Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude" is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people." Globalization is forcing us to rethink some of the categories—such as "the people"—that traditionally have been associated with the now eroding state. Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude," elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to (...) analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people," favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. "When they rebel against the state," Hobbes wrote, "the citizens are the multitude against the people." But the multitude isn't just a negative notion, it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, "not-feeling-at-home-anywhere," is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the last twenty years is leading to a paradoxical "Communism of the Capital.". (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap's 1930s philosophy of logic, including his adherence to the principle of tolerance, is discussed. What theses did Carnap commit himself to, exactly? I argue that while Carnap did commit himself to a certain multitude thesis—there are different logics of different languages, and the choice between these languages is merely a matter of expediency—there is no evidence that he rejected a language-transcendent notion of fact, contrary to what Warren Goldfarb and Thomas Ricketts have prominently argued. (In fact, it (...) is obscure just what Goldfarb and Ricketts claim about Carnap). Toward the end I critically discuss Michael Friedman's suggestion that Carnap believed in a relative a priori. (shrink)

The influential Italian thinker offers three essays in the political philosophy of language. Multitude between Innovation and Negation by Paolo Virno translated by James Cascaito. The publication of Paolo Virno's first book in English, Grammar of the Multitude, by Semiotext in 2004 was an event within the field of radical political thought and introduced post-'68 currents in Italy to American readers. Multitude between Innovation and Negation, written several years later, offers three essays that take the reader on (...) a journey through the political philosophy of language. “Wit and Innovative Action” explores the ambivalence inevitably arising when the semiotic and the semantic, grammar and experience, rule and regularity, and right and fact intersect. Virno unravels the infinite potential and wonders of everyday linguistic praxis and ambiguity. Wit, he argues, is a public performance, and its modus operandi characterizes human action in a state of emergency; it is a reaction, an articulate response, and a possible solution to a state of crisis. “Mirror Neurons, Linguistic Negation, and Mutual Recognition” examines the relationship of language and intersubjective empathy: without language, would human beings be able to recognize other members of their species? And finally, in “Multitude and Evil,” Virno challenges the distinction between the state of nature and civil society and argues for a political institution that resembles language in its ability to be at once nature and history. Few thinkers take the risks required by innovation. Like a philosophical entrepreneur, Virno is engaged in no less than rewriting the dictionary of political theory, an urgent and ambitious project when language, caught in a permanent state of emergency impossible to sustain, desperately needs to articulate and enact new practices of freedom for the multitude. Paolo Virno is the author of several books, including A Grammar of the Multitude, 2004). (shrink)

In the final section of their work Empire, Hardt and Negri discuss the coming into being of the multitude, the unified force that overthrows the system of ‘Empire’. Absent from the account of this unification of the multitude is the influence of religion. I endeavor to show that contrary to Hardt’s and Negri’s assumption, religion is not dissipating among the multitude and that its impact will be contrary to the creation of a unified multitude. Thus the (...) creation of the unified multitude requires an absence of religion, but the creation of the multitude under the system of Empire entails a creation of more theists, leading to a seeming contradiction in the process of creating a unified multitude. In order for the creation of the multitude envisioned by Hardt and Negri to be complete, the issue of religion must be addressed, it cannot simply be assumed away as unimportant or non-existent. (shrink)

