Od svih suvremenika Praxisa, koji je nesumnjivo najsnažnija pojava u novijoj povijesti filozofije i kulture na ovim prostorima, Blaženku Despot treba smatrati onom izuzetnom osobnošću koja, ni formalno niti konceptualno, ne pripada tom krugu, iako s njime dijeli problematsku suštinu prijepora kojim se svi oni u to doba intenzivno bave. Ona, kao i Praxis , oštro i bespoštedno kritizira »socijalističku zbilju«, ali pritom ide dalje, propitujući i promišljajući odnos misaonih, idejnih izvora na koje se »realizacija socijalističke zbilje« poziva, kao (...) i kvalitetu, domet i istinitost same realizacije. Tako su u žarište njezinih preokupacija postavljeni misaoni korpus Hegela i Marxa, njihove razlike i istovjetnosti, granice i nepotpunosti u odnosu na povijesnu zakrivljenost našeg vremena. Poduzimajući filozofsku analizu tzv. društvenih pojava ona poduzima suočavanje »socijalističke stvarnosti« s idejama njezinih marksističkih uzora. Stoga poduzima »ponovno čitanje Hegela«, koje znači i ponovno čitanje Marxa, naročito na onim mjestima na kojima ih je »socijalistička stvarnost«, kao i cjelokupna povijest, potpuno demantirala, a to je područje humanističkog dometa emancipacije žena. Otvarajući među prvima u nas upravo ovo teorijsko-filozofsko polje, Blaženka Despot slijedi svjetske trendove teorije i filozofije feminizma, u čemu je ostavila ne samo neizbrisivi trag doprinosu produbljavanja filozofije slobode nego je u nas postavila temelje feminističke filozofije.Blaženka Despot should be regarded as an extraordinary person among all Praxis’s contemporaries, because she was concerned with the same themes, although she did not belong to the group, neither formally nor conceptually. She, like the philosophers closely associated with Praxis , harshly and without pity criticizes the so called “socialist reality”, but goes on even further to examine and rethink the conceptual foundations on which it is based, as well as its quality, range and truthfulness of the whole project. Therefore, Hegel and Marx lie in the very centre of her interest – the differences and similarities between them, and their limitations and insufficiencies regarding the historical context of our times. Putting effort into the philosophical analysis of social phenomena , she puts “socialist reality” and the ideas of its Marxist role-models side by side. Thus, she “re-reads Hegel”, and thereby also unavoidably Marx, in the context completely neglected by both “socialist reality” and the entire history of ideas – in the context of humanistic emancipation of women. Opening that theoretic-philosophical field of investigation, Blaženka Despot follows the world trends in theory, including also dealing with the philosophy of feminism, where she left an indelible mark concerning her efforts to deepen the “philosophy of freedom” and to establish feminist philosophy in Croatia. (shrink)

It is well evidenced that patients with schizophrenia demonstrate impairments of figurative language comprehension. Their metaphor production has not attracted nearly as much scholarly attention. W...

The automatic detection of implicitly offensive language is a challenge for NLP, as such language is subtle, contextual, and plausibly deniable, but it is becoming increasingly important with the wider use of large language models to generate human-quality texts. This study argues that current difficulties in detecting implicit offence are exacerbated by multiple factors: (a) inadequate definitions of implicit and explicit offense; (b) an insufficient typology of implicit offence; and (c) a dearth of detailed analysis of implicitly offensive linguistic data. (...) In this study, based on a qualitative analysis of an implicitly offensive dataset, a new typology of implicitly offensive language is proposed along with a detailed, example-led account of the new typology, an operational definition of implicitly offensive language, and a thorough analysis of the role of figurative language and humour in each type. Our analyses identify three main issues with previous datasets and typologies used in NLP approaches: (a) conflating content and form in the annotation; (b) treating figurativeness, particularly metaphor, as the main device of implicitness, while ignoring its equally important role in the explicit offence; and (c) an over-focus on form-specific datasets (e.g. focusing only on offensive comparisons), which fails to reflect the full complexity of offensive language use. (shrink)

The claim of metabletic phenomenology about the changing nature of reality is a claim about the relation etween humanity and reality. First, it indicates that reality is a reflection of human life. Second, metabletic phenomenology indicates that the mirror relation between humanity and reality is one of participation. The example of linear perspective painting will illustrate these points. In turn, four psychological themes are identified in Van den Berg's work. The first and second themes concern, respectively, the character and place (...) of psychological reality. Themes three and four are addressed to the inherently therapeutic and ethical dimensions of Van den Berg's psychology. (shrink)

