Philosophies of Difference engages with the concept of difference in relation to a number of fundamental philosophical and political problems. Insisting on the inseparability of ontology, ethics and politics, the essays and interview in this volume offer original and timely approaches to thinking nature, sexuate difference, racism, and decoloniality. The collection draws on a range of sources, including Latin American Indigenous ontologies and philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, Immanuel Kant, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Charles Mills, (...) and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. -/- The contributors think embodiment and life by bringing continental philosophy into generative dialogue with fields including plant studies, animal studies, decoloniality, feminist theory, philosophy of race, and law. Affirming the importance of interdisciplinarity, Philosophies of Difference contributes to a creative and critical intervention into established norms, limits, and categories. Invoking a conception of difference as both constitutive and generative, this collection offers new and important insights into how a rethinking of difference may ground new and more ethical modes of being and being-with. Philosophies of Difference unearths the constructive possibilities of difference for an ethics of relationality, and for elaborating non-anthropocentric sociality. -/- The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue in Australian Feminist Law Journal. (shrink)

In the first English translation of his work, Laruelle explores the major European thinkers from Nietzsche to Derrida to define his own 'non-philosophical' ...

The dissertation presents a systematic analysis of the work of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze , using two interrelated themes as its guiding threads. The first is the concept of "difference," which is normally conceived as an empirical relation between two terms each of which have a prior identity of their own . In Deleuze, this primacy is inverted: identity persists, but it is now a secondary principle produced by a prior relation between differential elements. Difference here becomes (...) a transcendental principle that constitutes the sufficient reason of empirical diversity as such. The second theme thus concerns Deleuze's relation to Kant. Deleuze's philosophy, I argue, can be read as both an inversion and a completion of Kant's philosophy--a "transcendental empiricism," as Deleuze puts it. It entails a resumption of the critical project on a new basis and with an entirely new set of non-categorical concepts. Each chapter of the dissertation considers a philosophical domain that roughly parallels those laid out in the architectonic of Kant's three Critiques in order to examine the implications of the positing of a principle of difference in each of them: Dialectics, or the theory of the Idea; Aesthetics, or the theory of Sensation; Analytics, or the theory of the concept; Ethics, or the theory of affectivity; and Politics, or social theory. Taken together, the five chapters attempt to present the broad outlines of Deleuze's philosophy of difference, and to indicate the nature of its demands in each of these domains. (shrink)

The concept of difference occupies a central place in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. In this work, David Bright explores how Deleuze's difference can be put to work in critical qualitative research. The book explores research and writing as a creative process of dynamically pursuing problems. Following Deleuze's advice not tothink of problems in terms of solutions, the book offers important methodological insights into the ways the subjects, objects, and processes of research might be conceived and represented (...) in writing, exploring the problem of thinking and writing about difference in complex ways without reducing thought to static representations of identity. Bright uses the example of foreign teachers and international schooling in Vietnam to show us how Deleuze's difference can be used in critical qualitative research, demonstrating the limits of traditional ways of thinking about difference in learning and teaching. Exploring Deleuze's Philosophy of Differenceis a book that will interest all those with an interest in the application of Deleuze's philosophy to critical qualitative research. Perfect for courses such as: Critical Qualitative Research | Qualitative Inquiry | Post-qualitative Inquiry | Deleuze | Difference | Identity | Ethnography | English Language Teaching | International Education | Writing as a Method of Inquiry. (shrink)

Everything you need to understand both Laruelle's critique of difference and his project of non-philosophyGilles Deleuze described Laruelle's thought as 'one of the most interesting undertakings of contemporary philosophy'. Now, Rocco Gangle - who translated Laruelle's philosophy into English - takes you through Laruelle's trailblazing book Philosophies of Difference, helping you to understand both Laruelle's critique of Difference and his project of non-philosophy, which has become one of the most intriguing avenues in contemporary thought. (...) He explains the context within which Laruelle's thought developed and takes you through the challenging argument and conceptual scaffolding of 'Philosophies of Difference'. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the underdeveloped field of experimental philosophy of science. We examine variability in the philosophical views of scientists. Using data from Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, we analyze scientists’ responses to prompts on philosophical issues (methodology, confirmation, values, reality, reductionism, and motivation for scientific research) to assess variance in the philosophical views of physical scientists, life scientists, and social and behavioral scientists. We find six prompts about which differences arose, with several more that look promising for future research. (...) We then evaluate the difference between the natural and social sciences and the challenge of interdisciplinary integration across scientific branches. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze two key claims offered by recruitment AI companies in relation to the development and deployment of AI-powered HR tools: (1) recruitment AI can objectively assess candidates by removing gender and race from their systems, and (2) this removal of gender and race will make recruitment fairer, help customers attain their DEI goals, and lay the foundations for a truly meritocratic culture to thrive within an organization. We argue that these claims are misleading for four reasons: (...) First, attempts to “strip” gender and race from AI systems often misunderstand what gender and race are, casting them as isolatable attributes rather than broader systems of power. Second, the attempted outsourcing of “diversity work” to AI-powered hiring tools may unintentionally entrench cultures of inequality and discrimination by failing to address the systemic problems within organizations. Third, AI hiring tools’ supposedly neutral assessment of candidates’ traits belie the power relationship between the observer and the observed. Specifically, the racialized history of character analysis and its associated processes of classification and categorization play into longer histories of taxonomical sorting and reflect the current demands and desires of the job market, even when not explicitly conducted along the lines of gender and race. Fourth, recruitment AI tools help produce the “ideal candidate” that they supposedly identify through by constructing associations between words and people’s bodies. From these four conclusions outlined above, we offer three key recommendations to AI HR firms, their customers, and policy makers going forward. (shrink)