Spinoza’s ‘multitude’, while a key concept of his political philosophy, allows us to better understand Spinoza’s work both in its historical context and as a systematic unity. In this piece, I will propose that we understand Spinoza’s concept of the ‘multitude’ in the context of the development of his political thought, in particular his reading and interpretation of Thomas Hobbes, for whom ‘multitude’ was indeed a technical term. I will show that Spinoza develops his own notion of (...) multitude as an interpretive extension of Hobbes’s concept. Spinoza’s notion of ‘multitude’ is shaped by the new answers he gives to the Hobbesian questions about the human power, human emotion and the metaphysical-political questions of how individuals can become a whole, or a state. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show how Spinoza’s conception of history could lead to a new formulation of the theory of democracy, in the context of Spinoza’s political philosophy. In this perspective, the analysis deals with the relations between historicity, on the one hand, and the notions of multitude and democracy, on the other, in the topic of Spinoza’s political thought. Into the horizon of historicity, the multitude’s (or the masses’) political activity could lead to the (...) realisation of a sustainable democratic regime. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show how Spinoza’s conception of history could lead to a new formulation of the theory of democracy, in the context of Spinoza’s political philosophy. In this perspective, the analysis deals with the relations between historicity, on the one hand, and the notions of multitude and democracy, on the other, in the topic of Spinoza’s political thought. Into the horizon of historicity, the multitude’s (or the masses’) political activity could lead to the (...) realisation of a sustainable democratic regime. (shrink)

El texto considera las dos dicotomías del deseo productor de juicios de valor en Spinoza: deseo pasional versus deseo racional y deseo ético versus deseo político, y explica por qué todo acuerdo sobre valores posee un carácter político. Atiende, luego, al modo en que construye lo que llama “dictámenes de la razón” a través de la idea universal de hombre y la noción de mal. Revisa la socialidad tejida espontáneamente por la imitación de los afectos y la cooperación intelectual de (...) la multitud. Y, por último, esboza el concepto de deseo común adecuado a la multitud libre. Su tesis es que el deseo común de concordia que mueve a la multitud libre se constituye, paradójicamente, en la disputa por las definiciones compartidas de lo bueno y lo malo, esto es, en la disputa en torno a la institución del imperium. (shrink)

El artículo estudia tres formas diferentes de articulación del «discurso poshegemónico»: el uso histórico, la construcción ontológica y las teorías de la multitud, identificado la específica modalidad de negación del concepto de hegemonía que opera en cada una de ellas. Se evalúa el rendimiento de estas críticas desde el punto de vista de su efectividad histórica. Es decir, considerando su capacidad para diagnosticar adecuadamente las sociedades contemporáneas y su energía para desarrollar un pensamiento y una acción política transformadora que esté (...) en condiciones de suponer un antagonismo sustantivo a las condiciones imperantes del poder en nuestro presente. (shrink)

This article deals with the formation of both queer movements and theories, with the relations that they entertain with feminisms and the political uses to which they put Foucault and Deleuze. It also explores the theoretical and political advantages provided by the concept of « multitudes » over that of « sexual difference »for queer theory and movements. In contrast to the American scene, queer movements in Europe are inspired by anarchist culture and the emergence of transgendered cultures to counter (...) the « sexual Empire », notably by proposing a de-ontologisation of identity politics. No more natural base which can legitimise political action. The emphasis is no longer on « sexual difference » or « the difference of homosexuals », but on queer multitudes. A multitude of bodies, transgendered bodies, men without penises, dykes, cyborgs, butch girls... The « sexual multitude » appears henceforth as the possible subject of a queer politics. (shrink)

Forms of contemporary life attest to the dissolution of the concept of the ‘people’ and the renewed importance of the idea of the ‘multitude’. Though they took center stage in the seventeenth century debate that spawned much of our ethico-political lexicon, these two notions are polar opposites. The ‘people’ is by its very nature centripetal. Converging towards a general will, it acts as an interface between citizens and the State. The ‘multitude’ is plural. Fleeing all political unity, it (...) shuns negotiations with the sovereign and refuses to delegate its rights to that power; it is a recalcitrant and disobedient entity with a taste for certain forms of non-representative democracy. For example, Hobbes claims that citizens in rebellion against the State represent “the multitude against the people.” But while Hobbes spotted the greatest hindrance to the workings of the State within this multitude, Spinoza found in it the roots of liberty. The political existence of ‘multiples’ as such has been stricken from the horizon of modernity: not only by Absolute State theorists, but also by Rousseau, the liberal tradition, and the socialist movement itself. (shrink)

