The position adopted in this paper is inspired by Edgar Morin’s paradigm of complexity and his critique of scientific and philosophical forms of reductionism. This paper is based on research focusing on the diversity of conceptions of critique developed in academic discourses. It aims to challenge the fragmentation and the reduction framing the understanding of this notion in educational sciences. The reflection begins with the introduction of some of Morin’s assumptions concerning the paradigm of complexity. The next section (...) provides a definition of the idea of critique and explores some limits associated with contemporary references framing this notion. Theories of critique are at the core of several educational theories. Based on the literature identified in French-speaking and English-speaking critical traditions in education, several factors determining the way the idea of critique is reduced in education are highlighted. Stressing the tacit character of those variables challenges the limits of traditional conceptions of critique in contemporary education. The position adopted denounces therefore the fact that the current development of theories of critique in education does not provide a framework considering more systematically their conditions of emergence, their own limitations, as well as the antagonistic, complementary and contradictory relationships, which connect them to one another. Based on this position, this paper finally suggests that a distinction be made between “hypocritique” and “hypercritique” as a semantic artifact, stressing the importance of challenging existing theories of critique in education according to the level of complexity that one may attribute to them. (shrink)

Scott Durham _Phantom Communities: The Simulacrum and the Limits of Postmodernism_ Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1998 ISBN: 0-8047-3336-8 258 pp.

There is a recent scholarly trend drawing similarities between Aristotle’s conceptions of ethics and demonstrative science. One such similarity has become widely and rightly recognized: for Aristotle both ethics and demonstrative science seek essential definitions of phenomena. The task of the paper is to show that German philosopher and classicist Hans-Georg Gadamer not only prefigured this interpretative trend, he also identified a problematic feature of Aristotle’s method so construed. The problematic feature is semantic. For Aristotle essential definitions must consist of (...) univocal terms, but such univocity cannot be maintained if the definienda and definientes are concepts to be usefully employed in everyday ethical judgements. Gadamer therefore points out a problematic tension in Aristotle’s ethics. On the one hand, ethical inquiry should have practical application, but, on the other hand, the semantic assumptions underlying inquiry imply that it cannot. (shrink)

Suggests that radical critique in support of empowerment and inclusion is best undertaken from a standpoint that endorses moral objectivity, and that affirming such a standpoint is compatible with an awareness of historical and cultural situatedness.

A contemporary of Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl, Helmuth Plessner achieved recognition as a social philosopher during the three decades following World War II. He is best known for helping to establish philosophical anthropology as a discipline, which arose under his and Max Scheler's tutelage during the Weimar Republic and continues to exert influence over German thought. In The Limits of Community, Plessner presents the appeal and the dangers of rejecting modern society for the sake of the ideal of (...) community. The appeal, he suggests, is to escape the anonymity of mass society; the danger is the eventual loss of human dignity and the rise of an authoritarian politics based on violence and fanaticism. Social radicalism is born from the underside of modern society. It takes root among the disenfranchised and, especially, among the young. Attuned to the political undercurrents of his own society, Plessner anticipated the rise of German fascism nine years before its fateful emergence onto the world stage. Now that dissatisfaction with modern society is prevalent in the United States and elsewhere, appeals to the ideal of community can be heard once again in the communitarian critique of liberalism and in the politics of identity. What de Tocqueville identified as the tyranny of the majority represents an ever-present danger to the individual today. Written in 1924, The Limits of Community remains relevant today and will be of interest to scholars and students of German intellectual history and of political and social theory. (shrink)

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

This paper reviews the contemporary discussion on the epistemological and ontological effects of Big Data within social science, observing an increased focus on relationality and complexity, and a tendency to naturalize social phenomena. The epistemic limits of this emerging computational paradigm are outlined through a comparison with the discussions in the early days of digitalization, when digital technology was primarily seen through the lens of dematerialization, and as part of the larger processes of “postmodernity”. Since then, the online landscape (...) has become increasingly centralized, and the “liquidity” of dematerialized technology has come to empower online platforms in shaping the conditions for human behavior. This contrast between the contemporary epistemological currents and the previous philosophical discussions brings to the fore contradictions within the study of digital social life: While qualitative change has become increasingly dominant, the focus has gone towards quantitative methods; while the platforms have become empowered to shape social behavior, the focus has gone from social context to naturalizing social patterns; while meaning is increasingly contested and fragmented, the role of hermeneutics has diminished; while platforms have become power hubs pursuing their interests through sophisticated data manipulation, the data they provide is increasingly trusted to hold the keys to understanding social life. These contradictions, we argue, are partially the result of a lack of philosophical discussion on the nature of social reality in the digital era; only from a firm metatheoretical perspective can we avoid forgetting the reality of the system under study as we are affected by the powerful social life of Big Data. (shrink)

