Les opérations actuelles que mène Total en Afrique suivent un schéma ancien : l’exploitation, tournée vers les énergies fossiles, et la corruption des économies, des gouvernements, des sociétés et des environnements des pays en développement, le tout soutenu par la puissance étatique française. Emmanuel Macron rendit la chose tout à fait manifeste en 2021, lorsqu’il insista pour défendre le gaz possédé par Total au Mozambique (20 milliards de dollars) par une intervention militaire, menée par des soldats rwandais et sud-africains. Le (...) rôle sous-impérialiste de Pretoria explique son soutien désespéré aux nouveaux magnats du pétrole avec lesquels Total a fait alliance depuis la moitié des années 2010 pour exploiter d’importantes réserves de gaz et chercher de nouveaux gisements par dynamitage sismique. Mais depuis 2021, deux formes de résistance ont fait vaciller Total : les guérillas islamiques au Mozambique et les mobilisations écologistes et sociales déclenchées le long des côtes sud-africaines, tant du côté de l’océan Atlantique que de l’océan Indien. Mais il faudra dans les mois et les années à venir, organiser une campagne globale contre le renouveau de l’impérialisme – et du sous-impérialisme – fossile. (shrink)

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), psychiatre d'origine martiniquaise, bâtit en quelques livres une œuvre révolutionnaire dans laquelle il s'applique à décrire le système colonial et ses conséquences inévitables : le racisme et l'aliénation qu'il engendre. Mais il va aussi s'engager très concrètement, en Algérie. Rejetant toute forme d'obscurantisme, il entend défendre une Afrique libre, socialiste, démocratique et laïque. Son ambition? Ni plus ni moins que forger un nouvel humanisme, assumant les traditions locales comme la boussole universaliste, récusant tout impérialisme et permettant (...) à tous de s'épanouir librement. (shrink)

