This volume surveys the current state of the criticalLegalStudies movement- a fifteen year old initiative whose proponents are committed to building a strong progrsseve community inside law schools and the legal profession. In his introduciton, Boyle argues that CLS has succeeded because it analyzes the inadequacies of rights talk, technocracy, and law and economics, and because it connects theory with the everyday experiences of lawyers and legal scholars. Articles present the CLS perspective on (...)legal reasoning, legal hisory, substantive law, legal practice, and social theory. (shrink)
Laws of Postmodernity is the first work of legal scholarship to apply postmodern jurisprudence to an analysis of a number of substantive areas of law. In analyzing the cultural significance of law, the contributors show how critical jurisprudential analysis undermines positivistic attempts to support a normative viewpoint of the legal order. In addition, they criticize contextual, sociological accounts of legal phenomena. The contributors explore blasphemy laws in the wake of the Salman Rushdie affair, and French (...) class='Hi'>criticallegal theory-- particularly the work of Pierre Legendre--to highlight the repression of psychoanalysis within jurisprudence. Through detailed accounts, Laws of Postmodernity clearly illustrates the practical application and theoretical significance of postmodern jurisprudence. (shrink)
This book challenges the usual introductions to the study of law. It argues that law is inherently political and reflects the interests of the few even while presenting itself as neutral. It considers law as ideology and as politics, and critically assesses its contribution to the creation and maintenance of a globalised and capitalist world. The clarity of the arguments is admirably suited to provoking discussions of the role of law in our contemporary world. The third edition provides contemporary examples (...) to sustain the arguments in their relevance to the 21st century. The book includes an analysis of the common sense of law; the use of anthropological examples to gain external perspectives of our use and understanding of law; a consideration of central legal concepts, such as order, rules, property, dispute resolution, legitimation and the rule of law; an examination of the role of law in women's subordination; and finally a critique of the effect of our understanding of law upon the wider world. This book is ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students reading law. (shrink)
The body of the law is an ambiguous phrase. Conventionally, it designates the law as a determinate corpus; legal codes, statutes, and the rulings of common law. But it can also refer to the subjected body that is produced by and is part of the law. This subjected body is necessary for the law's existence. Thinking Through the Body of the Law reconceives the role of the body in the founding, maintaining, and regulation of our legal systems and (...) social order and elaborates on its implications for issues of legal responsibility and justice. Taking into account and sometimes challenging the tenets of criticallegal theory, critical race theory, and feminist jurisprudence, these essays examine the body and the law as they relate to surrogacy, the Holocaust, land-rights for Aboriginals, murder, the media and insanity, taxation, genetic engineering, and sexy dressing and sexual harassment. (shrink)
This book is a sophisticated, detailed, and original examination of the main ideas that have dominated Anglo-American legal philosophy since the Second World War. The author probes such themes as: whether there can be right answers to all disputed law cases; how laws and other rules impact on the practical rationality of actors subject to their authority; whether general principles justifying the law must themselves be thought of as part of the law binding on legal actors; and the (...) possibility of an interpretivist jurisprudence that is continuous with law practice in a given culture. (shrink)
Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon trained at a medical school that did not evaluate its students? Would you want to fly in a plane designed by people convinced that the laws of physics are socially constructed? Would you want to be tried by a legal system indifferent to the distinction between fact and fiction? These questions may seem absurd, but there are theories being seriously advanced by radical multiculturalists that force us to ask such (...) questions. These scholars assert that such concepts as truth and merit are inextricably racist and sexist, that reason and objectivity are merely sophisticated masks for ideological bias, and that reality itself is nothing more than socially constructed mechanism for preserving the power of the ruling elite. In Beyond All Reason, liberal legal scholars Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry mount the first systematic critique of radical multiculturalism as a form of legal scholarship. Beginning with an incisive overview of the origins and basic tenets of radical multiculturalism, the authors critically examine the work of Derrick Bell, Catherine MacKinnon, Patricia Williams, and Richard Delgado, and explore the alarming implications of their theories. Farber and Sherry push these theories to their logical conclusions and show that radical multiculturalism is destructive of the very goals it wishes to