By providing an interdisciplinary reading of advance directives regulation in international, European and domestic law, this book offers new insights into the most controversial legal issues surrounding the debate over dignity and autonomy ...
In Subversive Spinoza , Antonio Negri spells out the philosophical credo that inspired his radical renewal of Marxism and his compelling analysis of the modern state and the global economy by means of an inspiring reading of the challenging metaphysics of the seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher Spinoza. For Negri, Spinoza's philosophy has never been more relevant than it is today to debates over individuality and community, democracy and resistance, modernity and postmodernity.
This paper explores the question of whether it is possible to be communist without Marx. This entails encountering the ontological dimension of communism, that is, the material tenor of this ontology, its residual effectiveness, the desire of human beings to go beyond capital, and the reality of the episode of statism.
Anti-realist epistemic conceptions of truth imply what is called the knowability principle: All truths are possibly known. The principle can be formalized in a bimodal propositional logic, with an alethic modality $${\diamondsuit}$$ and an epistemic modality $${\mathcal{K}}$$ , by the axiom scheme $${A \supset \diamondsuit \mathcal{K} A}$$ ( KP ). The use of classical logic and minimal assumptions about the two modalities lead to the paradoxical conclusion that all truths are known, $${A \supset \mathcal{K} A}$$ ( OP ). A Gentzen-style (...) reconstruction of the Church–Fitch paradox is presented following a labelled approach to sequent calculi. First, a cut-free system for classical (resp. intuitionistic) bimodal logic is introduced as the logical basis for the Church–Fitch paradox and the relationships between $${\mathcal {K}}$$ and $${\diamondsuit}$$ are taken into account. Afterwards, by exploiting the structural properties of the system, in particular cut elimination, the semantic frame conditions that correspond to KP are determined and added in the form of a block of nonlogical inference rules. Within this new system for classical and intuitionistic “knowability logic”, it is possible to give a satisfactory cut-free reconstruction of the Church–Fitch derivation and to confirm that OP is only classically derivable, but neither intuitionistically derivable nor intuitionistically admissible. Finally, it is shown that in classical knowability logic, the Church–Fitch derivation is nothing else but a fallacy and does not represent a real threat for anti-realism. (shrink)
While it is commonly acknowledged that the ecosystemic, and the inter- and intra-specific diversity of natural life is under threat of being irremediably lost, there is much less awareness that the diversity in agro-ecosystems is also under threat. This paper is focused on the biodiverse agro-ecosystems generated by landraces (LRs), i.e., farmer-developed populations of cultivated species that show among- and within-population diversity and are linked to traditional cultures. The aim of this work is to arouse concern about their loss, to (...) explain how they can be conserved, and to discuss values that support maintaining and/or restoring on-farm agro-biodiversity. Although agriculture has relied on biodiverse agro-ecosystems for millennia, most of them have disappeared or are disappearing due to profound transformations in the socio-economic context. This is discussed with particular reference to the European situation. The positive values of LRs and LR systems that support their conservation are discussed along with possible objections. The conservation of LRs and LR systems can be well justified on ethical grounds. In particular, the complex intertwining of the biological and cultural contexts of LR systems, which continuously creates new adaptive responses to the changing socio-economic and eco-physical processes, is a value that strongly motivates conservation, particularly when the needs of future generations are considered. (shrink)
A general method for generating contraction- and cut-free sequent calculi for a large family of normal modal logics is presented. The method covers all modal logics characterized by Kripke frames determined by universal or geometric properties and it can be extended to treat also Gödel–Löb provability logic. The calculi provide direct decision methods through terminating proof search. Syntactic proofs of modal undefinability results are obtained in the form of conservativity theorems.
A sequent calculus is given in which the management of weakening and contraction is organized as in natural deduction. The latter has no explicit weakening or contraction, but vacuous and multiple discharges in rules that discharge assumptions. A comparison to natural deduction is given through translation of derivations between the two systems. It is proved that if a cut formula is never principal in a derivation leading to the right premiss of cut, it is a subformula of the conclusion. Therefore (...) it is sufficient to eliminate those cuts that correspond to detour and permutation conversions in natural deduction. (shrink)
We introduce the concept of partial event as a pair of disjoint sets, respectively the favorable and the unfavorable cases. Partial events can be seen as a De Morgan algebra with a single fixed point for the complement. We introduce the concept of a measure of partial probability, based on a set of axioms resembling Kolmogoroff’s. Finally we define a concept of conditional probability for partial events and apply this concept to the analysis of the two-slit experiment in quantum mechanics.