At least from Bentham's time, the dominant interpretive approaches to Hobbes's Leviathan have tended to soften and blur the despotic message of that book. Writers of otherwise very different persuasions and pursuing very different intellectual agendas have sought to soften the way Hobbes's political theory has been understood. In the effort to insulate and preserve obviously valuable aspects of that theory, the elements of tyranny so significant to the text of Leviathan have been ignored, distorted, obscured and denied. The upshot (...) has been to portray Hobbes as no more than a harmless proto-liberal. (shrink)

Part I having argued that the history of the modern reception of Hobbes's Leviathan shows a pattern of distortion in the reading of its despotical character, Part II tries to reveal more clearly the ways in which Hobbes's political theory was a doctrine of tyranny. To this end, the essay uses Lockean political liberty as a negative heuristic to help reveal the oppressive principles in Leviathan, explores the conception of ‘arbitration’ in Hobbes to see how the utter surrender of liberty (...) and judgment lies at the root of his political theory, and speculates on the dreadful implications of the idea of absolute power in the hands of Hobbesian man. (shrink)

Although there is no more iconic, stalwart, and eloquent defender of liberty and representative democracy than J.S. Mill, he sometimes endorses non-democratic forms of governance. This article explains the reasons behind this seeming aberration and shows that Mill actually has complex and nuanced views of the transition from non-democratic to democratic government, including the comprehensive and parallel material, cultural, institutional, and character reforms that must occur, and the mechanism by which they will be enacted. Namely, an enlightened despot must (...) cultivate democratic virtues such as obedience, industriousness, spirit of nationality, and resistance to tyranny in the population and simultaneously prepare the way for his own demise and secure his own legitimacy by transitioning to the rule of law. This challenges recent scholarship that paints Mill’s non-democratic views as crudely and uncritically imperialist, because it fails to recognize and engage seriously with his sophisticated (if ultimately problematic) theory of individual and institutional development under enlightened colonialism. (shrink)

: This article is a humble attempt at highlighting the controversiesregarding the legitimacy of popular resistance or revolutionary movement tobring down Muslim political regime that claimed to be despotic, unjust andeven un-Islamic. Having the fact on the existence of another view by majorityscholars that more inclined towards pacifist ideology which stressed onpolitical stability as a prerequisite to prosperity, the article emphasizes moreon the revolutionary school, while the second shall be highlighted when it isnecessary for comparison. Employing qualitative method of study, (...) the articleseeks to examine the arguments provided by both movements. This will bedone by analyzing their textual and rational grounds of evidences used bythe two schools to legitimize their political stance. Associating with what ishappening in Muslims nation nowadays, current study compelled to review theradical revolutionary movement from the perspective of moderate Islam schoolof thought. (shrink)

This study adds to business ethics research by investigating how employees’ exposure to despotic leadership might influence their peer-rated workplace status, along with a mediating role of ingratiatory behavior targeted at supervisors and a moderating role of their power distance orientation and self-enhancement motive. Multisource, three-wave data from employees and their peers in Pakistani organizations reveal that exposure to despotic leaders spurs employees’ upward ingratiatory behavior, and this behavior in turn can help them attain higher status in the organization. The (...) mediating role of upward ingratiatory behavior also is more prominent among employees with higher levels of power distance orientation and self-enhancement motive. For business ethics scholars, this study thus pinpoints a potentially dangerous pathway—featuring employees’ deliberate efforts to impress self-centered, destructive supervisors—by which despotic leadership can generate beneficial outcomes for employees but not for the organization, as well as how this process varies due to key personal characteristics. (shrink)

The ambiguity of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, a fictionalised portrait of Cyrus the Great and his rise to rule an empire, has led present-day interpretations to diverge widely. Should Cyrus be seen as an ideal king, whose capabilities exceed those of other rulers, or a despot whose ascent to power depends on deception and manipulation? This paper uses the modern conceptualisation of transgression to look at Xenophon’s careful depiction of political and personal boundaries throughout the work. It suggests that the key (...) final episode of the work, Cyrus’ return to his home in Persia (Cyropaedia 8.5), shows that Cyrus retains a respect for both political and personal boundaries; this offers a further challenge to ‘republic to empire’ readings of the work. (shrink)

