presents the antinomy as potentially resolvable at some future time, and the latter sees the antinomy instead as a constitutive impasse. By way of contrast, para doxa originally referred to a (...) statement that is ‘contrary to received opinion’, but this idea has generally been subsumed – both in philosophy and more common place understandings – under the notion of aporia. This conceptual recovery enables a better understanding of key traditions in social and political theory, notably post-structuralism and Habermasian critical theory, which can be demarcated through their respective responses to the emergence of ‘paradoxes’. However, the article also demonstrates the material significance of these philosophical categories through their application to contemporary democratic politics. I analyse the constitutive tension between liberalism and democracy as well as the emergence of populism and show how these conceptual tools provide new insights for understanding these most pressing political developments of our time. (shrink)

Nothing reveals the differences between an internal (i.e., inherently pedagogical) reflection on educational processes and an external (i.e., derived from a philosophical, sociological, psychological, theological or other perspective) more clearly than the differing attitudes towards alienation. Looked at from outside a pedagogical context, alienation appears only negative, deserving nothing but contempt and rejection; examined from inside a pedagogical framework, it proves to be a conditio sine qua non, the process through which transformative education is possible. This article juxtaposes both perspectives (...) in order to defend the conviction that within educational reflections, only an inherently pedagogical, i.e., positive, understanding of alienation is persuasive, whereas other approaches by definition either are outside of pedagogical reflections or belong to a kind of metaphysical thinking that nowadays seems rather outdated. This paper forms part of a Special Issue titled ‘Beyond Virtue and Vice: Education for a Darker Age’, in which the editors invited authors to engage in exercises of ‘transvaluation’. Certain apparently settled educational concepts (from agency and fulfilment to alienation and ignorance) can be radically reinterpreted such that virtues can be seen as vices, and vices as virtues. The editors encouraged authors to employ polemics and some occasional exaggeration to revalue the educational values that are too readily accepted within contemporary educational discourses. (shrink)

Drawing on resources from pragmatist thought allows religious ethicists to take account of the central role traditions play in the formation and development of moral concepts without thereby espousing moral relativism or becoming traditionalists. After giving an account of this understanding of the concept of tradition, I examine the ways in which understandings of tradition play out in two contemporary examples of tradition-based ethics: works in comparative ethics of war by James Turner Johnson and John Kelsay. I argue that a (...) pragmatist approach to tradition-based ethics allows for a nuanced and flexible understanding of moral traditions, and one that holds great promise for international consensus-building around shared ethical norms for the use of armed force. (shrink)

This essay argues that Hegel's discussion of the family in "The Ethical Order" section of Phenomenology of Spirit undermines the entire project of that text. Hegel's project demands that every element of consciousness be conceptualizable, and yet, woman, an essential unconscious element of consciousness, is in principle unconceptualizable. The end of the essay attempts to relate Hegel's discussion of the family to contemporary discussions of family values.

: One of the problems with a superficial reading of "Belief Itself" and "Women, the Sacred, Money" is that Irigaray is too easily understood as merely saying that woman is the hidden victim of sacrifice and that one is called to reveal this hidden victim. While this is an important aspect of Irigaray's work, a more radical interpretation is opened up when it is read alongside the work of Lacan and Žižek. Irigaray's work disturbs the traditional discourses on revelation, sacrifice, (...) and woman on one level while at the same time reinforcing their most extreme ramifications. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 28, Issue 3, Page 337-349, September 2021.

I would like to offer an interpretation of the Genealogy of Morals, of the relationship of master morality to slave morality, and of Nietzsche's philosophy of history that is different from the interpretation that is normally offered by Nietzsche scholars. Contrary to Nehamas, Deleuze, Danto, and many others, I wish to argue that Nietzsche does not simply embrace master morality and spurn slave morality.1 I also wish to reject the view, considered simply obvious by most scholars, that the iibermensch develops (...) out of, or on the model of, the master, not the slave.2 And to make the case for all of this, I want to explore the relationship between Hegel's master-slave dialectic and the conflict Nietzsche sees between master morality and slave morality. That Nietzsche does not intend us to recall the famous master-slave dialectic of Hegel's Phenomenology as we read the Genealogy of Morals, I find difficult to believe. Yet very few commentators ever notice, let alone explore, this connection. (shrink)

