Book-review of Ernesto Screpanti’s Libertarian Communism: Marx, Engels and the Political Economy of Freedom. In this book, Ernesto Screpanti questions the nature and status of freedom within both Marx’s thought and possible forms of communist organisation. By way of an argument which contends that communism should be understood as a theory of freedom, he extracts a deliberately individualistic version of communism from Marx’s work, and proceeds to develop this into a series of recommendations for practical-organisational forms. (...) These forms, and the notion of freedom that they arise from, are, however, closely related to Screpanti’s adoption of an economic approach that consists of the quantification of freedom. This prompts a number of political and theoretical problems. (shrink)

Pretendemos abordar pedagogo português Faria de Vasconcelos (1880-1939) no contexto da Escola Nova, norteando-nos por uma pesquisa de metodologia hermenêutica na análise aos seus pressupostos pedagógicos sobre os problemas escolares e, principalmente a sua preocupação pela adolescência e jovens delinquentes, infratores e/ou indisciplinados. Recorremos conceptualmente aos seus textos (fontes primárias) e à sua obra compilada por Ferreira Marques, a fontes secundárias sobre Escola Nova e História da Educação em Portugal da época. O método hermenêutico permitiu-nos compreender os escritos daquele pedagogista, (...) na frágua da temática, quer pelo questionamento, quer pelo alicerçar dessa compreensão sobre (análise) o conteúdo a interpretar. Ou seja, a hermenêutica sendo a palavra, em que a correspondente interpretação vem sempre do texto, converteu-se em mediadora desse processo interpretativo. Os objetivos foram os seguintes: analisar os contributos de Vasconcelos ao estudo científico da criança/infância, em especial no seu desenvolvimento físico e mental, sob a influência da Escola Nova; compreender a sua análise à adolescência e delinquência juvenil, na relação que estabeleceu entre a inteligência (percentagens de deficiências mentais) e tipos de delitos/crimes cometidos. Pretendemos resgatar este pedagogo para a História da Educação em Portugal, divulgando os seus contributos em prole do estudo da criança, da adolescência e jovem delinquente. Palavras-chave: Faria de Vasconcelos; Adolescência; Jovem delinquente; Inteligência; Ideais Escola Nova. The analysis of adolescence and young offenders by the pedagogist Portuguese Faria de Vasconcelos: relationship between intelligence and types of offenders Abstract: Intending to approach pedagogue Portuguese Farai de Vasconcelos (1880-1939) in the context of the New School, we were based on our research for a hermeneutic methodology in the analysis of its pedagogical assumptions, especially about school problems and, especially, its concern for adolescence and young offenders or undisciplined. We use conceptually his texts (primary sources) and his work compiled by Ferreira Marques, to second sources on New School and History of Education in Portugal at the time. The hermeneutic method allowed us to understand the writings about this pedagogist, in the depth of the theme, either by questioning or by the support of understanding about (analysis) the content to be interpreted. That is, hermeneutics being the word, in which the corresponding interpretation always comes from the text, has become a mediator of this interpretative process. The objectives were: to analyse Vasconcelos contributions to the scientific study of children/childhood, especially in physical and mental development, understand their analysis of adolescence and juvenile offenders, in the relationship he established between intelligence (percentages of mental disabilities) and types of crimes/crimes committed. We intend to rescue the thought and work of this pedagogue for the History of Education, disseminating his contributions in favour of the study of children, adolescents, and young offenders. Key-words: Faria de Vasconcelos; Adolescence; Young offender; Intelligence; New School ideas. El análisis de la adolescencia y a los delincuentes juveniles por el pedagogo portugués Faria de Vasconcelos: relación entre la inteligencia y los tipos de delitos Resumen: Pretendemos acercarnos al pensamiento del pedagogo portugués Faria de Vasconcelos (1880-1939) en el contexto de la Escuela Nueva, guiándonos por una investigación de metodología hermenéutica en el análisis a sus supuestos pedagógicos, especialmente sobre los problemas escolares y, especialmente su abordaje a la adolescencia y jóvenes delincuentes y/o indisciplinados. Utilizamos conceptualmente sus textos (fuentes primarias) y el trabajo compilado por Ferreira Marques, además de fuentes secundarias sobre el periodo de la Escuela Nueva e Historia de la Educación en Portugal en la época. El método hermenéutico nos permitió comprender los escritos, en la profundidad del tema, ya sea cuestionando o por el apoyo a la comprensión sobre (análisis) el contenido a interpretar. Es decir, siendo la hermenéutica la palabra, en la que la interpretación correspondiente proviene del texto, se ha convertido en mediadora de este proceso interpretativo. Los objetivos fueron: analizar los aportes de Vasconcelos al estudio científico de los niños, especialmente en el desarrollo físico y mental, bajo la influencia de la Escuela Nueva; comprender su análisis a la adolescencia y los delincuentes juveniles, en la relación de la inteligencia (porcentajes de discapacidad mental) con los tipos de delitos/delitos cometidos. Pretendemos rescatar a este pedagogo para la Historia de la Educación en Portugal, difundiendo sus aportaciones a favor del estudio de los niños, adolescentes y jóvenes infractores. Palabras-Clave: Faria de Vasconcelos; Adolescencia; Joven delincuente; Inteligencia; Ideales de la Escuela Nueva. Data de registro: 10/06/2022 Data de aceite: 17/08/2022. (shrink)

