CHAPTER ONE Political Theory as a Signifying Practice Political theory has been a heroic business, snatching us from the abyss a vocation worthy of giants. ...

This article argues that curriculum work can benefit from signifiers of Bildung to promote democracy in public education. The argument is built on the premise that cultural and intellectual traditions that value Bildung presume a link between the inner cultivation of the individual and the development of better societies (Horlacher 2017). I start by presenting Mouffe’s (2000) democratic paradox and how pluralism is the defining feature of liberal democracies. Based on how curriculum work is a standard of public education (Hopmann (...) 1999), I state that the curriculum must formalise pluralism in education and convey the democratic paradox in educational terms. With reference to Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, I then argue that such a laborious task can be achieved in the curriculum with the aid of signifiers of Bildung. Signifiers of Bildung are discursively empty and cannot acquire a definite meaning. Because of this, they make it possible to speak of the student and the society of liberal democracies while impeding a too narrow comprehension of what they are and ought to be. Therefore, to implement signifiers of Bildung in the curriculum can help establish both a standard of public education and limits to popular sovereignty. However, their use must undergo careful scrutiny, and teachers must remain free to interpret them. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an empirically-driven approach to the relationship between conceptual and non-conceptual representations. I begin by clarifying Wilfrid Sellars's distinction between a non-conceptual capacity to picture significant aspects of our world, and a capacity to stabilize semantic content in the form of conceptual representations that signify those aspects of the world that are relevant to our shared practices. I argue that this distinction helps to clarify the reason why cognition must be understood as embodied and situated. Drawing (...) on recent models of attention and valuation, I then argue that the human brain constructs a dynamic model of the world that it has encountered, encoding higher-level regularities in the form of linguistically structured representations. And I conclude by arguing that this approach to cognition provides a set of critical resources for understanding the situated nature of social cognition. (shrink)

En 1936, Hubert Elie publiait une these remarquable: Le complexe significabile, accompagnee de l'edition et de la traduction du Traitee de l'infini de Jean Mair. Sous le terme technique de complexe significabile se trouve abordee la question du signifiable par complexe, c'est-a-dire du signifie de la proposition et de son statut objectif. L'ouvrage propose ainsi une double approche de la notion de signification et de ses rapports a la reference ontologique: l'analyse classique depuis Gregoire de Rimini a Leibniz, les points (...) de vue contemporains tels que Meinong ou Russell. (shrink)

The paper here presented deals with ethical signifying as happening in corporeity. The starting point is a provisional definition of ethical signifying as a process and a relation to the other. In the first part I attempt to describe precisely this process and distinguish two aspects: concretization and hyperbole. In the second and main part I try to outline concretization and hyperbole in the corporeal relation to the other. The modalities of ethical signifying are caress, vulnerability, maternity (...) and last but not least the voice of the self. (shrink)

The paper assumes that education is part of the process of discursive construction of society. The theoretical framework on which this argument is based includes Ernesto Laclau’s theory of the “ontological impossibility and political necessity of society”, and the role discourse and empty signifiers play in the establishment of political identities. Laclau’s theory is supplemented here by ideas of Derrida, Lacan, Žižek and Marx, and by other traits in contemporary semiotics that relate to the notion of “the void” in semantic (...) systems. My claim is that empty signifiers, crucial to the production of the totality of society, are discursively produced, among others, in pedagogical debates. This is illustrated by one historical example (Rouuseau), which gives ground for more contemporary analyses, and on the basis of the present economic discourse of educating and the idea of “knowledge society”. The main conclusion is that education, in contemporary discourse of learning, becomes a neurotic symptom of the lack of overt domination in social relations. (shrink)

The “Adam Smith problem” has traditionally been concerned with the issue of authorial integrity: the issue of how a single author, Adam Smith, could have written two such apparently dissimilar, even contradictory, works as The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. As the problem to be resolved was the single authorial origin of two such works, the perceived incompatibilities between them were explained in terms of Smith's intellectual biography – for example, Smith's travels to France, Smith's meetings (...) with the physiocrats, or the mental incapacities of an aging man. The current consensus is that the Adam Smith problem is a “pseudo problem” and that Smith's works represent a unified project, but the same reference to authorial origins now provides thr opposite claim that “the same man” wrote both books. Here the postulate of authorial integrity, “of stable integrated character, not subject to deep intellectual doubts or fissures” provides an assurance that such a man is unlikely to have written two entirely different books, an assurance underwritten by a coherent authorial intentionality that guarantees the consistency of the two works. (shrink)