Membaca buku yang terbit dalam Brills Series in Church History ini mempesona. Buku ini begitu menarik karena menggariskan perjalanan intelektual dan teologis Gereja Katolik sejak Revolusi Prancis (1789-95) dan kekalahan Napoleon (1815) sampai ke tahun 2013, tahun Paus Benedikt XVI mengundurkan diri. Padahal 200 tahun itu adalah tahun-tahun terwujudnya modernitas. Maka buku ini memaparkan dan menganalisa bagaimana Gereja Katolik dan teologinya menghadapi modernitas. Di atas hanya 220 halaman para penulis memperkenalkan pembaca secara ketat, tetapi jelas dan rinci, dengan perkembangan amat (...) dramatis teologi Katolik, dengan peranselalu peran kuncipara Paus, para teolog dan aliran-aliran teologi Katolik utama. Suatu perjalanan yang mulai dengan penolakan total Gereja terhadap modernitas, melalui tu-nas-tunas pembaruan sesudah perang dunia pertama yang akhirnya bermuara dalam pembukaan diri Gereja terhadap cita-cita manusia masa kini dalam Konsili Vatikan II (1962-65), namun pembukaan mana justru membawa Gereja ke dalam suatu krisis baru. Modernitas yang dibahas dalam buku ini mulai dengan revolusi intelektual yang namanya pencerahan dengan segala macam kejutan: Rasionalisme, liberalisme dan sekularisme sebagai ideologi politik baru. Nasionalisme sebagai kekuatan politik amat dahsyat. Restorasi monarki-monarki sesudah kekalahan Napoleon, gerakan-gerakan populis-nasionalisseperti Risorgimento yang akan mempersatukan Italia, dengan sekaligus menghapus Negara Kepausan yang sudah berumur seribu tahun. Dua perang dunia di abad ke-20 yang mengubah wajah Eropa dan akhirnya membongkar kolonialisme dan imperialisme Eropa. Munculnya ideologi-ideologi sekuler keras seperti komunisme dan fasisme. Perang dingin dan anarki sesudah perang dingin selesai. Para penulis berhasil menempatkan Gereja dalam pusaran global itu. Mereka menunjukkan bagaimana Gereja di bawah Paus Gregor XVI (1831-46), di bawah syok Revolusi Prancis, mengambil sikap konfrontatif total terhadap modernitas, menolak tuntutan demokrasi, kebebasan beragama dan perpisahan antara Gereja dan Negara. Konsili Vatikan I (1869-70) di mana penolakan itu memuncak dibahas secara rinci dengan latar belakangnya dan keanekaan aliran teologis yang sebenarnya kompleks, dan bagaimana Gereja Katolik mendefinisikan diri sebagai Gereja Kepausan. Kita mengikuti bagaimana Gereja kemudian mau mengamankan diri dari tantangan pemikiran filsafat modern dengan menetapkan neo-skolastik sebagai filsafat dan teologi resmi Gereja, bagaimana obsesi anti-modernisme mencapai puncaknya di bawah Paus Pius X (1903-14). Kita membaca tentang ultramontanisme, gerakan Oxford, perhimpunan ekstrem kanan Prancis Action Catholique (yang akhirnya dibubarkan oleh Paus Pius XI [1922-1939]), dan juga tentang Sodalitium Pianum (Persaudaraan Pius), suatu jaringan rahasia yang memata-matai para dosen teologi dan filsafat, yang kalau dicurigai ketularan modernisme dilaporkan ke Roma, lalu dipecat (ada sekitar lima puluh dosen yang disingkirkan sebagai terjangkit modernisme). Kita menyaksikan gerakan-gerakan pembaruan yang muncul sesudah PD I seperti gerakan liturgis, gerakan biblis, gerakan ekumenis, para imam buruh dan nouvelle theologie (teologi baru, yang meski 1949 dilarang oleh Paus Pius XII (1939-58) namun akan memberi dorongan-dorongan kunci pada pembaruan Gereja dalam Konsili Vatikan II).... Gambaran Gereja 2013 pada permulaan Kepausan Fransiskus dalam buku ini berkesan ambivalen. Sebenarnya pimpinanPaus, para Uskupmendasarkan diri pada paham Gereja Konsili Vatikan II. Tetapi reformasi struktur pemerintahan Gereja tetap macet. Tentang banyak masalah rincikeluarga berencana, selibat wajib, kemungkinan pe-nahbisan perempuan menjadi imam, desentralisasi kekuasaan, peng-angkatan uskup atau peresmian teks-teks liturgi bagi Gereja lokal, misalnya terdapat perbedaan-perbedaan pandangan serius antara banyak teolog Katolik dengan Vatikan. Padahal Gereja adalah komunitas ber-iman yang dibangun atas keyakinan bahwa Gereja adalah ruang di mana kita bertemu dengan, dan dibimbing oleh, Yesus Kristus. Kekuasaan yang dipegang oleh Paus semata-mata harus demi menunjang panggilan Gereja itu. Kalau dalam umat terjadi kesan bahwa pimpinan Gereja memakai kekuasaan yang ada di tangannya untuk mempertahankan struktur-struktur kekuasaan yang tidak lagi dapat dilegitimasi atas dasar Injil, kredibilitas Gereja sendiri bisa mengalami kemerosotan. Barangkali keengganan Vatikan untuk mengadakan reformasi nyata bukan karena Vatikan masih, untuk sebagian, terperangkap oleh gambaran Gereja Vatikan I, sebagaimana disindir dalam buku ini, melainkanmengikuti kritik ideologi Karl Marxkarena Vatikan, seperti setiap aparat, seakan-akan dengan sendirinya mati-matian mau mempertahankan kekuasaan. Apakah Paus Fransiskus yang telah membawa angin baru ke dalam Vatikan akan membawa perubahan? (Franz Magnis-Suseno, Program Pascasarjana, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