In this hugely influential book, Laclau and Mouffe examine the workings of hegemony and contemporary social struggles, and their significance for democratic theory. With the emergence of new social and political identities, and the frequent attacks on Left theory for its essentialist underpinnings, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy remains as relevant as ever, positing a much-needed antidote against ‘Third Way’ attempts to overcome the antagonism between Left and Right.

By going back to the Italian humanist tradition and aspects of earlier Greek and Latin thought Ernesto Grassi develops a conception of rhetoric as the basis of philosophical thought. In the development of modern philosophy since Descartes and Locke rhetoric has been seen as superfluous to knowledge. Rhetoric has been commonly understood as the speech that plays on the emotions the use of thought and words to persuade, rather than their use as the basis to seek knowledge. How does (...) the mind generate the principles upon which rational thought is based? Rational thinking exploits the logical power of the word, but logic never enlightens us on the nature of its own starting points. Grassi explores the sense in which the first principles of rational thought come from the metaphorical power of the word. He finds the basis for his conception in the last thinker of the Italian humanist tradition, Giambattista Vice, in Vice's understanding of imagination and the sense of human ingenuity contained in the metaphor. Professor Grassi connects rhetoric with the power of language to bring the starting points for thought into being. This power of speech is at the basis of the philosophical and rational search for truth. (shrink)

In this article, we shift the usual analytical attention of the GPN framework from lead firms to suppliers in the network and from production to IT services. Our focus is on how Indian IT suppliers embed in the Netherlands along the threefold characterization of societal, territorial and network embeddedness. We argue that Indian IT suppliers attempt to display societal embeddedness when they move to The Netherlands. Our findings reveal that the endeavour by Indian IT suppliers to territorially dis-embed from the (...) Dutch context is reinforced by their peripheral position in the network and their ability to offshore work in a bid to contain costs, in addition to the influence of client domination. Therefore, territorial embeddedness is considered to be secondary to societal embeddedness which is intertwined with client interest while neglecting the interest of other network members. Nonetheless, the inter-firm relationship is complex, given the tension between societal, territorial and network embeddedness. While preferring Indian IT suppliers because of their low pricing, Dutch clients also insist on compliance with the institutional context of the Netherlands especially when it comes to Dutch employees. This results in hybridization which means that Indian IT suppliers find ways to adhere to the institutional framework for Dutch nationals while simultaneously insulating Indian employees from the same. Consequently, a highly unfair segmented internal labour market develops, with Dutch nationals being treated more favourably as compared to Indian nationals. Nonetheless, to address these violations, Indian employees prefer individual strategies of resilience and rework rather than a collectivization response. (shrink)

The way of thinking of mathematicians and chemists in their respective disciplines seems to have very different levels of abstractions. While the firsts are involved in the most abstract of all sciences, the seconds are engaged in a practical, mainly experimental discipline. Therefore, it is surprising that many luminaries of the mathematics universe have studied chemistry as their main subject. Others have started studying chemistry before swapping to mathematics or have declared some admiration and even love for this discipline. Here (...) I reveal some of these mathematicians who were involved in chemistry from a biographical perspective. Then, I analyze what these remarkable mathematicians and statisticians could have learned while studying chemical subjects. I found analogies between code-breaking and molecular structure elucidation, inspiration for statistics in quantitative analytical chemistry, and on the role of topology in the study of some organic molecules. I also analyze some parallelisms between the way of thinking of organic chemists and mathematicians in terms of the use of backward analysis, search for patterns, and use of pictures in their respective researches. (shrink)