Prisoners signify: a political discourse analysis of mental illness in a prison control unitIncreasingly, US prisoners diagnosed with mental illness are housed in control units, the most restrictive form of confinement in the US prison system. This situation has led to intense debate over the legal, ethical and clinical status of mental illness. This is a semiotic struggle with profound effects, yet most related work treats mental illness as a neutral, individual variable. Few analyses locate mental illness within a larger (...) sociopolitical context. Fewer still focus on discursive practice. None critically analyze the accounts of control unit prisoners, who talk about extreme marginality and risk for victimization. This paper has two aims: (i) to develop a systematic method of analysis that accounts for signification as discourse‐in‐action; and (ii) to show how prisoners’ signification of mental illness articulates agency through and against marginalizing discourse. Political discourse analysis demonstrates how control unit prisoners with psychiatric diagnoses signify mental illness, and articulate safer identifications in the process. (shrink)

Abstract:“Black art” is often understood as being inherently political. In examining two major Black arts movements, the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts movement, many of the works attributed to those periods fit the description of “political art” but not all of them. Black art movements are not defined exclusively by similar styles or methodologies, like Expressionism or Surrealism, either. Instead, Black art movements are complex movements that blend social, political, and aesthetic criteria. In this article, I list seven conditions (...) that I take to be jointly sufficient for a Black art movement to be signified as such. In this assertion, I also argue that this current era, paralleling the Black Lives Matter movement, is worthy of Black art movement signification, if we update the mediums by which the conditions are met in the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts movement. (shrink)

The theme of _Signifying Acts _is that social acts are created by human agents engaging in signifying gestures and elic­iting determined responses—from which flow a number of consequences. This theme is developed by a critical synthesis of various strands of early and contemporary thought in symbolism, meaning, language, and grammar. These strands have been classified as pragma­tism and interactionism, structuralism and grammatical theory Perinbanayagam brings together for the first time the writings of G. H. Mead and his followers, who (...) label their efforts “symbolic interactionism,” and the re­cent developments in the philosophi­cal and anthropological studies of mind and meaning. Through his wide-ranging analysis, he demonstrates the sociologi­cal relevance of Chomsky, Derrida, and Searle and particularizes their contribu­tions to a more comprehensive theoreti­cal framework. The interdisciplinary scope of his thesis recalls Ernest Becker’s _Birth and Death of Meaning, _and his sty­listic flair will stimulate readers at all levels of sophistication. (shrink)

La doctrine d’Afriean Spir. Les objets d’expérience ne coïncident pas avec la norme logique. La méthode de réflexion. L’évident de fait et la certitude rationnelle. La nature et l’origine du concept a priori. Son unité. Jugement identique et jugement synthétique. Le principe d’identité comme principe de toute connaissance. Les applications de la pensée fondamentale de Spir dans le domaine de la morale et de la religion. L’importance historique de cette pensée.

Background: The law and literature about children’s consent generally assume that patients aged under-18 cannot consent until around 12 years, and cannot refuse recommended surgery. Children deemed pre-competent do not have automatic rights to information or to protection from unwanted interventions. However, the observed practitioners tend to inform young children s, respect their consent or refusal, and help them to “want” to have the surgery. Refusal of heart transplantation by 6-year-olds is accepted. Research question: What are possible reasons to explain (...) the differences between theories and practices about the ages when children begin to be informed about elective heart surgery, and when their consent or refusal begins to be respected? Research design, participants and context: Research methods included reviews of related healthcare, law and ethics literature; observations and conversations with staff and families in two London hospitals; audio-recorded semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 45 healthcare professionals and related experts; interviews and a survey with parents and children aged 6- to 15-years having elective surgery (not reported in this paper); meetings with an interdisciplinary advisory group; thematic analysis of qualitative data and co-authorship of papers with participants. Ethical considerations: Approval was granted by four research ethics committees/authorities. All interviewees gave their informed written consent. Findings: Interviewees explained their views and experiences about children’s ages of competence to understand and consent or refuse, analysed by their differing emphases on informed, signified or voluntary consent. Discussion: Differing views about children’s competence to understand and consent are associated with emphases on consent as an intellectual, practical and/or emotional process. Conclusion: Greater respect for children’s practical signified, emotional voluntary and intellectual informed consent can increase respectful understanding of children’s consent. Nurses play a vital part in children's practitioner-patient relationships and physical care and therefore in all three elements of consent. (shrink)