This article seeks to reassess the potential merits and weaknesses of the Subaltern Studies project through the prism of Vivek Chibber’s much-publicised and controversial bookPostcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. By critically examining Chibber’s work, the article aims to better pinpoint exactly what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ with the Subaltern Studies project, while drawing out some productive points of engagement between Marxism and postcolonial theory more generally. In particular, we argue that an understanding of the origins of capitalist modernity (...) remains a relatively unexplored omission within postcolonial thought that problematises their broader project of ‘provincialising Europe’. Against this backdrop, the article explores the affinities between Leon Trotsky’s notion of uneven and combined development and postcolonialism, demonstrating how the former can provide a theoretical solution to the problem of Eurocentrism that the Subaltern Studies project correctly identifies but inadequately conceptualises. (shrink)

Dieter Declercq’s Satire, Comedy, and Mental Health (2021) examines the nature and value of satire, critically reviews familiar ways of construing its value, and mounts an argument for understanding satire’s value in terms of the contributions it can make to our mental health. Declercq has much to say about longstanding debates—for example, over whether satire is a powerful political weapon (vs. a waste of political time and energy) and whether satire functions as a catalyst for needed emotional catharsis (vs. merely (...) a welcome distraction). But the most important contribution Satire, Comedy, and Mental Health makes is to open a new line of enquiry about satire—namely, enquiry into the relationship between satire and mental health—thereby widening the debate over satire’s significance and value. Specifically, Declercq argues that satire is most impressive for how it helps us cope with the limits of critique—that is, with our awareness that unjust suffering will persist despite our very best efforts. Critique cannot cure the world because we do not have endless resources to devote to solving all the world’s problems and righting all the world’s wrongs; even if we did, our efforts will not always be successful. Indeed, in some cases, our efforts might make things worse. We are finite and limited beings who simply cannot perfectly design, create, choreograph, and maintain the perfect utopias we so desire. This refreshingly new perspective makes this book an important addition to the scholarly literature on satire. (shrink)

Thomas Metzinger’s self-model theory offers a frame¬work for naturalizing subjective experiences, e.g. first-person perspective. These phenomena are explained by referring to representational contents which are said to be interrelated at diverse levels of consciousness and correlated with brain activities. The paper begins with a consideration on naturalism and anti-naturalism in order to roughly sketch the background of Metzinger’s claim that his theory renders philosophical speculations on the mind unnecessary . In particular, Husserl’s phenomenological conception of consciousness is refuted as uncritical (...) and inadequate. It will be demonstrated that this critique is misguided. . The main deficiencies of Metzinger’s theory will be elucidated by referring to the conception of phenomenal transparency which will be compared to a phenomenological idea of transparency . Then we shall enlarge our critical horizon by focusing on some implications of representationalism, including reification of consciousness, brain-Cartesianism, and exclusion of the social dimension . Finally, we shall take up our meta-theoretical reflections on the naturalism debate. (shrink)

I argue that Forst’s justification paradigm is less radical than claimed in that it fails to establish an immanent connection between the role of justification as a transcendental principle and as...

Political theorists have developed and refined the concept of culture through much critical discussion with anthropology. This article will deepen this engagement by claiming that political theory...

This essay defends a form of ethical naturalism in which ethical knowledge is explained by human nature. Human nature, here, is not the essence of the species but its natural history as socially and historically determined. The argument does not lead to social relativism, but it does place limits on the scope of ethical critique. As society becomes “total”, critique can only be immanent; to this extent, Adorno and the Frankfurt School are right.