Praise for First Edition: `This book is highly recommended to a wide range of people as a clear and systematic introduction to phenomenological psychology... the book has set the stage for possible new colloquia between the phenomenological and other approaches in psychology' - Changes `As a trainee interested in matters existential, I have been put off in the past by the long-winded and confusing texts usually available in academic libraries. Thankfully, here is a text that remedies that situation... [it] provides (...) a readable and insightful account' - Clinical Psychology Forum 'Spinelli’s classic introduction to phenomenology should be essential reading on all person-centred, existential and humanistic trainings, and any other counselling or psychotherapy course which aims to help students develop an in-depth understanding of human lived-experience. This book is sure to remain a key text for many years to come' - Mick Cooper, Senior Lecturer in Counselling, University of Strathclyde 'This is by far the most monumental, erudite, comprehensive, authoritative case that Existentialism and Phenomenology (a) have a rightful place in the academy; (b) are tough-minded bodies of thought; (c) have rigorous scientific foundations; (d) bequeath a distinctive school of psychotherapy and counselling; and (e) are just as good as the more established systems of psychology' - Alvin R. Mahrer, Ph.D. University of Ottawa, Canada, Author of The Complete Guide To Experiential Psychotherapy 'This book’s rich insight into the lacunae of modern psychological thinking illustrates the contribution that existential phenomenology can make to founding a coherently mature Psychology that is both fully human(e) and responsibly ‘scientific’ in the best sense of that term' - Richard House, Ph.D., Magdalen Medical Practice, Norwich; Steiner Waldorf teacher. The Interpreted World, Second Edition, is a welcome introduction to phenomenological psychology, an area of psychology which has its roots in notoriously difficult philosophical literature. Writing in a highly accessible, jargon-free style, Ernesto Spinelli traces the philosophical origins of phenomenological theory and presents phenomenological perspectives on central topics in psychology - perception, social cognition and the self. He compares the phenomenological approach with other major contemporary psychological approaches, pointing up areas of divergence and convergence with these systems. He also examines implications of phenomenology for the precepts and process of psychotherapy. For the Second Edition, a new chapter on phenomenological research has been added in which the author focuses on the contribution of phenomenology in relation to contemporary scientific enquiry. He describes the methodology used in phenomenological research and illustrates the approach through an actual research study. The Interpreted World, Second Edition demystifies an exciting branch of psychology, making its insights available to all students of psychology, psychotherapy and counselling. (shrink)

Increasing global competition has intensified the use of informal sector workforce worldwide. This phenomenon is true with regard to India, where 92% of the workers hold precarious jobs. Our study examines the dynamics of workplace dignity in the context of Indian security guards deployed as contract labour by private suppliers, recognising that security guards’ jobs were marked by easy access, low status, disrespect and precariousness. The experiences of guards serving bank ATMs were compared with those working in large reputed organisations. (...) The former reported loss of dignity though their inherent self-worth remained partially intact, whereas the latter reclaimed dignity despite the precarious working conditions and the absence of unions. Guards from large reputed organisations evolved strategies by which they took advantage of the client’s vulnerabilities, developed ‘thick’ relationships at work and immersed themselves in 'doing dignity work' to ensure that they are not disposable. ‘Doing dignity work’ was a visible device which involved actions that met or went beyond the norms laid down by the client and was used by security guards to limit the extent of their precariousness. Since the opportunity to reclaim dignity was facilitated by large reputed clients’ adherence to legal regulations, we see implications of the study for the moral economy. (shrink)

Originally published in English in 1980, Rhetoric as Philosophy has been out of print for some time. The reviews of that English edition attest to the importance of Ernesto Grassi’s work. By going back to the Italian humanist tradition and aspects of earlier Greek and Latin thought, Ernesto Grassi develops a conception of rhetoric as the basis of philosophy. Grassi explores the sense in which the first principles of rational thought come from the metaphorical power of the word. (...) He finds the basis for his conception in the last great thinker of the Italian humanist tradition, Giambattista Vico (1668–1744). He concentrates on Vico’s understanding of imagination and the sense of human ingenuity contained in metaphor. For Grassi, rhetorical activity is the essence and inner life of thought when connected to the metaphorical power of the word. (shrink)

