Online research in philosophy

The later works of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1913) offer an extended metaphor of mind and a rich conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning. After a ‘rhetorical turn’ Peirce develops his early ‘semiotics’ into a more general theory of sign and sign use, while integrating his pragmatism, phenomenology, and semiotics. Therefore, in this article I bring Peirce's notion of semiosis—the sign's action—to the forefront. In doing so, I hope to disclose how Peirce's rhetorical turn not only opens up towards (...) a richer conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning, but also invites a shift of perspective from the psychological processes of learning to the semeiotic processes that characterizes the very dynamics of knowledge production. (shrink)

Today, philosophy of education comes forward as diverse, many-faceted and numerous engagements with issues and problems concerning both the fields of philosophy and education. But what is the vital mission of contemporary philosophers of education, and how is this mission justified? Through a tentative reading of Alain Badiou’s ethic and philosophical manifestos, I here hope to throw some lights on these questions. To do so, I clarify Badiou’s epistemic and ontological positions and discuss the relevance of his “ethic of truths” (...) and “democratic materialism”. To what degree may Badiou inform the potential topicality and relevance of a philosophy of education of and for the present? (shrink)

What is a woman? And what does it mean to be a feminist today? In her first full-scale engagement with feminist theory since her internationally renowned Sexual/Textual Politics (1985), Toril Moi challenges the dominant trends in contemporary feminist and cultural thought, arguing for a feminism of freedom inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. Written in a clear and engaging style What is a Woman? brings together two brand new book-length theoretical interventions, Moi's work on Freud and Bourdieu, and (...) her studies of desire and knowledge in literature. In the controversial title-essay, Toril Moi radically rethinks current debates about sex, gender, and the body - challenging the commonly held belief that the sex/gender distinction is fundamental to all feminist theory. Moi rejects every attempt to define masculinity and femininity, including efforts to define femininity as that which 'cannot be defined. In the second new book-length essay, 'I am a Woman', Toril Moi reworks the relationship between the personal and the philosophical, pursuing ways to write theory that do not neglect the claims of the personal. Setting up an encounter between contemporary theory and Simone de Beauvoir, Moi radically rethinks the need, and difficulty, of finding one's own philosophical voice by placing it in new theoretical contexts. A sustained refusal to lay down theoretical or political requirements for femininity, and a powerful argument for a feminism of freedom, What is a Woman? is a deeply original contribution to feminist theory. (shrink)

In Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman Toril Moi shows how Simone de Beauvoir became Simone de Beauvoir, the leading feminist thinker and emblematic intellectual woman of the twentieth century. Blending biography with literary criticism, feminist theory, and historical and social analysis, this book provides a completely original analysis of Beauvoir's education and formation as an intellectual. -/- In The Second Sex, Beauvoir shows that we constantly make something of what the world tries to make of us. (...) By reconstructing the social and political world in which Beauvoir became the author of The Second Sex, and by showing how Beauvoir reacted to the pressures of that world, Moi applies Beauvoir's ideas to Beauvoir's own life. -/- Ranging from an investigation of French educational institutions to reflections on the relationship between freedom and flirtation, this book uncovers the conflicts and difficulties of an intellectual woman in the middle of the twentieth century. Through her analysis of Beauvoir's life and work Moi shows how difficult it was - and still is - for women to be taken seriously as intellectuals. Two major chapters on The Second Sex provide a theoretical and a political analysis of that epochal text. The last chapter turns to Beauvoir's love life, her depressions and her fear of ageing. -/- In a major new introduction, Moi discusses Beauvoir's letters to her lovers Jacques-Laurent Bost and Nelson Algren, as well as her recently published student diaries from 1926/27. (shrink)

Is there life after theory? If the death of the Author has now been followed by the death of the Theorist, what's left? Indeed, who's left? To explore such riddles Life. After.Theory brings together new interviews with four theorists who are left, each a major figure in their own right: Jacques Derrida, Frank Kermode, Toril Moi, and Christopher Norris. Framed and introduced by Michael Payne and John Schad, the interviews pursue a whole range of topics, both familiar and unfamiliar. Among (...) other things, Derrida, Kermode, Moi and Norris discuss being an outsider, taking responsibility, valuing books, getting angry, doing science, listening to music, remembering Empson, rereading de Beauvoir, being Jewish, asking forgiveness, smoking in libraries, befriending the dead, committing bigamy, forgetting to forget, thinking, not thinking, believing, and being mad. These four key thinkers explore why there is life after theory...but not as we know it. Jacques Derrida is Professor at the +cole des Hautes +tudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He is the author of a range of extraordinarily influential works including Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference and Dissemination. Sir Frank Kermode is a former King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge and author of, among many other books, The Sense of An Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, Shakespeare's Language, and Not Entitled, his memoirs. Toril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. Her books include Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory, Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman and What Is a Woman? And Other Essays. Christopher Norris is Distinguished Research Professor in Philosophy at the University of Cardiff. He has published some twenty books to date, including, most recently, Deconstruction and the Unfinished Project of Modernity, Quantum Theory and the Flight from Realism, Truth Matters: Realism, Anti-Realism, and Response-Dependence, and Hilary Putnam: Reason, Realism, and the Uses of Uncertainty. (shrink)