Criticizing liberal conceptions such as the autonomous subject and calling for self-interpreting selves, Michael Sandel's first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice seems to oppose liberal theory. Methodologically, however, it follows rather than challenges its liberal predecessors: Sandel arrives at his philosophical anthropology through abstraction and deduction. This type of inquiry is not only comparable with that of liberal theory, but also incompatible with self-interpretation as Sandel defines it. The content of his argument undermines its form. It also (...) suggests an alternative approach, historical rather than philosophical reflection, actually transforming the practice of political theory as it aims to transform our self-understanding. Given Sandel's critique and his positive contribution, normative theory must be grounded in particular empirical circumstances. Sandel's second book, Democracy's Discontent, thus represents not just a completion of the earlier analysis, but a necessary methodological change. The significance of the first book lies less in its criticism of liberalism than in its criticism of philosophy as the foundation of political theory. Key Words: empiricism • methodology • philosophy of social sciences • reflexivity • Michael Sandel • self-interpretation. (shrink)

This essay constitutes a response to Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen’s essay “A Note on Socially Engaged Art Criticism”. In particular, the essay focuses on the concept of an “exculpatory critique”. This term refers to a set of arguments in contemporary art criticism which contend that artistic practices that engage directly with processes of social or political change sacrifice their aesthetic validity while also providing an ideological justification for existing systems of domination. Kester seeks to demonstrate some of the shortcomings involved (...) in this critique by examining the underlying model of political transformation on which it is based and outlining an alternative account of art’s role in social action. (shrink)

This essay offers a novel interpretation of Michel Foucault’s original and often misunderstood conception of philosophy as a critical activity. While it is well known that Foucault’s critique undertakes to disclose contingent limits of thought that appear necessary in the present, the nature of the obstacle whose overcoming critique is meant to facilitate remains poorly understood. I argue that this obstacle, “the present limits of the necessary,” resides on the unconscious level of thought Foucault identified as (...) the object of analysis for an archaeology of knowledge. Therefore, Foucault’s conception of a critique can be grasped only against the background of the distinctive conception of thought that informs his archaeological analyses of discursive practices. According to that view, thinking is always shaped by some historically specific system of unconscious norms that define the contingent set of conceptual possibilities subjects are able to recognize in the present. Drawing on Foucault’s largely neglected remarks on the obvious and the habitual, I argue that these unconscious norms of thought are enacted habitually in a discursive practice, which endows them with an appearance of obviousness. In this way, I explain how something contingent appears in the guise of necessity and begins to function as part of the present limits of the necessary. Finally, I argue that the task of a critique to expand the scope of conceptual possibility by disclosing these unconscious limits of thought is motivated by Foucault’s commitment to the ideal of autonomy understood as subject’s self-determination. (shrink)

Recently, Judith Butler refused to accept an award for civil courage at the Berlin Christopher Street Day, because she felt the event had become too commercial, and the event's organization had failed to distance itself from certain discriminatory statements. This, as well as many of her works, suggests that more than any other contemporary feminist author, Butler is aware of the risk of implication in exclusionary politics; a risk she might therefore successfully avoid. However, in this essay I argue that (...) to the extent her theory of performativity has become a hegemonic framework within the field of gender studies, it leads to the foreclosure of certain possible gendered identities. Using Nancy's notion of finite thinking, I argue that a different approach to universality may lead to a less exclusionary way of conceptualizing gender. (shrink)

The tradition of immanent critique promises a lot. It promises to be critical of the existing social order without appealing to ‘external’ normative standards. I argue that the prospects for immanent criticism are bleak: they must either commit to an implausible social ontology, a flawed meta-normative theory, or both.

In this paper, I examine a number of alternative global structures for Newtonian space-time, and corresponding Newtonian theories of mechanics and gravitation. I argue that since these theories differ only with respect to questions concerning the relative distribution of inertial and gravitational forces, the choice between them is a matter of convention. Therefore, the global structure of Newtonian space-time is also a matter of convention. Since this result is based on a consideration of the nature of inertial and gravitational forces, (...) rather than on general reductionist principles, it is a "limited conventionalist" result. (shrink)

For critical legal scholars, the ongoing far-right assault upon the liberal status quo poses a distinct dilemma. On the one hand, the desire to condemn the far-right is overwhelming. On the other hand, such condemnations are susceptible to being appropriated as a validation of the very liberalism that critical theorists have long questioned. In seeking to transcend this dilemma, my focus is on the discourse of ‘white genocide’ — a commonplace belief amongst the far-right/white nationalists that ‘whites’, as a discrete (...) group, are facing demographic destruction as a result of deliberate policy choices. Such a belief has motivated acts of extreme violence. While libel to dismissal by experts on mainstream understandings of genocide, namely international criminal lawyers, I argue that this ‘white genocide’ discourse deserves careful scrutiny as a jurisprudential and socio-legal phenomenon that reveals key weaknesses in present modalities of liberal justification. Drawing upon an array of recent critical theories, I show how a liberalism unable to face its own decline enables the very far-right assertions it purports to oppose. Thus, given liberalism’s failure to act as a neutral arbiter, an alternative approach for those opposing the far-right is to develop a vision of politics and society that confront believers in ‘white genocide’ on a more substantive level. This, I argue, forces the far-right’s opponents to disavow liberal scepticism towards utopian transformation as well as the juridical understandings and institutions that allow this scepticism to durably persist. (shrink)

