Thomas Kuhn had little to say about scientific change in biological science, and biologists are ambivalent about how applicable his framework is for their disciplines. We apply Kuhn’s account of paradigm change to evolutionary microbiology, where key Darwinian tenets are being challenged by two decades of findings from molecular phylogenetics. The chief culprit is lateral gene transfer, which undermines the role of vertical descent and the representation of evolutionary history as a tree of life. To assess Kuhn’s relevance to this (...) controversy, we add a social analysis of the scientists involved to the historical and philosophical debates. We conclude that while Kuhn’s account may capture aspects of the pattern of an episode of scientific change, he has little to say about how the process of generating new understandings is occurring in evolutionary microbiology. Once Kuhn’s application is limited to that of an initial investigative probe into how scientific problem-solving occurs, his disciplinary scope becomes broader. (shrink)

This paper explores the rhetoric of obstetric ultrasound technology as it relates to the abortion debate, specifically the interpretation given to ultrasound images by opponents of abortion. The tenor of the anti-abortion approach is precisely captured in the videotape, Ultrasound:A Window to the Womb. Aspects of this videotape are analyzed in order to tease out the assumptions about the (female) body and about the access to truth yielded by scientific technology (ultrasound) held by militant opponents of abortion. It is argued (...) that the ultrasound images do not offer transparent confirmation of the ontological status of the embryo and fetus. Rather, the window of ultrasound is constructed through a complex combination of visual and verbal devices: ultrasound images, photographic images, verbal argument, and emotional appeal. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: W. G. COLLINGWOOD Letters from Iceland: introduced by Janet Gnosspelius -- GUIDO VANHEESWIJCK R. G. Collingwood, T. S. Elliot and the Romantic Tradition -- MARNIE HUGHES- History, Education and the Conversation of Mankind -- WARRINGTON --K. B. McINTYRE Collingwood, Oakeshott and the Social Contract -- LIONEL RUBINOFF The Relation Between Philosophy and History in the Thought of R G. Collingwood -- COLLINGWOOD CORNER -- BENEDETTO CROCE In Commemoration of an English Friend, a Companion in Thought and (...) Faith, R. G. Collingwood (translated -- by Lionel Rubinoff and Alan Franklin) -- BENEDETTO CROCE Review of R. G. Collingwood, Speculum Mentis (translated by Lionel Rubinoff and Alan Franklin) -- R. G. COLLINGWOOD Aesthethic and the Mind, introduced by -- James Connelly -- GRACE SIMPSON Collingwood's Philosophy of History: Observations of an Archaeologist -- REVIEWS -- Cameron Wybrow (ed.), Creation, Nature, and Political Order in the Philosophy of Michael Foster, reviewed by -- James Connelly. (shrink)

In Zizek and Politics, Geoff Boucher and Matthew Sharpe go beyond standard introductions to spell out a new approach to reading Zizek, one that can be highly critical as well as deeply appreciative. They show that Zizek has a raft of fundamental positions that enable his theoretical positions to be put to work on practical problems. Explaining these positions with clear examples, they outline why Zizek's confrontation with thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze has so radically changed how we (...) think about society. They then go on to track Zizek's own intellectual development during the last twenty years, as he has grappled with theoretical problems and the political climate of the War on Terror. This book is a major addition to the literature on Zizek and a crucial critical introduction to his thought. (shrink)

This paper argues that professionals who make boundary-related decisions should be guided by relationship-based practice. In our roles as service users and professionals, drawing from our lived experiences of professional relationships, we argue we need to move away from distance-based practice. This includes understanding the boundary stories and narratives that exist for all of us – including the people we support, other professionals, as well as the organisations and systems within which we work. When we are dealing with professional boundary (...) issues, we should centre relationship-building skills that are central to many other aspects of our work. Skills that foster relationships at all levels – between professionals, service users, and services – need to be revalued. Our final recommendation is to create, develop, and foster safer spaces within and outside of organisations, as well as inter-professionally, for the discussion and exploration of boundary-related issues and practice. We are interested in hearing from those with experiences of being marginalised by boundaries so that they can inform a reshaping of our collective ideas around boundary related practices. To foster relationship-based practices in organisations, we have outlined several recommendations here; however, we recognize that these do not go far enough, and that collective action is needed to inform systemic change. (shrink)