affirm. If, for example, the concept of advancement based on merit is fraudulent, as the multiculturalists claim, the disproportionate success of Jews and Asians in our culture becomes difficult to explain without opening the door to age-old anti-Semitic and racist stereotypes. If historical and scientific truths are entirely relative social constructs, then Holocaust denial becomes merely a matter of perspective, and Creationism has as much "validity" as evolution. The authors go on to show that rather than promoting more dialogue, the radical multiculturalist preferences for legal storytelling and identity politics over reasoned argument produces an insular set of positions that resist open debate. Indeed, radical multiculturalists cannot critically examine each others' ideas without incurring vehement accusations of racism and sexism, much less engage in fruitful discussion with a mainstream that does not share their assumptions. Here again, Farber and Sherry show that the end result of such thinking is not freedom but a kind of totalitarianism where dissent cannot be tolerated and only the naked will to power remains to settle differences. Sharply written and brilliantly argued, this book is itself a model of the kind of clarity, civility, and dispassionate critical thinking which the authors seek to preserve from the attacks of the radical multiculturalists. With far-reaching implications for such issues as government control of hate speech and pornography, affirmative action, legal reform, and the fate of all minorities, Beyond All Reason is a provocative contribution to one of the most important controversies of our time. (shrink)
Legal Realism Regained presents a comparison between the legal realists, a group of pragmatic legal theorists from the 1920s and 1930s, and criticallegalstudies, a movement of postmodern legal theory during the end of the twentieth century. The book argues for a return to legal realism and the classical pragmatism of John Dewey and William James and for a rejection of the postmodern critique of criticallegalstudies. It (...) discusses the two movements with respect to three topics: their view of history, their view of social science, and their view of language. Rejecting the claim that criticallegalstudies can be seen as the heir of legal realism, Legal Realism Regained argues that, with respect to each of these three topics, the realists still present a stronger argument than their more radical descendants. (shrink)
The work of Jürgen Habermas has long been regarded as central to the development of social and political theory and philosophy in the late 20th century. With the publication of his latest book Between Facts and Norms, Habermas has signalled the importance of exploring modern legal theory to our understanding of democratic society. Habermas, Modernity, and Law brings together leading scholars from around the world to provide a clear introduction to this key development in Habermas's work. With chapters ranging (...) from the possibility of valid law to discourse ethics and human rights, the contributors successfully integrate a broad range of Habermas's writings with his most recent thoughts on the place of the law in contemporary theory. Habermas, Modernity, and Law provides a fascinating overview to the work of Habermas and will be particularly valuable to students and professionals in the fields of European philosophy and social, political, and legal theory. (shrink)
Introduction to CriticalLegal Theory provides an accessible introduction to the study of law and legal theory. It covers all the seminal movements in classical, modern and postmodern legal thought, engaging the reader with the ideas of jurists as diverse as Aristotle, Hobbes and Kant, Marx, Foucault and Dworkin. At the same time, it impresses the interdisciplinary nature of criticallegal thought, introducing the reader to the philosophy, the economics and the politics of law. (...) This new edition focuses even more intently upon the narrative aspect of criticallegal thinking and the re-emergence of a distinctive legal humanism, as well as the various related challenges posed by our 'new' world order. Introduction to Critical Theory is a comprehensive text for both students and teachers of legal theory, jurisprudence and related subjects. (shrink)
This article asks whether an interdisciplinary "critical science studies" (CSS) is possible between a critical theory in the Frankfurt School tradition, with its commitment to universal standards of reason, and relativistic sociologies of scientific knowledge (e.g., David Bloor's strong programme). It is argued that CSS is possible if its practitioners adopt the epistemological equivalent of Rawls's method of avoidance. A discriminating, public policy–relevant critique of science can then proceed on the basis of an argumentation theory that employs (...) an immanent standard of relevance, which is illustrated by drawing on Helen Longino's critique of behavioral theory. (shrink)