Biesta has suggested that education after humanism should be interested in existence, not essence, in what the subject can do, not in what the subject is—the truth about the subject—and this is the way inspired by Foucault and Levinas. In this article, I analyze Foucault’s alleged deconstruction and reconfiguration of the subject and Levinas’ approach to human subjectivity and suggest that Foucault’s early and later works have already implied certain concepts of the subject and that Levinas’ approach to human subjectivity (...) does not, as has often been perceived in educational circles, avoid theorizing about human subjectivity. Drawing on the French philosophy of difference, particularly Levinas’ ideas of alterity and subjectivity, I propose a post-humanist subject as a singular existence that ‘announces, promises, and at the same time conceals’, that cannot be exhausted, totalized, and replicated. The singular and unique subject, open and responsible to the world and beyond, is indispensible to the educational mission of subjectification. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the eighteenth century the philosophy of art has been engaged on the project of trying to find out what the fine arts have in common and, thus, how they might be defined. Peter Kivy's purpose in this accessible and lucid book is to trace the history of that enterprise and argue that the definitional project has been unsuccessful. He offers a fruitful change of strategy: instead of engaging in an obsessive quest for sameness, let us (...) explore the differences between the arts. He presents five case studies, three from literature, two from music. With its combination of historical and analytic approaches this is a book for a wide range of readers in philosophy, literary studies, music, and non-academic readers with interests in the arts. (shrink)

This book explores the relation between Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida by means of a dialogue with experts on the work of these mutually influential thinkers. Each essay in this collection focuses on the relation between at least two of these three philosophers focusing on various themes, such as Alterity, Justice, Truth and Language. By contextualising these thinkers and tracing their mutually shared themes, the book establishes the question of difference and its ongoing radicalization as the problem to which phenomenology (...) must respond. Heidegger’s influence on Derrida and Levinas was quite substantial. Derrida once claimed that his work ‘would not have been possible without the opening of Heidegger’s questions.’ Equally, as peers, Derrida and Levinas commented on and critiqued each other’s work. By examining the differences between these thinkers on a variety of themes, this book represents a philosophically enriching project and essential reading for understanding the respective projects of each of these philosophers. (shrink)

One of the main features of Italian feminism of "difference," as seen from an international perspective, is its distinctly political vocation. This vocation is not only, nor especially, limited to the perimeter of a gender politics, but is to be found in the radical critique or in the rethinking of traditional political categories, in the invention of new practices, in the redefinition of the very sphere of politics and in the modes of its transformation. The Italian case, as far (...) as feminism is concerned, is also characterised by the fact that this feminist political critique has been carried on for more than three decades alongside a crisis of traditional politics. The aim of this essay is twofold: one the one hand I analyse the relationship between political crisis and a critique of politics as seen in the larger framework of the relationship between the demise of patriarchy and the end of modern politics; on the other, I examine the resources which may derive from a feminist thought and practice in the present season, which, in Italy, seems marked not only by a crisis but by the collapse of democratic politics. (shrink)

Hegel’s conception of Spirit does not subordinate difference to sameness, in a way that would make it unusable for a genuinely intersubjective idealism directed to a comprehensive account of the contemporary world. A close analysis of the logic of recognition and the dialectic of conscience in the Phenomenology of Spirit demonstrates that the unity of Spirit emerges in and through conflict, and is forged in the process whereby particular encounters between differently situated individuals reveal and establish the emerging character (...) and significance of the stances they uniquely occupy. (shrink)