While many philosophers have found Hegel's critique of Kantian ethics to be interesting in certain respects, overall most tend to find it rather shallow and to think that Hegel either misunderstands Kant's thought or has a rather crude understanding of it. For example, in examining the last two sections of Chapter V of the Phenomenology - 'Reason as Lawgiver' and 'Reason as Testing Laws' (where we get an extended critique of the categorical imperative)- Lauer finds Hegel's treatment to be truncated (...) and inadequate.1 The only trouble, though, is that like most other readers of the Phenomenology, Lauer does not recognize that Hegel had been examining and criticizing Kantian ethics throughout a much greater part of-indeed, more than half of-Chapter V. Once we do understand this, I think we must concede that Hegel's treatment is hardly truncated and that it cannot be described as shallow or inadequate. I will try to show that Hegel demonstrates a rather sophisticated understanding of, and gives a serious and thorough critique of, Kantian practical reason. (shrink)

This project explores the political economy, logic, strategies, agents, values, and ethical implications of this latest iteration of modern capitalism, and it seeks to delineate what surveillance capitalism is and what its consequences are for human dignity and worth. Using technologies of which they are ignorant, surveillance capitalists interfere with our ability to become ourselves individually and collectively. Without consent, they invade privacy, impede moral autonomy, harm democracy, and muddle care. Surveillance capitalists also violate a number of foundational ethical principles, (...) failing the standards of Kant, Mill, and Aristotle. I sketch out a broad alternative to surveillance capitalism, one where our media systems are built on decentered understandings of a care-based democracy. Reinvigorating both the press and collective self-government, the caring digital citizen has less need for surveillance, requiring good faith understanding and the moral autonomy to pursue excellence. (shrink)

This essay looks at the relationship between formative aesthetics, language and the historical anticipation that begins with Antonio Gramsci's discussion of Kant's idea of noumenon. In Gramsci both education (as formazione) and aesthetics stem from a concern for power in terms of the hegemonic relations that are inherent to history as a political horizon. The title cites Gramci's suggestion that Kant's noumenon should be read as a proviso set apart by a ‘relative ignorance’ of reality [‘relativa ignoranza’ della realtà] to (...) be resolved by a future science. Yet far from another epistemological layering, a future science must also resolve those hegemonic relations of power that emerge from formation as a political act figured in the agonistic character of language as lingua and linguaggio. Further down the lane of our ‘relative ignorance’ we are confronted by a Post-Taylorist condition that precludes any false hopes of a reversal of society's educational, economic and political misfortunes. Yet, while Post-Taylorism confirms that this state of affairs is irreversible, a deeper inquiry into the aesthetic-agonistic character of formation could afford us answers that are in no way solutions but, because adept to struggle and are characteristically aesthetical, might provide an understanding of the logic of irreversibility. Because it remains conscious of its ‘relative ignorance’, this assumption offers a hopeful approach that comes to us sideways; thereby avoiding the predicament of what Lyotard and Thébaud regarded as a condition where ‘the prescriptive is derived from the descriptive’. (shrink)

