The Hegelian-Marxist idea of alienation fell out of favor during the post-metaphysical rejection of humanism and essentialist views of human nature. In this book Jaeggi draws on phenomenological analyses grounded in modern conceptions of agency, along with recent work in the analytical tradition, to reconceive of alienation as the absence of a meaningful relationship to oneself and others, which manifests itself in feelings of helplessness and the despondent acceptance of ossified social roles and expectations. A revived approach to alienation helps (...) critical social theory engage with phenomena, such as meaninglessness, isolation, and indifference, which have broad implications for issues of justice. By severing alienation's link to a problematic conception of human essence while retaining its social-philosophical content, Jaeggi provides resources for a renewed critique of social pathologies, a much-neglected concern in contemporary liberal political philosophy. Her work revisits the arguments of Rousseau, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, placing them in dialogue with Thomas Nagel, Bernard Williams, and Charles Taylor. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Early Life and Thought The Middle Period The Final Period and Late Writings.

For many liberals, the question "Do others live rightly?" feels inappropriate. Liberalism seems to demand a follow-up question: "Who am I to judge?" Peaceful coexistence, in this view, is predicated on restraint from morally evaluating our peers. But Rahel Jaeggi sees the situation differently. Criticizing is not only valid but also useful, she argues. Moral judgment is no error; the error lies in how we go about judging. One way to judge is external, based on universal standards derived from (...) ideas about God or human nature. The other is internal, relying on standards peculiar to a given society. Both approaches have serious flaws and detractors. In On the Critique of Forms of Life, Jaeggi offers a third way, which she calls "immanent" critique. Inspired by Hegelian social philosophy and engaged with Anglo-American theorists such as John Dewey, Michael Walzer, and Alasdair MacIntyre, immanent critique begins with the recognition that ways of life are inherently normative because they assert their own goodness and rightness. They also have a consistent purpose: to solve basic social problems and advance social goods, most of which are common across cultures. Jaeggi argues that we can judge the validity of a society's moral claims by evaluating how well the society adapts to crisis--whether it is able to overcome contradictions that arise from within and continue to fulfill its purpose. Jaeggi enlivens her ideas through concrete, contemporary examples. Against both relativistic and absolutist accounts, she shows that rational social critique is possible.--. (shrink)

For nursing, the idea of bearing witness is of utmost importance. Nurses are present with persons who experience changes in their health and quality of life and who live intense and profound moments of struggling, questioning, and finding meaning. Nurses are also with persons from moment to moment as their lives unfold, and when joy, serenity, contentment, vulnerability, sadness, fear, and suffering are experienced. In this paper, it is proposed that bearing witness is a moral way of engaging in the (...) nurse–person relationship. Based on Levinas’s ethics of the face, it is claimed that bearing witness is enacting one’s moral responsibility, which arises from the encounter with the other. Drawing on Parse’s human becoming theory, ways of witnessing and bearing witness are defined and discussed. It is suggested that bearing witness is a human‐to‐human way of being‐relating, a mode of human coexistence. Bearing witness is being present and attentive to the truth of another’s experiences. Moreover, in this paper, the ways nurses enact their moral agency and bear witness to others placed in their care, or turn away, are explored. Nurses’ moral agency is located in the constrained moral space of contemporary health care. Hence, the creation of a moral space, which allows nurses to enact their moral responsibility of bearing witness to other persons’ experiences of health and quality of life, is called for. In doing so, it is suggested that the act of bearing witness needs a specific nursing knowledge base and a recognition that being present and being with another is a valuable nursing practice that is utterly meaningful for persons who are living through difficult times. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 8, Page 1123-1139, October 2022. Major debates on democratic renewal suggest two ways of eliciting social change: either by strengthening vertical practices of representation or by expanding horizontal forms of participation. The article develops an argument for why there is a need to rethink democratic resistance beyond the vertical–horizontal divide. If contemporary forms of resistance encompass a strategic interplay between vertical and horizontal practices, then an alternative framework is required to capture this logic. (...) Filling this gap, the article introduces the concept of ‘horizontal experimentalism’. Such an idea comprehends an understanding of political means and ends as a continuum and as adjusting each other in an ongoing process of experimental inquiry. (shrink)