The concept of voluntariness permeates the ethics and politics of migration and is commonly used to distinguish refugees from migrants. Yet, neither the precise nature and conditions of voluntariness nor its ethical significance for migrant rights and state obligations has received enough attention. The articles in this collection move the debate forward by demonstrating the complex ethical judgments involved in delineating voluntary from forced migration and in drawing out its political and institutional implications. In addition to highlighting the interplay between (...) the voluntary and nonvoluntary elements of migration over time and across different sites of the migration journey, they provide a nuanced account of the various conditions of voluntariness and they challenge common ideas about its normative political consequences. (shrink)

What is the place of language in human cognition? Do we sometimes think in natural language? Or is language for purposes of interpersonal communication only? Although these questions have been much debated in the past, they have almost dropped from sight in recent decades amongst those interested in the cognitive sciences. Language and Thought is intended to persuade such people to think again. It brings together essays by a distinguished interdisciplinary team of philosophers and psychologists, who discuss various ways in (...) which language may be implicated in human cognition. The editors have provided an introduction which lays out the basic terms and history of the debate, and a consolidated bibliography which will provide a valuable reference resource for all those interested in this area. The volume will be of great interest to all researchers and students interested in language and its place in cognition. (shrink)

Since van Fraassen first put forward the suggestive idea that many philosophical positions should be construed as ‘stances’ rather than factual beliefs, there have been various attempts to spell out precisely what a philosophical stance might be, and on what basis one should be adopted. In this paper I defend a particular account of stances, the view that they are pragmatically justified perspectives or ways of seeing the world, and compare it to some other accounts that have been offered. In (...) Sect. 2 I consider van Fraassen’s argument for construing empiricism as a stance, and look at some responses to it. In Sect. 3 I outline my conception of stances as perspectives or ways of seeing, and explain how stances so understood may be justified. I illustrate this conception by way of a discussion of the model pluralist position with respect to the units of selection debate in biology, and suggest that on the model pluralist view different perspectives on the units of selection, such as the gene’s eye view, are in fact van Fraassian stances. In Sect. 4 I discuss the view put forward by Teller and Chakravartty among others that stances should be understood as epistemic policies, and argue that it is consistent with the conception of stances as perspectives. In the final section I criticise Rowbottom’s attempt to assimilate stances to Kuhnian paradigms. I argue that he has overlooked some important disanalogies between stances and paradigms, so that the comparison obscures more than it reveals. (shrink)

Word learning depends critically on the use of linguistic context to constrain the likely meanings of words. However, the mechanisms by which children infer word meaning from linguistic context are still poorly understood. In this study, we asked whether adults (n = 58) and 2‐ to 6‐year‐old children (n = 180) use discourse coherence relations (i.e., the meaningful relationships between elements within a discourse) to constrain their interpretation of novel words. Specifically, we showed participants videos of novel animals exchanging objects. (...) These videos were accompanied by a linguistic description of the events in which we manipulated a single word within a sentence (and vs. because) in order to alter the causal and temporal relations between the events in the discourse (e.g., “One animal handed the baby to the other animal [and/because] the baby started crying in the talfa's arms”). We then asked participants which animal (the giver or the receiver) was the referent of the novel word. Across two experiments, we found evidence that young children used the causal and temporal relations in each discourse to constrain their interpretations of novel words. (shrink)

