Posthumanism is the key to interpreting the twenty-first century and represents an international research program on the relationship with technology and the biosphere and new forms of citizenship and identity. This book clarifies the common denominators that differentiate posthumanism from other proposals.

Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin argue for a revolution in our cosmological ideas. Ideal for non-scientists, physicists and cosmologists.

Comment ne pas désespérer? Comment maximiser notre capacité d'agir et de penser? Comment défaire tous les efforts et les dispositifs qui visent à séparer la multitude de sa puissance?00L'urgence de ces questions traverse l'oeuvre d'Antonio Negri depuis ses commencements dans les années 1960 et 1970, alors qu'un mouvement d'insurrection ouvrière soulevait l'Italie jusqu'à ses plus récents développements avec l'altermondialisation et l'émergence dans l'espace public des questions écologiques. À travers différents ouvrages devenus des classiques de la théorie politique notamment La Classe (...) ouvrière contre l'État, Marx au-delà de Marx, L'Anomalie sauvage, Le Pouvoir constituant, mais aussi, en collaboration avec Michael Hardt, Empire, Multitude, Commonwealth et Assembly--, Antonio Negri a proposé l'une des contributions les plus marquantes à la pensée critique contemporaine. À l'heure de la contre-révolution néolibérale et du renouvellement des modalités de l'exploitation, il s'agit pour lui de prendre acte de la péremption des formes anciennes de la lutte des classes et de contribuer à l'ouverture d'un nouvel horizon révolutionnaire, à hauteur des enjeux du temps présent."--Back cover. (shrink)

The theory of the firm initially developed by Ronald Coase has made explicit the political nature of firms by putting hierarchy at the heart of the economic process. Theories of workplace democracy articulate this intuition in the normative terms of the conditions under which this political power can be legitimate. This paper presents an organizational theory of workplace democracy, and contends that the democratization of firms requires that we take their organizational dimension explicitly into account. It thus construes democracy as (...) an organizational principle and juxtaposes it to market, hierarchy, and norm-compliance as rival principles for the organization of economic activities. Attempts to construe democracy as an organizational principle with unique features in the tradition of transaction-cost economics are discussed before proposing an innovative solution based on an updated version of grid/group cultural theory of politics, adjusted to accommodate the basic requirements of democratic theory. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy: accent. Accent is a fallacy of pragmatics. The fallacy of accent takes place when a premise in an argument seems to rely for its meaning on one possible vocal emphasis, but a conclusion is drawn that relies on an extrapolation from a different vocal emphasis of the same phrase. Such ambiguities are often the result of unacknowledged differences in background beliefs, attitudes, and expectations that people may implicitly bring (...) to the reading of a passage. The fallacy of accent can also be committed, therefore, when a passage is quoted without its original context, and erroneous inferences are drawn based on this (often deliberate) distortion. A classic example of this kind of deliberate form of quote mining is often used by creationists in their attempt to discredit Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. (shrink)

Problems of distributive justice throughout the lifespan are not new. Yet, the increased aging rate of contemporary societies and an array of new life‐extending technologies (LETs) make these problems more and more urgent and complicated. This chapter analyzes the moral and political impact of the LET. There are three kinds of “intergenerational” justice: justice between non‐coexisting generations, justice between partially co‐existing generations, and justice between coexisting generations. The advantage of considering LETs in the light of justice between age groups is (...) that we can assume a complete‐life view. LETs significantly modify the duration and the features of each stage of life. A consideration of the specific needs and features of each stage of life in a lifespan‐enhanced society is needed to regulate policies and offer fair equality of opportunity to each age group. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called 'amphiboly'. More formally speaking, the fallacy of amphiboly occurs when the meaning of a phrase or sentence is indeterminate or ambiguous, particularly as a result of poor syntax, and especially when further inferences are drawn based on the acceptance of an unintended meaning of the passages. Amphibolies can also have the potential to either threaten political careers or make them indefinitely memorable. The ambiguities found in cases of (...) amphiboly usually arise from mistakes in grammar but also from various forms of linguistic booby traps. It is important to note, however, that not all instances of amphiboly are trivial. The interpretation of carelessly constructed legal contracts and wills, for instance, has been known to produce unnecessary and painful conflicts. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called 'poisoning the well' (PTW). There are some forms of ad hominem varieties that are usually a response to an interlocutor's claims. Unlike them, PTW occurs when we illegitimately prime our audience with a pre‐emptive strike against, or with adverse information about, an argumentative opponent before the latter has had a chance to say anything in her own defense, or in defense of her point of view. This has (...) the insidious effect of creating a conceptual framework according to which the audience – and maybe even the interlocutor herself – will interpret her claims as 'fulfilling' and 'confirming' the presumptions buried inside this conceptual trap. Most of the time Karl Popper's criterion of falsifiability is still quite a useful tool and one that can help us gain a firmer understanding of PTW. (shrink)