The concept of« multitude » opposes for a long time to that of the « people ». The people is a homogeneous unity, whereas the multitude is a network of peculiarities. The individuals who compose the multitude are not nevertheless atoms of one given but the result of a process of individuation. Of what consists this individuation which produces the individual from universal conditions ? One can tempt an answer by using Gilbert Simondon’s reflections and Russian psychologist (...) L. Vygotskij. With the aid of these authors one will end maybe in a more relevant comprehension of the Marxian concept of« social individual ». (shrink)

La disputa por configurar una escena y un discurso de la multitud en Chile constituye uno de los rasgos principales de la prensa obrera y, más tarde, de la literatura de Nicomedes Guzmán. Es por ello que se propone repensar la multitud como “pueblo que falta”, fuerza colectiva que posee una presencia activa en la historia. Para ello se aborda la concepción de multitud en el naciente imaginario nacional y se analiza la relación de pueblo y multitud para liberar la (...) potencia vital de esta última. (shrink)

La grammaire de la multitude en définit les traits saillants : le premier est la fin de la séparation du public et du privé. En découle un nouveau rapport entre l’individuel et le collectif : on ne converge pas dans l’Un, on agit différemment à partir d’un fond commun. La multitude est ambivalente, servile et révoltée à la fois. Elle aime avoir peur, mais en étant à l’abri, elle demande de la sécurité. Elle est animée par le sentiment (...) de ne pas se sentir chez soi, et adopte par rapport à cela des stratégies différentes, voire opposées. Les « lieux communs » caractérisent ses discours qui prennent des formes très générales. Ce recours aux « lieux communs » vient directement du sentiment de ne pas se sentir chez soi, et de devoir penser de quelle manière on y est. Mais l’aspect public de l’intellect éprouvé en commun, loin de laisser libre, crée une dépendance personnelle par rapport à des hiérarchies diverses. Chacun se comporte en public en virtuose, en artiste interprète, dans la coopération productive en quoi consiste tout travail contemporain. (shrink)

L’objection la plus ancienne et la plus redoutable à la démocratie fait valoir que le gouvernement par le peuple dessert le gouvernement pour le peuple. Les citoyens manquant pour la plupart de sagesse ou de compétence, le bien commun serait mieux assuré en confiant le pouvoir à un individu éclairé ou à une élite experte. Une réponse commune à cette objection concède la prémisse mais affirme la priorité au gouvernement par le peuple sur le gouvernement pour le peuple : le (...) droit égal à la participation devrait l’emporter sur la promotion de la compétence, même si celle-ci est requise par le bon gouvernement. La démocratie se trouve alors réduite à un ensemble de procédures équitables, traitant les citoyens en égaux ; elle ne se définit plus par la poursuite du bien commun. Il est toutefois une autre réponse à l’objection, qui évite cette dérive vers un procéduralisme étroit. Elle consiste à nier la prémisse et à affirmer la sagesse politique du peuple. Il n’est pas vrai que le gouvernement pour le peuple serait mieux assuré en confiant le pouvoir à un petit nombre de sages ou d’experts, fussent-ils les meilleurs parmi les citoyens. Cette thèse remarquable peut paraître improbable. Sa défense peut pourtant s’appuyer sur l’un des arguments les plus intrigants élaborés par la philosophie politique aristotélicienne, qui inspire et éclaire les controverses philosophiques contemporaines sur la valeur du régime démocratique : l’argument de la sagesse de la multitude. (shrink)