Montesquieu is famous as a tireless critic of despotism, which he associates overtly with Asia and the Middle East and not with the apparently more moderate Western models of governance found throughout Europe. However, Vickie B. Sullivan argues that a creaful reading of Montesquieu's enormously influential The Spirit of the Law reveals the surprising result that he recognizes that Europe itself is susceptible to despotic practices - and that the threat emanates not from the East but rather from certain despotic (...) ideas that inform Western institutions and practices. Sullivan guides readers through Montesquieu's sometimes veiled yet sharply critical accounts of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Aristotle, and Plato, as well as various Christian thinkers have brough forth despotic ideas in the form, for example, of brutal Machiavellianism, of Hobbes's justifications for the rule of one, of Plato's reasoning that denied slaves the right of natural defense, and of the Christian teachings that equated heresy with treason. Such ideas, Montesquieu shows, inform such revered European institutions as the French monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church. In this new reading of Montesquieu's masterwork, Sullivan corrects the misconception that it offers simple, objective observations, showing it to be instead a powerful critique of European politics that would become remarkably and regrettably prescient after Montesquieu's death, when despotism repeatedly emerged in Europe with virulent intensity. -- from dust jacket. (shrink)

Maps of mankind -- The world turned upside down: Mandeville -- Between two saddles: Montaigne -- Climactic harmonies: Bodin -- St. Confucius: the Jesuits in China -- Distant relations: the Jesuits in New France -- Ancients, moderns, and others: Fontenelle and Temple -- The specter of despotism: Montesquieu and Voltaire -- Savage critics: Lahontan, Rousseau, and Diderot -- From savagery to decadence: Ferguson, Millar, and Gibbon -- Cultural critique: Herder -- "Others" are good to think.

Abstractabstract:This paper discusses the anthropology, ethics, and politics of Helvetius, focusing on the theme of power and the passions that gravitate around it, and highlighting the transition from a position that could be broadly defined as "anarchic" (all powers are bad) to one that realistically takes power for granted as an insurmountable horizon (and which leads to the future-laden idea of a "democratic despotism"). By analyzing these themes, it questions the common interpretation of Helvetius's thought as a compact block ("Le (...) système d'Helvétius"), emphasizing the way in which the theoretical reworkings presented in De l'homme must be understood in light of the internal tensions of De l'esprit. (shrink)

This paper analyzes a contemporary conception of digital despotism through themes drawn from classical Greek philosophy. By taking as a measure some of the most radically excluded categories of human existence, Aristotle’s slave and slavish types, I offer a way to understand digital despotism as a syndrome of overlapping risks to human impairment, brought about by the advent of automated data processing technologies, which dispossesses people along i) ontological and ii) cognitive dimensions. This conception aims to balance the appeal to (...) the _language_ of slavery in recent global historical, Marxist, republican, and postcolonial discourses on digital technology, while distinguishing itself from the coercive, material violence involved in the experiences of slavery itself. Unlike prior conceptions, this thematic idea of digital despotism moreover suggests political vulnerability to forms of despotic rule and integrates various risk factors that can therefore be better recognized in both policy intervention, and individual and/or collective resistance. (shrink)

Recovery is a model of care in (forensic) mental health settings across Western nations that aims to move past the paternalistic and punitive models of institutional care of the 20th century and toward more patient‐centered approaches. But as we argue in this paper, the recovery‐oriented services that evolved out of the early stages of this liberating movement signaled a shift in nursing practices that cannot be viewed only as improvements. In effect, as “recovery” nursing practices became more established, more codified, (...) and more institutional(ized), a stasis developed. Recovery had been reterritorialized. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the threads of recovery, from its early days of antipsychiatry activism to its codification into mental health—including forensic mental health—institutions through the lens of poststructuralist philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. We believe that Deleuze and Guattari's scholarship provides the necessary, albeit uncomfortable, framework for this critical examination. From a conceptualization of recovery as an assemblage, we critically examine how we can go about creating something new, caught in a tension between stasis and change. (shrink)

Parties are back, and many are cheering. Party polarization has voters seeing stark differences between Democrats and Republicans and demonstrating more ideological constraint than previous generations. But these signs of a more “responsible” electorate are an illusion, because the public is no more knowledgeable than ever about the type of “information” it needs if it is to exercise effective control over the public‐policy outcomes it cares the most about. Indeed, polarization has produced a political environment where both voters and policy (...) makers may be less likely to learn about the potential consequences of their governing choices. The result is that holding elected politicians to account for policies treated as divisive ends in themselves has become easier—but that holding them accountable for policies intended as means to the achievement of consensual ends has become harder. (shrink)