We give a direct proof of admissibility of cut and contraction for the contraction-free sequent calculus G4ip for intuitionistic propositional logic and for a corresponding multi-succedent calculus: this proof extends easily in the presence of quantifiers, in contrast to other, indirect, proofs. i.e., those which use induction on sequent weight or appeal to admissibility of rules in other calculi.
A proof-theoretical treatment of collectively accepted group beliefs is presented through a multi-agent sequent system for an axiomatization of the logic of acceptance. The system is based on a labelled sequent calculus for propositional multi-agent epistemic logic with labels that correspond to possible worlds and a notation for internalized accessibility relations between worlds. The system is contraction- and cut-free. Extensions of the basic system are considered, in particular with rules that allow the possibility of operative members or legislators. Completeness with (...) respect to the underlying Kripke semantics follows from a general direct and uniform argument for labelled sequent calculi extended with mathematical rules for frame properties. As an example of the use of the calculus we present an analysis of the discursive dilemma. (shrink)
Machine generated contents note: Prologue: Hilbert's Last Problem; 1. Introduction; Part I. Proof Systems Based on Natural Deduction: 2. Rules of proof: natural deduction; 3. Axiomatic systems; 4. Order and lattice theory; 5. Theories with existence axioms; Part II. Proof Systems Based on Sequent Calculus: 6. Rules of proof: sequent calculus; 7. Linear order; Part III. Proof Systems for Geometric Theories: 8. Geometric theories; 9. Classical and intuitionistic axiomatics; 10. Proof analysis in elementary geometry; Part IV. Proof Systems for Nonclassical (...) Logics: 11. Modal logic; 12. Quantified modal logic, provability logic, and so on; Bibliography; Index of names; Index of subjects. (shrink)
A way is found to add axioms to sequent calculi that maintains the eliminability of cut, through the representation of axioms as rules of inference of a suitable form. By this method, the structural analysis of proofs is extended from pure logic to free-variable theories, covering all classical theories, and a wide class of constructive theories. All results are proved for systems in which also the rules of weakening and contraction can be eliminated. Applications include a system of predicate logic (...) with equality in which also cuts on the equality axioms are eliminated. (shrink)
A uniform calculus for linear logic is presented. The calculus has the form of a natural deduction system in sequent calculus style with general introduction and elimination rules. General elimination rules are motivated through an inversion principle, the dual form of which gives the general introduction rules. By restricting all the rules to their single-succedent versions, a uniform calculus for intuitionistic linear logic is obtained. The calculus encompasses both natural deduction and sequent calculus that are obtained as special instances from (...) the uniform calculus. Other instances give all the invertibilities and partial invertibilities for the sequent calculus rules of linear logic. The calculus is normalizing and satisfies the subformula property for normal derivations. (shrink)
Constituent power : the concept of a crisis -- Virtue and fortune : the machiavellian paradigm -- The Atlantic model and the theory of counterpower -- Political emancipation in the American constitution -- The revolution and the constitution of labor -- Communist desire and the dialectic restored -- The constitution of strength.
Negri celebrates a conception of democracy in which the concrete powers of individual humans are not alienated away, but rather are added together: this is a democracy of the multitude. But how can the multitude act without alienating anyone’s power? To answer this difficulty, Negri explicitly appeals to Spinoza. Nonetheless, in this paper, I argue that Spinoza’s philosophy does not support Negri’s project. I argue that the Spinozist multitude avoids internal hierarchy through the mediation of political institutions (...) and not in spite of them; nor do these institutions merely emanate from the multitude as it is, but rather they structure, restrain and channel its passions. In particular, the required institutions are not those of a simple direct democracy. There may be other non-Spinozist arguments on which Negri can ground his theory, but he cannot legitimately defend his conception of the democratic multitude by appeal to Spinoza. (shrink)
Hardt and Negri interpret contemporary sovereignty and politics in the light of a theory of contemporary globalization that is taken to supersede Marxism and former ideological standpoints of the Left. In particular, Hardt and Negri highlight how their reading of empire and multitude breaks with the teleology of Marxism and accepts the openness of events. They advertise the novelty, which is held to consist in their recognition of a thoroughly socialized and globalized world in which there exists no (...) predetermined historical subject of liberation. Hardt and Negri, however, exemplify the continuity between Marxist and post?Marxist ideological standpoints. The continuity between classical Marxism and Hardt and Negri's notion of empire and its supersession resides in the affinity between the normative values that shape Marx's reading of history and the emancipatory character of the multitude, which frames the notion of empire. Hardt and Negri offer a radical Leftist reading of globalization that contrasts with alternative ideological notions that inform more orthodox interpretations of globalization, and thereby points to the ideological character of theories of globalization. (shrink)