스피노자는 관용의 철학자인가? 이 글은 관용을 옹호하는 스피노자의 논증에 애매함이 있으며, 이 애매함을 자유주의의 규범적 입장 대신 순전한 역관계를 논거로 삼는 그의 현실주의를 통해 해명하고자 한다. 『신학-정치론』에서 그는 권리란 곧 욕망과 역량이 미치는 만큼이라는 독특한 자연권 개념을 바탕으로 근대 여느 철학자보다 급진적으로 의견의 자유를 옹호한다. 그러나 그는 종교권력의 정치권력에 대한 종속은 물론, 의견의 자유 역시 심각하게 제한할 여지를 둔다. 그에게 문제의 핵심은 정치권력보다는 종교분파의 불관용, 궁극에는 정서모방의 파괴적 효과로서, 자신과는 다른 기질의 인간을 참지 못하는 대중의 불관용이기 때문이다. 그럼에도 결국 그는 (...) 홉스와 같은 절대주의적 해결책이 아니라 자유를 옹호하는데, 그 이유 역시 정서 법칙을 통해 해명된다. 곧 정치적-법적 불관용은 대중의 불관용에 대한 수동적 반응에 불과하며, 대중의 불관용을 낳는 인간 본성의 법칙, 곧 코나투스와 정서 모방 자체에 의해 더 해로운 결과를 불러온다는 것이다. 이처럼 역관계를 고려한 관용의 정당화 논변은 오늘날 ‘혐오주의’와 같은 대중의 악덕에 대한 직접적인 법적 대응의 위험을 시사해준다. (shrink)

In response to contagion, competing and contradictory movements emerge that engender openness to new modes of life and reactionary defenses of old ones, that acknowledge mutual dependency and vulnerability and that heighten the policing and surveillance of borders. Through reading the Empire project, this article articulates these as struggles over measure that unfold on the terrain of sovereignty and biopolitical economy. We show that the passage from modern to imperial sovereignty hinges on the former’s inability to adequately impose calculatory regimes, (...) to which the latter’s flexibility and fluidity responds. This accompanies the passage from industrial to biopolitical command, from regulation through the wage to rearbitration through extractivism. Having articulated the contemporary coordinates within which the multitude finds itself, we then propose an educational weapon for the struggle against sovereignty and capital: stupidity. Turning to Jean-François Lyotard, we demonstrate just how fundamentally the rule of Empire depends on the outside of measure for its continual reproduction, and how Empire frames the communicative networks of biopolitical labor, a framing from which Hardt and Negri haven’t adequately broken. As the other of thought, as that which can’t be articulated, commanded, or absorbed by capital, stupidity remains totally useless and unproductive for Empire, which is exactly where its potency lies for the multitude. By critically engaging stupidity, we can refrain from reducing the pandemic to a need for heightened immunity and enclosure achieved through articulation. (shrink)

Negri celebrates a conception of democracy in which the concrete powers of individual humans are not alienated away, but rather are added together: this is a democracy of the multitude. But how can the multitude act without alienating anyone’s power? To answer this difficulty, Negri explicitly appeals to Spinoza. Nonetheless, in this paper, I argue that Spinoza’s philosophy does not support Negri’s project. I argue that the Spinozist multitude avoids internal hierarchy through the mediation of political institutions (...) and not in spite of them; nor do these institutions merely emanate from the multitude as it is, but rather they structure, restrain and channel its passions. In particular, the required institutions are not those of a simple direct democracy. There may be other non-Spinozist arguments on which Negri can ground his theory, but he cannot legitimately defend his conception of the democratic multitude by appeal to Spinoza. (shrink)

The thesis of the paper is that persons are similar to a kind of group: multiple-expert epistemic unities (MEUs). MEUs are groups in which there are multiple experts on whom other members of the group model their opinion. An example would be a group of children playing Telephone. Any child nearer the source is an 'expert' for any child further away. I argue that, with certain important qualifications, it is both rational and necessary for persons to treat their future selves (...) as experts (i.e. to satisfy Bas Van Fraassen's Principle of Reflection). This makes a person a kind of MEU. (The paper "Epistemic Unities" gives more details about different kinds of epistemic unities.). (shrink)