In 1861 John Stuart Mill published Considerations on Representative Government to discuss the justifications for democracy. In the third chapter of this book he explores why a government run by a Good Despot is unacceptable. In this Article we revisit Mill’s critique of the Good Despot to problematize the contemporary exercise of authority and influence by multinational companies, especially in foreign countries. Inspired by Mill, we redefine the problem of privatization. The challenges of privatization are mostly defined by (...) essentialist concerns or a consequentialist critique of the problematic outcomes of privatization. In this Article we shift the attention to the democracy losses associated with the privatized decision-making process. We identify the growing influence of private, particularly foreign, actors as a democratic problem of exclusion of persons from decision-making processes on issues with constitutive influence on their lives, and explore the different aspects of what we regard as an acute problem of democratic deficit. The redefining of the problem as one of process and democratic deficit allows us toconclude with a critical assessment of the potentials and limitations of contemporary attempts to solve it. (shrink)

Western perceptions of Russia have a long history, starting from the earliest reports in the fifteenth century. For some Westerners Russia appeared as a utopian, harmonious society. For others it appeared as an ideal monarchy. Some, however, saw it as a despotic Asian state. The Western images of Russia from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries were thus mixed and ambiguous. The positive image of Russia as the ideal Biblical society that stood outside of history somewhat blurred the differences between (...) Russia and the West. In contrast, for an increasing number of Westerners, especially from the more advanced proto-capitalist countries, Russia was part of the non-Western world, thus emphasizing its difference from the West. Russia was thus assimilated into the Western image of the Orient where repulsion combined with fascination, until, under the impact of Romanticism in the nineteenth century, its foreignness was articulated in terms of civilizational and religious differences. (shrink)

The logic of Leviathan is formally made to derive commonwealth and the rights of sovereignty (the obligations of subjects, read the other way around) from an elaborate process beginning in the physiology of human perception and passions, through language and reason, into the state of nature (the war of all against all) and, finally, under the direction of the laws of nature, to a collective and formal resignation of all their natural rights to create an absolute sovereign. This process of (...) ‘instituting’ the sovereignty stamps the resulting sovereign with legitimacy. Early in the Second Part of Leviathan, however, Hobbes moves to attach all the rights and legitimacy of that instituted sovereignty onto what he calls ‘Despotical Dominion’, the power created when a conqueror exacts a promise from the conquered on pain of immediate death. The result is to translate all that Hobbes has said about sovereignty in general into a defence of the legitimacy of this crude force and violence. The whole of Leviathan's political argument is coloured, then, by this strategy and the best reading of it turns out to be the oldest one—that it is a defence of tyrannical power. (shrink)

Control over food supply was advanced in the kingdom of France in the Eighteenth century by Physiocrat economists under the seemingly advantageous label of 'freedom of grain trade'. In 1764 these reforms brought about a rise in grain prices and generated an artificial dearth that ruined the poor, some of whom died from malnutrition. The King halted the reform and re-established the old regime of regulated prices; in order to maintain the delicate balance between prices and wages, the monarchy tried (...) to limit speculation in subsistence goods and achieved some success in regulating the provisioning of public markets. Le Mercier de la Riviere concluded that executing these reforms required more effective political control. After 1774 the new king gave the Physiocratic reforms a second chance, reforming property rights and establishing an aristocracy of the landed rich. Again, this led to price hikes and as a result so-called 'popular emotions' erupted. Turgot ordered military intervention to dispel the protesters, marking a first rupture between the monarchy and the people over speculation on subsistence. Turgot's experiment failed and he was dismissed, but the Physiocracy had discovered that the market in subsistence offered new opportunities for economic power under the misleading legitimacy of 'economic laws'. Turgot's followers, Dupont de Nemours and Condorcet, continued to develop this 'theory' that was later translated into a 'scientific language' that ultimately asserted the autonomy of the economic sphere and its alleged independence from ethics and politics. The paper examines the continuity of events through the six great jacqueries and the French Revolution, including the all- important agrarian reform that ensued after 1792. Robespierre's concept of 'popular political economy' is analysed and compared with the notion of unfettered private property rights that lies at the heart of neoliberalism. (shrink)