The nonmetaphysical interpretation of Hegel's philosophy asserts that the metaphysical reading is not credible and so his philosophy must be rationally reconstructed so as to elide its metaphysical aspects. This article shows that the thesis of the extended mind approaches the metaphysical reading, thereby undermining denials of its credibility and providing the resources to articulate and defend the metaphysical reading of Hegel's philosophy. This fully rehabilitates the metaphysical Hegel. The article does not argue for the truth of the metaphysical Hegel's (...) claims. Rather, it defends the correctness of reading his philosophy as metaphysical. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: I relate the aesthetic mediation of reason and the identity of religion and mythology found in the Earliest System-Programme of German Idealism to Hegel’s account of the transition from the ancient Greek religion of art to the revealed religion (Christianity) in his theory ofabsolute spirit. While this transition turns on the idea that the revealed religion mediates reason more adequately in virtue of its form (i. e., representational thought), I argue that Hegel’s account of the limitations of religious representational (...) thought, when taken in conjunction with some of his ideas concerning Romantic art, suggests that he fails to demonstrate the necessity of the transition in question, thus undermining the triadic structure (i. e., art, religion, philosophy) of his theory of absolute spirit.RÉSUMÉ: Dans cet article, jelais un lien entre, d’une part, la médiation esthétique de la raison et l’identite de la religion et de la mythologie formulées dans le premier programme systématique de l’idéalisme allemand et, d’autre part, le récit que fait Hegel de la transition menant de la religion grecque antique de l’art à la religion révélée (la chrétienté) dans sa théorie de l’Esprit absolu. Bien que cette transition repose sur l’idée que la religion révélée médiatise la raison plus adéquatement grâce à sa forme (la pensée représentationnelle), je soutiens que, si on considère parallèlement à ses idées sur l’art romantique les explications que donne Hegel au sujet des limitations de la pensée représentationnelle religieuse, ces explications laissent apercevoir qu’il échoue à démontrer la nécessité de la transition en question, ce qui a pour effet de faire s’effondrer la structure ternaire art, religion, philosophie de sa théorie de l’Esprit absolu. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: I relate the aesthetic mediation of reason and the identity of religion and mythology found in the Earliest System-Programme of German Idealism to Hegel’s account of the transition from the ancient Greek religion of art to the revealed religion (Christianity) in his theory ofabsolute spirit. While this transition turns on the idea that the revealed religion mediates reason more adequately in virtue of its form (i. e., representational thought), I argue that Hegel’s account of the limitations of religious representational (...) thought, when taken in conjunction with some of his ideas concerning Romantic art, suggests that he fails to demonstrate the necessity of the transition in question, thus undermining the triadic structure (i. e., art, religion, philosophy) of his theory of absolute spirit.RÉSUMÉ: Dans cet article, jelais un lien entre, d’une part, la médiation esthétique de la raison et l’identite de la religion et de la mythologie formulées dans le premier programme systématique de l’idéalisme allemand et, d’autre part, le récit que fait Hegel de la transition menant de la religion grecque antique de l’art à la religion révélée (la chrétienté) dans sa théorie de l’Esprit absolu. Bien que cette transition repose sur l’idée que la religion révélée médiatise la raison plus adéquatement grâce à sa forme (la pensée représentationnelle), je soutiens que, si on considère parallèlement à ses idées sur l’art romantique les explications que donne Hegel au sujet des limitations de la pensée représentationnelle religieuse, ces explications laissent apercevoir qu’il échoue à démontrer la nécessité de la transition en question, ce qui a pour effet de faire s’effondrer la structure ternaire art, religion, philosophie de sa théorie de l’Esprit absolu. (shrink)

‘Artwork as technics’ opens discussion on activating aesthetics in educational contexts by arguing that we require some fundamental revision in understanding relations between aesthetics and technology in contexts where education is primarily encountered instrumentally and technologically. The paper addresses this through the writing of the French theorist of technology, Bernard Stiegler, as well as extending Stiegler’s own discussion on the work of Martin Heidegger concerning the work of art and technology. Crucial to this discussion is recognition of the thinking of (...) the late eighteenth-century German poet, Friedrich Hölderlin, on the work of Heidegger. The paper questions whether such recognition also extends crucial aspects of Stiegler’s own thinking. (shrink)

I examine the effort that some theorists make to write to, and inspire a new sense of agency in, their readers. I will consider the work of John Dewey and Hannah Arendt, two theorists who attempt to close the gap between political reality and a theoretically informed politics by using their texts to rethink and recreate their reader. By working between a determined past and the possibility of a redeemed future, Dewey and Arendt use their theory to implant a sense (...) that their present readers can become self-aware, free, and potent agents for political change. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show that the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in Hegel’s mature Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences contains the outlines of a philosophically rich notion of the constitutive temporality of subjectivity. The temporality of the being of Hegel’s concrete subject is intimately connected with embodiment and sociality, and is thus an essential element of its fully detranscendentalized inner-worldly nature.

An individual is in the lowest phase of moral development if he thinks only of his own personal interest and has only his own selfish agenda in his mind as he encounters other humans. This lowest phase corresponds well with sixteenth century British moral egoism which reflects the rise of the new economic order. Adam Smith (1723–1790) wanted to defend this new economic order which is based on economic exchange between egoistic individuals. Nevertheless, he surely did not want to support (...) the moral theory of British egoism. His book The Wealth of Nations suits well into the world view of British moral egoism, but in the book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he presents a moral theory which is the total opposite of moral egoism. Contemporary German intellectuals saw contradiction in Adam Smith’s moral (social) philosophy which they called as Das Adam - Smith - Problem . Smith himself didn’t think that there is any contradiction in a situation where in economic sphere (civil society) individual act egoistically and in ethical sphere (encounter with the imagined Other) he feels humanity and compassion toward his fellow men. Hegel was a passionate reader of Adam Smith and he acknowledged Das Adam - Smith - Problem . He set the task of his social philosophy to overcome this paradox. He wanted to create a theory of a social totality where economic egoism and feelings of humanity are not in contradiction. In the same time Hegel wanted to create a theory on Bildung process where human spirit develops from moral un-freedom (heteronomy) to moral freedom and maturity (autonomy) taking care both aspect of love and reason. In certain Hegel’s texts notion of recognition plays crucial role. That is why modern Hegelians Ludwig Siep, Axel Honneth and Robert Williams consider the notion of recognition to be elementary in Hegel’s threefold theory of developing human spirit from family via civil society to sittliche state . For Hegel family is a sphere where people love their “concrete other” and where feeling surpasses reason. Civil Society is a sphere of private contracts and economic exchanges where cold egoistic and calculative reason surpasses feelings. In the sphere of State the contradiction between family and Civil Society ( Das Adam - Smith - Problem ) is solved by “rational feeling”. According to Hegel State should protect citizens from alienating effect of egoistic reason of Civil Society and cultivate “family-feelings” to rational feelings which integrate citizen into “sittliche community” through reciprocal process of recognition. In this article I want to consider Hegelians Honneth’s and Williams’s relevance to the theory of moral development. (shrink)

