This article discusses Rousseau’s theory of the genesis and development of a “post-liberal self” and its political implications. In his Emile, or Education, Rousseau explores the distinctive features of the post-liberal self through Emile’s growing capacity to think in terms of his social interdependence with others and yet to maintain his critical autonomy. For Rousseau it is only such individuals with a highly developed moral and civic consciousness who are capable of articulating the general will and of properly participating in (...) a modern republic. I argue that the general will for Rousseau is therefore not a property of the community but of the post-liberal self, for whom the common good is a larger dimension of the individual good. I then discuss the political implications of this theory by relating it to The Social Contract where Rousseau urges us to examine the legitimacy of existing social norms, laws and practices. Rousseau, I conclude, is one of the great radical thinkers of self-transformation as the prerequisite for overcoming the pathologies and limitations of liberal society. (shrink)

This article proposes a more culturalist and variegated conception of the individual than that presented by individualization theorists. Inspired by the approach of the individual advocated by Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and John Meyers, it first outlines the general script of the individual-as-actor that informs modern individualism as well as the generic characteristics that are routinely attributed to persons such as agency and free will. It subsequently reconstructs three predominant interpretations of this general script, i.e. utilitarian, moral and expressive individualism. (...) For each variant, the intellectual genesis and overall definition of the institutionalization in specific societal domains and the dominant articulations in social theory are briefly presented. With this threefold distinction, the aim is to synthesize the extensive literature on individualism and to show the sociological strengths of approaching subjectivity in terms of institutionalized scripts. (shrink)

This contribution focuses on Andreas Reckwitz’s considerations on phenomena of ‘exhausted self-realization’ and ‘disappointment’ in The Society of Singularities, as well as in his follow-up volume, The End of Illusions. Under discussion is the range of analytical distinctions that tend to come into play in this area between what one might call a generally primordial concept of self-realization and more derivative articulations of the concept that exhibit various aspects of instrumentalization—variously termed ‘self-maximization’ or ‘self-optimization’. The paper argues that while Reckwitz’s (...) work offers great resources for an understanding of how and why ‘self-realization’ so frequently appears to take on an instrumentalizing character in late-modern social behaviour, the extent to which his work attributes this tendency to a wholly immanent cultural-cognitive logic of lifestyle singularization is open to criticism. The reasons must also be sought from within the more directly economic contexts of diminished material security and solidarity typical of contemporary societies shaped by neoliberal economic governance orders at the level of policy. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to discover the peculiarities of the interpretation of sexual representation in the postmodern philosophical discourse; to analyze the way of becoming the category of sexuality an integral part of feminine subjectivity; to compare the ways of interpretation of the category of sexuality in the works of the Western and Ukrainian researchers. Methods and approaches. To investigate the theoretical framework in the postmodern philosophy the cross-disciplinary approach is used. The comparative approach is methodologically important to (...) clarify the problems concerning feminine subjectivity. The very approach provides the researcher with the opportunity to review the cultural peculiarities of the given historical period. Scientific novelty. Following the peculiarities of the gender approach it was discovered that the modern interpretation of the category of feminine subjectivity includes not only racial, class and ethnical differences, but the peculiarities of a sexual character. Unfortunately, the category of sexuality is still the way of women’s oppression. Nevertheless, this category is now an important tool when representing the versatile nature of feminine subjectivity. The problems of sexual marginality are considered to be the way of destroying gender stereotypes. Conclusion. It is proved that the postmodern philosophical discourse has contributed serious transformations when interpreting the feminine nature and changed the attitude to the very category of sexuality. The interpretation of the category of sexuality is a certain touchstone clarifying the attitude towards a human being in general and towards a woman in particular. It is determined that nowadays the problems of sexuality raise some concerns and anxiety posing more questions than giving the answers. One point is absolutely clear: it is impossible to investigate the nature of a modern human being out of the postmodern philosophical discourse. What is more, it is impossible to investigate the postmodern philosophical discourse out of the categories of human sexual representation. (shrink)