This article proposes a normative theory of reparations for political violence from the standpoint of contemporary critical theory debates on recognition and redistribution. I argue that any satisfactory reparations theory should aspire to ‘status parity’, a term coined by Nancy Fraser, and should include symbolic and material components for both individuals and groups. The essay argues that reparations can promote a number of worthy goals, including the reaffirmation of moral respect and dignity of victims.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.4 (2001) 3-10 [Access article in PDF] Can Immanence Explain Social Struggles? Ernesto Laclau Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2000. In a recent interview 1 Jacques Rancière opposes his notion of "people" (peuple) 2 to the category of "multitude" as presented by the authors of Empire. As is well known, Rancière differentiates between police and politics, the first being the logic of (...) counting and assigning the population to differential places, and the second the subversion of that differentiating logic through the constitution of an egalitarian discourse which puts into question established identities. "The people" is the specific subject of politics, and this term presupposes a sharp division in the social body which cannot be led back to any kind of immanent unity. Empire, on the contrary, makes immanence its central category and the ultimate ground of the multitude's unity.The main lines of Rancière's critique provide a good starting point for what we have to say about the book. The immanentism of Hardt and Negri would be linked, according to Rancière, to their Nietzschean/Deleuzian ethics of affirmation, which does away with any reactive or negative dimension. Empire would belong, in that respect, to the whole tradition of modern political philosophy, which is profoundly metapolitical: "the kernel of metapolitics is to lead back the precarious artifices of the political scene to the truth of an immanent power which organizes beings in a community and identifies the true community with the grasped and sensible operation of this truth" ["Peuple ou multitudes" 96]. From Hardt and Negri's rejection of any inherent negativity in political subjects, it follows that the power inherent in the multitude has to be a disruptive power, "lodged in all states of domination as its ultimate content, a content destined to destroy all barriers. 'Multitudes' have to be a content whose continent is Empire" ["Peuple ou multitudes" 97]. Disruptive forces operating through a purely immanent movement are what Marxist theory called "productive forces," and there would be, according to Rancière, a strict homology between the place of productive forces and that in which multitudes, as described in Empire, act. Rancière points out that productive forces should not necessarily be understood in any narrow productivist sense: there has been a constant widening of the concept from the strict economism of classical Marxism, to the recent attempts to introduce in it the ensemble of scientific and intellectual abilities, passing through the Leninist attempt to supplement via political intervention a role that productive forces refused to fulfill.I think that Rancière has rightly stressed what I see as the main source of several weaknesses of Empire, including a central one: that within its theoretical framework politics become unthinkable. So I will start from a discussion of its notion of immanence and move later to various other theoretical and political aspects of the book. [End Page 3]Let us start with the authors' discussion of the origins of European modernity. While the usual insistence is on the secularization process, that process would be, "in our view... only a symptom of the primary event of modernity: the affirmation of the powers of this world, the discovery of the plane of immanence. 'Omne ens habet aliquod esse proprium'—every entity has a singular essence. Duns Scotus' affirmation subverts the medieval conception of being as an object of analogical, and thus dualistic predication—a being with one foot in this world and one in a transcendent realm" [Empire 71]. Duns Scotus's insistence on the singularity of being would have initiated an assertion of immanence that the authors describe as a process whose representative names would have been Nicholas of Cusa, Pico della Mirandola, and Bovillus—other names quoted are Bacon and Occam—and whose point of arrival is Spinoza. "By the time we arrive at Spinoza, in fact, the horizon of immanence and the horizon of the democratic political order coincide completely. The plane of immanence is the one on which the powers of singularity are realized and the one on which the truth of the new... (shrink)

Derrida's recent book, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, offers a succinct and elegant understanding of forgiveness as ‘impossibility’, unencumbered by any conditions or threats of instrumentalization. However it also contains a disturbing implication. The first part of this article discusses the theory at length, followed by a series of critiques in the second part that shows how his aporetic theory of forgiveness is morally dangerous, for it unwittingly rests upon erasing the memory of the transcendental shortcomings of his conception. The article (...) goes on to outline an alternative theory of forgiveness. (shrink)