Mutation and lateral transfer are two categories of processes generating genetic diversity in prokaryotic genomes. Their relative importance varies between lineages, yet both are complementary rather than independent, separable evolutionary forces. The replication process inevitably merges together their effects on the genome. We develop the concept of “open lineages” to characterize evolutionary lineages that over time accumulate more changes in their genomes by lateral transfer than by mutation. They contrast with “closed lineages,” in which most of the changes are caused (...) by mutation. Open and closed lineages are interspersed along the branches of any tree of prokaryotes. This patchy distribution conflicts with the basic assumptions of traditional phylogenetic approaches. As a result, a tree representation including both open and closed lineages is a misrepresentation. The evolution of all prokaryotic lineages cannot be studied under a single model unless new phylogenetic approaches that are more pluralistic about lineage evolution are designed. (shrink)

How people learn chunks or associations between adjacent items in sequences was modelled. Two previously successful models of how people learn artificial grammars were contrasted: the CCN, a network version of the competitive chunker of Servan‐Schreiber and Anderson [J. Exp. Psychol.: Learn. Mem. Cogn. 16 (1990) 592], which produces local and compositionally‐structured chunk representations acquired incrementally; and the simple recurrent network (SRN) of Elman [Cogn. Sci. 14 (1990) 179], which acquires distributed representations through error correction. The models' susceptibility to two (...) types of interference was determined: prediction conflicts, in which a given letter can predict two other letters that appear next with an unequal frequency; and retroactive interference, in which the prediction made by a letter changes in the second half of training. The predictions of the models were determined by exploring parameter space and seeing howdensely different regions of the space of possible experimental outcomes were populated by model outcomes. For both types of interference, human data fell squarely in regions characteristic of CCN performance but not characteristic of SRN performance. (shrink)

I consider two attempts to combine realism with pluralism about the units of selection: Sober and Wilson’s combination of “model” and “unit” pluralism, and Sterelny and Griffiths’ “local pluralism”. I argue that both of these attempts fail to show that realism and pluralism are compatible. Sober and Wilson’s pluralism turns out, on closer inspection, to be a kind of monism in disguise, while Sterelny and Griffiths’ local pluralism involves a combination of realism and anti-realism about interactors, and the units of (...) selection, that is fundamentally unstable. My conclusion is that one must choose whether to be a realist or a pluralist in this area: one cannot be both. The question of which we should choose is a further question that I do not take a stand on. (shrink)

The frontispiece of Hobbes's Leviathan is justly renowned as a powerful visual advertisement for his political philosophy. Consequently, its rich imagery has been the subject of extensive scholarly commentary. Surprisingly, then, its gendered dimensions have received relatively limited attention. This essay explores this neglected facet of the frontispiece. I argue that the image initially appears to present a hypermasculine sovereign. However, upon closer inspection, and considered alongside Hobbes's economic theory, it yields to a reading of the sovereign as an ambiguously (...) gendered figure. Reading the frontispiece through the prism of gender and the economy reveals not a static image of unwavering male power but rather one of an equivocally-sexed creature teeming with life, contradictions, and complexities worthy of continued examination. (shrink)

Van Fraassen has argued that many philosophical positions should be understood as stances rather than factual beliefs. In this paper I discuss the vexed question of whether and how such stances can be rationally justified. Until this question has been satisfactorily answered, the otherwise promising stance approach cannot be considered a viable metaphilosophical option. One can find hints, and the beginnings of an answer to this question, in van Fraassen’s (and others’) writings, but no general, fully clear and convincing account (...) has been offered. I aim to provide such an account. In the first section I introduce the concept of a stance. In the second section I argue that stances may be justified pragmatically, in terms of both their epistemic fruits, and their coherence with values. In the third section I further consider the relationship between stances and values, arguing that the value-ladenness of a stance does not render it immune to rational scrutiny. In the final section I look at van Fraassen’s version of epistemological voluntarism, which plays a central role in his conception of the basis on which a stance may be rationally adopted. I show that voluntarism provides a theoretical framework, and approach to epistemology, within which the forms of justification appropriate to stance choice I outline in sections 2 and 3 find a natural home. (shrink)

Introduction History, Historicism and Hermeneutics In the Phaedrus Socrates argues that the written word is far inferior to the spoken word as a means of..