Annotation. There has never been a writer quite like Christopher Pearson. A BETTER CLASS OF SUNSET brings together Pearson's enduring columns and essays, chronicling the twists and turns of Australian cultural life over three intriguing decades. From climate change to homosexuality and the welfare of Indigenous Australians, Pearson was an unflagging champion of unfashionable causes, a conscientious objector to political correctness and a skilled dissector of muddle-headed arguments. They reveal a true man of letters with a rare (...) literary voice; passionate, moving and often very funny, Pearson's thinking seldom strays from his abiding principles. For all those who aspire to be members of what Pearson called Club Sensible, A BETTER CLASS OF SUNSET is an indispensible addition to the bookshelf. (shrink)

In this book Jaeggi draws on phenomenological analyses grounded in modern conceptions of agency, along with recent work in the analytical tradition, to reconceive of alienation as the absence of a meaningful relationship to oneself and ...

Major debates on democratic renewal suggest two ways of eliciting social change: either by strengthening vertical practices of representation or by expanding horizontal forms of participation. The article develops an argument for why there is a need to rethink democratic resistance beyond the vertical–horizontal divide. If contemporary forms of resistance encompass a strategic interplay between vertical and horizontal practices, then an alternative framework is required to capture this logic. Filling this gap, the article introduces the concept of ‘horizontal experimentalism’. Such (...) an idea comprehends an understanding of political means and ends as a continuum and as adjusting each other in an ongoing process of experimental inquiry. (shrink)

Candide is the most famous of Voltaire's 'philosophical tales', in which he combined witty improbabilities with the sanest of good sense. This edition includes four other prose tales - Micromegas, Zadig, The Ingnu, and The White Bull - and a verse tale based on Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale,: What Pleases the Ladies.

In this paper, I will argue that a prominent theory of rationality could ground an argument for the existence of a self. Specifically, a self that is only captured in first- personal beliefs, and which is hence distinct from the physical body, in so far as the latter can be captured in third-personal beliefs. First-personal beliefs are beliefs characteristically expressed with first-personal utterances. Perry has argued that first- personal beliefs are necessary for certain actions. On closer examination, the appropriate conclusion (...) of Perry's arguments is that first-personal beliefs are necessary for rational actions. If one adopts a popular view of rationality according to which it consists in the coherence of one's attitudes, one can give first-personal beliefs a unique role in rationality without giving them a unique content. However, recently it has been argued that rationality consists in responding appropriately to the world. According to this latter theory of rationality, a belief is only necessary for a rational action in so far as one must have a belief in order to be aware of and respond to the world. On this latter theory, if first-personal beliefs are to have a unique role in rationality, first-personal beliefs must capture something unique about the world. The conclusions of the paper are twofold. Firstly, we ought to see the problems surrounding essential first-personal beliefs as bound up with rationality. Secondly, if we follow current trends in the philosophical study of rationality we could be led into conflict with common responses to these problems and towards the existence of a non-physical self. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Weightiest Knowledge Truth and its Incorporation Knowledge and Self‐Knowledge.

In the contemporary globalized economy, multinational companies have come to hold considerable power that may previously have rested with nation states. However, state structures remain relevant. With Brexit, the year 2016 featured an exemplary case in which the ongoing importance of nation states came to the fore. Preceding the British referendum to exit the European Union, discourses of national identity were deployed to promote a vote for the anti-globalization campaign. It is against this background that this research investigates how the (...) relationship between multinational corporations and nation states is constructed in news discourse. The underlying assumption is that news actively construct rather than merely reflects the nature of this relationship. Drawing on Social Actor Analysis and Transitivity as a theoretical framework, this study examines news coverage of the BP oil spill that occurred in the United States in 2010 but was caused by a multinational company headquartered in the United Kingdom. The main research question is ‘How does the media establish a link between multinational corporations and nation states?’. To address this central question, this study investigates how corporate responsibility is assigned, the role of the nation state is portrayed and victim status is allocated in the news. Findings show that the nature of the problem is constructed differently according to diverging national interests or priorities of the two nations represented by the media sources analyzed. The study indicates that the discourse around British nationality emphasized in the political struggle around Brexit was already mobilized extensively in the years leading up to the referendum. (shrink)