This paper tries to demonstrate that some passages of Pliny's Naturalis historia on metallurgical materials are influenced by the Stoic philosopher Posidonius' view that surfaces possess a physical existence. Indeed, Pliny reports that copper surfaces are material, both acting towards drawing a patina to themselves, and being acted upon; i.e. they are both chemically modified by air and fire, and subject to mechanical removal. Also relatable to Posidonius, namely to his view of the interaction between soul and body, is Pliny's (...) account of lead and tin, which can be united thanks to the action they mutually exert on each other, since each metal holds together both itself and what is outside itself. A further influence from the ‘aetiologist’ Posidonius is also betrayed in the care Pliny exercises in describing not only metal corrosion and soldering, but also their causes. Both the scientific and the philosophical imports of these passages are compared with passages by Plato and Plutarch on metallurgical subjects; they are also discussed in the light of the theories on ‘mixture’ propounded by Aristotle and by the Old Stoics. It is shown that Pliny's account compares favorably with Posidonius' doctrine, whereas it is at striking variance with the other ancient reports. Introduction Philosophical and literary evidence 2.1 Pliny 2.2 Posidonius 2.3 Plato and Plutarch Discussion Conclusion. (shrink)

This article discusses conditions in Colombia and the need for emancipation from colonial stereotypes. It describes communities of learning that have been created as spaces in which people can practice making sense of their world. It describes a project in Bogot and reflects on what has been done and what was learned in trying to create communities of learning.

Temporal ontology is the philosophical debate on the existence of the past and the future. It features a three-way confrontation between supporters of presentism (the present exists, the past and the future do not), pastism (the past and the present exist, the future does not), and eternalism (the past, the present, and the future all exist). Most philosophers engaged in this debate believe that presentism is much more in agreement with common sense than the rival views; moreover, most of them (...) believe that being in agreement with common sense is epistemically valuable for a philosophical view. We studied experimentally non-experts’ ideas pertaining to the domain of temporal ontology, i.e., as we called it, common-sense temporal ontology, focusing on the Italian population. We found that a non-overwhelming majority of participants (~64%) favoured presentism, while two significant minorities favoured pastism (~19%) and eternalism (~17%). We think that our findings provide some support, albeit weaker than expected, for the view that presentism is more in agreement with common sense than the rival positions. (shrink)

La visión tradicional del pensamiento crítico (PC) fundada en un enfoque racionalista ha sido puesta en duda a partir de fines del siglo pasado por la ‘segunda ola’ del PC, la cual, a pesar de no ser un movimiento del todo definido, ha incluido aspectos como la imaginación, la creatividad y el trabajo cooperativo en su comprensión y en su aplicación a la enseñanza. Paralelamente, perspectivas actuales en psicología moral como el modelo ‘intuicionista social’ propuesto por Jonathan Haidt, representan un (...) desafío al modelo racionalista de la moral que suponen gran parte de las éticas normativas canónicas. Siendo que tanto el PC como el fundamento moral representan factores fundamentales en la enseñanza de ética, se hace explicito que esta última precisa también ser revisada. Es por ello que el presente trabajo analiza una perspectiva del PC alternativa a la tradicional basada en el potencial aporte de la metacognición y del modelo intuicionista social, con el fin de abrir nuevas vías de investigación para la actualización del fundamento moral que se supone en la enseñanza de ética. Para ahondar en ello, se ejemplificará la relevancia y aplicabilidad de la metacognición en la enseñanza de ética con situaciones vinculadas a la actual pandemia por Covid-19. (shrink)

On the traditional view, Butler maintains that forgiveness involves a kind of “conversion experience” in which we must forswear or let go of our resentment against wrongdoers. Against this reading, I argue that Butler never demands that we forswear resentment but only that we be resentful in the right kind of way. That is, he insists that we should be virtuously resentful, avoiding both too much resentment exhibited by the vices of malice and revenge and too little resentment where we (...) merely condone the wrongdoer and leave ourselves open to future injury. I argue that this Butlerian approach offers us a more attractive account of forgiveness as a “virtue” than many recent discussions. In the final section, I address Butler’s challenging thesis that forgiveness is an unconditional moral duty. I argue against those who claim that forgiveness is supererogatory (Kolnai/Calhoun) or else merely morally conditional and even morally blameworthy in some cases (Murphy/Hampton/Novitz/Richards). By contrast, I defend a context-sensitive account of forgiveness which recognizes that it takes place on many different levels. I conclude by taking up the difficult issue of whether anybody can be ultimately “unforgivable”, offering some Butlerian and Strawsonian reflections that might help mitigate our judgments about such matters. (shrink)