The article introduces a special issue on “Rethinking Liberal Multiculturalism: Foundations, Practices and Methodologies.” The contributions presented in this special issue were discussed during the conference « Multicultural Citizenship 25 Years Later », held in Paris in November 2021. Their aim is to take stock of the legacy of Kymlicka’s contribution and to highlight new developments in theories of liberal multiculturalism and minority rights. The contributions do not purport to challenge the legitimacy of theories of multiculturalism and minority rights, they (...) rather aim at deepening our understanding of the foundations of liberal multiculturalism and of its practical implementation, sensitive to social scientific dynamics of diverse societies. Without abandoning the general idea that cultural minorities should be granted special minority rights, the essays presented raise new questions about three dimensions central to liberal multiculturalism: its normative foundations, its practical categories of minorities or groups, and its fact-sensitive methodology. Taken together they shed light on the renewed variety of theories of liberal multiculturalism highlighting their complexity and internal disagreements. To introduce these articles, the article first draws a brief historical overview of the debates on multiculturalism since the 1990s (section 1). It then highlights the distinctive aspects of Kymlicka’s contribution (section 2) and identifies recent research trends (section 3). Doing so, it explains how the articles gathered here both expand on those distinctive aspects and explore those new research avenues. The section 4 summarizes the contributions. (shrink)

I consider the broad perspectives in biology known as ‘functionalism’ and ‘structuralism’, as well as a modern version of functionalism, ‘adaptationism’. I do not take a position on which of these perspectives is preferable; my concern is with the prior question, how should they be understood? Adapting van Fraassen’s argument for treating materialism as a stance, rather than a factual belief with propositional content, in the first part of the paper I offer an argument for construing functionalism and structuralism as (...) stances also. The argument draws especially on Gould’s insights concerning functionalism and structuralism, in particular their apparent historical continuity from the pre-Darwinian period through to today. In the second part of the paper I consider Godfrey-Smith’s distinction between empirical and explanatory adaptationism, and suggest that while the former is an empirical scientific hypothesis, the latter is closely related to the functionalist stance. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a noticeable yet largely unacknowledged ‘pragmatic turn’ in the scientific realism debate, inspired in part by van Fraassen’s work on ‘epistemic stances’. Features of this new approach include: an ascent to the meta-level (the focus is not so much on whether scientific realism is true, but on the prior questions of the nature of the positions in this debate, how to decide whether to be a scientific realist, etc.); a reinterpretation of scientific realism and (...) anti-realism as (or as closely associated with) stances or frameworks, rather than theories or beliefs; a move away from the previously dominant empirical-explanatory (i.e. quasi-scientific or naturalistic) conception of scientific realism, anti-realism, and their justification; and a stress on the pragmatic and values-based elements in the debate. The traditional scientific realism debate is concerned with determining which position is true, or most epistemically justified. The new approach by contrast is concerned with determining which position best serves certain values, e.g. is most useful, fruitful, or otherwise prudentially preferable. In this paper we try to bring together the various strands in this new orientation, summarise its key features, contrast it with superficially similar but opposing views, and explore the similarities and differences among some of its adherents. Given we are advocates of the turn, we also offer a defence of the value and fruitfulness of this reconceptualization of the debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Significance of R. G. Collingwood’s Principles of HistoryDavid BoucherThe Principles of History is the work that Collingwood saw as his principal philosophical enterprise, the book for which his whole intellectual life had been a preparation. It was to have been a work divided into three books. 1 In the first there was to be a discussion of the characteristics that make the special science of history distinctive. In (...) the second history was to be compared with other sciences. Third, he intended to investigate the relationship between history and practical life. He thought of beginning his project by giving a brief account of the different senses of the concept of history. Book one was divided into four chapters. The first was to concentrate on evidence and testimony relating them to scissors-and-paste history. Chapter two was to present a theory of action, res gestae, or action expressive of thought, in contrast with the idea of process, or change, associated with pseudo-history. In chapter three reenactment was to be discussed and contrasted with the idea of a dead past. Chapter four was to argue that history in contrast with other purported pretenders to the title can justifiably claim to be the science of the mind. Book two was divided into three chapters. Chapter one was to discuss history and natural science, showing that neither could be reduced to each other. He also wanted to contend that the natural sciences are themselves historical achievements in that they depend upon the historical facts of observation and thought. Chapter two was to deal with history and the human sciences, such as economics, which he describes as crypto-histories. In the third chapter Collingwood intended to explore the relation between history and philosophy. In book three, which is described less precisely, he wanted to argue that history overcomes the distinction between theory and practice, and that reenactment overcomes the dualism between mind and its objects. This, he thought, would enable him to give a characterization of historical morality and historical civilization in contrast with their utilitarian counterparts.He began writing the book on 15 February 1939 and had finished the first three chapters by 23 February. Over a month later, on 26 and 27 March, he began chapter four but was unable to formulate his thoughts on the past, and the relation between history and philosophy. At this point he stopped, never to return to the manuscript again. What we have left of The Principles of History deviates considerably from the original plan. Only three chapters were written, the third of which does not contain the crucial discussion of re-enactment. In addition, uncompleted fragments of the beginnings of a fourth chapter remain.In this paper I intend to look at why Collingwood’s explicit authorization to publish the Principles of History was disregarded by Knox and Oxford University Press. In addition, I want to look at three aspects of the rediscovered manuscript. In the second and third sections, on the method and subject matter of history respectively, I examine the extent to which Knox’s suppression of the Principles of History contributed to a good deal of the confusion surrounding the interpretation of Collingwood’s key ideas. What emerges from the pages of the Principles of History is how integral The Principles of Art and An Essay on Metaphysics are to understanding Collingwood’s later philosophy of history, a connection that is distorted by the patchwork nature of The Idea of History.In the fourth section of the paper I suggest that the most significant omission to which Collingwood never returned was the theory of reenactment. Reenactment more than any other aspect of his writings has been placed by interpreters at the centre of Collingwood’s philosophy of history. W. H. Dray’s new book is wholly focused upon this theme. Dray did not, however, see The Principles of History in time to incorporate the implications for reenactment theory of Collingwood’s broadening of the subject matter of history to include the emotions. 2 The theory of reenactment could no longer be sustained by the earlier argument found in The Idea of History, because Collingwood, in The Principles of... (shrink)