This paper attempts to clarify some of the logical and conceptual issues in the philosophical dispute about law that has pitted the legal positivists against the adherents of natural law. The first part looks at the basic concepts that are relevant to that discussion and at the methodological implications of studying law either as an order of natural persons (natural law) or as a system of rules or an order of rule-defined artificial persons (legal order). Thus, we find (...) that the material and formal objects of natural law studies and legal science are different, and only touch one another because of the contingent fact that most of the positions in the legal orders studied by positivists are occupied by natural persons. Consequently, from both the logical and the methodological points of view, natural law studies and legalstudies are not rivals. The two can exist side by side and have done so for centuries. One question that emerges from analysis in the first part is why positivists have embraced the study of legal orders while heaping nothing but scorn on the study of natural law. Their attitude suggests hatred and contempt rather than a mere difference of intellectual interests. Could it be that the positivists’ attitude has little to do with logic and methodology and much with ideological issues involving fundamental values? In the second part, we look for an answer to this question in a comparison of the two major and radically opposed religious worldviews that have made their mark on Western intellectual history, the Judaeo-Christian tradition and the Gnostic tradition. (shrink)
'Critical Management Studies', or 'CMS', has emerged over the last ten years as the term to describe a diverse group of work that has adopted a critical or questioning approach to the traditional concerns of Management Studies. In this time, CMS has come to exert an increasing influence in Management and Management Studies, and while it has prompted fierce debate about its validity and use, there is no doubt that the rapidly growing interest in CMS (...) has produced a vibrant and exciting body of work. -/- Christopher Grey and Hugh Willmott, leading authorities in this area, have collected together seventeen readings which reflect these developments, and show why CMS has become an important field of research. The book is divided into four sections, 'Anticipating CMS', looking at some of the roots of CMS, 'Studying Management Critically', 'CriticalStudies of Management', and 'Assessing CMS', examining some of the internal and external critical discussions of CMS. -/- Each reading and its significance is introduced by the editors, and in their introduction to the Reader, they reflect more broadly on the history of CMS. In particular, they consider its institutionalization, both in terms of its becoming an identifiable body of work or approach, and its institutional context within business schools, and indeed what it means to produce a Reader of critical work. -/- As an assessment of CMS, the Reader will be of interest to academics, researchers, and students of Management Studies. As an introduction to CMS, the book will prove invaluable to students taking courses requiring familiarity with the CMS literature. -/- Includes work by: -/- Paul S. Adler, Mats Alvesson, P. D. Anthony, James R. Barker, Loren Baritz, Stewart Clegg, Bill Cooke, Stanley Deetz, David Dunkerley, Christopher Grey, Heather Hopfl, David Knights, Richard Marsden, C Wright Mills, Martin Parker, Rosemary Pringle, Paul Thompson, Barbara Townley, Hugh Willmott, and Edward Wray-Bliss. (shrink)
Historically critical reflection on whiteness in the United States has been a long-standing practice in slave folklore and in Mexican resistance to colonialism, Asian American struggles against exploitation and containment, and Native American stories of contact with European colonizers. Drawing from this legacy and from the disturbing silence on "whiteness" in postsecondary institutions, critical whiteness scholarship has emerged in the past two decades in U.S. academies in a variety of disciplines. A small number of philosophers, critical race (...) theorists, postcolonial theorists, social historians, and cultural studies scholars have revisited and reexamined questions of race and identity with an analysis that now focuses on historical studies of racial formation and the deconstruction of whiteness as an unmarked privilege-granting category and system of dominance. Collectively, the writings in this volume identify whiteness as a cultural disposition and ideology held in place by specific political, social, moral, aesthetic, epistemic, metaphysical, economic, legal, and historical conditions, crafted to preserve white identity and relations of white supremacy (Mills 2003). In this way, whiteness studies is a conscious attempt to think critically about how white supremacy continues to operate systemically, and sometimes unconsciously, as a global colonizing force. (shrink)
Anti-Aging and Biomedicine: CriticalStudies on the Pursuit of Maintaining, Revitalizing and Enhancing Aging Bodies Content Type Journal Article Category Editorial Notes Pages 187-195 DOI 10.1007/s12376-009-0021-9 Authors Antje Kampf, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Mainz Germany Lynn A. Botelho, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana PA USA Journal Medicine Studies Online ISSN 1876-4541 Print ISSN 1876-4533 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 3.
This volume in the prestigious series of Oxford Handbooks provides a widely accessible overview of legal scholarship at the start of the 21st century. Through 43 essays by leading legal scholars based in the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Germany, it offers original and interpretative accounts of the nature, themes and trends of research and writing about all areas of the law.