Signifiance du monde propose une "harmonisation intégrale" entre la linguistique saussuro-guillaumienne des langues naturelles et la pensée phénoménologique heideggérienne de la vérité de l'être en tant qu'alètheia, dans son sens grec de "ce qui sort de la latence" et que Jean-Louis Tristani nomme illatence. En d'autres termes, cet essai donne accès à une compréhension des "relations grammaticales évidentes qui articulent l'être, dans sa vérité, et la pensée, telles qu'elles sont a priori données dans le système linguistique de n'importe quelle langue (...) naturelle". Cette mise au jour de la co-originarité de la langue et de la pensée corrobore la formule du linguiste français Antoine Meillet, maintes fois citée par Gustave Guillaume, selon laquelle, en ce lieu intelligible de la langue "tout se tient et a un plan d'une pleine rigueur". Une rigueur qui intègre le système morpho-lexical d'une langue, en tant qu'intégrale des conditions d'effection du discours, avec les conditions existentiales de possibilité du Dasein en tant qu'être-au-monde. D'où Signifiance du monde, ce titre qui annonce la composante linguistique de notre présence au monde."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Situates Lacan’s theory of the subject within contemporary philosophical debates over freedom and agency.

Nell proposes another myth about human aggression, following thousands of old myths from Homer to Lorenz. Like all myths, this one might be partially true and partially false. However, the use of emotional and propagandistic effects, rather than evaluation of empirical results, obscures any attempt to describe the truth about cruelty. It is … full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5.

Cet article explore un parallèle entre deux innovations fondatrices des épistémès contemporaines, celles de Marx et de Saussure, en constatant l’isomorphisme entre les concepts de valeur d’usage et de signifiant. Après un rapide repérage de l’emploi du terme « valeur d’usage » dans la tradition marxiste, on examine la valeur d’usage comme corps, plutôt que comme besoin ou fonction utile. En considérant le concept de valeur d’usage au prisme de celui de signifiant, on met à preuve les questions de l’arbitraire, (...) de l’indivisible, du versatile. L’auteur observe que les deux concepts désignent des moments d’une activité : maillons d’une chaîne. Les chaînes signifiantes auraient un rôle fondamental, comme automatisme de répétition, dans la reproduction sociale. (shrink)

À Wilma, ma mère, qui n’est plus et à mon fils, qui n’est pas encore. Aristote affirme dans les Seconds Analytiques : « il est possible de signifier aussi les choses qui ne sont pas (σημαίνειν… τὰ μὴ ὄντα). » Même sans contextualiser cette phrase, on s’aperçoit d’emblée qu’à proprement parler il n’est pas question ici du néant, mais de ce qui n’est pas. Aristote le dit même au pluriel. En effet, chez Aristote nombreuses sont les choses...

This essay presents a commentary on and rational reconstruction of Stephen Heath's influential and groundbreaking essay from 1976: “On screen, in frame: Film and ideology.” As a commentary, it attempts to make explicit the implicit assumptions behind Heath's dense and challenging essay; rewrite and clarify his inexact formulations; and develop a microanalysis of the essay's language. As a rational reconstruction, this essay follows Rudolf Botha's philosophical study into the conduct of inquiry to analyze Heath's formulation of conceptual and empirical problems (...) and the strategies he uses to deproblematize them. This rational reconstruction rearranges the parts of Heath's essay according to the four central activities Botha identifies in the formulation of theoretical problems: 1) identifying the problematic state of affairs; 2) describing the problematic state of affairs; 3) constructing problems; and 4) evaluating problems according to well-formedness and significance. The result is a close reading of Heath's essay that reveals in minute detail his reasoning strategies, and highlights how he revolutionized film theory by attempting to integrate Lacanian psychoanalysis and Althusserian Marxism into continental semiotics, under the influence of Kristeva's theories of the signifying practice and the subject-in-process. (shrink)

This article explores the theme of nihilism from the perspective of post-continental philosophy by focusing on semiotics and information theory and the question of “meaning” at stake between them. Nihilism is characterised here as an avatar of the counter-Enlightenment tradition. Post-continental philosophy is defined by a positive revaluation of reason, science, and technology, which were critiqued for their nihilistic effects by key continental philosophers. Rather than critiquing nihilism, then, post-continental philosophers have tended to affirm it. This article argues that, despite (...) appearances, such developments in fact allow a deepened response to nihilism, considered as an existential problem. It does so by using Lyotard’s critique of semiotics to show how the kind of linguistic and cultural meaning associated with continental philosophy is itself a kind of nihilism. It then examines Meillassoux’s theory of the meaningless sign and Laruelle’s idea of the secret truth of Hermes to argue that this new paradigm of post-continental philosophy allows a response to nihilism by offering an alternative to semiotic meaning. Thus freed, this new paradigm allows the embrace of information theory as a plural articulation of meanings grounded in meaningless data, which enables a superior response to nihilism in the information age. (shrink)