In Why Tolerate Religion?, Brian Leiter argues against the special legal status of religion, claiming that religion should not be the only ground for exemptions to the law and that this form of protection should be, in principle, available for the claims of secular conscience as well. However, in the last chapter of his book, he objects to a universal regime of exemptions for both religious and secular claims of conscience, highlighting the practical and moral flaws associated with it. We (...) believe that Leiter identifies a genuine and important contemporary legal and philosophical problem. We find much to admire in his reasoning. However, we raise questions about two claims that are crucial for his argument. The first claim is that it is not religion as such, but conscience that deserves toleration and respect. The second claim is that respect for religion and conscience demands ‘principled toleration’ but does not entail stronger policies of legal exemptions. Against the first claim, we argue that Leiter does not successfully distinguish religious belief from secular conscience and morality; and he does not explain why secular conscience deserves respect. Against the second claim, we argue that the most promising theories of legal exemptions are not classical theories of liberal toleration. (shrink)

In a conjuncture marked by the “resurgence of religion,” the problem of historical materialism’s relation to religious ideologies has acquired a new urgency. The work of Roland Boer, recently awarded the Deutscher Prize for his magnum opus on Marxism and Theology poses this question from a surprising perspective. While his main claim is that religious influences in Marxist theory represent a sort of theological unconscious in historical materialism, at the same time Boer also advances an original Marxist interpretation of the (...) Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity. This line of research, which extends from his dissertation on Jameson and Jeroboam through to his most recent work on The Sacred Economy, proposes that theology is a reflective representation of the social totality. In this article, I criticize Boer’s valorization of theology as a practical discourse that is postideological but non-theoretical, and conclude by indicating an alternative. (shrink)