The spectacular success of Empire and Multitude has brought Antonio Negri's writing to a new and wider audience. Negri'as work is singular in its depth and expression. It can be difficult to grasp the complexity of his ideas as they are rooted in the history of philosophy. This book offers an introduction to his thinking and is ideal for readers who want to come to grips with his key themes. Contributors include Pierre Macherey, Daniel Bensai;d, Charles Wolfe, Alex (...) Callinicos, Miguel Vatter, Jason Read, Alberto Toscano, Mamut Mutman, Ted Stolze, and Judith Revel. Written with dynamism and originality, the book will appeal to anyone interested in the evolution of Negri's thought, and especially to students of political philosophy, international studies, and literary theory. This book is the sequel to The Philosophy of Antonio Negri, Volume One: Resistance in Practice , but can be read entirely independently. (shrink)
El siguiente texto intenta abordar la relación existente entre los procesos de globalización-mundialización y ciertas concepciones de historia que le son solidarias. Para lo anterior apela a las reflexiones realizadas por Marc Abélès en Política de la supervivencia y Michael Hardt y Antonio Negri en Imperio. En ambos análisis se puede percibir la importancia que tiene la historia como soporte de los procesos globales que entremezclan lo político, lo económico y lo cultural, procesos que parecen avanzar, según el curso (...) de la historia, y que permiten además dar referencia de sentido a los sujetos en sus procesos identitarios y de individuación. The following text tries to approach the relation between the globalization-mondialisation process and certain conceptions of history witch are solidary with them. For the previous thing, it appeals to the reflections realized by Marc Abélès in Politics of the survival and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in Empire. In both analyses it is possible to perceive the importance that takes the history as a support of the global processes that intermingle the politics, the economy and culture, processes that seem to advance according to the course that history has, and they allow to give in addition reference of sense to the subjects in his processes of identity and of individuation. (shrink)
What a sublime and, at the same time, sordid vocation this theological discipline has. My major concern is an unfamiliar Antonio Negri, one who engages in some biblical criticism in his recently translated The Labor of Job (2009), a detailed philosophical exegesis of the “marvelous” biblical book of Job.1 Two features of Negri’s analysis stand out: the oppositions of kairós and ákairos, and measure and immeasure. However, before I explore those oppositions in some detail, two preliminary comments are (...) needed. At the heart of the book is what I would like to call a radical homiletics. A discipline much neglected these days, homiletics is really the art of connecting a text like the Bible with the realities .. (shrink)
This collection of specially commissioned essays is the first of its kind in English on the work of Antonio Negri, the Italian philosopher and political theorist. The spectacular success of Empire , Negri's collaboration with Michael Hardt, has brought Negri's writing to a new, wider audience. A substantial body of his writing is now available to an English-speaking readership. Outstanding contributors—including Michael Hardt, Sergio Bologna, Kathi Weeks and Nick Dyer-Witheford—reveal the variety and complexity of Negri's thought (...) and explores its unique relevance to modern politics. Negri is one of the most sophisticated analyists of modern political philosophy. Philosophers and critics alike find his work both difficult and exhilarating, engaging as it does with Marx, Spinoza, Deleuze, Guattari, Tronti and others. This book is ideal for readers who want to get to grips with Negri's key themes, in particular his theories on labour, capital, power, the state and revolution. It makes a great introduction to his work for students of political philosophy, as well as providing a comprehensive critical approach for Negri enthusiasts. (shrink)
The concept of 'social brain‘ is a hybrid, located somewhere in between politically motivated philosophical speculation about the mind and its place in the social world, and recently emerged inquiries into cognition, selfhood, development, etc., returning to some of the founding insights of social psychology but embedding them in a neuroscientific framework. In this paper I try to reconstruct a philosophical tradition for the social brain, a ‗Spinozist‘ tradition which locates the brain within the broader network of relations, including social (...) relations. This tradition runs from Spinoza to Lev Vygotsky in the early 20th century, and on to Gilles Deleuze, Toni Negri and Paolo Virno in recent European philosophy, as a new perspective on the brain. The concept of social brain that is articulated in this reconstruction – some early-20th century Soviet neuropsychologists spoke of socialism and the cortex as being ―on the same path‖ – overcomes distinctions between Continental thought and the philosophy of mind, and possibly gives a new metaphysical framework for social cognition. (shrink)
