Otto Weininger’s controversial book Sex and Character, first published in Vienna in 1903, is a prime example of the conflicting discourses central to its time: antisemitism, scientific racism and biologism, misogyny, the cult and crisis of masculinity, psychological introspection versus empiricism, German idealism, the women’s movement and the idea of human emancipation, the quest for sexual liberation, and the debates about homosexuality. Combining rational reasoning with irrational outbursts, in the context of today’s scholarship, Sex and Character speaks to issues of (...) gender, race, cultural identity, the roots of Nazism, and the intellectual history of modernism and modern European culture. This new translation presents, for the first time, the entire text, including Weininger’s extensive appendix with amplifications of the text and bibliographical references, in a reliable English translation, together with a substantial introduction that places the book in its cultural and historical context. (shrink)

The article attempts to develop a diagonal towards classical readings of the humanism of early Marx. Traditionally, referring to early Marx meant to either affirm a substantialist conception of human beings or to criticize the same conception by insisting on a break between early and late Marx. By presenting a lecture badiousienne of early Marxian texts, the article shows how an affirmative reference to man as species-being and as part of a ‘generic humanity’ can be thought without falling back into (...) the substantialist traps of classical humanism. In a systematic and forced construction of the Marxian idea of the evental character of actual communist action and of universal production, the article shows how Marx’s concept of human species life can be understood as the central source of a transformed thinking of humanism. Consequently, neither Badiou nor Marx will be rendered as classical humanists or pure anti-humanists, rather the early Marxian thought will be presented as a philosophical armoury of in-humanism that is still of great use for sharpening one’s conceptual tools. (shrink)

The article starts from delineating the precise coordinates of the concept of action as it can be found in the work of Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou. It argues in detail why to properly grasp its reach and with it what is at stake in the two philosophical enterprises can best be comprehended when it is read as an attempt of re-actualizing Marx. But, as the article demonstrates, actualization does not come down to being a mere gesture of repetition. It (...) rather involves a complex linkage of different elements that can be best captured by the psychoanalytic slogan of remembering, repeating and working through. It implies remembering Marx gesture, repeating his involvement with Hegel and a working through of the concept of negation. All this gives rise to a new form of ideology critique and a new form of materialist dialectics. The article systematically reconstructs the different articulations which the actualization of Marx finds in Žižek and Badiou and ends by marking a crucial difference with regard to their renewed dialectics. (shrink)

Quentin Meillassoux has made his step to the forefront of contemporary philosophy with harsh criticism of the very idea of critique and any critical project following Kant’s philosophy. The article provides a critical assessment of Meillassoux’s approach (and in passing also tackles those of Graham Harman and Iain Hamilton Grant). The basic argument is that the so called “speculative realist / materialist” approach is less materialist than such approach assumes by fundamentally repeating a Heideggerian move that surprisingly does not turn (...) to poetry but to science. In the final part, the politically problematic outcomes of such an endeavour are delineated in a polemical discussion of the work of Elie Ayache. The totality of the article argues for a revivifying of the idea of critique – not in its traditional guise but in what the author calls a meta-critical approach. (shrink)

The present issue of Filozofski Vestnik starts from a concatenation – science and thought – that at first sight is the radical opposite to Heidegger’s diagnosis. The title of this issue, “Science and Thought”, already suggests that there is or at least there can be such a relation. With regard to Heidegger, this implies two options here: either Heidegger was wrong in his criticism of metaphysics or he was wrong with his equation of Ge-Stell (as the essence of technology) and (...) science. Simply put: either metaphysics still contains some sort of valuable thought (and hence there could be some sort of metaphysical science that thinks) or science is simply not reducible to the metaphysics or to the being of a mere technology in the sense that Heidegger criticized. Then the (metaphysical) question of being could be separated from technology and metaphysics, but perhaps it still finds its locus rather within science. Heidegger’s claim about metaphysics and technology then would find itself inverted through the suggested relation of science and thought. Such an inversion of Heidegger’s critique of the very status of science is itself conditioned by the recent developments in philosophy that we take as the starting point for the present issue of Filozosfki Vestnik. (shrink)