El artículo tiene por objetivo analizar ciertos pasajes fundamentales de la Wissenschaftslehre y de las Paradoxien des Unendlichen de Bernard Bolzano en cuanto al análisis conjuntista se refiere. En dichos pasajes, Bolzano desarrolla conceptos fundamentales tales como multitud, colección e infinito que anticipan el carácter conjuntista y del análisis matemático moderno. Asimismo, se presentará un breve estudio de las Contribuciones a una más fundada exposición de la matemática y el apéndice, Sobre la teoría kantiana de la construcción de conceptos a (...) través de intuiciones, textos donde Bolzano muestra su rechazo por Kant.The article addresses the treatment of certain fundamental passages from Bolzano’s Wissenschaftslehre and Paradoxien des Unendlichen. In these passages, Bolzano describes some of his key concepts such “Multitude”, “Collections” and “Infinite” in the context of mathematical analysis and Set theory. Therefore, I discuss at length the unknown Contributions to a Better-Grounded Presentation of Mathematics and the appendix On the Kantian Theory of the Construction of Concepts through Intuitions, texts where Bolzano shows his rejection of Kant. (shrink)

The paper presents my first findings and reflections on how ordinary people may opportunistically and unpredictably respond to Internet censorship and tracking. I try to capture this process with the concept of ‘hacking multitude'. Working on a case study of the Turkish government's block of the social media platform Twitter, I argue that during systemic data choke-points, a multitude of users might acquire a certain degree of reflexivity over ubiquitous software of advanced techno-capitalism. Resisting naïve parallels between urban (...) streets and virtual global streets, the article draws on Fuller's ‘media ecologies' to make sense of complex and dynamic interactions between processes and materialities, strategies of communication and mundane practices. Such a dense space is mostly invisible to network and traffic analysis, although it comes alive under the magnifying lens of digital ethnography. As the Turkish government tried to stop protesters on both the urban and the Twitter spheres, alternative material configurations and new hybrid formations and practices emerged. I try to bring this process alive following the traces – that is, a combination of digital data and materialities – of a social space between the protest for Twitter access, the ‘digital coup' and the interactions that this situation determined. In the final section, I briefly explore two research trajectories which can further develop my initial formulation of a ‘hacking multitude'. I argue that a generalisation of hacking/multitude is problematic for the political, cultural or economic processes more directly associated with Big Data. (shrink)

The article enters a heated debate about the ideals and organization of the postmodern left. Hardt and Negri, two key figures in this debate, claim that their concept of the multitude — a revolutionary, proletarian body that organizes singularities — integrates the insights of Deleuze and Lenin. I argue, however, that Deleuze anticipated and resisted a Leninist appropriation of his political theory. This essay challenges the widely accepted assumption that Hardt and Negri carry forth Deleuze’s legacy. At the same (...) time, the essay advocates Deleuze’s concept of left assemblages — protean political bodies working for freedom and equality — as a valuable but underappreciated contribution to the liberal-democratic tradition. (shrink)

In the late 19th century, the questionnaire was one means of taking the case study into the multitudes. This article engages with Forrester’s idea of thinking in cases as a means of interrogating questionnaire-based research in early American psychology. Questionnaire research was explicitly framed by psychologists as a practice involving both natural historical and statistical forms of scientific reasoning. At the same time, questionnaire projects failed to successfully enact the latter aspiration in terms of synthesizing masses of collected data into (...) a coherent whole. Difficulties in managing the scores of descriptive information questionnaires generated ensured the continuing presence of individuals in the results of this research, as the individual case was excerpted and discussed alongside a cast of others. As a consequence, questionnaire research embodied an amalgam of case, natural historical, and statistical thinking. Ultimately, large-scale data collection undertaken with questionnaires failed in its aim to construct composite exemplars or ‘types’ of particular kinds of individuals; to produce the singular from the multitudes. (shrink)