Summary John Stuart Mill's classic tale of disillusionment from a ‘narrow creed’, an overt as much as a covert theme of his Autobiography (London, 1873), has for many years served as a guide to the search for the causes and sources of his ‘enlargement-of-the-utilitarian-creed’ project. As a result, in analyses of Mill's mature views, Samuel Taylor Coleridge—and friends—commonly take centre stage in terms of influence, whereas John's father—James Mill—is reduced either to a supernumerary or a villain in the last act (...) of John's intellectual development. However, students of Mill's works should not take at face value the story presented in Autobiography. Mill's own emphasis on the role of his ‘new influences’ has led scholars to disregard the role of his ‘old influences’ in his attempt to create a broader theory of living—one which takes into account both the intellectual and the emotional capacities of individuals. A close look at key aspects of John Stuart Mill's ‘enlargement project’ suggests that James Mill may have played a more positive role than is usually acknowledged. A way into the intellectual affinity of the two Mills is the person they both kept returning to for guidance and inspiration throughout their lives: Plato. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill considered his A System of Logic , first published in 1843, the methodological foundation and intellectual groundwork of his later works in ethical, social, and political theory. Yet no book has attempted in the past to engage with the most important aspects of Mill's Logic . This volume brings together leading scholars to elucidate the key themes of this influential work, looking at such topics as his philosophy of language and mathematics, his view on logic, induction and (...) deduction, free will, argumentation, ethology and psychology, as well as his account of normativity, kinds of pleasure, philosophical and political method and the "Art of Life.". (shrink)

The rise and fall of the historian of British India -- A classical education -- History, philosophy, and history -- Induction and deduction -- Rational persuasion -- Good government.

This book explores various connections of John Stuart Mill's thought to ancient Greek philosophy primarily in relation to his conception of happiness. It argues that a better understanding of Mill's background in ancient Greek thought and his reading(s) of Plato's dialogues leads to innovative interpretations of his moral and political thought.

It seems that eudaimonistic reconstructions of John Stuart Mill's conception of happiness have fallen prey to what they thought Mill should have done with regard to the role of pleasure in his notion of happiness. Insisting that utility and eudaimonia make conflicting claims, something which mirrors Mill's ‘conflicting loyalties’, they downgrade pleasure to just one of the ingredients of happiness. However, a closer look at Mill's intellectual development suggests otherwise. By focusing on Mill's radical background, this paper argues that pleasure (...) retains a central role in his conception of happiness – even from a eudaimonistic point of view. (shrink)

Contemporary sociosemiotics is a way to transcend borderlines between trends inside semiotics, and also other disciplines. Whereas semiotics has been considered as an interdisciplinary field of research par excellence, sociosemiotics can point directions at transdisciplinary research. The present article will try toconjoin the structural and the processual views on culture and society, binding them together with the notion of signification. The signification of space willillustrate the dynamic between both cultures and metacultures, and cultural mainstreams and subcultures. This paper pays attention (...) to the practice of sociocultural semiotisation of space and territorialisation by diverse examples and different sociocultural levels that imply semiotic cooperation between several members of groups that can be characterised as socii. We analyse territorialisation by graffiti, by furnishing spatial environment through artistic manners, by shaping the semiotic essence of cities through naming, renaming and translating street names, by pinning and structuring territories with monuments, by landmarking and mapping cultural space through individualisation of cities. We will see how principles of semiotisation of space are valid on different levels (individual and social, formal and informal, democratic and hegemonic, cultural and subcultural) and how these principles form a transdisciplinary object of study as ‘semiotisation of space’, and how space can be regarded as a genuinely transdisciplinary research object. Individual, culture, and society are connected in such an object both as constituents and as a background of study. (shrink)

The article views the development of the Tartu–Moscow semiotic school from the analysis of texts to the study of spatial entities (semiosphere being most well known of them). It comes to light that ‘culture’ and ‘space’ have been such notions in Tartu–Moscow School to which, for instance, the ‘semiosphere’ does not add much. There are studied possibilities to join Uexküll’s and Lotman’s basic concepts (as certain grounds of Estonian semiotics) with Tartu–Moscow School’s treatment of culture and space through the notion (...) of ‘semiotic subject’. Such an approach allows to see transdisciplinarity, which has come to issue only during the last decade, already in the first conceptions of Tartu–Moscow School where transdisciplinarity revealed itself in the symbiotic use of ‘culture’ and ‘space’. (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 20, Issue 1, Page 204-207, January 2012.