The article focuses on juxtaposing the stances of Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas on the notion of the Other based on the metaphysical principles of modernity so as to expose the prerequisites for their attitude to metaphysics in whole. The peculiarity of the proposed approach is the analysis of the notions of the Other in Rosenzweig and Levinas from the perspective of Jacques Derrida’s philosophy. The scrutiny proceeds from the assumption that the national philosophies, having been considered as the (...) specific response to the effects of the encounter of societies to be modernized with the spreading modernity, for that very reason attach great importance to the construal of the Other. It is emphasized that the similarities between the national schools of philosophy indicate correlating the particular with the general as the paradigm for the comprehension of the Other, whereas the Jewish philosophy has previously conceptualized that paradigm by way of the opposition of “Athens and Jerusalem”. In an effort to assess the capabilities of the above-mentioned paradigm the analysis of the relevant range of problems is set into the wider context and they are considered in connection with the transition from essentialism to anti-essentialism that characterizes already the late modernity. It is disclosed that Rosenzweig’s stance was still essentialist, while Levinas tried to abandon the essentialist understanding of the Other, albeit he did not complete the transition to anti-essentialism. Levinas’ break with metaphysics was brought to a close by Derrida whose anti-essentialist stance on identity and difference radically diverges from the thinking that adheres to the “metaphysics of presence”. In the issue, Derrida who does not formally belong to the Jewish philosophy could afford to summarize Rozenzweig’s and Levinas’ approaches to the problem of the Other, and in so doing he makes a contribution to both general and Jewish philosophy. (shrink)

This study addresses the complex and often fractious relationship between liberal political theory and difference by examining how distinctive liberalisms respond to human diversity. Drawing on published and unpublished writings, private correspondence and lecture notes, the study offers comprehensive reconstructions of Immanuel Kant's and John Stuart Mill's treatment of racial, cultural, gender-based and class-based difference to understand how two leading figures reacted to pluralism, and what contemporary readers might draw from them. The book mounts a qualified defence of (...) Millian liberalism against Kantianism's predominance in contemporary liberal political philosophy, and resists liberalism's implicit association with imperialist domination by showing different divergent responses to diversity. Here are two distinctive liberal visions of moral and political life. (shrink)

Introduction to the Difference Essay. FICHTE, SCHELLING, AND HEGEL The essay on the Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy was ...

This paper is a contribution to a discussion in philosophy of technology by focusing on the epistemological status of the example. Of the various developments in the emerging, inchoate field of philosophy of technology, the “empirical turn” stands out as having left the most enduring mark on the trajectory contemporary research takes. From a historical point of view, the empirical turn can best be understood as a corrective to the overly “transcendentalizing” tendencies of “classical” philosophers of technology, such (...) as Heidegger. Empirically oriented philosophy of technology emphasizes actual technologies through case-study research into the formation of technical objects and systems and how they, for example, transform our perceptions and conceptions or pass on and propagate relations of power. This paper explores the point of convergence of classical and contemporary approaches by means of the notion of the “example” or “paradigm.” It starts with a discussion of the quintessential modern philosopher of technology, Martin Heidegger, and his thinking about technology in terms of the ontological difference. Heidegger’s framing of technology in terms of this difference places the weight of intelligibility entirely on the side of being, to such an extent that his examples become heuristic rather than constitutive. The second part of the paper discusses the methodological and epistemological import of the “example” and the form of intelligibility it affords. Drawing on the work of Wittgenstein, Foucault, and Agamben, we argue that the example offers an alternative way of understanding the study of technologies from that of empirical case studies. (shrink)

This article seeks to challenge the regnant liberal orthodoxy that human rights are the highest and most important of our social virtues. It questions the individualist assumptions of such universa...

From the early 1960s until his death, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote many influential works on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. One of Deleuze's main philosophical projects was a systematic inversion of the traditional relationship between identity and difference. This Deleuzian philosophy of difference is the subject of Jeffrey A. Bell's Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos. Bell argues that Deleuze's efforts to develop a philosophy of difference are best understood by exploring (...) both Deleuze's claim to be a Spinozist, and Nietzsche's claim to have found in Spinoza an important precursor. Beginning with an analysis of these claims, Bell shows how Deleuze extends and transforms concepts at work in Spinoza and Nietzsche to produce a philosophy of difference that promotes and, in fact, exemplifies the notions of dynamic systems and complexity theory. With these concepts at work, Deleuze constructs a philosophical approach that avoids many of the difficulties that linger in other attempts to think about difference. Bell uses close readings of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Whitehead to illustrate how Deleuze's philosophy is successful in this regard and to demonstrate the importance of the historical tradition for Deleuze. Far from being a philosopher who turns his back on what is taken to be a mistaken metaphysical tradition, Bell argues that Deleuze is best understood as a thinker who endeavoured to continue the work of traditional metaphysics and philosophy. (shrink)