Originally published in English in 1980, _Rhetoric as Philosophy _has been out of print for some time. The reviews of that English edition attest to the importance of Ernesto Grassi’s work. By going back to the Italian humanist tradition and aspects of earlier Greek and Latin thought, Ernesto Grassi develops a conception of rhetoric as the basis of philosophy. Grassi explores the sense in which the first principles of rational thought come from the metaphorical power of the word. (...) He finds the basis for his conception in the last great thinker of the Italian humanist tradition, Giambattista Vico. He concentrates on Vico’s understanding of imagination and the sense of human ingenuity contained in metaphor. For Grassi, rhetorical activity is the essence and inner life of thought when connected to the metaphorical power of the word. (shrink)

Esta investigação histórica e documental enquadra-se no âmbito da História d Educação em Portugal. Trata-se de uma temática pouco usual, mas serve para uma melhor compreensão da criança nas sua problemáticas educativas, sociais, assistenciais e de reeducação no período entre 1871 - altura da primeira fundação da primeira Casa de Correção e Detenção de Lisboa ocupando-se a partir desse momento o Estado destas. Problemáticas infantis e juvenis da marginalidade, abandono, desamparo e delinquência até 1962. Neste estudo admitimos a existência especial (...) de uma pedagogia social portuguesa que integra contributos das várias ciências da época: jurídico-penais, ciências médicopedagógicas, sociológicas, psicopedagógicas, filosofia do direito, etc. Todas estas influências permitiram a reflexão sobre aquelas situações da criança o que originou a criação de vários estabelecimentos especiais de correção e de reeducação, ao nivel estatal e ao nível particular. Houve a aplicação de métodos inovadores no diagnóstico e na orientação dessas crianças. Demos, assim, um contributo valioso para a elaboração de uma História da Assistência à Infância Inadaptada em Portugal. (shrink)

Abstract: This article examines the uses of official apologies for massive human rights abuses in the context of democratic transitions. It sketches a normative model of apologies, highlighting how they serve to provide some moral and practical redress for past wrongs. It discusses a number of contributions apologies can make, including publicly confirming the status of victims as moral agents, fostering public reexamination and deliberation about social norms, and promoting critical understandings of history that undermine apologist historical accounts. The article (...) then presents certain normative criteria that any official apology must satisfy, and concludes with a discussion of several theoretical and practical challenges that apologies face in transitional contexts. It draws on Chilean President Patricio Aylwin's apology for his predecessor's crimes as an illustration of some of the promises and challenges that apologies face. (shrink)

To think the relationships which exist between Marxism and psychoanalysis obliges one to reflect upon the intersections between two theoretical fields, each composed independently of the other and whose possible forms of mutual reference do not merge into any obvious system of translation. For example, it is impossible to affirm—though it has often been done—that psychoanalysis adds a theory of subjectivity to the field of historical materialism, given that the latter has been constituted, by and large, as a negation of (...) the validity and the pertinence of any theory of subjectivity . Thus, no simple model of supplement or articulations is of the slightest use. The problem is rather that of finding an index of comparison between two different theoretical fields, but that, in turn, implies the construction of a new field, within which the comparison would make sense.This new field is one which may be characterized as “post-Marxist” and is the result of a multitude of theoretico-political interventions whose cumulative effect in relation to the categories of classical Marxism is similar to what Heidegger called a “de-struction of the history of ontology.” For Heidegger, this “de-struction” did not signify the purely negative operation of rejecting a tradition, but exactly the opposite: it is by means of a radical questioning which is situated beyond this tradition—but which is only possible in relation to it—that the originary meaning of the categories of this tradition may be recovered. In this sense, effecting a “de-struction” of the history of Marxism implies going beyond the deceptive evidence of concepts such as “class,” “capital,” and so on, and re-creating the meaning of the originary synthesis that such concepts aspired to establish, the total system of theoretical alternatives in regard to which they represented only limited options, and the ambiguities inherent in their constitution itself—the “hymen” in the Derridean sense—which, although violently repressed, rise up here and there in diverse discursive surfaces. It is the systematic and genealogical outline of these nuclei of ambiguity which initially allows for a destruction of the history of Marxism and which constitutes post-Marxism as the field of our current political reflection. But it is precisely in these surfaces of discursive ambiguity that it is possible to detect the presence of logics of the political which allows for the establishment of a true dialogue, without complacent metaphorization, between Marxism and psychoanalytic theory. I would like to highlight two points, which I consider fundamental, concerning these discursive surfaces. Ernesto Laclau is a lecturer in the Department of Government and director of the Graduate Program in Ideology and Discourse Analysis at the University of Essex. He is the author of Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory and, with Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics . Amy G. Reiter-McIntosh is a lecturer and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago. (shrink)

¿Por qué construír al pueblo es la principal tarea de una política radical? -- Una ética del compromiso militante -- ¿Vida nuda o indeterminación social? -- ¿Puede la inmanencia explicar las luchas sociales? Crítica a Imperio.