A liberal society seeks not to impose a single way of life, but to leave its citizens as free as possible to choose their own values and ends. It therefore must govern by principles of justice that do not presuppose any particular vision of the good life. But can any such principles be found? And if not, what are the consequences for justice as a moral and political ideal? These are the questions Michael Sandel takes up in this penetrating (...) class='Hi'>critique of contemporary liberalism. Sandel locates modern liberalism in the tradition of Kant, and focuses on its most influential recent expression in the work of John Rawls. In the most important challenge yet to Rawls' theory of justice, Sandel traces the limits of liberalism to the conception of the person that underlies it, and argues for a deeper understanding of community than liberalism allows. (shrink)

In _Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism_, Gary Steiner illuminates postmodernism's inability to produce viable ethical and political principles. Ethics requires notions of self, agency, and value that are not available to postmodernists. Thus, much of what is published under the rubric of postmodernist theory lacks a proper basis for a systematic engagement with ethics. Steiner demonstrates this through a provocative critique of postmodernist approaches to the moral status of animals, set against the background of a broader indictment (...) of postmodernism's failure to establish clear principles for action. He revisits the ideas of Derrida, Foucault, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, together with recent work by their American interpreters, and shows that the basic terms of postmodern thought are incompatible with definitive claims about the moral status of animals--as well as humans. Steiner also identifies the failures of liberal humanist thought in regards to this same moral dilemma, and he encourages a rethinking of humanist ideas in a way that avoids the anthropocentric limitations of traditional humanist thought. Drawing on the achievements of the Stoics and Kant, he builds on his earlier ideas of cosmic holism and non-anthropocentric cosmopolitanism to arrive at a more concrete foundation for animal rights. (shrink)

This article explores a theoretical legacy that underpins the ways in which many social scientists come to know and understand obesity. In attempting to distance itself from essentialist discourses, it is not surprising that this literature focuses on the discursive construction of fat bodies rather than the materiality or agency of bodily matter. Ironically, in developing arguments that only critique representations of obesity or fat bodies, social science scholars have maintained and reproduced a central dichotomy of Cartesian thinking – (...) that between social construction and biology. In this article I examine the limitations of social constructionist arguments in obesity/critical fat studies and the implications for ignoring materiality. Through bringing together the theoretical insights of material feminism and obesity science’s attention to maternal nutrition and the fetal origins hypothesis, this article moves beyond the current philosophical impasse, and repositions biological and social constructionist approaches to obesity not as mutually exclusive, but as one of constant interplay and connectedness. (shrink)

What is critique? How is it used and abused? At a moment when popular discourse is saturated with voices confronting each other about not being critical enough, while academic discourses proclaim to have moved past critique, this provocative book reawakens the foundational question of what 'critique' is in the first place. Roy Ben-Shai inspects critique as an orientation of critical thinking, probing its structures and assumptions, its limits and its risks, its history and its possibilities. (...) The book is a journey through a landscape of ideas, images, and texts from diverse sources - theological, psychological, etymological, and artistic, but mainly across the history of philosophy, from Plato and Saint Augustine, through Kant and Hegel, Marx and Heidegger, up to contemporary critical theory. Along the way, Ben-Shai invites the reader to examine their own orientation of thought, even at the moment of reading the book; to question popular discourse; and to revisit the philosophical canon, revealing affinities among often antagonistic traditions, such as Catholicism and Marxism. Most importantly, Critique of Critique sets the ground for an examination of alternative orientations of critical thinking, other ways of inhabiting and grasping the world. (shrink)

I propose a systematic survey of the various attitudes proponents of enaction (or enactivism) entertained or are entertaining towards representationalism and towards the use of the concept “mental representation” in cognitive science. For the sake of clarity, a set of distinctions between different varieties of representationalism and anti-representationalism are presented. I also recapitulate and discuss some anti-representationalist trends and strategies one can find the enactive literature, before focusing on some possible limitations of eliminativist versions of enactive anti-representationalism. These limitations are (...) here taken as opportunities for reflecting on the fate of enactivism in its relations with representationalism and anti-representationalism. (shrink)