This paper brings a critical focus to difference and the creative arts in education with specific attention to art as a site of knowledge in New Zealand conditions. The 1990s and early 2000s are marked by a paucity of critically engaged literature on the arts in education and a conspicuous absence of discussions on the politics of difference. Alongside the global return to empirical research in education where quantifiable data‐based projects tend to attract attention ahead of fundamentally crucial (...) questions of philosophical and critical registers, there has been an apparent reinvention of liberal humanistic concepts of creative practice. These tendencies are coupled with strategic political alignments of creativity with industry. The outcome appears to be a withering of attention to the politics of difference on the vine of educational philosophy, policy and practice in art education. The paper suggests that if the creative arts are to hold or gain any purchase in the stakes of education in a global world this vine must be tended and revitalised through a rigorous application of critically framed questions so that discourses of difference can be recognised as a social and political responsibility in the art educational encounter. (shrink)

The Picture of Abjection is an analysis of independent, contemporary, international film. Appropriating Kristeva's analysis of abjection, which she developed in the context of psychoanalytic theory to designate that which a subject rejects as a site of impurity, the book takes up the abject in order to illuminate various intersections of discrimination. The focus is on how race, gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity and nationality intersect with one another in ways that involve abjection. The argument is informed by a variety of (...) disciplines, including film theory, psychoanalysis, philosophy and gender theory. The aim of the book is to enhance understanding of how film can both engage in and ameliorate the ways forms of discrimination play off one another. (shrink)

The challenge of accommodating difference has traditionally proved highly problematic for cosmopolitanism proposals, given their inherently universalistic thrust. Today, however, we are acutely aware that in failing to give difference its due, we stand to perpetrate a significant injustice through negating precisely what differentiates diverse groupings and confers on them their identity. Moreover, in an increasingly pluralistic and multicultural world it has become clear that doing justice to difference is an essential prerequisite for the internal flourishing as (...) well as peaceable coexistence of diverse cultural and other groupings. Accordingly, as a corrective for the homogenising presuppositions of highly a universalistic and decontextualised template like the Habermasian, the present paper defends the need for a situated, dialogical approach that can not only accommodate difference but also treat it as a resource for promoting mutual understanding and potentially transformative learning. In thus defending the merits of a situated, dialogical template, the present paper also seeks to shed light on the conditions of its possibility. To this end, I argue the need to transcend significant structural limitations inherent in the Habermasian discourse model, while aspring to preserve and enhance its distinctive strengths. Accordingly, I press the case for a thoroughgoing reappropriation of such core Habermasian tenets as the symmetrical reciprocity requirement, the anticipation of consensus as outcome, and a one-sided emphasis on argumentative deliberation as the sole acceptable means of achieving this. Proceeding thus, I defend the merits of a situated cosmopolitanism grounded in plurivocal transformative dialogue as a counterbalance to an unqualified universalism. Correlatively, I defend openness to otherness under appropriately structured dialogical conditions as the primary prerequisite for a viable cosmopolitanism capable of meeting the needs of an increasingly pluralistic and globalised world. In the process, some notable points of contrast with Richard Shapcott's dialogical template are identified. (shrink)

Many contributions to the philosophical debate about conceptual and normative issues raised by the refugee crisis fail to take properly account of the difference between ideal and nonideal theory. This makes several otherwise interesting and apparently plausible contributions to the philosophy of the refugee crisis problematic. They are problematic in the sense that they mix up ideal and nonideal aspirations and assumptions in an incoherent way undermining the proposed views. Two examples of this problem are discussed. The first (...) example is David Miller’s contribution to the conceptual debate about how we should understand refugeehood. The second example is a common argument from the normative debate about how states should discharge their duties to help refugees, namely the claim that states should help in neighboring countries rather than by taking in more asylum seekers. Both are examples of arguments about how we should understand or respond to the refugee crisis, which appear to offer coherent principles for the moral guidance of political actors but which are actually incoherent as principles of practical reasoning for the context they aim to address. (shrink)