Slavoj Zizek is one of the most provocative and important thinkers writing in contemporary philosophy. This book is an engaged debate with Zizek. It contains a series of specially commissioned critical essays from an impressive collection of contributors covering the full extent of his oeuvre. Essays examine Zizek on cultural theory, film studies, ethics, political theory, social theory, Kant and Lacanian psychoanalysis. In the spirit of Zizek‘s own interventions, these essays critically interrogate his ideas, challenging him to respond directly which (...) he does in an extended polemical reply that concludes the collection. This volume represents an exciting and important contribution to contemporary theoretical debate and adds significantly to the growing literature on Zizek. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive study of the political philosophy of the British philosopher R. G. Collingwood, best known for his contributions to aesthetics and the philosophy of history. However his political thought, and in particular his book The New Leviathan, have been neglected, even dismissed in some quarters. Professor Boucher argues for the importance of this political theory and provides a perspicuous account of its development and originality. He contends that The New Leviathan is an attempt to reconcile philosophy (...) and history, theory and practice. Collingwood's distinctive contribution to modern political and social thought is seen as his sustained project of distinguishing utility from right, and right from duty; the passion for history coincides with the ethical thought because Collingwood wishes to identify dutiful, or moral, action with a historical civilization. Drawing on a wealth of manuscript material, this book will prove invaluable to political philosophers and intellectual historians. (shrink)

In this article I intend to give more attention to Pufendorf's ideas than has been the custom among international relations theorists. The main focus will be upon Pufendorf's distillation and conceptualization of the implications of Westphalia in terms of sovereignty and the integrity of states. Furthermore, his extension of the Aristotelian classification of types of state, and his attempts to go beyond Bodin's and Hobbes's theories of sovereignty, provide the vocabulary and concepts in terms of which the different international actors (...) of the late seventeenth century could be understood. In this respect the focus is altogether different from Linklater. My emphasis upon the historical and emblematic character of the Peace of Westphalia, the personification of the state and its animation by sovereignty, which serves to facilitate Pufendorf's exploration of the idea of a system of states, and my suggestion that his ideas are not wholly redundant and may be used to explore some facets of a modern states system, serve considerably to extend Forsyth's brief analysis. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to consider Collingwood’s Idea of History in the wider context of his thoughts on historical knowledge, and in the light of criticisms which have often been less than generous in giving a certain latitude to what he meant to convey. The article shows how the main doctrines, that are often taken in isolation and forensically analysed and criticized, may be defended and made more intelligible when considered as an integrated whole. Such an idea as (...) re-enactment, for example, need not be considered to lend itself to intuitionism in philosophy, nor methodological individualism in interpretation. It is possible to understand Collingwood presenting the theory of re-enactment as at once a method for the attainment of historical knowledge, which doesn’t simply come about fortuitously, while also being an ontological condition of understanding, that is, when historical knowledge is attained, something will have happened to us, that is, we will have thought exactly the same thoughts, broadly speaking, as the historical subjects themselves. (shrink)

"Spinoza in English" is the first bibliography to bring together the entire 325-year record of books, monographs, dissertations, and articles in English on Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677), including translations of his works into English. Well over 2100 citations are presented, bringing this record through early 1991. Arranged alphabetically by author or editor and internally cross-referenced for ease of use, this bibliography also cites its own sources where appropriate and, in many cases, provides guidance on how to obtain unpublished or out-of- (...) print titles. Additionally, it restores or corrects a good deal of earlier bibliographic detail, identifies dozens of publications hitherto overlooked, and, beginning with titles from the mid-1800's, presents the citations in a uniform style. (shrink)

In ubiquitous surveillance societies, individuals are subjected to observation and control by authorities, institutions, and corporations. Sometimes, citizens contribute their own knowledge and other resources to their own surveillance. In addition, some of “the watched” observe “the watchers” “through” sous‐veillant activities, and various forms of self-surveillance for different purposes. However, information and communication technologies are also increasingly used for social initiatives with a bottom up structure where citizens themselves define the goals, shape the outcomes and profit from the benefits of (...) watching activities. This model, which we define as citizens’ veillance and explore in this special issue, may present opportunities for individuals and collectives to be more prepared to meet the challenges they face in various domains including environment, health, planning and emergency response. (shrink)

Stephen Jay Gould’s views on the ontology of species were an important plank of his revisionist program in evolutionary theory. In this paper I cast a critical philosopher’s eye over those views. I focus on three central aspects of Gould’s views on species: the relation between the Darwinian and the metaphysical notions of individuality, the relation between the ontology of species and macroevolution, and the issue of contextualism and conventionalism about the metaphysics of species.