Le présent article part d’une proposition de Giorgio Agamben issue du livre La communauté qui vient, consistant à penser une communauté non appropriable, c’est-à-dire, une communauté pour des individus ontologiquement indéterminés et qui ne pouvant pas être appropriés par les appareils du pouvoir. En ce sens, nous essayons de montrer comment la formation sociale conçue par Agamben peut dialoguer avec l’idée de multitude de Michael Hardt et Antonio Negri. À cette fin, sont exposées les similitudes entre la communauté « (...) qui vient » de Agamben et la multitude. En séquence, nous discutons le rôle individualisant de la loi et de la politique occidentale, comprises comme mécanismes hiérarchiques dont la fonction est précisément d’empêcher l’émergence de la multitude. (shrink)

SUMMARYThis essay analyses how Shakespeare's sonnets theorise readerly agency. It begins with a brief analysis of English sonnet culture's development from its Continental roots, showing how English sonnets were initially perceived as documents of socially elite circles. By the 1590s, however, as English sonnets became widely popular, they exhibited a complex tension between elite social status and what many believed to be vulgar, empty popularity. By the time Shakespeare wrote his, much of the initial burst of popularity had waned. Belated (...) as they are, Shakespeare's sonnets comment productively on the importance of popularity and the role of ‘ordinary’ readers in constructing cultural value. Many scholars have argued that an inability to control readership—and keep poetry out of the hands of low-status readers—was a source of anxiety to writers in this period. However, this essay claims that Shakespeare's sonnets regularly suggest that the very lack of control over readership is what gives sonnets their cultural value. Although sonnets may have originated in socially elite spaces, Shakespeare suggests that their cultural power comes not from those elite communities, but from widespread circulation to common readers, whose varied readings shape the poems and their afterlives. Shakespeare's sonnets thus claim a cultural status for common readers that can be distinguished from the social status of elite communities in which sonnets were often understood to circulate. (shrink)

Multitude between Innovation and NegationPaolo Virnotranslated by James CascaitoThe publication of Paolo Virno's first book in English, Grammar of the Multitude, by Semiotext in 2004 was an event within the field of radical political thought and introduced post-'68 currents in Italy to American readers. Multitude between Innovation and Negation, written several years later, offers three essays that take the reader on a journey through the political philosophy of language."Wit and Innovative Action" explores the ambivalence inevitably arising when (...) the semiotic and the semantic, grammar and experience, rule and regularity, and right and fact intersect. Virno unravels the infinite potential and wonders of everyday linguistic praxis and ambiguity. Wit, he argues, is a public performance, and its modus operandi characterizes human action in a state of emergency; it is a reaction, an articulate response, and a possible solution to a state of crisis. "Mirror Neurons, Linguistic Negation, and Mutual Recognition" examines the relationship of language and intersubjective empathy: without language, would human beings be able to recognize other members of their species? And finally, in "Multitude and Evil," Virno challenges the distinction between the state of nature and civil society and argues for a political institution that resembles language in its ability to be at once nature and history.Few thinkers take the risks required by innovation. Like a philosophical entrepreneur, Virno is engaged in no less than rewriting the dictionary of political theory, an urgent and ambitious project when language, caught in a permanent state of emergency impossible to sustain, desperately needs to articulate and enact new practices of freedom for the multitude.Paolo Virno is the author of several books, including A Grammar of the Multitude, 2004). (shrink)

The more that industrial work is directed at consumption, the more it becomes service and communication, the more it mechanically imitates feminine modes of knowledge. Capital becomes, with the aid of the State, the only legitimate predator. Man is bound up a becoming-woman. Women overwork to give this becoming life. They produce an ever more precise individualisation, a sophisticated multitude of immaterial properties.

A presentation of some pieces taken from the editorial board electronic discussion about the concept of multitude. Multitude is a virtual social form; it is the networking of differing subjectivities in search about the common, the equal, the life. The multitude is the living as acting. It is a work method the limits of which are those of the present state of globalisation.