This chapter argues that two distinct, yet connected, contexts – Mill's “mental crisis” and his task as a “Logician” – led to the formation of two arguments on the value of art. On one hand, Mill argued that aesthetic cultivation was important as an end in itself. Excellence was to be pursued disinterestedly as part of a beautiful life. On the other, Mill argued aesthetic cultivation was important as a means to the utilitarian end – strengthening the social sympathies made (...) social happiness attainable. The first argument highlights what Mill thought was missing from the theory of his utilitarian predecessors, while the second brought Mill closer to this tradition, rather than moving him further away from it. (shrink)

James Mill'sHistory of British India(1817) made a rather strange claim: first-hand experience of India was not vital in writing a history – potentially, it led to false ideas about its subject-matter: eyewitnesses are susceptible to bias. The historian was thus to perform his task as a judge: sifting through various testimonies to obtain a ‘more perfect’ conception of the whole than those who witnessed its various parts. Although strange, Mill's claim does not bewilder his readers: after all, Mill was a (...) ‘militant’ exponent of theorizing utilitarianism. I argue that such a reading of Mill's method is injudiciously restrictive. Not only did Mill draw on well-known methodological concerns in contemporary historiographical practice, not necessarily linked with Jeremy Bentham or the Scottish theoretical historiography, but he also seemed to adopt the vocabulary of forensic rhetoric, making his claim that his was a ‘judging’ history more literal than it has been supposed. (shrink)

Contemporary sociosemiotics is a way to transcend borderlines between trends inside semiotics, and also other disciplines. Whereas semiotics has been considered as an interdisciplinary field of research par excellence, sociosemiotics can point directions at transdisciplinary research. The present article will try to conjoin the structural and the processual views on culture and society, binding them together with the notion of signification. The signification of space will illustrate the dynamic between both cultures and metacultures, and cultural mainstreams and subcultures. This paper (...) pays attention to the practice of sociocultural semiotisation of space and territorialisation by diverse examples and different sociocultural levels that imply semiotic cooperation between several members of groups that can be characterised as socii. We analyse territorialisation by graffiti, by furnishing spatial environment through artistic manners, by shaping the semiotic essence of cities through naming, renaming and translating street names, by pinning and structuring territories with monuments, by landmarking and mapping cultural space through individualisation of cities. We will see how principles of semiotisation of space are valid on different levels and how these principles form a transdisciplinary object of study as ‘semiotisation of space’, and how space can be regarded as a genuinely transdisciplinary research object. Individual, culture, and society are connected in such an object both as constituents and as a background of study. (shrink)

The article analyses the position of sociosemiotics in the paradigm of contemporary semiotics. Principles of studying sociocultural phenomena are discussed so as they have been set for analysing the inner mechanisms of sign systems in the semiology of F. de Saussure on the one hand, and for studying sign systems and semiotic units as related to referential reality in the semiotics of C. S. Peirce on the other hand. Three main issues are touched upon to define the scope of sociosemiotics: (...) the general methodology of sociosemiotics. its particular methods, and possible objects of analysis. The relevance of the features of objects in different humanitarian disciplines (cultural unit, historical fact, social fact, institutional fact, social process, etc.) is surveyed to define the object of study in sociosemiotics. Also, the article comments on the description of social organisations via cultural processes and on relations between an individual and society as controllable by social action models. (shrink)

