In this paper, I explore the approaches to methodological abstraction and self-alienation developed respectively in Karl Mannheim’s early sociology of intellectuals and in Edmund Husserl’s late transcendental phenomenology. In Mannheim’s early and experimental works, the resistance to abstraction and alienation is located in a stratum of intellectuals able to meaningfully combine diverse cultural currents in a social process of cultivation (Bildung). In Husserl, to contrast, this resistance is grasped as a constant crisis in the methods of pursuing philosophical truth. While (...) these approaches seem difficult to reconcile, I suggest in closing that this difficulty can be related to their shared emphasis on a theoretical response to the practical and historical reality of self-alienation. (shrink)

In this paper I question the tendency within some feminist circles to criticise attempts to develop typologies that delineate different feminist theoretical perspectives. I agree that many of the criticisms are valid, but only if typologies are viewed in a particular way. This particular way is when typologies are regarded as ahistorical, all-encompassing entities containing discrete categories that are designed for the once and for all fixing of individuals and their work in one box. Reading Max Weber through Karl Mannheim's (...) work on the sociology of knowledge, I argue that typologies, as ideal-types, are indispensable, socially situated practical tools for measuring similarities, differences and developments in thought within and across time and space. Despite being noted as an “attractive” argument by at least some of those who are otherwise critical of typologies (for example, Liz Stanley and Sue Wise), I believe that the “attractiveness” of this particular position has not been granted serious consideration. (shrink)

The source of the following considerations is the observation that academic philosophy at universities does not fit well with philosophy education processes, e.g., those at school. Both sides seem to be separate from each other. I assume that the two areas rely on two very different concepts of philosophy. To work out a concept of philosophy more appropriate to the educational context, I methodically apply the practical turn to our philosophising in very different contexts. Moreover, I elaborate that it is (...) precisely the modern scientific paradigm that underlies philosophy as scientific practice and that the former represents a problematic con-striction of philosophising in educational contexts. For where the ideal is objective scientific knowledge — from which everything subjective has been removed — there can be no deeper transformation of the subject through philosophy. My thesis is that philosophy is better suited to the educational context as transformative and not as scientific practice. As a consequence, the question arises as to whether the study of philosophy on teacher training courses needs a new impulse in the direction of philosophy as transformative practice. (shrink)

The paper explores the defence by the early sociologist of science Ludwik Fleck against the charge of relativism. It is shown that there are crucial and hitherto unnoticed similarities between Fleck’s strategy and the attempt by his contemporary Karl Mannheim to distinguish between an incoherent relativism and a consistent relationism. Both authors seek to revise epistemology fundamentally by reinterpreting the concept of objectivity in two ways: as inner- and inter-style objectivity. The argument for the latter concept shows the genuine political (...) background and intent of Fleck’s sociology of science and its ambition to relieve the cultural struggles of his time. (shrink)

In this paper, I show that there are important but hitherto unnoticed similarities between key figures of the Vienna Circle and early defenders of sociology of knowledge. The similarities regard their stance on potential implications of the study of science for political and societal issues. I argue that notably Otto Neurath and Karl Mannheim are concerned with proposing a genuine political philosophy of science that is remarkably different from today’s emerging interest in the relation between science and society in philosophy (...) of science. (shrink)

The significance of utopian thought for education can be made evident through reconceptualizing utopia and approaching it alongside the notion of dystopia. Awareness of dystopian elements of reality radicalizes the kind of critique that assists utopian thought and makes engagement with it more pressing. Awareness of the lurking danger of future dystopia goes hand in hand with a utopia that is cautious and vigilant of its own possible turn into catastrophe. If education is not just an institution of the unreflective (...) socialization and social integration of the young immersed in technicist and prudentialist goals, if it is about futurity and vision of a better world, it has to rely on, and renegotiate, utopian thought. Yet, all this presupposes a new descriptive account of the self and the world that breaks with the kind of anthropology and ethics that generated a particular conception of utopia as impossible and purely oneiric. (shrink)

(2000). The Romanian utopia: The role of the intelligentsia in the communist implementation of a new human paradigm. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 3, The Philosophy of Utopia, pp. 107-115.

In a climate of increasing interest and activity within the field of business ethics, as yet there exists no coherent conceptual framework for organizational theory and research. From a review of current thinking and previous writings a framework of concepts is suggested to help set an agenda for empirical research. The elements of this are, first, a taxonomy of ethical domains: the foci of organizations'' and their agents'' ethical concerns and conduct. Second, it is considered how ethical functioning might be (...) analysed in terms of causal relationships between expressive forms, voluntary action and instituted forms. Third is discussed ethical process, the means by which ethical awareness is aroused. Fourth and last, the paper examines how normative evaluations might apply to the ethical condition of organizations and their agents, meaning change or stability in reputation and integrity. At each stage of the argument possible objectives for research are developed. (shrink)