SEBASTIÁN RUDAS | : Moralized secularism is the view that “secularism” is defined in relation to certain moral values. Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor’s “liberal pluralism” is an influential version of moralized secularism, for it states that freedom of conscience and equal respect are the fundamental moral values of secularism. I present the objection that secularism is a redundant category because it carries no distinctive normative content that cannot be found in the more general, and less divisive, terminology of (...) liberalism and democracy. In order to avoid this objection, I argue for conceiving secularism in a nonmoralized way. According to my view, secularism refers solely to the institutional arrangements that a state can put in place in order to address conflicts with organized religion that might emerge at the moment of advancing its ideological political project. Through this interpretation, it is possible to conceptualize expressions of secularism that are either not liberal or not motivated by the acknowledgment of new forms of pluralism as being the prime challenge a state faces for advancing its political project. As the redundancy objection shows, this is a possibility that moralized accounts of secularism preclude. | : Les versions moralisées de la laïcité définissent la « laïcité » par rapport à des valeurs morales. Le « pluralisme libéral » de Jocelyn Maclure et Charles Taylor est un exemple influent de la laïcité moralisée, car il affirme que la liberté de conscience et l’égal respect sont les valeurs morales fondamentales de la laïcité. Je propose l’objection selon laquelle la laïcité est une catégorie redondante, car elle ne comporte aucun contenu normatif distinctif qui ne peut être trouvé dans la terminologie plus générale et moins controversée du libéralisme et de la démocratie. Pour répondre à cette objection, je soutiens qu’il faut concevoir la laïcité de manière non moralisée. Selon moi, la laïcité se réfère seulement aux arrangements institutionnels qu’un État peut mettre en place pour répondre aux conflits avec les religions organisées qui pourraient surgir au moment de faire avancer son projet politique idéologique. Dans cette interprétation, il est possible de conceptualiser des expressions de laïcité qui sont non libérales, ou qui ne sont pas motivées par la reconnaissance de nouvelles formes de pluralisme à titre de principal défi auquel un État est confronté pour faire avancer son projet politique. Comme le montre l’objection de redondance, c’est une possibilité que la laïcité moralisée exclut. (shrink)

For Badiou serves both as an introduction to the influential French philosopher Alain Badiou’s thought and as an in-depth examination of his work. Ruda begins with a thorough and clear outline of the sometimes difficult main tenets of Badiou’s philosophy. He then traces the philosophers throughout Western thought who have influenced Badiou’s project—especially Plato, Descartes, Hegel, and Marx—and on whose work Badiou has developed his provocative philosophy. Ruda draws from Badiou’s oeuvre a series of directives with regard to renewing philosophy (...) for the twenty-first century. For Badiou continues the interrogations of its subject and raises new materialistic and dialectical questions for the next generation of engaged philosophers. (shrink)

This article reconstructs Badiou’s oeuvre from the vantage point of the last volume of his Being and Event trilogy. It determines the perspective and task of The Immanence of Truths and demonstrates in what way an “absolute ontology” is the result of an act of forcing that serves as the measure for a truth’s truthness. This allows to argue that Badiou’s is and always was a philosophy of freedom.

This article examines a contemporary proposal of how to conceive of materialism, more specifically of a materialist dialectics. This proposal was formulated by Alain Badiou and it is of huge interest for the contemporary discussion as it inscribes the very historical coordinates in which it was articulated into its own proposal. The article develops this by arguing that Badiou's materialist dialectic historically situates itself after idealist options seem to have become impossible. However, the very dialectical kernel of this materialism leads (...) Badiou to claim that after the perpetuated struggle between materialism and idealism is declared to have been overcome, the very split separating the two returns in an inverted form inside materialism, splitting it again into two. Thereby the immanent split in materialism leads to two options: either one defends a materialism devoid of any idealist reference or a materialism which seeks to rescue something of idealism. The article concludes by suggesting that only from a detailed reconstruction of the functioning of philosophy in Badiou's system does it become possible to conceive of the threats that any materialism today faces and to delineate the proposed option of how to avoid them consistently. The article demonstrates how, today, materialism can only be properly materialist by resurrecting something of idealism, which is why it deserves the name of what I call an “idealism without idealism.”. (shrink)