While anti-exceptionalism about logic is now a popular topic within the philosophy of logic, there’s still a lack of clarity over what the proposal amounts to. currently, it is most common to conceive of AEL as the proposal that logic is continuous with the sciences. Yet, as we show here, this conception of AEL is unhelpful due to both its lack of precision, and its distortion of the current debates. Rather, AEL is better understood as the rejection of certain (...) traditional properties of logic. The picture that results is not of one singular position, but rather a cluster of often connected positions with distinct motivations, understood in terms of their rejection of clusters of the various traditional properties. In order to show the fruitfulness of this new conception of AEL, we distinguish between two prominent versions of the position, metaphysical and epistemological AEL, and show how the two positions need not stand or fall together. (shrink)

Considerable attention recently has been paid to anti-exceptionalism about logic, the thesis that logic is more similar to the sciences in important respects than traditionally thought. One of AEL’s prominent claims is that logic’s methodology is similar to that of the recognised sciences, with part of this proposal being that logics provide explanations in some sense. However, insufficient attention has been given to what this proposal amounts to, and the challenges that arise in providing an account of explanations in (...) logic. This paper clarifies these challenges, and shows how the practice-based approach is best placed to meet them. (shrink)

Frank Ramsey’s philosophy, developed in the 1920s in Cambridge, was in conversation with the debates surrounding intellectualism in the early twentieth century. Ramsey made his mark on the anti-intellectualist tradition via his notion of habit. He posited that human judgments take shape through habitual processes, and he rejected the separation between the domain of reason, on one hand, and the domain of habit, on the other. Ramsey also provided the ground to explore the nature of knowledge employed in acting (...) from habit. That ground was passed onto Margaret MacDonald who came up with the distinction between knowing that something is the case and knowing how to apply a rule (or habit), the distinction that set the stage for Gilbert Ryle’s philosophical project against intellectualism from the 1940s onward. Ramsey thus influenced Ryle’s account of knowledge through the channel of MacDonald. (shrink)

Philosophers now treat the relationship between classical genetics and molecular biology as a paradigm of nonreduction and this example is playing an increasingly prominent role in debates about the reducibility of theories in other sciences. This paper shows that the anti-reductionist consensus about genetics will not withstand serious scrutiny. In addition to defusing the main anti-reductionist objections, this critical analysis uncovers tell-tale signs of a significant reduction in progress. It also identifies philosophical issues relevant to gaining a better (...) understanding of what is now happening in genetics and of what we might expect to happen in other sciences. (shrink)

I briefly rehearse the positive conception of philosophy in my book The Philosophy of Philosophy, as an introduction to the symposium on it that follows.

This paper argues that some defenses of global antirealism that critique both epistemic foundationalism and ontological priority foundationalism (e.g., Westerhoff 2020) turn on a false dilemma that ignores non-representational approaches to consciousness and cognition. Arguments against the existence of an external world and against introspective certainty, typically draw on a range of empirical findings (mainly about the brain-based mechanisms that realize cognition) and that are said to lend support to irrealism. Theories that incorporate these findings, such as the interface theory (...) of perception and predictive processing, not only retain the notion of the veil of perception, but have continued to assign to it an important theoretical role. While the mathematical frameworks these theories employ do make them viable candidates, neither theory is moving in a direction that would suggest global anti-realism is the more plausible attitude. Rather, I argue that the new paradigm of 4E cognitive science (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) bolsters epistemological and metaphysical realism. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia afinidades no exploradas entre la teoría del capitalismo de El Anti-Edipo y algunas discusiones sobre la reproducción social en el marxismo feminista. Por un lado, el capitalismo, con su movimiento de decodificación de flujos, tiende a disolver a la familia bajo movimientos desterritorializados. Por el otro, supone una reterritorialización edípica en cuanto separa el parentesco de las relaciones de producción, fundando una escisión históricamente novedosa. La distinción entre axiomática y reterritorializaciones capitalistas, en este contexto, aparece como (...) una forma conceptual adecuada para analizar la relación entre familia y capitalismo en términos feministas-marxistas. (shrink)