Traditional theistic proofs are often understood as evidence intended to compel belief in a divinity. John Clayton explores the surprisingly varied applications of such proofs in the work of philosophers and theologians from several periods and traditions, thinkers as varied as Ramanuja, al-Ghazali, Anselm, and Jefferson. He shows how the gradual disembedding of theistic proofs from their diverse and local religious contexts is concurrent with the development of natural theologies and atheism as social and intellectual options in early modern Europe (...) and America. Clayton offers a fresh reading of the early modern history of philosophy and theology, arguing that awareness of such history, and the local uses of theistic argument, offer important ways of managing religious and cultural difference in the public sphere. He argues for the importance of historically grounded philosophy of religion to the field of religious studies and public debate on religious pluralism and cultural diversity. (shrink)

This article will examine the consequences of highlighting ‘subject and difference’ in one of the curriculum theories that has been inspired by postmodernism. The term postmodernism is here first and foremost meant to signify the attempt to combine politics and morality with epistemology in accordance with Levinas, Lyotard and Bauman. The article will highlight some themes that need to be developed further for a postmodernism-inspired curriculum theory. A starting-point is a critique of the type of curriculum theory which has its (...) base in the new sociology of education . From this critique, focused on universal claims, the Habermasian-inspired universalism is quickly and critically dropped and left behind, and another form of reasoning is embarked upon. The latter is inspired by a ‘minotarian politics’ concept and tries to dissolve universalism as a prerequisite for critical conversations. With this background and with the help of Levinas, the article sets out to talk about ‘difference’ without reduction to the Same and finally suggest a direction for a postmodern curriculum theory with a ‘normative’ focus on knowledge. (shrink)

Collected essays by a leading philosopher situating the question of the animal in the broader context of a relational ontology.

This paper asks whether there is afuture for the age-old educational ideal ofBildung. It is argued that the modernconception of Bildung in terms of``rational autonomy'' should be understood as theeducational answer that was given to thepolitical question about citizenship in anemerging (modern) civil society. Raising thequestion about the future of Bildungtherefore means to ask what educationalresponse would be appropriate in our time. Itis argued that our time is one in which theidea of a universal or total perspective hasbecome problematic. We (...) now live in a world ofdifference in which the rational autonomouslife is only one of the possible ways to live.Beyond totalisation and isolation, a possiblefuture of Bildung might be found in theexperience that we can only live our life withothers. In a ``world of difference'' Bildung might follow from a questioning of``one's right to exist'' (Levinas). In thisrespect Bildung can happen anywhere andnot necessarily in those parts of the ``Bildungssystem'' that educators are mostfamiliar and comfortable with (i.e., theschool). Bildung becomes a lifelongchallenge and a lifelong opportunity. (shrink)

This paper tries to clarify the theory of difference in terms of ji or soku ("即") that is developed by Nishida Kitarō and Mou Zongsan, comparing it with contemporary occidental Metaphysics of difference. It is known that Nishida's argument for basho or place shows a kind of hesitation between identity and difference; several Kyoto philosophers, along with recent researchers, interpret Nishida's philosophy of "absolutely contradictory identity" in terms of soku as an ontology of not identity but (...) of difference. A similar hesitation is seen in Mou Zongsan's metaphysical argument for the difference between the act- and being- strata, which leads him to affirm the "identical" completeness of yuanjiao in terms of ji. I argue that these arguments become fully intelligible only as the result of their ontology of difference that strikingly resembles Deleuze's post-Heideggerian metaphysical attempt. This interpretation also shows how far their ontological speculation in terms of ji/ soku owes to the heritage of East Asian Buddhism because the contradiction between identity and difference is most seriously explored in the Tiantai tradition. (shrink)