Myth, Utopia, and Political Action Starting from the premise that some form of "reality transcendence", i.e. the ability to imagine a different reality and reach out for the thinkable, is necessary for political action, the aim of this paper is to analyse the concepts of myth and utopia elaborated by Georges Sorel and Karl Mannheim and to examine their possible contributions to a theory of political action and social change. By comparing the role the authors assign to rationality and irrationality (...) in human affairs, methodological and conceptual differences between Sorel's and Mannheim's approaches to the political are illustrated. It turns out that due to its immunity to critique Sorel's concept of the social myth is highly problematic. Mannheim's concept of utopia, on the other hand, culminates in a technocratic understanding of the political. Though both approaches emphasise the collective dimension of political action, they ultimately exhibit elitist understandings of the political. (shrink)

In this essay I seek to re?examine the ?what is ideology?? question in the light of recent developments in ideology theory. We see that contemporary ideology theory tends to employ either a ?restrictive? or an ?inclusive? conception of ideology. Most theorists operating in the field of ideology study see these two approaches as both rival and exclusive. Furthermore the relationship between the analyst of ideology and the ideological field is at issue in both cases. I argue that the concept/conception distinction (...) allows us to discern that these two approaches do not merely employ rival conceptions of the same concept. There are two concepts of ideology at work here, which perform such radically different roles that their coexistence can be seen as unproblematic, reflecting the presence of both normative and interpretative work in social science. (shrink)

Erotic Counter Education is the educational position of the late Ilan Gur- Ze'ev. In ECE Gur-Ze'ev combines two opposing positions in the philosophy of education, one teleological and anti-utopian, the other teleological and utopian. In light of this unique combination, I ask what mediates between these two poles and suggest that the answer lies in the concept of eros. Following a preliminary presentation of the concept of eros in ECE, I define it as a form of transcendental cognition that distinguishes (...) between ‘what is to be perceived’, conceptual and human, and ‘what is not to be perceived’, divine and absolute. I subsequently show how the ‘nature’ of this conception of eros permits the establishment of a normative meta-theory of education that gains its strength from critical theory and counter education. (shrink)

Epistemic systems are social processes generating judgments of truth and falsity. I outline a mathematical theory of epistemic systems that applies widely. Areas of application include pure science, torture, police forensics, espionage, auditing, clinical medical testing, democratic procedure, and the market economy. I examine torture and police forensics in relative detail. This paper is an exercise in comparative institutional epistemics, which considers how the institutions of an epistemic system influence its performance as measured by such things as error rates and (...) the volume of judgments generated. (shrink)

Little sociological attention is directed to dreams and dreaming, and none at all is directed to how people tell one another about dreams. Ordinary settings in which dreams are told mimic the conditions of “breaching” experiments and should produce anomie, but dream telling proceeds without trouble. Foundational orientations of ordinary dream talk assimilate into professional dream studies, where dream narratives are “data” and the analysis of narratives is “dream analysis.” That such practices proceed without trouble poses some interesting problems for (...) sociology in terms of how anyone experiences “constraint” in the telling and hearing of dreams. (shrink)

Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud provided powerful accounts of systematic interested ignorance. Fifty years ago, Anglo-American philosophies of science stigmatized Marx's and Freud's analyses as models of irrationality. They remain disvalued today, at a time when virtually all other humanities and social science disciplines have returned to extract valuable insights from them. Here the argument is that there are reasons distinctive to philosophy why such theories were especially disvalued then and why they remain so today. However, there are even better (...) reasons today for philosophy to break from this history and find more fruitful ways to engage with systematic interested ignorance. (shrink)

Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud provided powerful accounts of systematic interested ignorance. Fifty years ago, Anglo-American philosophies of science stigmatized Marx's and Freud's analyses as models of irrationality. They remain disvalued today, at a time when virtually all other humanities and social science disciplines have returned to extract valuable insights from them. Here the argument is that there are reasons distinctive to philosophy why such theories were especially disvalued then and why they remain so today. However, there are even better (...) reasons today for philosophy to break from this history and find more fruitful ways to engage with systematic interested ignorance. (shrink)

The political liberalism of professors—an important occupational group and anomaly according to traditional theories of class politics—has long puzzled sociologists. This article sheds new light on the subject by employing a two-step analytic procedure. In the first step, we assess the explanatory power of the main hypotheses proposed over the last half century to account for professors’ liberal views. To do so, we examine hypothesized predictors of the political gap between professors and other Americans using General Social Survey data pooled (...) from 1974–2008. Results indicate that professors are more liberal than other Americans because a higher proportion possess advanced educational credentials, exhibit a disparity between their levels of education and income, identify as Jewish, non-religious, or non-theologically conservative Protestant, and express greater tolerance for controversial ideas. In the second step of our article, we develop a new theory of professors’ politics on the basis of these findings (though not directly testable with our data) that we think holds more explanatory promise than existing approaches and that sets an agenda for future research. (shrink)