Judith Butler’s influential work in feminist theory is significant for its insight that sexist discourse in popular culture affects the agency and consciousness of individuals, but offers an inadequate account of how such discourse might be said to touch, shape, or affect selves. Supplementing Butler’s account of signification with a Deweyan pragmatic account of meaning-making and selective emphasis enables a consistent account of the relationship between discourse and subjectivity with a robust conception of the bodily organism. An analysis of the (...) popular discourse surrounding Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Presidential campaign demonstrates why this hybrid pragmatic/poststructuralist account is necessary. (shrink)

La théorie lockienne de la perception a été lue tantôt comme une forme de représentationnalisme, tantôt comme relevant d'un réalisme direct n'impliquant pas d'entité intermédiaire entre l'esprit et les choses. Cet article entreprend de clarifier cette question à partir des analyses de l'Essai sur la distinction et la confusion des idées. Celles-ci interrogent à la fois la nature de l'idée comme image et le fait qu'elle n'est déterminée que lorsque l'esprit lui donne un nom. Pour faire comprendre ce dernier point, (...) Locke utilise la métaphore de l'anamorphose en peinture, et plus particulièrement de l'anamorphose cylindrique. En reliant cette métaphore aux théories de la perspective du XVIIe siècle, à la camera obscura de l'esprit, et enfin à l'optique du XVIIe siècle, l'article parvient à plusieurs conclusions. Faire de l'idée une image ne conduit jamais Locke à voir en elle un objet qui s'interpose entre l'esprit et les choses. Une idée comme celle de sense data est étrangère à sa pensée. Si Locke ne met jamais en doute la réalité du monde extérieur, c'est que pour lui l'idée nous donne d'emblée accès à une extériorité, qu'il s'agit de déterminer. Enfin, la perception lockienne ne relève pas d'un modèle sémantique dont l'origine serait à trouver dans Descartes et qui préparerait celui de l'empirisme du XVIIIe siècle, faisant de l'idée un signe. Elle se rapprocherait plutôt, paradoxalement, de l'idée austinienne du silence des sens. (shrink)

_Situates Lacan’s theory of the subject within contemporary philosophical debates over freedom and agency._.

The present study is an interrogation of theories of culture and nation in the context of spectacular sports. It proposes a view of nationalism as discourses that articulate and produce nations through narrative acts. A wide array of concepts and tools are drawn from the work of Pierre Bourdieu and contrasted with methods and notions from discursive and semiotic analysis to interrogate a national-sports nexus in which sports are vehicles to embody nations, their matrices of thought and perception, and their (...) dominant order of masculinity and heteronormativity in the national subject, so that this order appears natural and commonsensical. Particular attention is given to the case of South Africa’s participation in the 1998 World Cup, and the way the epic genre was employed to frame the event and produce a particular kind of national body. -/- Spectacular sports events provide nations with opportunities to disseminate narratives that regulate desire and conjure a particular kind of national fantasy – what Bourdieu referred to as illusio – in subjects. This work makes a distinction between an epic body of nationalism, a body enmeshed in "the natural and authentic," and an excessive body. However, mediations of sports are never merely reflections of social events but themselves participate in producing these events as meaningful and anchor them as national. Furthermore, an actively interpreting subject is required for the production of meaning, and in this regard the thesis offers a critique of Bourdieu’s limited view on what it entails for a recipient of nationalist discourse to be active. The questions addressed by this study is twofold: how and what kind of national order of the body and desire is manufactured through spectacular sports events, and how are mediations of such events made meaningful in subjects? -/- The open-ended character of signification means that beneath the level of nationalist anchorage of spectacular sports events other articulations are possible. Drawing on Bourdieu’s view of sports as forms of silent dressage, the thesis suggests that there is a potential excess of meaning that enables such events to become potential sites of subjective truth: as viewers realise the fantasmatic character of such mediations they may come to question the notion that spectacular sports are something more than just a game. (shrink)

For Kant, «reflection», the logical action that consists in elaborating concepts, also means, when it is «transcendental», the action of distinguishing within our knowing what belongs to each of the two sources of our representations – sensibility and understanding. In that respect, reflection is a central notion in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. But it is also essential to the understanding of Kant's relation to classical philosophy. Indeed, in the chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled «Amphiboly of concepts (...) of reflection», Kant takes a simultaneous stand on Leibniz and Locke, as he assignes them two symmetrical errors: according to Kant, Leibniz «intellectualized phenomena», while Locke «sensualised the concepts of the understanding». The present paper proposes to demonstrate how the reproach adressed to Leibniz might constitute an original approach for the interpretation of the problematic relation established in the Critique of Pure Reason between sensibility and understanding. (shrink)