Marx conceives of labour as form giving activity. This is criticised for presupposing a ”productivist’ model of labour which regards work that creates a material product -- craft or industrial work -- as the paradigm for all work (Habermas, Benton, Arendt). Many traditional kinds of work do not seem to fit this picture, and new ”immaterial’ forms of labour (computer work, service work, etc.) have developed in postindustrial society which, it is argued, necessitate a fundamental revision of Marx’s approach (Hardt (...) and Negri). In this paper I argue that Marx’s theory must be understood in the context of Hegel’s philosophy. In that light, I show that the view that Marx has a ”productivist’ model of labour is mistaken. I criticise the concept of ”immaterial’ labour, and argue that Marx’s ideas continue to provide an illuminating framework for understanding work in modern society. (shrink)
Supervaluationism is a well known theory of vagueness. Subvaluationism is a less well known theory of vagueness. But these theories cannot be taken apart, for they are in a relation of duality that can be made precise. This paper provides an introduction to the subvaluationist theory of vagueness in connection to its dual, supervaluationism. A survey on the supervaluationist theory can be found in the Compass paper of Keefe (2008); our presentation of the theory in this paper will be short (...) to get rapidly into the logical issues. This paper is relatively self-contained. A modest background on propositional modal logic is, though not strictly necessary, advisable. The reader might find useful the Compass papers Kracht (2011) and Negri (2011) (though these papers cover issues of more complexity than what is demanded to follow this paper). (shrink)
This explorative article is organized around a set of questions concerning the concept of a function. First, a summary of certain general facts about functions that are a common coin in contemporary logic is given. Then Frege's attempt at clarifying the nature of functions in his famous paper Function and Concept and in his Grundgesetze is discussed along with some questions which Freges' approach gave rise to in the literature. Finally, some characteristic uses of functional notions to be found in (...) the work of Bernard Bolzano and in Edmund Husserl's early work are presented and elucidated. (shrink)
The notion of biopolitical sovereignty and the theory of the state of exception are perspectives derived from Carl Schmitt’s thought and Michel Foucault’s writings that have been popularized by critical political theorists like Giorgio Agamben and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri of late. This article argues that these perspectives are not sufficient analytical points of departure for a critique of the contemporary politics of terror, violence and war marked by a growing global exploitation of bodies, tightened management of life, (...) and endless and unpredictable abusive force. To better capture the singularity of our present condition of violence, war and terror, a supplementation of Schmitt’s and Foucault’s approaches by way of Hannah Arendt’s language of political action and agonistic engagement is useful. By bringing Arendt’s language of political agony to bear on contemporary biopolitical debates and discourses, we wish to revisit common practices of war and terror as matters of ‘agonal sovereignty’. ‘Agonal sovereignty’ allows us to peer into the ‘abyss of total violence’ that manifests itself after sovereign decisionism and biopolitical modalities of power have taken over the everyday conduct of political affairs. (shrink)
The idea of an ?inversion principle?, and the name itself, originated in the work of Paul Lorenzen in the 1950s, as a method to generate new admissible rules within a certain syntactic context. Some fifteen years later, the idea was taken up by Dag Prawitz to devise a strategy of normalization for natural deduction calculi (this being an analogue of Gentzen's cut-elimination theorem for sequent calculi). Later, Prawitz used the inversion principle again, attributing it with a semantic role. Still working (...) in natural deduction calculi, he formulated a general type of schematic introduction rules to be matched ? thanks to the idea supporting the inversion principle ? by a corresponding general schematic Elimination rule. This was an attempt to provide a solution to the problem suggested by the often quoted note of Gentzen. According to Gentzen ?it should be possible to display the elimination rules as unique functions of the corresponding introduction rules on the basis of certain requirements?. Many people have since worked on this topic, which can be appropriately seen as the birthplace of what are now referred to as ?general elimination rules?, recently studied thoroughly by Sara Negri and Jan von Plato. In this study, we retrace the main threads of this chapter of proof-theoretical investigation, using Lorenzen's original framework as a general guide. (shrink)