To engage with Hegel's philosophy from a feminist perspective is necessarily to be confronted with questions about the politics of reading. Politics, that is, both in the obvious, traditional ideological sense and in the less obvious sense of the politics of the relation between reader and text. For some scholars this automatically places feminist readers in the category of a dubious scholarship which rests on a mistaken understanding of the meanings of both politics and truth.It seems to me a mistake (...) — and an inexcusable conceit — to say as some now do, that all scholarship is somehow ‘political’ or is itself politics practised by other means. That view demeans both politics and scholarship. Now this isnotto say that a scholar's motives must not be political, only that the methods and results of her researches must be judged according to scholarly standards and not political ones. The aim of scholarship is to seek and to tell the truth, as best one can discern it, and not to promote any particular partisan cause. Ball here confines the role of politics in the traditional sense to the Weberian category of ‘value’, which may motivate and orient scholarship but which cannot provide the criteria according to which scholarly work is carried out or its findings are judged. He dismisses the relevance of the category ‘politics’ to the understanding of the relation between reader and text as such and instead, argues that ‘truth’ is what that relation should be about. Yet, the work of interpretation and reflection in the reading of texts insofar as it involves a process of interaction between reader and text always problematises, I would argue, the distinction between politics and truth upon which Ball's analysis relies. There are various models on offer, both descriptive and prescriptive for what the process of textual interpretation does or should involve. One can contrast the notion of ‘scholarly standards’ as the route to the true meaning of a text with Skinner's new historicism, the virtuous circle of hermeneutics or the destabilising ambitions of deconstruction. These approaches elicit very different interpretive results but they also differ in their assumptions about what is or ought to be taken as authoritative for understanding and interpretation and in this sense they are characterised by a politics of the interplay between reader and text. This is a modest claim but one which disrupts the politics/truth distinction even if it doesn't necessarily imply the end of distinguishing between good and bad, valid and invalid understanding/interpretation. (shrink)

In this article I attempt to sketch out what we might call an axiology of contingency, namely the study of the value of contingency. The triadic structure of the article follows the paraphrased epigraph from the Gospel of St John, where the word “word” is replaced with “contingency.” Although I play on the words of John in a Hegelian spirit, what is outlined here is an – admittedly brief – attempt to understand contingency as Begriff.

The last several decades have produced a slew of important studies by Marxists of the logic of capital, as well as numerous explorations by postcolonial theorists of the narratives that structure racial and ethnic discrimination. Far too often, however, these two currents have assumed different or even opposed trajectories, making it all the harder to transcend one-sided class-reductionist analyses and equally one-sided affirmations of identity that bypass or ignore class. In light of the new reality produced by the deepening crisis (...) of neoliberalism and the looming disintegration of the political order that has defined global capitalism since the end of the Cold War, the time has come to revisit theoretical approaches that can help delineate the integrality of race, class and capitalism. (shrink)

The paper develops the claim that in The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard conceptualizes a demoralized understanding of sin. Rather than interpreting sin as moral guilt, he proposes a concept of sin that takes the form of alienation. The claim is unfolded in a three-step argumentation: First, we identify crucial hermeneutical issues and stress the role of the pseudonyms within Kierkegaard’s writings. Second, we offer a detailed analysis of the theory of self-consciousness developed by Anti-Climacus. Finally, using the romantic interpretation of (...) Kierkegaard as a foundation, we demonstrate how Anti-Climacus conceptualizes sin as alienation. (shrink)