This paper deals with three puzzles concerning reference. The first concerns the Kripkean distinction between reference fixing by description and meaning giving. The second concerns the compatibility of two properties of names, arbitrariness and rigidity across world. The third concerns the tenability of the notion that a name means its bearer considering that a name is meaningful even when the bearer is no longer. The solution of the first consists in seeing that the distinction involved is not essentially a modal (...) distinction. The solution of the second consists in setting things right with our modal talk. The solution of the third consists in realizing the persistence across times of the enjoyment of certain properties. (shrink)

The transition toward sustainability and the adjustment to climate change should involve the reduction of consumption behavior and the need to maintain social practices of frugality. This paper investigates the influences of consciousness for sustainable consumption, materialism, and the consideration of future consequences on frugal behaviors. Four-hundred-and-forty-four individuals responded to an instrument investigating these variables. Results of a structural model revealed that materialism significantly and negatively influenced the three dimensions of CSC: economic, environmental, and social. The consideration of distant future (...) consequences positively and significantly affected the economic dimension of CSC. Frugal behavior received significant and positive influences from the three CSC dimensions and from consideration of distant future consequences. The model explained 46% of variance in frugal behavior, revealing the importance of awareness of the consequences of resource consumption and the CFC has on promoting a moderate consumption of resources. (shrink)

Heidegger's affirmation is categorical: “… the thinking expressed in Being and Time is against humanism”. Heidegger's thesis is not only categorical, it is also polemical. He maintains that the humanist conception does not grasp man's essence, and it is for this reason that he is opposed to humanism, which is a doctrine that “has not thought profoundly enough of man's humanitas.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.4 (2001) 3-10 [Access article in PDF] Can Immanence Explain Social Struggles? Ernesto Laclau Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2000. In a recent interview 1 Jacques Rancière opposes his notion of "people" (peuple) 2 to the category of "multitude" as presented by the authors of Empire. As is well known, Rancière differentiates between police and politics, the first being the logic of (...) counting and assigning the population to differential places, and the second the subversion of that differentiating logic through the constitution of an egalitarian discourse which puts into question established identities. "The people" is the specific subject of politics, and this term presupposes a sharp division in the social body which cannot be led back to any kind of immanent unity. Empire, on the contrary, makes immanence its central category and the ultimate ground of the multitude's unity.The main lines of Rancière's critique provide a good starting point for what we have to say about the book. The immanentism of Hardt and Negri would be linked, according to Rancière, to their Nietzschean/Deleuzian ethics of affirmation, which does away with any reactive or negative dimension. Empire would belong, in that respect, to the whole tradition of modern political philosophy, which is profoundly metapolitical: "the kernel of metapolitics is to lead back the precarious artifices of the political scene to the truth of an immanent power which organizes beings in a community and identifies the true community with the grasped and sensible operation of this truth" ["Peuple ou multitudes" 96]. From Hardt and Negri's rejection of any inherent negativity in political subjects, it follows that the power inherent in the multitude has to be a disruptive power, "lodged in all states of domination as its ultimate content, a content destined to destroy all barriers. 'Multitudes' have to be a content whose continent is Empire" ["Peuple ou multitudes" 97]. Disruptive forces operating through a purely immanent movement are what Marxist theory called "productive forces," and there would be, according to Rancière, a strict homology between the place of productive forces and that in which multitudes, as described in Empire, act. Rancière points out that productive forces should not necessarily be understood in any narrow productivist sense: there has been a constant widening of the concept from the strict economism of classical Marxism, to the recent attempts to introduce in it the ensemble of scientific and intellectual abilities, passing through the Leninist attempt to supplement via political intervention a role that productive forces refused to fulfill.I think that Rancière has rightly stressed what I see as the main source of several weaknesses of Empire, including a central one: that within its theoretical framework politics become unthinkable. So I will start from a discussion of its notion of immanence and move later to various other theoretical and political aspects of the book. [End Page 3]Let us start with the authors' discussion of the origins of European modernity. While the usual insistence is on the secularization process, that process would be, "in our view... only a symptom of the primary event of modernity: the affirmation of the powers of this world, the discovery of the plane of immanence. 'Omne ens habet aliquod esse proprium'—every entity has a singular essence. Duns Scotus' affirmation subverts the medieval conception of being as an object of analogical, and thus dualistic predication—a being with one foot in this world and one in a transcendent realm" [Empire 71]. Duns Scotus's insistence on the singularity of being would have initiated an assertion of immanence that the authors describe as a process whose representative names would have been Nicholas of Cusa, Pico della Mirandola, and Bovillus—other names quoted are Bacon and Occam—and whose point of arrival is Spinoza. "By the time we arrive at Spinoza, in fact, the horizon of immanence and the horizon of the democratic political order coincide completely. The plane of immanence is the one on which the powers of singularity are realized and the one on which the truth of the new... (shrink)