Introduction: thinking about globalization -- Systemic thinking: Immanuel Wallerstein -- Conceptual thinking: Anthony Giddens -- Sociological thinking: Manuel Castells -- Transformational thinking: David Held and Anthony McGrew -- Sceptical thinking: Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson -- Spatial thinking: Peter Dicken and Saskia Sassen -- Positive thinking: Thomas Friedman and Martin Wolf -- Reformist thinking: Joseph Stiglitz -- Radical thinking: Naomi Klein, George Monbiot and Subcommandante Marcos -- Revolutinary thinking: Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri -- Cultural thinking: Arjun Appadurai -- (...) Conclusion: rethinking globalization again. (shrink)
Globalization has been one of the most hotly contested phenomena of the past two decades. It has been a primary attractor of books, articles, and heated debate, just as postmodernism was the most fashionable and debated topic of the 1980s. A wide and diverse range of social theorists have argued that today's world is organized by accelerating globalization, which is strengthening the dominance of a world capitalist economic system, supplanting the primacy of the nation-state by transnational corporations and organizations, and (...) eroding local cultures and traditions through a global culture. Contemporary theorists from a wide range of political and theoretical positions are converging on the position that globalization is a distinguishing trend of the present moment, but there are hot debates concerning its nature, effects, and future.2 Moreover, advocates of a postmodern break in history argue that developments in transnational capitalism are producing a new global historical configuration of post- Fordism, or postmodernism as an emergent cultural logic of capitalism (Harvey 1989; Soja 1989; Jameson 1991; and Gottdiener 1995). Others define the emergent global economy and culture as a "network society" grounded in new communications and information technology (Castells 1996, 1997, and 1998). For its defenders, globalization marks the triumph of capitalism and its market economy (see apologists such as Fukuyama 1992 and Friedman 1999 who perceive this process as positive), while its critics portray globalization as negative (see, for example, Mander and Goldsmith 1996; Eisenstein 1998; and Robins and Webster 1999). Some theorists see the emergence of a new transnational ruling elite and the universalization of consumerism (Sklair 2001), while others stress global fragmentation of “the clash of civilizations” (Huntington 1996). Driving “post” discourses into novel realms of theory and politics, Hardt and Negri (2000) present the emergence of “Empire” as producing evolving forms of sovereignty, economy, culture, and political struggle that unleash an unforeseeable and unpredictable flow of novelties, surprises, and upheavals. Discourses of globalization initially were polarized into pro or con celebrations or attacks.. (shrink)
. This paper aims to highlight some peculiarities of the semiotic square, whose creation is due in particular to Greimas’ works. The starting point is the semiotic notion of complex term, which I regard as one of the main differences between Greimas’ square and Blanché’s hexagon. The remarks on the complex terms make room for a historical survey in Aristotle’s texts, where one can find the philosophical roots of the idea of middle term between two contraries and its relation to (...) notions such as difference, position and motion. In the Stagirite’s non-logical works, the theory of the intermediate, or middle term, represents an important link between opposition issues and ethics: this becomes a privileged perspective from which to reconsider the semiotic use of the square, i.e., its inclusion in the semio-narrative structures articulating the sense of texts. (shrink)
The notion of 'symbol' in Eriugena's writing is far from clear. It has an ambiguous semantic connection with other terms such as 'signification', 'figure', 'allegory', 'veil', 'agalma', 'form', 'shadow', 'mystery' and so on. This paper aims to explore into the origins of such a semantic ambiguity, already present in the texts of the pseudo-Dionysian corpus which Eriugena translated and commented upon. In the probable Neoplatonic sources of this corpus, the Greek term symbolon shares some aspects of its meaning with other (...) words inherited from the ancient tradition, such as synthēma , eikōn , homoiotēs. Some of them, such as eikōn and homoiotēs, belong to the field of images and are associated with linguistic semantics in the Neoplatonic commentaries not only to Plato but also to Aristotle's logical works. Among the late ancient Neoplatonists, particular attention is paid to Proclus and to his use of the term agalma. In fact, the textual history of this word seems to be a privileged perspective from which to reconstruct the Neoplatonic semantic blending of symbol and image, as well as the main role played by linguistic issues in this conflation. (shrink)
Lakatos is considered to be a Popperian who adapted his Hegelian-Marxist training to critical philosophy. I claim this is too narrow and misses Lakatos' goal of understanding scientific inquiry as heuristic inquiry—something he did not find in Popper, but found in Polanyi. Archival material shows that his ‘new method' struggled to overcome what he saw as the Popperian handicap, by using Polanyi.