The Book of Mormon begins as missionaries Kevin Price and Arnold Cunningham eagerly await a location assignment for their two‐year mission. Religious fundamentalism is the real problem that The Book of Mormon and South Park usually have in mind when they tackle the topic of religion. Throughout this chapter, the author explains The Book of Mormon and South Park expose the way of believing for what it really is: a naive and arrogant approach to God, the world, and what it (...) means to be human. Fundamentalist thinkers have the luxury of living in a black and white world of cold absolutes. The rest of us, fortunately or unfortunately, don't. Rather, we have no choice but to live in the real world, a world of difficult questions and deep ambiguities. But the real world is also a fascinating place of brilliant color and real diversity. (shrink)

Roberto Esposito is one of the most prolific and important exponents of contemporary Italian political theory.

This book presents the theory of anticipation, and establishes anticipation of the future as a legitimate topic of research. It examines anticipatory behavior, id est a behavior that 'uses' the future in its actual decisional process. The book shows that anticipation violates neither the ontological order of time nor causation. It explores the question of how different kinds of systems anticipate, and examines the risks and uses of such anticipatory practices. The book first summarizes the research on anticipation conducted within (...) a range of different disciplines, and describes the connection between the anticipatory point of view and futures studies. Following that, its chapters on Wholes, Time and Emergence, make explicit the ontological framework within which anticipation finds its place. It then goes on to discuss Systems, Complexity, and the Modeling Relation, and provides the scientific background supporting anticipation. It restricts formal technicalities to one chapter, and presents those technicalities twice, in formal and plain words to advance understanding. The final chapter shows that all the threads presented in the previous chapters naturally converge toward what has come to be called "Discipline of Anticipation". (shrink)

Facebook claims that it is building a “global community.” Whether this sounds utopian, dystopian, or simply self-promotional, there is no denying that social-media platforms have altered social interaction, political life, and outlooks on the world, even for people who do not regularly use them. In this book, Roberto Simanowski takes Facebook as a starting point to investigate our social-media society—and its insidious consequences for our concept of the self. Simanowski contends that while they are often denounced as outlets for (...) narcissism and self-branding, social networks and the practices they cultivate in fact remake the self in their image. Sharing is the outsourcing of one’s experiences, encouraging unreflective self-narration rather than conscious self-determination. Instead of experiencing the present, we are stuck ceaselessly documenting and archiving it. We let our lives become episodic autobiographies whose real author is the algorithm lurking behind the interface. As we go about accumulating more material for the platform to arrange for us, our sense of self becomes diminished—and Facebook shapes a subject who no longer minds. Social-media companies’ relentless pursuit of personal data for advertising purposes presents users with increasingly targeted, customized information, attenuating cultural memory and fracturing collective identity. Presenting a creative, philosophically informed perspective that speaks candidly to a shared reality, Facebook Society asks us to come to terms with the networked world for our own sake and for all those with whom we share it. (shrink)