The source of endless speculation and public curiosity, our scientific quest for the origins of human consciousness has expanded along with the technical capabilities of science itself and remains one of the key topics able to fire public as much as academic interest. Yet many problematic issues, identified in this important new book, remain unresolved. Focusing on a series of methodological difficulties swirling around consciousness research, the contributors to this volume suggest that ‘consciousness’ is, in fact, not a wholly viable (...) scientific concept. Supporting this ‘eliminativist‘ stance are assessments of the current theories and methods of consciousness science in their own terms, as well as applications of good scientific practice criteria from the philosophy of science. For example, the work identifies the central problem of the misuse of qualitative difference and dissociation paradigms, often deployed to identify measures of consciousness. It also examines the difficulties that attend the wide range of experimental protocols used to operationalise consciousness—and the implications this has on the findings of integrative approaches across behavioural and neurophysiological research. The work also explores the significant mismatch between the common intuitions about the content of consciousness, that motivate much of the current science, and the actual properties of the neural processes underlying sensory and cognitive phenomena. Even as it makes the negative eliminativist case, the strong empirical grounding in this volume also allows positive characterisations to be made about the products of the current science of consciousness, facilitating a re-identification of target phenomena and valid research questions for the mind sciences.​. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Somaesthetics and Racism:Toward an Embodied Pedagogy of DifferenceDavid A. Granger (bio)IntroductionThe philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked that "The human body is the best picture of the human soul."1 There is a basic truth in this assertion that we recognize (I want to say) intuitively: the notion that human beings are parts both mental and physical, that these facets are ultimately interdependent, and that they are in some measure correlated (...) was a commonplace in the intellectual culture of ancient Athens, especially among Socratic thinkers. It can also be found as a central part of the basic ontology and ideals of self-cultivation espoused in much East Asian philosophy. In the West, however, this deep appreciation for the relationship between mind and body appears somewhat sporadically after the Socratics, only to be fervently reasserted as a main plank in the lived philosophy of the early American pragmatists, as when Henry David Thoreau proclaimed that "We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins to refine a mean's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them."2I use the word "sporadically" above because it is likewise a basic truism that canonical Western philosophy has a long and storied history of rejecting, ignoring, or degrading the human body—that most formative part of our being and connection to the world and to others. The position of the later, more metaphysical Plato is iconic in this regard, and it effectively set the tone for much Christian theology and the Cartesian philosophy of consciousness. For Plato and his adherents, the longing to escape our embodiedness, conceived as a necessary means to human (or perhaps superhuman) perfection [End Page 69] by achieving a godlike existence, requires effectively divorcing ourselves from the irrational brutes of terra firma. The body is conceived as a static constraint to human flourishing rather than a dynamic enabler. It is more or less an adversary, something that we must endeavor to be freed from or subdue.3 Its base senses and unruly passions deceive us epistemologically, while its inexorable power to situate us in space and time limits our objectivity. In its inevitable pains and infirmities, the body is also a constant reminder of the aging process and of our ultimate mortality. Deeming the body as at best a mere servant of the mind, philosophers typically have portrayed it as a veritable prison of deception, temptation, and suffering. Moreover, it is well-established that such thinking has been particularly pernicious in light of the historical identification of women and other marginalized groups with their variously enfeebled, depraved, or uncivilized bodies.4Against this disquieting backdrop, it is only relatively recently that the human body, and the significance of our existence as embodied beings, has received sustained positive attention by leading lights in Western philosophy and criticism. These luminaries include, among others, "feminist" thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and, of late, Susan Bordo and Judith Butler (with a nod to Michel Foucault, Pierre Bordeau, and others); pragmatists William James and John Dewey (with a nod to Emerson and Thoreau); phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (with a nod to Jean-Paul Sartre); analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (with a nod to James); and postmodernist Michel Foucault (with a nod to Friedrich Nietzsche, George Bataille, and the ancient Asian ars erotica tradition5). While these thinkers do not universally praise the body and its active, conscious cultivation for human flourishing (about which more later), they nonetheless acknowledge its necessity for all perception, action, and even thought.6 In short, they all seek to recognize and elucidate the significance—cognitive and affective, discursive and nondiscursive—of our full embodied intelligence.Looking specifically at the architectonics of the body espoused by the trio of Dewey, Foucault, and Wittgenstein, this article uses what philosopher Richard Shusterman terms "analytic somaesthetics" to examine some of the primary embodied dimensions of feeling, perception, action, and thought, particularly through the functioning of habit.7 In doing so, it seeks to expose the way various ideologies of domination (for example, racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, ageism, etc.) are covertly (and at times overtly) materialized... (shrink)

Although World of Warcraft utilizes ethnic and gender stereotypes in the construction of its playable characters, the structure of the gaming environment provides a modest utopian vision that is structurally just, maximizing both liberty and equality among participants in a way consistent with John Rawls's Theory of Justice. As a result, class, race, and gender are much more a matter of human (humanoid) variety, rather than a tool for hierarchically differentiation. Nevertheless, in players' engagement with the game, class, race, and (...) gender differences take on meaning well beyond the strucuture of the Warcraft universe demonstrating how real world values infect our imagination. (shrink)

The late Michael Frede once drew a distinction between the study of the history of philosophy in its own right and “a philosophically oriented study of the history of philosophy.” The key difference was that the study of the history of philosophy in its own right had to be aware of the historical context of the views it studied, both in a narrower and in a broader context, which broader context might very well have little to (...) do with philosophy as such. A careful consideration of the contextual and oftentimes non-philosophical reasons given for a philosophical position was necessary in order to get past any “doxographical substitute” for a philosopher’s position—a position and chain of reasoning that might be assigned to a philosopher because of one’s own philosophical interests—to get to the true position of that philosopher, e.g., Aristotle on the question of the agent intellect.Eric Perl, in his introduction to this study of Dionysius the Areopagite, positions himself strongly in the tradition of what Frede would have called doxographical or philosophically oriented history of philosophy. Thus, he would differ with Frede on the question of what is most important in exploring the positions of. (shrink)