The NeuroGenderings project is reminiscent of an interdisciplinary program called Critical Neuroscience. But the steps towards a feminist/queer Critical Neuroscience are complicated by the problematic ways in which critical neuroscientists conceive of their critical practices. They suggest that we work and talk across disciplines as if neuroscientists were from Mars and social scientists from Venus, assigning the latter to the traditional feminine role of assuaging conflict. This article argues that brain science studies scholars need to (...) clarify how we want to frame our critical practices—a critique of what and for whom?—and promote interdisciplinarity. The challenge is to articulate a critical stance that could not be collapsed into the all-encompassing claims of neuroscience, Critical Neuroscience included. I suggest we shift focus: from enhanced communication to the study of controversies (but also non-controversies, failed controversies, etc.) and conflicts. I explore the productiveness of this shift through two examples: the non-controversial notion of brain plasticity, and the controversial question of whether gender identity formation in intersex people is a function of their brain or their genitals. Socializing neuroscience with insights from gender and science studies is good; highlighting the conflicting dimensions of social life in the same gesture is even better. (shrink)
Within the traditions of critical social theory and cultural criticism, there are many models of cultural studies. Both classical and contemporary social theory have engaged the relationships between culture and society, and provided a variety of types of studies of culture. From this perspective, there are neo-Marxian models of cultural studies ranging from the Frankfurt School to Althusserian paradigms; there are neo-Weberian, neo-Durkheimian, poststructuralist, and feminist studies of culture; and there are a wide range of (...) eclectic approaches that apply distinctive social theories to the study of culture. (shrink)
In his contribution, Critical Investments: AIDS, Christopher Reeve, and Queer/Disability Studies, Robert McRuer calls for the recognition of the points of convergence between AIDS theory, queer theory, and disability theory. McRuer points out ways in which minority identity groups such as people with AIDS, gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, and those with so-called disabilities, whose status has been described by others as impaired, have resisted this judgment by calling its ideological underpinnings into question. He contends that a critical (...) alliance between AIDS theory, queer theory, and disability theory will ultimately help us to realize the full range of different kinds of bodies and corporeal experiences, while also combating the application of normativizing judgments. (shrink)
This article examines eight “gaps” in order to clarify why the quantitative genetics methods of partitioning variation of a trait into heritability and other components has very limited power to show anything clear and useful about genetic and environmental influences, especially for human behaviors and other traits. The first two gaps should be kept open; the others should be bridged or the difficulty of doing so should be acknowledged: 1. Key terms have multiple meanings that are distinct; 2. Statistical patterns (...) are distinct from measurable underlying factors; 3. Translation from statistical analyses to hypotheses about measurable factors is difficult; 4. Predictions based on extrapolations from existing patterns of variation may not match outcomes; 5. The partitioning of variation in human studies does not reliably estimate the intended quantities; 6. Translation from statistical analyses to hypotheses about the measurable factors is even more difficult in light of the possible heterogeneity of underlying genetic or environmental factors; 7. Many steps lie between the analysis of observed traits and interventions based on well-founded claims about the causal influence of genetic or environmental factors; 8. Explanation of variation within groups does not translate to explanation of differences among groups. At the start, I engage readers’ attention with three puzzles that have not been resolved by past debates. The puzzles concern generational increases in IQ test scores, the possibility of underlying heterogeneity, and the translation of methods from selective breeding into human genetics. After discussing the gaps, I present each puzzle in a new light and point to several new puzzles that invite attention from analysts of variation in quantitative genetics and in social science more generally. The article’s critical perspectives on agricultural, laboratory, and human heritability studies are intended to elicit further contributions from readers across the fields of history, philosophy, sociology, and politics of biology and in the sciences. (shrink)