For some while we have been witnessing a series of destructive phenomena which seem to indicate a full-fledged return to the negative on the world stage – from terrorism and armed conflict to the threat of environmental catastrophe. At the same time, politics seems increasingly impotent in the face of these threats. In this book, the leading Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito reconstructs the genealogy of the reciprocal intertwining of politics and negation. He retraces the intensification of negation in the (...) thought of various thinkers, from Schmitt and Freud to Heidegger, and examines the negative slant of some of our fundamental political categories, such as sovereignty, property and freedom. Against the centrality of negation, Esposito proposes an affirmative philosophy that does not negate or repress negation but radically rethinks it in the positive cipher of difference, determination and opposition. The result is a rigorous and original pathway which, in the tension between affirmation and negation, recognizes the disturbing traumas of our time, as well as the harbingers of what awaits at its limits. This highly original and timely book will be of great value to students and scholars in philosophy, cultural theory and the humanities more generally, and to anyone interested in contemporary European thought. (shrink)

Alessandro Torza argues that Ted Sider’s Lewisian argument against vague existence is insufficient to rule out the possibility of what he calls ‘super-vague existence’, that is the idea that existence is higher-order vague, for all orders. In this chapter it is argued that the possibility of super-vague existence is ineffective against the conclusion of Sider’s argument since super-vague existence cannot be consistently claimed to be a kind of linguistic vagueness. Torza’s idea of super-vague existence seems to be better suited to (...) model vague existence under the assumption that vague existence is instead a form of ontic indeterminacy, contra what Ted Sider and David Lewis assume. (shrink)

This book by Roberto Esposito - a leading Italian political philosopher - is a highly original exploration of the relationship between human bodies and societies. The original function of law, even before it was codified, was to preserve peaceful cohabitation between people who were exposed to the risk of destructive conflict. Just as the human body's immune system protects the organism from deadly incursions by viruses and other threats, law also ensures the survival of the community in a life-threatening (...) situation. It protects and prolongs life. But the function of law as a form of immunization points to a more disturbing consideration. Like the individual body, the collective body can be immunized from the perceived danger only by allowing a little of what threatens it to enter its protective boundaries. This means that in order to escape the clutches of death, life is forced to incorporate within itself the lethal principle. Starting from this reflection on the nature of immunization, Esposito offers a wide-ranging analysis of contemporary biopolitics. Never more than at present has the demand for immunization come to characterize all aspects of our existence. The more we feel at risk of being infiltrated and infected by foreign elements, the more the life of the individual and society closes off within its protective boundaries, forcing us to choose between a self-destructive outcome and a more radical alternative based on a new conception of community. (shrink)

A leading Italian philosopher develops an original perspective on the crisis of contemporary politics.

Gerald Odonis and Francis of Marchia, both Franciscan masters of theology active in the early fourteenth century, played an important role in the controversies that split the Franciscan Order as a result of Pope John XXII's decisions concerning the theory of religious poverty. They fought on opposite fronts: Odonis was elected Minister General after the deposition of Michael of Cesena, whom Francis supported in the struggle against the pope. This paper reconstructs the different stages at which Francis became a target (...) of Odonis' repressive actions against his dissident former confreres, from the first mention of Francis' name in the lists of rebels to the letter Quid niteris, where Odonis reproaches Francis for his purported violations of the Franciscan Rule. Odonis most probably intentionally avoided entering the slippery ground of the poverty controversy and preferred attacking Francis on ecclesio-political issues. (shrink)

The hopes fostered by the end of the Cold War have been shattered, in this troubled beginning of the XXI century, both by a new kind of extreme violence, transnational terrorism, and-more recently-by a global economic downturn with no end yet in sight. Facing these challenges, world governance suffers from the inadequacy both of political theory and of institutions. This book invites us to go back to basics, i.e. to revisit the very foundations of political and moral theory, and reconsider (...) in the light of the present global predicament the relationship between ends and means, the concept of liberty, the precept of solidarity. Terrorism is a test case of our capacity to look beyond our narrow political options in order to attain the common goal of banning it legally, politically and morally. In order to do that, we will have to be able to define terrorism in a way that recognizes it as distinct from other forms, sometimes equally repulsive but different, of violence. It is an effort that requires at the same time ethical sensitivity and a new kind if non-ideological realism. The same effort that must allow us to build and strengthen new international institutions, from the economy to international criminal law. (shrink)