ABSTRACT W.L. Craig has argued that the universe has a beginning because (1) the infinitude of the past entails the existence of actual infinite multitudes of past intervals of time, and (2) the existence of actual infinite multitudes is impossible. Puryear has rejected (1) and argued that what the infinitude of the past entails is only the existence of an actual infinite magnitude of past time. But this does not preclude the infinitude of the past, Puryear claims, because there can (...) be no justification for the claim that actual infinite magnitudes are impossible. I argue, against Puryear, that there can be such a justification. I claim, nevertheless, that, for reasons entirely different from Puryear’s, the finitude of the past cannot be established based either on the impossibility of actual infinite multitudes or on the impossibility of actual infinite magnitudes. My arguments in this paper draw on insights from al-Kindī and Avicenna. (shrink)

Social and cultural difference. "Only historicize": history, material culture (food, clothes, books), and the future of Dante studies -- Dante's sympathy for the other, or the non-stereotyping imagination: sexual and racialized others in the Commedia -- Contemporaries who found heterodoxy in Dante: Cecco d'Ascoli, Boccaccio, and Benvenuto da Imola on Fortuna and Inferno 7.89 -- Dante's limbo and equity of access: non-Christians, children, and criteria of inclusion and exclusion, form Inferno 4 to Paradiso 32 -- Metaphysical difference. Toward a Dantean (...) theology of eros: form Dante's lyrics to the Paradiso -- Amicus eius: Dante and the semantics of friendship -- Paradiso and the mimesis of ideas: realism versus reality -- Dante squares the circle: textual and philosophical affinities of Monarchia and Paradiso (Solutio distinctiva in Mon. 3.4.17 and Par. 4.94-114) -- Difference as punishment or difference as pleasure: from the tower of Babel in De vulgari eloquentia to the death of Babel in Paradiso 26 -- Aristotelian disruptions 1: wealth and society. Aristotle's Mezzo, courtly Misura, and Dante's Canzone "Le doci rime": humanism, ethics, and social anxiety -- Dante and wealth, between Aristotle and Cortesia: from the moral Canzoni "Le dolci rime" and "Poscia ch'amor" through Convivio to Inferno 6 and 7 -- Aristotelian disruptions 2: love and compulsion. Archeology of the Donna Gentile: the importance of disconversion in conversion narratives -- Dante and Cecco d'Ascoli on love and compulsion: the epistle to Cino, "Io sono stato," the third heaven -- "Voi che 'ntendendo il terzo ciel movete," a dramatization of "utrum de passione in passionem possit anima transformari": conflict, compulsion, consent, conversion -- Critical philology and Italian cultural history. The case of the lost original ending of Dante's Vita nuova: more notes toward a critical philology -- Critical philology and Dante's Rime. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed growing controversy over the “wisdom of the multitude.” As epistemic critics drawing on vast empirical evidence have cast doubt on the political competence of ordinary citizens, epistemic democrats have offered a defense of democracy grounded largely in analogies and formal results. So far, I argue, the critics have been more convincing. Nevertheless, democracy can be defended on instrumental grounds, and this article demonstrates an alternative approach. Instead of implausibly upholding the epistemic reliability of average voters, (...) I observe that competitive elections, universal suffrage, and discretionary state power disable certain potent mechanisms of elite entrenchment. By reserving particular forms of power for the multitude of ordinary citizens, they make democratic states more resistant to dangerous forms of capture than non-democratic alternatives. My approach thus offers a robust defense of electoral democracy, yet cautions against expecting too much from it—motivating a thicker conception of democracy, writ large. (shrink)

Politics 3.11 appears to show Aristotle at his most democratic, for in this chapter he defends the right of ordinary people to participate in government and he might even make a multitude of ordinary people authoritative in the polis. Contrary to the dominant interpretation, I argue, however, that this chapter concerns different multitudes at different points and that the first multitude forms a polity and the second is used as a moderating force and does not necessarily form a (...) democracy — Aristotle's focus here is not on typology but on the argument that power should be shared and not held exclusively by any one group. The article is, in effect, an extended discussion of what Aristotle means, in terms of governance shared by the multitude, by "authoritative". (shrink)