This exploratory paper considers the concept of generation in the context of learning across the life course. Although researchers have often found considerable inequalities in participation by age, as well as strongly articulated attitudinal differences, there have so far been only a handful of studies that have explored these patterns through the perspective of generational formations. The paper is primarily conceptual, exploratory and reflective, setting out a number of approaches to the concept of generations, most of which derive largely from (...) debates with the ghost of Karl Mannheim; it then considers how these concepts of generation have been applied to understandings of educational inequalities in recent research in Germany and the Nordic nations. It then examines the dynamics of inter-generational relations in learning, drawing on research undertaken as part of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. The paper argues that although inter-generational dynamics are a relatively neglected dimension of Anglophone research on life chances and learning, there is a strong case for understanding their dual roles in both inequality and cohesion. It concludes by outlining some themes and areas for further investigation in the future. (shrink)

Imre Lakatos gained fame in the English-speaking world as a follower and critic of philosopher of science Karl Popper. However, Lakatos’ background involved other philosophical and scientific sources from his native Hungary. Lakatos surreptitiously used Hegelian Marxism in his works on philosophy of science and mathematics, disguising it with the rhetoric of the Popper school. He also less surreptitiously incorporated, particularly in his treatment of mathematics, work of the strong tradition of heuristics in twentieth century Hungary. Both his Marxism and (...) his emphasis on heuristics contained a view of science and mathematics that contrasted with the mainstream of Anglo-American philosophy of science. Both involved a dynamic view of science, whether historical or psychological, and an emphasis on practice as opposed to static, formal representations of scientific theories. (shrink)

Significant developments in the global economy and information technology have been accompanied by a transformation in the nature and process of knowledge production and dissemination. Concepts such as the knowledge economy or creative economy have been formulated to accommodate the new and complex developments in knowledge, creativity, economy, and technology. While much of the current literature on the knowledge and creative economy substantially reflects the economic impact of knowledge and creativity, previous studies have rarely touched upon the role of translation (...) in this development. By discussing the role of translation as a generative process in the creative economy and its implications for crossing boundaries in education, this paper argues that translation plays a significant role in the creation of a hybrid milieu. This dynamic cultural hybridity is stimulated by the circulation of knowledge and information via translation, but is also, per se, a driver inviting greater engagement of ideas and knowledge given that translated works always require retrospective interpretations along with changing social and cultural mores. (shrink)

. References. Critical Review: Vol. 18, Democratic Competence, pp. 331-360.

In this paper, we propose an understanding of philosophy of education as cultural and intercultural work and philosophers of education as cultural and intercultural workers. In our view, the discipline of philosophy of education in North America is currently suffering from measures of insularity and singularity. It is vital that we justly and respectfully engage with and expand our knowledge and understanding of sets of conceptual and life-practice resources, and honor and learn from diverse histories, cultures, and traditions. Such honoring (...) provides responsive conditions for our coming together in and across differences in order that we may productively and creatively address and overturn grammars of violence, destruction, and dis-ease in these complexly troubled times. Committing ourselves to deconstructing historical and contemporary beliefs, values, and practices that are compromising human and planetary flourishing, we undertake responsibilities to go cross-cultural and intercultural. (shrink)

The societal changes of the last century, especially in the aftermath of World War II, have led thinkers to imagine philosophical anthropology centred on the concept of hope. From very different perspectives, authors such as Ernst Bloch, Erich Fromm, and Hannah Arendt understood that hope is deeply connected with the condition and destiny of humanity. Various sociologists have developed concepts closely linked with hope: action, social change, utopia, revolution, emancipation, innovation, and trust. However, a coherent and systematic analysis is yet (...) to emerge. Taking up the threads of this rich but fragmented reflection, this paper intends to outline the traits of a “sociology of hope” as a tool for critically interpreting today’s society and the processes of change crisscrossing it, starting from some crucial questions: Who are the actors and historical bearers of hope? What are the main socio-historical forms of hope? What social, political, and cultural conditions favour the emergence and strengthening of this disposition? What are the effects and consequences on personal and social life? (shrink)

This paper argues that the relative stability of ancient Egyptian society during the Middle Kingdom (c.2055 – 1650 BC) can in part be explained by referring to the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice, i.e., the manner in which imbalances in socio‐economic power are causally correlated with imbalances in the conceptual scheme through which people attempt to interpret their social reality and assert their interests in light of their interpretations. The court literature of the Middle Kingdom is analyzed using the concepts of (...) hermeneutical injustice and ideology. It is argued that while it is true that there was room for maneuver and for internal critique, the efficacy of internal critique was hindered by the structure of the intellectual discourse of Middle Kingdom Egypt. This intellectual discourse was suitable for the interpretation of social reality in a way that allowed the elites to assert their interests, but it was not suitable for the interpretation of social reality in a way that accorded with the interests of the exploited peasantry. (shrink)