In capitalism human beings act as if they are mere animals. So we hear repeatedly in the history of modern philosophy. Indifference and Repetition examines how modern philosophy, largely coextensive with a particular boost in capitalism’s development, registers the reductive and regressive tendencies produced by capitalism’s effect on individuals and society. Ruda examines a problem that has invisibly been shaping the history of modern, especially rationalist philosophical thought, a problem of misunderstanding freedom. Thinkers like Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and Marx claim (...) that there are conceptions and interpretations of freedom that lead the subjects of these interpretations to no longer act and think freely. They are often unwillingly led into unfreedom. It is thus possible that even “freedom” enslaves. Modern philosophical rationalism, whose conceptual genealogy the books traces and unfolds, assigns a name to this peculiar form of domination by means of freedom: indifference. Indifference is a name for the assumption that freedom is something that human beings have: a given, a natural possession. When we think freedom is natural or a possession we lose freedom. Modern philosophy, Ruda shows, takes its shape through repeated attacks on freedom as indifference; it is the owl that begins its flight, so that the days of unfreedom will turn to dusk. (shrink)

Angelaki, Volume 16, Issue 3, Page 163-180, September 2011.

De acuerdo con la postura dominante sobre la laicidad, ésta debe ser concebida en relación con el reconocimiento del pluralismo y prestando atención a no reprodu- cir sesgos antirreligiosos. El artículo defiende una propuesta alternativa: la laicidad como anticlericalismo, cuyo elemento distintivo consiste en instaurar un arreglo institucional de separación estricta y de exclusión de los contenidos religiosos de las instituciones del Estado. Se argumenta que esta forma de concebir la laicidad responde adecuadamente a la pregunta por el lugar de (...) la religión en la esfera pública en el contexto de los Estados liberales y democráticos latinoamericanos. (shrink)

Slavoj Žižek has been widely described as one of the most important and influential contemporary thinkers, philosophers, and cultural critics. However, despite the often critical attention and reviews his work garners in scholarly journal articles and books, systematic philosophical engagements with Žižek's thought remain a surprisingly rare phenomenon. Counteracting this dearth of substantive interaction, the contributors to this volume engage with crucial and fundamental aspects of Žižek's thought. The book follows a Hegelian motivation that is itself dear to Žižek, tracing (...) the concept of dialectical materialism in his more recent work. It takes as its concrete starting point the most current, systematic elaborations of Žižek's thought, namely Absolute Recoil: Towards A New Foundation Of Dialectical Materialism as well as his magnum opus Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. The contributors provide concrete elaborations of arguments developed within these two works, giving voice to their universal implications. The book also features an afterword by Žižek himself, in which he critically examines the work of Levi Bryant as well as the tradition of object-oriented-ontology on the whole. (shrink)

Fatalism in times of universalized assthetization -- Protestant fatalism: predestination as emancipation -- Ren the fatalist: abolishing (Aristotelian) freedom -- From Kant to Schmid (and back): the end of all things -- Ending with the worst: Hegel and absolute fatalism -- After the end: Freud against the illusion of psychical freedom.

In this work, I investigate some questions pertaining to intentional actions and consciously morally reckless actions, seeking to answer the question whether it is possible to morally hold the agent responsible morally for the unwanted results arising from his intentional actions. The first conclusion reached was that the result of an action that was not the object of the agent's intention is a mere consequence of the main action, however, the action that provoked it can be characterized as a consciously (...) morally reckless action. The second conclusion is that, yes, the unwanted results arising from an intentional action are also the moral responsibility of the causative agent, therefore, it is reasonable to hold him responsible for this. (shrink)

LANDEMORE, Hélène. Open Democracy. Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2020.

RESUMEN De acuerdo con la postura dominante sobre la laicidad, ésta debe ser concebida en relación con el reconocimiento del pluralismo y prestando atención a no reprodu cir sesgos antirreligiosos. El artículo defiende una propuesta alternativa: la laicidad como anticlericalismo, cuyo elemento distintivo consiste en instaurar un arreglo institucional de separación estricta y de exclusión de los contenidos religiosos de las instituciones del Estado. Se argumenta que esta forma de concebir la laicidad res ponde adecuadamente a la pregunta por el (...) lugar de la religión en la esfera pública en el contexto de los Estados liberales y democráticos latinoamericanos. ABSTRACT According to the dominant position regarding laicity, the later must be conceived in relation to the recognition ofpluralism and taking care not to reproduce anti-religious biases. The article defends an alternative proposal: laicity as anticlericalism, charac terized by the establishment of an institutional arrangement that strictly separates and excludes religious contents from State institutions. It argues that this concep tion of laicity responds adequately to the question regarding the place of religion in the public sphere, in the context of Latin American liberal and democratic States. (shrink)