After publishing a series of books that many recognize as major works on contemporary education and critical pedagogy, Henry Giroux turned to cultural studies in the late 1980s to enrich education with expanded conceptions of pedagogy and literacy.1 This cultural turn is animated by the hope to reconstruct schooling with critical perspectives that can help us to better understand and transform contemporary culture and society in the contemporary era. Giroux provides cultural studies with a critical (...) pedagogy missing in many versions and a sustained attempt to link critical pedagogy and cultural studies with developing a more democratic culture and citizenry. The result is an intersection of critical pedagogy and cultural studies that enhances both enterprises, providing a much-needed cultural and transformative political dimension to critical pedagogy and a pedagogical dimension to cultural studies. Crucially, Giroux has linked his attempts to transform pedagogy and education with the project of promoting radical democracy. Giroux's earlier work during the 1970s and 1980s focused on educational reform, pedagogy, and the transformation of education to promote radical democracy. In Border Crossings (1992), Giroux notes "a shift in both my politics and my theoretical work" (1). The shift included incorporation of new theoretical discourses of poststructuralism and postmodernism, cultural studies, and the politics of identity and difference embodied in the new discourses of class, gender, race, and sexuality that proliferated in the post- 1960s epoch. Giroux criticized those who ignore "the sea changes in social theory" within the field of education and called for a transformation of education and pedagogy in the light of the new paradigms, discourses, and practices that were circulating by the 1990s. One of the key new discourses and practices that Giroux was henceforth to take up and develop involved the burgeoning discipline of cultural studies.. (shrink)
This article addresses, from a Frankfurt School perspective on law identified with Franz Neumann and more recently Habermas, the attack upon the principles of war criminality formulated at the Nuremberg trials by the increasingly influential legal and political theory of Carl Schmitt. It also considers the contradictions within certain of the defence arguments that Schmitt himself resorted to when interrogated as a possible war crimes defendant at Nuremberg. The overall argument is that a distinctly internal, or “immanent”, form of (...) critique is required of Schmitt's position, in which its is found wanting even on its own terms. In principle, the application of this dialectical mode of critique can allow a genuine debate to emerge between those seeking to continue both the Schmittian and critical theory traditions, whilst safeguarding the latter from the dangers of formulating polemical interventions that are, in effect, counterproductive to their own intentions. (shrink)
Juris-Data is one of the largest case-study base in France. The case studies are indexed by legal classification elaborated by the Juris-Data Group. Knowledge engineering was used to design an intelligent interface for information retrieval based on this classification. The aim of the system is to help users find the case-study which is the most relevant to their own.The approach is potentially very useful, but for standardising it for other legal document bases it is necessary to extract (...) a legal classification of the primary documents. Thus, a methodology for the construction of these classifications was designed together with a framework for index construction. The project led to the implementation of a Legal Case Studies Engineering Framework based on the accumulated experimentation and the methodologies designed. It consists of a set of computerised tools which support the life-cycle of the legal document from their processing by legal experts to their consultation by clients. (shrink)
Instead of examining critical realism directly, this essay critically examines claims made by two prominent critical realists, namely Andrew Collier and Tony Lawson, on behalf of their philosophy. These are (a) that critical realism supports Marx's law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and (b) that critical realism is illustrated by the workplace organization theory of the relative decline of the British economy. It is argued that the first claim is false and (...) the second is unsubstantiated. Furthermore, propositions that are rejected by Collier and Lawson are shown in fact to be consistent with critical realism. These two case studies raise important questions concerning the claims made for critical realism on behalf of its adherents. Some questions are also posed concerning the character of critical realism as a movement. (shrink)
Ethics and regulation have become catchwords of the late 1990s, yet relatively little has been written about the ethical discourse and regulation of the legal professions in England and Wales. This book represents the first attempt to subject the ethical discourse of the English legal professions to in-depth analysis and sustained critique. Drawing on insights from moral philosophy, social theory, the sociology of the legal profession, public law theories of regulation, and the extensive American literature on lawyers' (...) ethics, it argues that, in seeking to provide definitive answers to particular problems of professional conduct, professional legal ethics has failed to deliver an approach which requires lawyers actively to engage with the ethical issues raised by legal practice. Through an analysis of the core issues facing lawyers, the authors locate this failure in the profession's reliance on a liberal and adversarial role morality that conceptualises the ethical values of human dignity, autonomy and equality in a formalistic and narrowly legalistic manner. This encourages lawyers to overlook the real invasions of these values so often wrought by upholding clients legal rights, and to ignore the competing claims of affected third parties, the wider community and the environment In seeking to move beyond critique, the authors develop throughout the book a contextual approach to individual ethical decision-making and outline a range of institutional, regulatory and educational reforms which, they suggest, could form the basis for a more ethical brand of professionalism. -/- Professional Legal Ethics: Critical Interrogations is a wide-ranging and thought-provoking analysis written for lawyers, ethicists and policy-makers interested in this neglected area of professional ethics and regulation. (shrink)