Based on a close reading of Fides et Ratio and Salvifici Doloris, this paper argues that John Paul II challenges the power and range of metaphysical reason in certain neglected passages. Such challenges include the critique of the idolatry of philosophical systems, the emphasis on the irreducible mystery of God, and the rejection of efforts to construct a theodicy in the face of human suffering. The challenge especially emerges in John Paul II’s emphasis on the Cross as a stumbling (...) block to metaphysical affirmation. Against certain rationalistic interpretations of the Pope, this paper attempts to excavate the critique of metaphysical reason embedded in John Paul II’s arguments on the limits of philosophical speculation. (shrink)

Kant conceived of 'critique' as a kind of winnowing exercise, with the aim of separating the wheat of good metaphysics from the chaff of bad. He used a less familiar metaphor to make this point, namely, that of 'the fiery test of critique'-not a medieval ordeal of trial by fire, but rather a metallurgical assay, or cupellation, a procedure in which ore samples are tested for their precious-metal content. When seen in this light, critique has a positive, (...) investigatory side: it seeks not merely to eliminate bad, 'dogmatic' metaphysics but also to uncover what of philosophical value might be contained in traditional speculative metaphysics. In this comprehensive study of the Transcendental Dialectic in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Proops argues that Kant uncovered two nuggets of value: the indirect proof of Transcendental Idealism afforded by the resolution of the Antinomies, and a defence of theoretically grounded 'doctrinal beliefs' in a wise and great originator, on the one hand, and in an afterlife, on the other. This examination of critique engages with Kant's views on a number of central problems in philosophy and meta-philosophy: the explanation of the enduring human impulse towards metaphysics, the correct philosophical method, the limits of self-knowledge, the possibility of human freedom, the resolution of metaphysical paradox, the justification of faith, the nature of scepticism, and the role of 'as if' reasoning in natural science. (shrink)

Assuming that moral enhancement is morally permissible, I contend that a more careful theoretical treatment of emotion and the affective landscape is needed to advance both our understanding and the prospects of interventions aimed at moral enhancement. Using Douglas’ proposal for the direct modulation of counter‐moral emotions as a foil for discussion, I argue that the direct modulation of emotion fails to address underlying aspects of an agent’s psychology that will give rise to a range of counter‐moral motives beyond the (...) emotion that is targeted. This is because the direct modulation of emotion does not accommodate the fact that an emotional episode or emotional disposition is part of a network of other dispositions and responses, against a backdrop of our having cares and goals, as well as other cognitive content that can mediate how we apprehend a situation. By focusing on emotion rather than on moral capacity as other critiques have done, I thus argue that direct modulation is likely to be ineffective, and, more positively, by drawing out patterns of connections across the affective landscape, we can better tease out what it is that we should really be targeting if we are to achieve robust and meaningful moral change. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for the necessary organicism of immanent critique and the resulting limits and applicability of immanent critique as elaborated in Rahel Jaeggi’s account of Lebensformen. Through a historical review of the problem of natural purposiveness between Kant, Schelling and Hegel, I show that the notion of immanent critique that Hegel produced, and Jaeggi adopts, was an intrinsically organic notion. With this conceptual connection, I demonstrate that Jaeggi’s elaboration of Lebensformen is consistent with (...) this organicism, but also explicate how this property limits critique where the criterion is the long-term stability of Lebensformen. Aligning the organicism of immanent critique with similar projects of social criticism citing the organic, namely eco-Marxism and cybernetics, I show that the cases of capitalism and bureaucracy are not practically vulnerable to immanent critique without supplement. I conclude by suggesting further research requires articulating a hybrid external-immanent form of criticism. (shrink)