In the Wednesday Logic Reading Group, where we are working through Sara Negri and Jan von Plato’s Structural Proof Theory – henceforth ‘NvP’ – I today introduced Chapter 6, ‘Structural Proof Analysis of Axiomatic Theories’. In their commendable efforts to be brief, the authors are sometimes a bit brisk about motivation. So I thought it was worth trying to stand back a bit from the details of this action-packed chapter as far as I understood it in the few hours (...) I had to prepare, and to try to give an overall sense of the project. These are the notes I wrote for myself. As often with such middle-of-term efforts dashed off in a couple of hours, I both would have liked to do better and do more justice to what we are reading, but I also just don’t have time to do more now than make a few corrections to the first version. So the usual warning applies: caveat lector. (shrink)
For those familiar with the work of Deleuze, and Deleuze and Guattari, it might at first seem unwise to pursue a Deleuze and Guattarian philosophy of history. After all, is it not Deleuze who, in an interview with Antonio Negri, argues that ‘What history grasps in an event is the way it’s actualized in particular circumstances; the event's becoming is beyond the scope of history'? (Deleuze 1995: 170). And more damningly, Deleuze adds, ‘History isn’t experimental, it's just the set (...) of more or less negative preconditions that make it possible to experiment with something beyond history' (Deleuze 1995: 170). History, in short, is a starting point for experimental work, but it is precisely history ‘that one leaves behind in order to “become,” that is, to create something new’ (1995: 171). Similarly in A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari argue that ‘History is made by those who oppose history (not by those who insert themselves into it, or even reshape it)’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 295). In the very first line of his book, Lampert recognizes the possible conclusion these citations might lead one to, namely, ‘Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy of becoming seems at times opposed to the very idea of historical succession' (1); and yet, as Lampert adeptly demonstrates, it would be a mistake to conclude that opposing history to ‘create something new’, ‘something beyond history’, necessarily entails being hostile to history, to the ‘idea of historical succession’, and thus to a philosophy of history. (shrink)
In two experiments, we investigated whether 13-month-old infants expect agents to behave in a way consistent with information to which they have been exposed. Infants watched animations in which an animal was either provided information or prevented from gathering information about the actual location of an object. The animal then searched successfully or failed to retrieve it. Infants’ looking times suggest that they expected searches to be effective when—and only when—the agent had had access to the relevant information. This result (...) supports the view that infants’ possess an incipient metarepresentational ability that permits them to attribute beliefs to agents. We discuss the viability of more conservative explanations and the relationship between this early ability and later forms of ‘theory of mind’ that appear only after children have become experienced verbal communicators. (shrink)
In the present paper, we discuss Husserl's deep account of the notions of ?calculation? and of arithmetical ?operation? which is found in the final chapter of the Philosophy of Arithmetic, arguing that Husserl is ? as far as we know ? the first scholar to reflect seriously on and to investigate the problem of circumscribing the totality of computable numerical operations. We pursue two complementary goals, namely: (i) to provide a formal reconstruction of Husserl's intuitions, and (ii) to demonstrate ? (...) on the basis of our reconstruction ? that the class of operations that Husserl has in mind turns out to be extensionally equivalent to the one that, in contemporary logic, is known as the class of ?partial recursive functions? (shrink)
Four studies show that observers and readers imagine different alternatives to reality. When participants read a story about a protagonist who chose the more difficult of two tasks and failed, their counterfactual thoughts focused on the easier, unchosen task. But when they observed the performance of an individual who chose and failed the more difficult task, participants' counterfactual thoughts focused on alternative ways to solve the chosen task, as did the thoughts of individuals who acted out the event. We conclude (...) that these role effects may occur because participants' attention is engaged when they experience or observe an event more than when they read about it. (shrink)
The paper explores the relation of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's work to that of Deleuze and Guattari. The main focus is on Hardt and Negri's concept of ‘the common’ as developed in their most recent book Commonwealth. It is argued that the common can complement what Nicholas Thoburn terms the ‘minor’ characteristics of Deleuze's political thinking while also surpassing certain limitations posed by Hardt and Negri's own previous emphasis on ‘autonomy-in-production’. With reference to Marx's notion of (...) real subsumption and early workerism's social-factory thesis, the discussion circles around showing how a distinction between capital and the common can provide a basis for what Alberto Toscano calls ‘antagonistic separation’ from capital in a more effective way than can the classical capital–labour distinction. To this end, it is demonstrated how the common might benefit from being understood in light of Deleuze and Guattari's conceptual apparatus, with reference primarily to the ‘body without organs’ of Anti-Oedipus. It is argued that the common as body without organs, now understood as constituting its own ‘social production’ separate from the BwO of capital, can provide a new basis for antagonistic separation from capital. Of fundamental importance is how the common potentially invents a novel regime of qualitative valorisation, distinct from capital's limitation to quantity and scarcity. (shrink)
This paper analyzes and evaluates Bolzano's remarks on the apagogic method of proof with reference to his juvenile booklet ?Contributions to a better founded presentation of mathematics? of 1810 and to his ?Theory of science? (1837). I shall try to defend the following contentions: (1) Bolzanos? vain attempt to transform all indirect proofs into direct proofs becomes comprehensible as soon as one recognizes the following facts: (1.1) his attitude towards indirect proofs with an affirmative conclusion differs from his stance to (...) indirect proofs with a negative conclusion; (1.2) by Bolzano's lights arguments via consequentia mirabilis only seem to be indirect. (2) Bolzano does not deny that indirect proofs can be perfect certifications (Gewissmachungen) of their conclusion; what he denies is rather that they can provide grounds for their conclusions. (2.1) They cannot do the latter, since they start from false premises and (2.2) since they make an unnecessary detour. (3) The far-reaching agreement between his early and late assessment of apagogical proofs (in the Beyträge of 1810 and the Wissenschaftslehre of 1837) is partly due to the fact that he develops his own position always against the background of Wolff's and Lambert's views. (shrink)
This book explores the core categories of communism and capital in conjunction with a wealth of contemporary and historical political concepts and movements - from the lumpenproletariat and anarchism, to Italian autonomia and Antonia Negri, immaterial labour and the refusal of work. Drawing on literary figures such as Kafka and Beckett, Deleuze, Marx and Politics develops a politics that breaks with the dominant frameworks of post-Marxism and one-dimensional models of resistance toward a concern with the inventions, styles and knowledges (...) that emerge through minority engagement with social flows and networks. (shrink)
This volume will be of particular interest to researchers working in the history, and in the philosophy, of logic and mathematics, and more generally, to ...