Discussion about the viability of democracy in what can broadly be called our `postmodern', technologically dominated age, has mainly turned around two central issues: does not the current dispersion and fragmentation of social actors — deriving partly from the overriding presence of the media in our civilization — conspire against the emergence of strong social identities which could operate as nodal points for the consolidation and expansion of democratic practices?; and is not this very multiplicity the source of a particularism (...) of social aims which could result in the dissolution of the wider emancipatory discourses considered as constitutive of the democratic imaginary?The first issue is connected with the increasing awareness of the ambiguities of those very social movements about which so many sanguine hopes were conceived in the 1970s. There is no doubt that their emergence has involved an expansion of the egalitarian imaginary to increasingly wider areas of social relations. However, it has also become progressively clear that such an expansion does not necessarily lead to the aggregation of the plurality of demands around a broader collective will. Even more: does not this fragmentation of social demands make it easier for the state apparatuses to deal with them in an administrative fashion — which results in the formation of all types of clientalistic networks, capable of neutralizing any democratic opening? The control of the media by powerful financial conglomerates is only one aspect — albeit a crucial one — of a far more general phenomenon.As for the second issue, its formulation runs along parallel lines. With the breaking up of the totalizing discourses of modernity, we are running the risk of being confronted with a plurality of social spaces, governed by their own aims and leaving any management of the community — conceived in a global sense — in the hands of a techno-bureaucracy located beyond any democratic control. With this, the notion of a public sphere, to which the very possibility of a democratic experience was always linked, is seriously put into question. (shrink)

The Dead Past Growing Block theory of time—DPGB-theory—is the metaphysical view that the past and the present tenselessly exist, whereas the future does not, and that only the present hosts mentality, whereas the past lacks it and is, in this sense, dead. One main reason in favour of this view is that it is immune to the now-now objection or epistemic objection (which aims at undermining the certainty, within an A-theoretical universe, of being currently experiencing the objective present time). In (...) this paper, I examine the additional arguments offered by P. Forrest and G. A. Forbes to back the DPGB-theory and show that they do not work. I also examine a proposal to rescue the DPGB-theory suggested by an anonymous reviewer for this journal and argue that it does not work either. Moreover, in line with D. Braddon-Mitchell and against Forbes, I argue that the DPGB-theory is indeed committed to the existence of zombies in the past. Being ad hoc and burdened by a very odd and counterintuitive ontological commitment, the DPGB-theory turns out to be rather unpalatable. (shrink)

Uno y el Universo, primer libro publicado por Ernesto Sabato, obtuvo en 1945 el primer premio de prosa de la Municipalidad de Buenos Aires. Formaban el jurado Vicente Barbieri, Francisco Luis Bernárdez, Leónidas Barletta, Ricardo Molinari y Adolfo Bioy Casares. Libro inaugural, Uno y el Universo se resume en su título: en concisa brevedad, pulida y bruñida, de epigramas o cápsulas verbales, Sabato repasa, por riguroso orden alfabético, con voluntad sistemática a la que con frecuencia no es ajena la (...) ironía, todo un vasto catálogo de temas que van desde la anécdota cotidiana a lo más amplio del cosmos. Tal pesquisa es sustentada por la insobornable honestidad humana, la lucidez crítica y la hondura y amplitud de visión que, confirmadas a lo largo de toda su obra, asegurarían a Sabato un papel central en nuestra escritura contemporánea. Desde esta primera obra, de excepcional madurez, se asientan las raíces del universo de un gran escritor. (shrink)