As dominant liberal conceptions of the relationship between rights and freedom maintain, freedom is a property of the individual human subject and rights are a mechanism for protecting that freedom—whether it be the freedom to speak, to associate, to practise a certain religion or cultural way of life, and so forth. Rights according to these kinds of accounts are protective of a certain zone of permitted or valorised conduct and they function either as, for example, a ‘side-constraint’ on the actions (...) of others or as a ‘trump’ over governmental or community goals. In such accounts, of course, the emphasis is placed upon the forms of power against which rights protect the individual, whether that be the trespasses of others or the overweening attentions of the state. Such accounts famously do not themselves take much account of the multiple ways in which rights also function as forms of power, often delimiting the courses of action that a putative rights-holder can take and affecting the manner of its exercise, indeed often in the very name of freedom itself. Of course, there is a sizeable critical literature which does address itself to these kinds of question, most notably from the radical traditions of Marxism and criticallegal theory, which see rights in terms of the relations of production, consumption and exploitation that they establish between legal subjects. For various reasons, Foucault has not figured as prominently in critical discussions of rights. Here I do not propose to enter into debates surrounding Foucault’s engagement with, or failure to engage with, law as an object of study, nor with the emergent literature on Foucault’s deployments of rights, indeed even of human rights. Rather, what I want to do in this paper is to articulate and defend the view that through a reading of Foucault’s work, both on rights and on power relations more broadly, we can discern an understanding of the political ambivalence of rights. For Foucault (and for some of the post-Foucaultian scholars whose work I shall address, below), rights are both political tools for the contestation and alteration of mechanisms of power and simultaneously mechanisms of inscription, both disciplinary and governmental, which work to conduct those who rely upon them. Far from being an unproblematic tool for the protection of the subject’s freedom, rights emerge in this account as conflicted and ambivalent mechanisms. In the first part of this paper I develop a Foucaultian account of rights along these lines and then hope to illustrate it by reference to several examples, from the constitution of gender and cultural identity via rights to the figure of the refugee, whilst in the final part of the paper I make a return to the idea of freedom in Foucault’s work and link the view of rights developed herein to a certain conception of freedom in his work. (shrink)
The second edition of Cultural Studies and the New Humanities provides a comprehensive overview of issues in the humanities at the turn of the new millennium, providing historical background, defining key terms, and introducing the ideas of key thinkers. This second edition has been thoroughly revised and updated, and new chapters have been added about the rise of visual cultures and the fierce contemporary debate between identity politics and queer theory.
Mark V. Tushnet (2005). CriticalLegal Theory. In Martin P. Golding & William A. Edmundson (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory. Blackwell Pub..score: 45.0
Research in Science and Technology Studies (STS) tends to presume that intellectual and political radicalism go hand in hand. One would therefore expect that the most intellectually radical movement in the field relates critically to its social conditions. However, this is not the case, as demonstrated by the trajectory of the Parisian School of STS spearheaded by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour. Their position, "actor-network theory," turns out to be little more than a strategic adaptation to the democratization of (...) expertise and the decline of the strong nation-state in France over the past 25 years. This article provides a prehistory of this client-driven, contract-based research culture in U.S. sociology of the 1960s, followed by specific features of French philosophical and political culture that have bred the distinctive tenets of actor-network theory. Insofar as actor-network theory has become the main paradigm for contemporary STS research, it reflects a field that dodges normative commitments in order to maintain a user-friendly presence. (shrink)
This book concludes by considering whether growing counter calls to reduce our consumption of meat/dairy products in the face of climate change threats are in ...