In his booklet ?Contributions to a better founded presentation of mathematics? of 1810 Bernard Bolzano made his first serious attempt to explain the notion of a rigorous proof. Although the system of logic he employed at that stage is in various respects far below the level of the achievements in his later Wissenschaftslehre, there is a striking continuity between his earlier and later work as regards the methodological constraints on rigorous proofs. This paper tries to give a perspicuous and critical (...) account of the fragmentary logic of Beyträge, and it shows that there is a tension between that logic and Bolzano's methodological ban on ?kind crossing? (shrink)
In 1990, Antonio Negri pointed out some problems with Deleuze's political philosophy. Substituting infra-structures for life or desire, as constitutive dimensions of power formations, did not imply giving up on Marx, but it certainly did imply a change in the table of conceptual analysis and a profound renovation of the questions that pertain to militant praxis. Taking this into account, we intend to explore the sense of a rare fidelity to Marx, and a certain idea of intellectual commitment that, (...) reframing its objects and its instruments, pretends to renew political thinking in order to confront the unforeseeable of new knowledge, new techniques and new political facts. (shrink)
Depuis le milieu des annees 1960, les etudes spinozistes ont pris un nouvel essor sous l'impulsion du courant marxiste qui a vu dans le programme de liberation des collectivites pense par Spinoza le projet politique le plus apte ä assurer une reponse ä la crise de legitimite du marxisme. Dans la foulee de certaines intuitions de Althusser, et ä la lumiere de la conceptualite spinoziste, plusieurs penseurs (notamment Deleuze, Negri, Macherey, Matheron et Virno) ont ainsi propose un nouveau modele (...) d'organisation de la vie en commun. Ces acteurs de la renaissance spinoziste redigent, en quelque sorte, le chapitre conclusif de la derniere ceuvre de Spinoza (i.e. le Tratte politique reste inacheve) en definissant les nouvelles conditions de la democratic ä l'heure de la deterritorialisation generalisee marquee par l'abolition des frontieres nationales (economie mondiale, reseaux informatiques, etc.). Ce contexte offre l'occasion de repenser la politique en radicalisant les propos de Spinoza et en faisant jouer les notions de "puissance" et de "multitude" non seulement contre les concepts de "pouvoir" et de "peuple" qui en sont venus ä dominer le champ de la reflexion en philosophic politique, mais egalement contre les philosophies de l'histoire fondees sur la dialectique et la teleologie. Apres avoir decrit brievement quelques-uns des principaux enjeux de la politique spinoziste et avoir presente les nouveaux ennemis du spinozisme (neo-liberalisme et marxisme ideologique), nous ferons une genealogie de la refondation neo-spinozienne de Marx (Althusser, Deleuze, Negri) avant de repondre ä la question "Que faire?". II s'agira alors de determiner le role de l'Etat et de situer cette pensee politique par rapport ä l'utopie revolutionnaire. Ce parcours contribuera ä mieux definir les fondements et les implications de la democratic non-representative qui est au cceur des revendications de la renaissance spinoziste. (shrink)
The opening sentence to Michael Hardt's and Antonio Negri's Empire1 is pregnant with promise and peril. Signifying a process deemed to be under way, it hearkens back to and beyond that famous Manifesto of 1848, even while looking forward to a time when what is now only imminent will have become reality. In part summoned into existence to fulfill the ancient prophecies of declining Rome and rising Christianity, Empire is said to be 'realizing' or 'manifesting' itself in time honoured (...) 19th-century, especially Marxist, fashion; but whereas the specter invoked by the Communist Manifesto haunted only a continent, the immaterial spirit of Empire, dripping crisis like ectoplasm, stalks the entire world. (shrink)
The paper attempts to philosophically assess the recent U.S. presidential race and to look at some aspects of the underlying beliefs of Barack Obama that aided him in his campaign. The philosophical framework used in order to interpret the political events are mainly from the Critical Theory of Theodor W. Adorno and the neo-Marxist approach of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Further observations will concentrate on the logic and attraction of the electoral process and the dialectical logic of Sarah (...) Palin’s statements. The first part will discuss the form of U.S. electoral politics, especially the perpetual campaign, whereas the second part will put the policies of the next U.S. president into a philosophical context. (shrink)