Many liberals and secularists believe that religious schooling should not be publicly funded or that it should simply be banned. Challenging those views, I claim that although liberal states may refuse to fund and may even ban certain illiberal separate religious schools, it is impermissible, for distinctively liberal reasons, to completely ban publicly funded religious schooling. I will however argue that providing religious instruction within common public schools is more desirable than having separate religious schools. I argue that providing religious (...) instruction within common public schools is a better way to balance the educational interests of parents, children and society than banning religious schooling altogether; authorizing it but refusing to fund it; or having publicly funded separate religious schools. (shrink)

The chapter presents Laclau and Mouffe’s theory and then outlines some of the most important criticism of their discourse analysis. After a brief summary of key terms, such as hegemonic articulation and constitutive outside, the chapter positions Laclau and Mouffe within the post-Althusserian moment, arguing that they inherit certain unresolved problems from this origin. The first problem concerns the application of categories derived from the theory of ideology to the entirety of the social field, which leads to what the chapter (...) calls ‘descriptive indeterminacy.’ The second problem concerns the suppression of the normative dimension in the theory of social subjectivity, which leads to an oscillation between neutral description and partisan intervention. In both cases, Laclau and Mouffe’s response to these criticisms is explored and evaluated. (shrink)

The underlying equation between revolutionary politics and military strategy in the work of Marx and Engels is well known. For the founders of Marxism, class struggle and revolutionary warfare are simply different intensities, different visibilities, of the same logic—“now hidden, now open”—of hostility. If the class struggle over the working day represents a “veritable civil war”, and “every class struggle is a political struggle,” then it is no surprise that class politics, the confrontation of class-on-class, vying for state power, “is (...) the point where [civil] war breaks out into open revolution”. Revolution is warfare. Politics is coercion. Exploitation is domination. The state is an instrument of repression—the repression of the producing class by the exploiting class. The political struggle involves latent violence. Accordingly, everyday class struggle is simply an asymmetrical civil war. (shrink)

When they touch the elephant to find out what it's like, the six blind men cannot agree, for each feels a different part and arrives at a different conclusion.

Why does symbolic communication in humans develop primarily in an oral medium, and how do theories of language origin explain this? Non-human primates, despite their ability to learn and use symbolic signs, do not develop symbols as in oral language. This partly owes to the lack of a direct cortico-motoneuron control of vocalizations in these species compared to humans. Yet such modality-related factors that can impinge on the rise of symbolic language are interpreted differently in two types of evolutionary storylines. (...) 1) Some theories posit that symbolic language originated in a gestural modality, as in “sign languages”. However, this overlooks work on emerging sign and spoken language showing that gestures and speech shape signs differently. 2) In modality-dependent theories, some emphasize the role of iconic sounds, though these lack the efficiency of arbitrary symbols. Other theorists suggest that ontogenesis serves to identify human-specific mechanisms underlying an evolutionary shift from pitch varying to orally-modulated vocalizations (babble). This shift creates numerous oral features that can support efficient symbolic associations. We illustrate this principle using a sound-picture association task with 40 learners who hear words in an unfamiliar language (Mandarin) with and without a filtering of oral features. Symbolic associations arise more rapidly and accurately for sounds containing oral features compared to sounds bearing only pitch features, an effect also reported in experiments with infants. The results imply that, beyond a competence to learn and use symbols, the rise of symbolic language rests on the types of signs that a modality of expression affords. (shrink)