Departing from what Levey and Sznaider (2002) in their seminal work ‘Memory Unbound’ refer to as ‘cosmopolitan memory’ that emerges as one of the fundamental forms ‘collective memories take in the age of globalization’, this article will consider the underlying ethical implications of global memory formation that have yet to be adequately theorized. Since global disseminations of local memory cultures and the implicit canonization of its traumas are intimately related to the concept of archive, I will first focus on what (...) Derrida (1996) in Archive Fever calls ‘archival violence’ and will show its inherent relation to the formation of cosmopolitan memory. Another related concept that I will use and that will problematize the transformation of living, embodied memory into archival, cultural memory upon which the formation of cosmopolitan memory depends is the witness. Using Agamben’s writing (2002) in this context that in Remnants of Auschwitz focuses on the foundational (im)possibilities of bearing witness, I will show that this transformation that determines the very possibility of cosmopolitan memory is far from unproblematic and readily accessible as Levy and Sznaider seem to assume. What will emerge as the most distinctive concern of global memory formation is the ethical material of difference as that which both makes its imperatives historically and politically exigent and that which signifies the difficulties of its unified articulation. Solidarity with the suffering of the other that mobilizes the very formation of cosmopolitan memory is also what should solicit vigilance against the universalistic ritualizations of its prerogatives. (shrink)

This book investigates how citizens who have differences and disagreements ought to relate to one another in a liberal democracy. Specifically, this book advances a metaphor of citizenship that I call 'role-based constitutional fellowship.' Role-based constitutional fellowship, I argue, is a desirable way for citizens to relate to one another in conditions of modern pluralism, where multiple races, ethnicities, religions, and economic statuses exist ('difference') and where citizens adhere to and pursue competing political interests, creeds, and objectives ('disagreement'). Under (...) role-based constitutional fellowship, citizens share a sense that they are united in a common aim and that they are largely committed to doing what is necessary to pursue that aim - that they are fellows. I describe this sense of fellowship as constitutional and role-based. (shrink)

in their book American Philosophy: From Wounded Knee to the Present, contemporary philosophers Erin McKenna and Scott Pratt identify "living in a context of difference" as the central philosophical issue in the history of the United States. They credit W. E. B. Du Bois with having identified racial difference as one particular version of this general issue: "Du Bois once declared that the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line—the problem of the (...) coexistence of differences that figure in our existence as members of communities". For McKenna and Pratt, this continues to be the central philosophical problem in the United States, and perhaps globally, today: "From the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond DisciplineOn the Status of Bodily Difference in PhilosophyEmily Anne ParkerMuch deserved attention has recently been directed to the fact that philosophy faculty are surprisingly homogeneous when compared to faculty in other fields, not only in the humanities and social sciences but also in the natural sciences (Alcoff 2011, 7–8). Perhaps it is as a result of this bodily homogeneity that sexual harassment and sexual assault in (...) philosophy departments are routine and that stories about such experiences, when they can be shared, are questioned or ignored. Certainly such experiences deserve attention. But they also deserve philosophical examination. Linda Martín Alcoff points out that a study of the relationship between percentages of (predominantly white, hetero, cisgendered, normatively abled) women in a department and the status of that department in Brian Leiter’s Philosophical Gourmet demonstrates a “reverse correlation, where the higher the percentages of women, the lower the rankings. Departments concerned about their Leiter rankings would be ‘rational,’ then to forego hiring too many women” (Alcoff 2011, 8). Alcoff suggests that instead of simply counting the nonwhite, cisgendered, heterosexual, normatively abled men in the field, we need to consider the connection between the “climate for women and the attitude toward feminist philosophy” and (as her own work elsewhere would suggest) the philosophy of race. Clearly Alcoff is right to suggest that we should not think of sexual harassment as the obstacle to participation of a very small sampling of bodily diversity in the field, but rather as a circular indicator and cause of a larger problem. [End Page 222]But what is the problem?I would like to suggest that the problem, still underdiscussed, is the implicit disciplining of what counts as philosophical. It is this quiet yet ubiquitous questioning that not only keeps philosophy homogeneous, but also prevents most critics of that homogeneity from doing more than reporting limited demographical information about the field. To be sure, when one wants to argue that there is something wrong with the culture of philosophy as a field, it seems necessary to marshal data. And yet it will always be the case that such studies can never answer questions about how a culture develops, what its assumptions, horizons, and cosmologies are. For this one needs (critical race, feminist, ability, queer, trans, economic, ecological) philosophy. And yet, circularly, disciplining what counts as philosophical sets limits to what questions can be explored.Kristie Dotson, Gayle Salamon, and Alexis Shotwell have each in separate contexts pointed out that what counts as “philosophy” should be recognized as the philosophical question that it itself apparently is (Dotson 2011, 2012; Salamon 2009; Shotwell 2010). This conversation about what counts as philosophy is directly related to the status not only of white hetero women in the field, but also the status of anyone who challenges the philosophical centrality of normatively raced-classed-abled-gendered bodies. In a recent paper, Dotson reflects on having been asked repeatedly, “How is this paper philosophy?” (Dotson 2012, 407). This question is extremely common, and as Shotwell points out, having to answer it is “a common experience for people who attempt to do work in philosophy while departing in archive and method from accepted norms” (117). Shotwell further suggests that it’s not just archive and method that make one suspect; it’s also the questions that one is willing to ask about oneself, about community, about world. Read together, Dotson and Shotwell make it clear not only that the question of whether one’s work is or is not philosophical is a common question, but that this is the case precisely because it is taken for granted what philosophy is, perhaps especially by those who ask whether X is or is not philosophy. Otherwise the question of how some project or other is philosophy simply wouldn’t be articulable as a question.For the moment I would like to take a widely common and implicit definition of philosophy seriously: “Philosophy” is whatever directs fundamental questions at itself. Perhaps this means that philosophy is the art of attempting to discern the creative within the wrongly presumed. We could then say that philosophy asks, What do we presuppose? Why, and... (shrink)