This essay is comprised of two unusual pairings—Immanuel Wallerstein with Michael Hardt and AntonioNegri; and Don DeLillo with William Gibson—and a thesis: We live, today, in a period of transition between modernity and postmodernity that is best characterized as what I call hyper-capitalism. The end of modernity, as described both by Wallerstein’s world-systems theory and by the “postmodern” political philosophy of the authors of Empire, does not lead us into postmodernity proper, but into a period of geopolitical (...) chaos. This chaos may be best understood, not only by closing the gap between these variegated social theorists, but also via the dystopic cyberpunk fiction of DeLillo’s Cosmopolis and Gibson’s Pattern Recognition. (shrink)
The concept of living labor in Marx’s Grundrisse represents the key notion that conceptually ties his early theory of alienation with the drafts of Capital of the 1860s. Through a critique of the formalism that opened space for Marx’s economic writings, I explore living labor, not only as alienated within the capital–laborrelation, but as an absolute, metahistorical exteriority. Furthermore, the interpretive writings of Enrique Dussel on the Grundrisse are contrasted with the reading ofMichael Hardt and Antonio Negri to show (...) how living labor can be understood as ethical excess within the framework of biopolitical production. (shrink)
Taking Derrida's notion of the 'secret' and Deleuze's 'immanence' as its starting point, this essay proposes a reading of Marx's 'living labour' that critiques Hardt and Negri's understanding of political subjectivity. In doing so, the essay examines the possibilities of rethinking political agency in terms of a 'powerless power'.
We take our bearings from Francesco Negri — Although many persons attribute the origin of letter writing to various causes, I however believe that one to be closer to the truth that we have received, handed down by memory, from the ancient stories of Turpilius: namely, that the letter was invented for no other purpose than that we should make absent friends once more present [absentes amicos presentes redderemus] and that by regarding [intuentes] their letters we mightfor a time (...) restore the friendship interrupted by intervals of time and space; for since friendship is accustomed to making its foundation in daily companionship,when this thing is missing it seems indeed to weaken not a little.and hear in this passage the resonance of Aristotle:Is it then the same way with friends as with lovers, for whom seeing [to horon] the beloved is their greatest contentment, and the thing they choose over the other senses, since it is especially through seeing that love is present and comes to be present, so that for friends, too, living together [suzèn] is the most choiceworthy thing? For friendship is a sharing in common [koinònia]. (EN 1171b29–33)The audible connection with Aristotle is faint. Negri’s work is securely placed against the background of the increasing formalization of the art of letter writing in the Middle Ages and its Renaissance development, in which he figured prominently. The genealogy that he proposes, whose forebear is an all but forgotten Roman playwright, belongs to an account of literary tradition in which Cicero is the exemplary figure. Nonetheless, it is in St. Jerome that he finds the likely source of his attribution. (shrink)
Only one year after the global wave of protest movements and revolts—starting with the ‘Arab Spring’, then, subsequently, the Indignados movement and Occupy- our appreciation of such movements turned sour. The aim of this contribution is to question the predominantly sceptical and defeatist discourse on these movements. One element central to many defeatist discourses on the 2011 movements, is the way in which a lack of demonstrable ‘outcomes’ or ‘successes’ is retrospectively ascribed to them. Therefore, an alternative approach should be (...) formulated, which would allow us to recognise the significant or valuable aspects of these movements and their practices, without downplaying them as ‘unsuccessful’ or ‘failures’ altogether. Pierre Rosanvallon’s concept of ‘counter-democracy’ and Hardt and Negri’s perspective of a ‘Multitude’ will be evaluated as alternative approaches to current political movements. Although they are meritorious, both perspectives do not go far enough and need further articulation. The notion of ‘prefiguration’, originally derived from contemporary anarchist discourse, could be beneficial to this endeavour. After defining and deepening this concept from an anarchist perspective, it will be applied to one particular context: the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo, during the 2011 revolution in Egypt. As will be concluded, in its application this concept of ‘prefiguration’ could teach us more about the recent wave of protest movements in general, and could help us to formulate a different approach to such movements. (shrink)