What is the problem with capitalism? Is it wrong, unjust, irrational, or bad? Is it evil or dumb—or is it just not working? While critiques of capitalism have become commonplace—particularly since the most recent global economic crisis—it is often unclear what exactly is being condemned. Likewise, the normative presuppositions and criteria of such criticisms have been left unspecified. In this paper, I distinguish between three approaches to the critique of capitalism, distinguishing a functional, a moral, and an ethical argumentative strategy (...) and paying special attention to the distinctive types of argumentation they mobilize. First, I consider the “functional” critique, typically directed against capitalism's straightforward dysfunctions or crises. We will find, however, that this sort of criticism presupposes a normative criterion that is frequently unarticulated, namely: the implied “purpose” of a well‐functioning economic system. Second, I examine a common “moral” critique, that is, that capitalism is premised on exploitation. Yet, the concept of exploitation, too, introduces certain difficulties, since the kind of moral wrong associated with it—unequal exchange—is hardly obvious to everyday observation and must be derived systematically. Third, I introduce and address the “ethical” critique, broadly, that capitalism constitutes a bad form‐of‐life. However, while I object to some of the forms this criticism has taken—in particular, I argue that much “alienation” diagnosis is tainted by nostalgia and naiveté—I nonetheless recommend developing a critique of capitalism as a form‐of‐life that would include ethical and functional criteria. I conclude with some remarks in this direction. (shrink)

While Nietzsche's works and ideas are relevant across the many branches of philosophy, the themes of contest and conflict have been mostly overlooked. Conflict and Contest in Nietzsche's Philosophy redresses this situation, arguing for the importance of these issues throughout Nietzsche's work. The volume has three key lines of inquiry: Nietzsche's ontology of conflict; Nietzsche's conception of the agon; and Nietzsche's warrior-philosophy. Under these three umbrellas is a collection of insightful and provocative essays considering, among other topics, Nietzsche's understanding of (...) resistance; his engagement with classical thinkers alongside his contemporaries, including Jacob Burckhardt; his views on language, metaphor and aphorism; and war, revolt and terror. In bringing together such topics, Conflict and Contest in Nietzsche's Philosophy seeks to correct the one-sided tendencies within the existing literature to read simply 'hard' and 'soft' analyses of conflict. Written by scholars across the Anglophone and the European traditions, within and beyond philosophy, this collection emphasises the entire problematic of conflict in Nietzsche's thought and its relation to his philosophical and literary practice. (shrink)

Books reviewed: Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000. By Geoff Eley.. Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity. By Robert Strozier.. Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action. By Albert O. Hirschman. Twentieth‐anniversary edition, with a new foreword by Robert H. Frank.

The article discusses a notion of form as reflection in Benjamin and Adorno that can be traced back to early German Romanticism. A reading of Novalis’s Hymns to the Night exemplifies the notion and shows that form-as-reflection amounts to a mimetic relation between Dargestelltem and Darstellendem in a work of art. It is further argued that Husserl’s theory of the image, too, discusses this relation and allows to clarify the account of form in Benjamin and Adorno. The article thus reveals (...) a neglected development of a romantic paradigm of form in 20th century image theory and aesthetics. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 3 Seiten: 338-377.

The paper addresses the question of whether heritability can be useful in establishing genetics as an explanation for an individual’s display of some trait or behavior. After reviewing the fundamental philosophical challenge to heritability—that heritability is a population level measure—an argument is presented for rethinking the role heritability occupies in both causal and explanatory claims. It is argued that heritability can be useful for genetically based explanations of individual traits, if the conditions for proper genetic explanation are modestly reconceived, and (...) the measure is seen as an evidential tool which conforms to standard methods for determining causal factors. (shrink)

In order to understand the economy in a wider sense we should conceive of the economy as a set of social practices. To conceive of a ‘practices-oriented’ foundation for our thinking about economy a...

In his writings on teaching, Isreal Scheffler has argued for the close connection between teaching and reason, an argument which can be summarized by, Teaching is. . an initiation into open rational discussion. This essay examines Schefflier's thesis in the light of criticisms drawn from feminist writings on teaching. It is argued that Scheffler's thesis is consistent with a view of teaching in which it can be achieved through kindness, good example and the efficacy of unconscious imitation, characteristics of the (...) private, reproductive processes typical of women. It is then argued that Scheffler's concept of teaching is compatible with views of education that try to do justice to both reason and emotion, mind and feeling. (shrink)