Context: It is beyond doubt that RC has received a great deal of attention in educational studies and learning theory. But overall, the current situation seems to be rather ambivalent in view of the blurring of the various strands in constructivist discourses and the different ways of distinguishing and foregrounding constructivist positions. Correspondingly, there is a wide range of claims, from the claim that (radical) constructivism represents a mainstream endeavor to attributions of its being outdated, self-refuting or irrelevant. Purpose: (...) The paper seeks to sound out the ambivalent situation of (radical) constructivism between “all” and “nothing” by examples of attributions of meaning to constructivist positions in academic everyday life and by challenging both prevalent criticisms of systemic-constructivist pedagogy and widespread broad classifications in learning theory. Method: The article critically reflects on (1) one-sentence “destructions” of constructivist positions, (2) Pongratz’s criticism of systemic-constructivist pedagogy, and (3) the threefold classification of the world of learning, i.e., behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Results: Both the current criticism of constructivism as a mainstream endeavor and evolutionary suggestions provided by the threefold classification are criticized. Although some constructivist concepts and distinctions are widely accepted today, often these achievements are not recognized as being rooted in constructivist discourses. Implications: As far as mainstreaming constructivism might be related to power politics, selling the “real thing,” and joining the ranks of truth-oriented Isms, it would not appear to be a desirable endeavor for those who rely on viability, circular foundations, relativist philosophy, and relationalist approaches. Nevertheless, clarifications of power relations and the interplay between constructivist analyses of politics and the politics of constructivism might contribute to overcoming the diffuse popularity of constructivist thought towards a better understanding of constructivist contributions to solution oriented, meaningful ways of dealing with urgent problems. (shrink)
Organized thematically, this important five-volume set brings together key essays from the field of historical studies. Including an extensive general introduction by the editor in the first volume, as well as shorter individual introductions in each of the following volumes, this set is essential reading for scholars and students alike. Coverage includes: 1. Foundations - The Classic Tradition - The Old Cultural History - Economic History 2: Society - Social History - Marxism - Annales - History of Mentalities 3: (...) Ideas - History of Ideas/ Intellectual History - History of Science - History of the Arts - History of Religion - History of Sexuality. 4: Culture - History and Anthropology - Microhistory - New Cultural History - History and Memory - The Poetics of History - Narrativity. Postmodernist Historiography and its Critics 5: Politics - Political History - Imperialism and Postcolonial History - World History - World-Systems Analysis. (shrink)
This essay examines the capacity of language (‘word’) to convey what there is (‘world’). It draws on philosophical thought, which it seeks to apply to law while making specific reference to comparative legalstudies, that is, to the investigation of law that is foreign to its interpreter.
I argue in this article (i) that Karl Olivecrona's legal philosophy, especially the critique of the view that law has binding force, the analysis of the concept and function of a legal rule, and the idea that law is a matter of organized force, is a significant contribution to twentieth century legal philosophy. I also argue (ii) that Olivecrona fails to substantiate some of his most important empirical claims, and (iii) that the distinction espoused by Olivecrona between (...) the truth and the correctness of legal statements is problematic but not needed in Olivecrona's legal philosophy. (shrink)
This book addresses, and at the same time reflects, the impact of Max Weber on both the social sciences and on critical theory's critique of the social sciences ...
At present UK Law states that the unborn child only becomes a legal person invested with legal rights and full protections, like other human persons, at birth. This article critiques the present legal position of setting the threshold for legal personality at birth, showing its inconsistencies and fundamentally pragmatic basis. Against this background, it is argued that a principled approach towards unborn life is necessary, which reflects in law the reality that the unborn child is a (...) type of human person deserving protection as it develops through the continuum of human personhood – from embryonic personhood, to infant personhood and ultimately into adult personhood. Human personhood is defined as a union of a material and immaterial self, meaning that at every stage of their development they are never a “potential person,” but rather a “person with potential” even if it is not actualized through miscarriage, premature death, or disability. This moral and philosophical reasoning is what justifies protecting the sanctity of unborn life in law. The rest of the article explores and critiques the alternative static legal threshold for ascribing legal personality, at conception, implantation and viability. Having considered the practical moral, legal and philosophical problems of these alternatives; the final proposal for law reform combines all three of these thresholds in a proposal for a “dynamic” threshold for legal personality commencing at conception, which would render birth as an irrelevant threshold for moral and legal reasoning about the unborn. (shrink)
Hindu ethical studies, as a discipline distinct from religious and philosophical studies and as a field of descriptive ethics within comparative ethical studies, is a relatively recent venture. Scholars have focused upon classical Sanskritic texts for the basis of their studies, ignoring, for the most part, the rich source of commentaries on Hindu scriptures that form what Smith has called "the cumulative tradition." Furthermore, the most urgent need in the field of Hindu ethical studies is (...) to establish definitional and methodological clarity. Putting aside problems of method for later consideration, this paper explores the richness and variety of sources for the study of Hindu ethics and emphasizes the importance of integrating the study of theoretical ethics with the "lived" moralities that continue to dominate Indian society. (shrink)
Organized thematically, this four-volume collection explores the key areas of structuralism - and with a new introduction by the editor to guide the reader through the work, this is an essential collection of secondary sources that provides a valuable tool for research. Taking as their methodological model the successes of the structural linguistics inaugurated by Ferdinand de Saussure, a group of thinkers in such fields as anthropology, literary and cultural studies, sociology and philosophy developed ambitious programs for the interdisciplinary (...) study of the systems by which human beings make the world intelligible. (shrink)
This set reprints a wide range of key articles exploring the role of feminists in the development of post-Enlightenment thought. Including groundbreaking work from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, with pieces by Sandra Harding, Julia Kristeva, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Elizabeth Spelman, and other internationally-esteemed scholars, the collection features an original introduction and comprehensive index, making this an invaluable resource for women's studies students in a wide range of subject areas. For a full listing of contents, visit www.routledge-ny.com and type (...) the isbn into the search engine. (shrink)
Legal Philosophies has been written to provide a clear guide to the main topics in a jurisprudence or legal theory course with the novice in mind. It provides summaries of the pertinent arguments within these topics, and of the views of leading theorists. This new edition takes a look at the emergence of "CriticalLegalStudies" and "Feminist Jurisprudence", whilst there are new sections on "Moral Truth" and "Communitarianism" (a revived theoretical approach).