This paper examines whether classical extensional mereology is adequate for formalizing the whole–parts relation in quantum chemical systems. Although other philosophers have argued that classical extensional and summative mereology does not adequately formalize whole–parts relation within organic wholes and social wholes, such critiques often assume that summative mereology is appropriate for formalizing the whole–parts relation in inorganic wholes such as atoms and molecules. However, my discussion of atoms and molecules as they are conceptualized in quantum chemistry will establish that standard (...) mereology cannot adequately fulfill this task, since the properties and behavior of such wholes are context-dependent and cannot simply be reduced to the summative properties of their parts. To the extent that philosophers of chemistry have called for the development of an alternative mereology for quantum chemical systems, this paper ends by proposing behavioral mereology as a promising step in that direction. According to behavioral mereology, considerations of what constitutes a part of a whole is dependent upon the observable behavior displayed by these entities. Thus, relationality and context-dependence are stipulated from the outset and this makes behavioral mereology particularly well-suited as a mereology of quantum chemical wholes. The question of which mereology is appropriate for formalizing the whole–parts relation in quantum chemical systems is relevant to contemporary philosophy of chemistry, since this issue is related to the more general questions of the reducibility of chemical wholes to their parts and of the reducibility of chemistry to physics, which have been of central importance within the philosophy of chemistry for several decades. More generally, this paper puts contemporary discussions of mereology within the philosophy of chemistry into a broader historical and philosophical context. In doing so, this paper also bridges the gap between formal mereology, conceived as a branch of formal ontology, and “applied” mereology, conceived as a branch of philosophy of science. (shrink)

This paper argues that the critique of depoliticization in Mouffe’s agonistic political theory needs to be revised. This is because her account of the political does not succeed in filtering out undesirable forms of politicization such as science denialism and other types of post-truth politics. Mouffe's conception of the common symbolic space does not accomplish the task of limiting extreme pluralism in the absence of certain standards about how to correctly apply the fundamental notions of this space. By drawing (...) on a quasi-Wittgensteinian reading of linguistic normativity, I develop principled but non-universalist limits on politicization that are needed for a healthy, well-functioning democracy. (shrink)

This is the first book to focus on science as a social institution based on a comprehensive analysis of the thought of Foucault and Habermas. A key aspect of this book is its standpoint which critiques science, whilst simultaneously interrogating philosophical critique which must in a certain sense accommodate science, and its effect on modernity.

By the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Presenting a sustained critique of moral theory from Kant onwards, Williams reorients ethical theory towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in (...) contemporary philosophy and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a new commentary on the text by A.W.Moore and a foreword by Jonathan Lear. (shrink)

In this article, I reflect back on the period since the publication of the first edition of Foucault and the Government of Disability in order to argue that the intervening years have seen the increasing advance of neoliberal politics that impact on the lives of disabled people. Beginning from an overview of Foucault’s 1978-9 lectures on neoliberalism, I seek to demonstrate that a range of policy developments that affect disabled people can be read against the background of Foucault’s analyses of (...) neoliberal rationalities and practices of government. The impact of these developments has been economically harsh for many; hence, the article considers the potential for effective critique of these issues starting from a Foucauldian analytics. I argue that Foucault’s works, whilst useful in unsettling taken-for-granted assumptions about subjectivity and autonomy given by neoliberal governmental rationalities, do not, in and of themselves, suggest a form of critique that is capable of mounting an effective challenge to the neoliberal consensus. My argument ends with a challenge to Foucault-inspired social scientists to ally the valuable insights available from Foucauldian analyses to a critical perspective that can, in addition, diagnose and respond to problems of economic marginalisation, the concentration of wealth, and the marketisation of the social. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a rapid growth in neuroscientific research, and an expansion beyond basic research to incorporate elements of the arts, humanities and social sciences. It has been suggested that the neurosciences will bring about major transformations in the understanding of ourselves, our culture and our society. In academia one finds debates within psychology, philosophy and literature about the implications of developments within the neurosciences, and the emerging fields of educational neuroscience, neuro-economics, and neuro-aesthetics also bear witness to a (...) 'neurological turn' which is currently taking place. Neuroscience and Critique is a ground-breaking edited collection which reflects on the impact of neuroscience in contemporary social science and the humanities. It is the first book to consider possibilities for a critique of the theories, practices, and implications of contemporary neuroscience. Bringing together leading scholars from several disciplines, the contributors draw upon a range of perspectives, including cognitive neuroscience, critical philosophy, psychoanalysis, and feminism, and also critically examine several key ideas in contemporary neuroscience, including: The idea of "neural personhood" Theories of emotion in affective neuroscience Empathy, intersubjectivity and the notion of "embodied simulation" The concept of an "emo-rational" actor within neuro-economics. The volume will stimulate further debate in the emerging field of interdisciplinary studies in neuroscience, and will appeal to researchers and advanced students in a range of disciplines including critical psychology, philosophy, and critical studies. (shrink)