"Der Beitrag verhandelt den Begriff des Muts und beginnt diese Verhandlung ausgehend von der Frage, wie eine Kategorie, die die Geschichte der Philosophie zu durchziehen scheint, gegenwärtig an Relevanz und Einfluss verlieren kann. Er identifiziert den Grund dafür in der aristotelischen Bestimmung des Muts als männlich-militärischer Tugend und setzt dieser Bestimmung in der Folge eine Neubestimmung entgegen, die zu denken versucht, was weiblicher Mut sein kann. The paper discusses the concept of courage, starting from the question of how it is (...) possible that a category, which seems to permeate the history of philosophy, currently loses its relevance and influence. It identifies the rea- son for this in the Aristotelian definition of courage as a male and military virtue, and subsequently confronts it with a new definition, trying to imagine what female courage could be like. ". (shrink)

Der Beitrag verhandelt den Begriff des Muts und beginnt diese Verhandlung ausgehend von der Frage, wie eine Kategorie, die die Geschichte der Philosophie zu durchziehen scheint, gegenwärtig an Relevanz und Einfluss verlieren kann. Er identifiziert den Grund dafür in der aristotelischen Bestimmung des Muts als männlich-militärischer Tugend und setzt dieser Bestimmung in der Folge eine Neubestimmung entgegen, die zu denken versucht, was weiblicher Mut sein kann.

The paper discusses Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception as a phenomenology of art. The prevalence of examples from the arts in his text indicates that works of art possess the very same dynamic of reflexivity that the phenomenological project as a whole seeks to develop. Furthermore, by way of confrontation with works of art, the project is driven to transcend itself – or more precisely: to reflect itself. This »new style« of reflexivity may be discussed as »aesthetic incorporation.«.

Nietzsche's unpublished notes are extraordinary in both volume and interest, and indispensable to a full understanding of his lifelong engagement with the fundamental questions of philosophy. This volume includes an extensive selection of the notes he kept during the early years of his career. They address the philosophy of Schopenhauer, the nature of tragedy, the relationship of language to music, the importance of Classical Greek culture for modern life, and the value of the unfettered pursuit of truth and knowledge which (...) Nietzsche thought was a central feature of western culture since it was first introduced by Plato. They contain startling and original answers to the questions which were to occupy Nietzsche throughout his life and demonstrate the remarkable stability and consistency of his fundamental concerns. They are presented here in a new translation by Landislaus Löb, and an introduction by Alexander Nehamas sets them in their philosophical and historical contexts. (shrink)

BackgroundPrevious studies suggest that engagement in any type of physical activity can be protective against mental health issues, whereas elite-level athletes can endure various mental health challenges. The aim of this study was to determine variations in the prevalence of psychological distress among elite sambo athletes and their recreational counterparts.MethodsA sample consisting of 245 athletes was chosen. Out of the total sample, 105 were elite-level athletes while 140 were recreational athletes. Participants were accessed via the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 to (...) determine their stress in various domains at a given time.ResultsData indicated that all tested differences between elite sambo athletes and recreational athletes were statistically significant; recreational athletes had a higher score on the depression scale, anxiety and stress, and a general distress score than sambo athletes. Although there are no gender differences in psychological distress in the total sample of athletes, elite sambo athletes achieve significantly lower scores in all tested variants than recreational ones. Women who engage in recreational activities have stood out as a vulnerable subsample in psychological stress.ConclusionFuture epidemiological and interventional studies should explore optimal strategies to identify mental health needs based on specific sport activity, especially in terms of gender. There is a need to place special emphasis on psychological distress in the context of combat sports. (shrink)

This book collects the work of leading scholars on Alain Badiou and G.W.F. Hegel, creating a dialogue between, and a critical appraisal of, these two central figures in European philosophy.

Bl. Ladislaus of Gielniów is commonly regarded as the first major literary figure in Poland to write in Polish, as well as Latin. He is also the most important writer among the friars of the early Franciscan observant reform movement in Poland, which grew vigorously there after the visit of St. Giovanni of Capestrano in 1453. There, they took on the name of "Bernardines" to distinguish them from the Conventual Franciscans, after the cult of St. Bernardino of Siena, which (...) Capestrano promoted so strongly on all his travels.1 The Bernardine contribution to the development of the Polish literary language was significant, and the Bernardine contribution to the development of popular... (shrink)