This book argues that we have moved into a new cultural period, automodernity, which represents a social, psychological, and technological reaction to postmodernity. In fact, by showing how individual autonomy is now being generated through technological and cultural automation, Samuels posits that we must rethink modernity and postmodernity. Part of this rethinking entails stressing how the progressive political aspects of postmodernism need to be separated from the aesthetic consumption of differences in automoderntiy. Choosing culturally relevant studies of The Matrix, (...) Grand Theft Auto, Eminem and Jurassic Park, he interprets these medias through the lens of eminent theorists like Slavoj Zizek, Frederic Jameson, and Henry Jenkins. Ultimately, he argues that what defines postmodernity is the stress on social construction, secular humanism, and progressive social movements that challenge the universality and neutrality of modern reason. (shrink)
The construct of Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) has drawn much attention in the study of business ethics for over two decades. The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has made a significant contribution to the literature as an easy-to-administer CMD instrument, and the Moral Judgment Test (MJT), an alternative scale, has also been used widely especially in Europe. The two scales differ in their approaches to measuring CMD, focusing on stage preference (DIT) and stage consistency (MJT), yet empirical comparisons have been scarce. (...) The present research empirically compares the two scales in terms of their correspondence with ethical ideology as a reference scale, and it demonstrates a clear distinction between the DIT and the MJT. Although they both aim to measure CMD, their dissimilar approaches lead to distinctly different implications. (shrink)
The foundation of historical materialism.--A study on authority.--Sartre's existentialism.--Karl Popper and the problem of historical laws.--Freedom and the historical imperative.
A crucial element of sovereignty politics concerns the role that juridical techniques play in recursively creating images of the sovereign. This paper aims to render that dimension explicit by focusing on examples of crime-focused law and colonial rule at the Cape of Good Hope circa 1795. It attempts to show how this law helped to define a colonial sovereign via such idioms as proclamations, inquisitorial criminal procedures, and case narratives framing the atrocity and appropriate punishment for crimes. Referring to primary (...) texts of the time, the paper explores how procedures and narratives of Cape law were also deeply involved in fashioning specific images of the sovereign in whose name it claimed to operate. (shrink)
Business codes are a widely used management instrument. Research into the effectiveness of business codes has, however, produced conflicting results. The main reasons for the divergent findings are: varying definitions of key terms; deficiencies in the empirical data and methodologies used; and a lack of theory. In this paper, we propose an integrated research model and suggest directions for future research.
Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation presents the basic tools for the identification, analysis, and evaluation of common arguments for beginners. The book teaches by using examples of arguments in dialogues, both in the text itself and in the exercises. Examples of controversial legal, political, and ethical arguments are analyzed. Illustrating the most common kinds of arguments, the book also explains how to evaluate each kind by critical questioning. Douglas Walton shows how arguments can be reasonable under the right (...) dialogue conditions by using critical questions to evaluate them. The book teaches by example, both in the text itself and in exercises, but it is based on methods that have been developed through the author's thirty years of research in argumentation studies. (shrink)
Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title In The Politics of Jurisprudence, Roger Cotterrell offers a concise introduction to and commentary ...
Ask a philosopher what a proof is, and you’re likely to get an answer hii empaszng one or another regimentationl of that notion in terms of a finite sequence of formalized statements, each of which is either an axiom or is derived from an axiom by certain inference rules. (Wecan call this the formal conception of proof) Ask a mathematician what a proof is, and you will rbbl poay get a different-looking answer. Instead of stressing a partic- l uar regimented (...) notion of proof, the answer the mathematician will give ilikl.. (shrink)