Spanish translation of Field, S. L. (2012). 'Democracy and the multitude: Spinoza against Negri'. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 59(131), 21-40. Translated by María Cecilia Padilla and Gonzalo Ricci Cernadas. Negri celebra una concepción de la democracia en la que los poderes concretos de los individuos humanos no se alienan sino que se agregan: una democracia de la multitud. Pero ¿cómo puede actuar la multitud sin alienar el poder de nadie? Para contestar esta dificultad, Negri explícitamente (...) apela a Spinoza. Sin embargo, en este trabajo, sostengo que la filosofía de Spinoza no respalda el proyecto de Negri. Por el contrario, argumento que la multitud spinozista evita la jerarquía interna por medio de la mediación de las instituciones políticas y no a pesar de ellas; de la misma manera, estas instituciones tampoco simplemente emanan de la multitud tal cual es, sino que estructuran, contienen y canalizan sus pasiones. En particular, las instituciones requeridas no son las de la democracia simple y directa. Puede ser que existan otros argumentos no spinozistas en los cuales Negri pueda basar su teoría, pero no puede defender legítimamente su concepción de la multitud democrática apelando a Spinoza. (shrink)

Le présent article part d’une proposition de Giorgio Agamben issue du livre La communauté qui vient, consistant à penser une communauté non appropriable, c’est-à-dire, une communauté pour des individus ontologiquement indéterminés et qui ne pouvant pas être appropriés par les appareils du pouvoir. En ce sens, nous essayons de montrer comment la formation sociale conçue par Agamben peut dialoguer avec l’idée de multitude de Michael Hardt et Antonio Negri. À cette fin, sont exposées les similitudes entre la communauté « (...) qui vient » de Agamben et la multitude. En séquence, nous discutons le rôle individualisant de la loi et de la politique occidentale, comprises comme mécanismes hiérarchiques dont la fonction est précisément d’empêcher l’émergence de la multitude. (shrink)

W.L. Craig has argued that the universe has a beginning because (1) the infinitude of the past entails the existence of actual infinite multitudes of past intervals of time, and (2) the existence of actual infinite multitudes is impossible. Puryear has rejected (1) and argued that what the infinitude of the past entails is only the existence of an actual infinite magnitude of past time. But this does not preclude the infinitude of the past, Puryear claims, because there can be (...) no justification for the claim that actual infinite magnitudes are impossible. I argue, against Puryear, that there can be such a justification. I claim, nevertheless, that, for reasons entirely different from Puryear’s, the finitude of the past cannot be established based either on the impossibility of actual infinite multitudes or on the impossibility of actual infinite magnitudes. My arguments in this paper draw on insights from al-Kindī and Avicenna. (shrink)

Las transformaciones en el ámbito del trabajo, acaecidas de la mano de la mutación del capital global, han dado lugar a múltiples reflexiones en torno a las nuevas características que asume la 'cuestión social'. En este sentido, se advierten diferentes formas de caracterizar las consecuencias de la mutación en ciernes, cuyo análisis -desde las ciencias sociales- relanza dos categorías que se resignifican en el contexto actual: multitud y exclusión. En este ensayo se consideran las potencialidades y restricciones de ambas categorías (...) a fin de dar cuenta de su potencial explicativo y crítico, en relación a las diversas y acuciantes problemáticas que laceran el cuerpo social en este singular momento histórico.The transformations in the labor world, due to changes in global capital, have given way to a range of opinions over the new characteristics taken on by the 'social question'. Analyzing -from a social sciences point of view- the different ways the effects of these recent changes are being characterized, gives way to two categories that take on a new meaning in the current context: multitude and exclusion. In this work, the potentials and restrictions of these categories are considered to bring to light their critical and explicatory potential in relation to the wide-ranging and pres sing issues that are tearing the social fabric in this unique historic moment. (shrink)