A new edition of the first systematic reading of Hegel's political philosophy Elements of the Philosophy of Right is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important works in the history of political philosophy. This is the first book on the subject to take Hegel's system of speculative philosophy seriously as an important component of any robust understanding of this text. Key Features •Sets out the difference between 'systematic' and 'non-systematic' readings of Philosophy (...) of Right •Outlines the unique structure of Hegel's philosophical arguments •Explores key areas of Hegel's political philosophy: his theories of property, punishment, morality, law, monarchy, war, democracy and history This significantly expanded second edition includes: a more detailed explanation of Hegel's philosophical system, two new chapters on his theories of democracy and history and an appendix detailing the implications this work has for future interpretations of Hegel's philosophy. (shrink)

This article begins by examining the status of “difference” in representations of perspectivist cosmologies, which are themselves often represented as radically different to Euro-American cosmologi...

I begin with a brief statement of wisdom's view of the nature of religious belief, its truth and the kind of reasoning to which it is amenable. i then try to disentangle the truth and falsity which, as i see it, this view contains. i agree that the believer and non-believer differ in the way they "see" things even when they do not differ in their expectations about an afterlife. i characterize this difference as "conceptual". i then discuss what (...) it means to speak of "truth" here and consider the kind of "reasoning" it is amenable to. (shrink)

The vacuum is the lowest energy state of a field in a certain region of space. This definition implies that no particles can be present in the vacuum state. In classical physics, the only features of vacuum are those of its geometry. For example, in the general theory of relativity the geometry is a dynamical structure that guides the motion of matter, and, in turn, it is bent and curved by the presence of matter. Other than this, the classical vacuum (...) is a structure void of any physical properties, since classically properties are strictly associated with physical objects such as particles and finite-amplitude fields. The situation is very different in quantum physics. As I will show in this paper, the difference stems from the fact that in quantum physics the properties are not strictly tied to objects. We know for example that physical properties come into existence - as values of observables - only when the object is measured. Thus, quantum physics allows us to detach properties from objects. This has consequences: one does not need pre-existing real objects to create actual properties, and indeed under certain perturbations the quantum vacuum produces observable effects such as energy shifts and creation of particles. An open question is if by necessity the vacuum comes with an embedded geometry, and if it is possible to construct viable physical theories in which geometry is detached from the vacuum. (shrink)

In this essay, we examine one of our perennial favorites, the story of “The Sneetches” (the first of four stories in Seuss 1961) as an exposition and condemnation of the role of shame and humiliation in maintaining oppressive social systems. We argue that Seuss’s Sneetches vividly demonstrate how we contribute to the unjustified oppression of a disadvantaged group when we allow our shaming behaviors to be guided by stereotypical presumptions about aperson’s moral character based on non-voluntary personal characteristics, rather than (...) by evaluations of character based on the evidence of voluntary behavior. (shrink)

Examines the theme of haunting in recent U.S. and postcolonial literature as a response to the dynamics of transnational literary circulation.