In this introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin, Ken Hirschkop presents a compact, readable, detailed, and sophisticated exposition of all of Bakhtin's important works. Using the most up-to-date sources and the new, scholarly editions of Bakhtin's texts, Hirschkop explains Bakhtin's influential ideas, demonstrates their relevance and usefulness for literary and cultural analysis, and sets them in their historical context. In clear and concise language, Hirschkop shows how Bakhtin's ideas have changed the way we understand language and literary texts. Authoritative (...) and accessible, this Cambridge Introduction is the most comprehensive and reliable account of Bakhtin and his work yet available. (shrink)

Critical Inquiry’s Forum on Mikhail Bakhtin [Critical Inquiry 10 : 225-319] is the latest contribution to the spectacular effort of interpretation and assimilation that is being applied to the work of this recently recovered critic. In such a situation, analysis proceeds with one eye on the work in question and the other on current debates in the field; in the case of Bakhtin, interpretation is at the same time an attempt to come to grips with challenges posed by recent literary (...) theory to certain axiomatic critical assumptions about intentionality, textuality, and the human subject. But the matter is also complicated by the fact that we are dealing here with a critic who was active in the USSR. This brings into play additional ideological pressures, generated by the cold war, which bear on the scholarly assimilation of his work.The debate on Bakhtin is made yet more difficult by the nature of his writing: immensely varied stylistically and topically but also—and more importantly, I believe—writing which strives for solutions it cannot quite articulate. It moves between alternative and contradictory formulations in a single essay and thus produces a set of concepts whose explanatory importance is matched by an unnerving tendency to slide from one formulation to the next with disturbing ease. Such ambiguities are not the sign of an open and skeptical mind, but neither are they mere inconsistencies which can be safely ignored. These internal contradictions dictate that argument over concepts like “dialogism” and “heteroglossia” cannot be settled by a definitive decision as to what they ‘really’ mean; instead, we must discuss how to manage these complexities and contradictions, and to what ends. Certain definite strategies of management are emerging, and the articles presented in the forum, while by no means reducible to a single position, share key lines of interpretive strategy that I think ought to be brought out into the open and contested. With the notable exception of Susan Stewart’s article [“Shouts on the Street: Bakhtin’s Anti-Linguistics,” pp. 265-81], the contributions share an ideological drift, the ultimate effect of which is to evade the most radical aspects of Bakhtin’s work in favor of an interpretation that renders him useful in the argument against the recent advances of post-structuralism and recent literary theory in general. Ken Hirschkop is a postgraduate student at Saint Antony’s College, Oxford University, working on a book about Mikhail Bakhtin. (shrink)

From the very beginning, it has been difficult to extract a smooth narrative from the complex plot of Bakhtin’s life and work. Early attempts to do this proposed an unconvincing distinction between a private philosophical Bakhtin and the man who wrote compelling and innovative work on the philosophy of language, the stylistics of the novel, and the culture of carnival. The 7-volume Sobranie sočinenij (1996–2012) both frustrates and supports this simplifying narrative. The texts it presents, many radically different from earlier (...) published versions, suggest that Bakhtin’s commitment to the stylistics of the novel was permanent and enduring and that its sociological colouring was more than strategic. The notes and commentary, however, seek to corral the energy of the material, by persistently interpreting Bakhtin’s works as separable into philosophical kernels and sociological/stylistic shells. (shrink)

A study of the many 'linguistic turns' pursued by European writers between 1890 and 1950, focusing on the links between language, politics, and philosophy. Exploring the work of Saussure, Russell, Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, and others, it provides a new account of the intellectual and cultural history of early twentieth-century Europe.

One particularly interesting aspect of Hirschkop’s essay is the repertoire of “double-voiced words” it displays. I will enumerate just three of them:1. The Misaddressed Word. Apparently, Hirschkop has been arguing these points with someone else, whose voice has drowned out what was actually said by myself and the other contributors to the Forum on Bakhtin. In a number of cases, Hirschkop objects that we failed to say things that were, in fact, explicitly stated and attributes to us (...) a different, phantom position, which he then cites as evidence of “liberal,” individualistic, and “cold war” biases . Likewise, I ostensibly “implied” a number of things, thought Hirschkop offers no direct quotations as evidence .2. The Word That Lies in Ambush . In a way that has become increasingly common in theoretical essays, Hirschkop contents himself with stating only what is not the case and neglects telling us his conception of the alternative, correct position. For example, Hirschkop says: “Such ambiguities [in Bakhtin] are not the sign of an open and skeptical mind, but neither are they mere inconsistencies which can be safely ignored” . In consequence, respondents who presume to guess at his position, whether they guess rightly or wrongly, are subject to an accusation of total or partial misrepresentation of his position or, perhaps worse, of drawing typically liberal inferences.3. The Preemptive Word . Using a strategy familiar to most polemicists, Hirschkop attempts to discredit his adversaries by anticipating their objections within his own argument. Unfortunately, he projects responses—that no one has made—as if those responses were inevitable and seeks to dismiss them simply by naming them rather than answering them. Thus, he accuses my fellow contributors and me of a “kind of relativism, whose ideological affinities with the commonplaces of Western cold war discourse cannot be missed” and which “crops up again and again when Bakhtin is interpreted” . The phrase in parentheses and the word in quotation marks are an example of preemptive discourse. Gary Saul Morson is the author of The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky’s “Diary of a Writer” and the Traditions of Literary Utopia and the editor of Literature and History: Theoretical Problems and Russian Case Studies . He is currently completing a book on Tolstoy, one chapter of which appeared in the Summer 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. He was the guest editor of Critical Inquiry’s Forum on Mikhail Bakhtin, for which he wrote the introduction, “Who Speaks for Bakhtin?”. (shrink)

When, in the early 1980s the ideas of post-structuralism seemed rampant within academic critical theory, the appearance of the flawed English translation of Mikhail Bakhtin's central essays on the novel seemed to offer a very promising alternative perspective.1 Bakhtin's model of discursive relations promised to guard the specificity of discourse from being obscured by a web of determinations, while allowing the development of an account of the operations of power and resistance in discourse that could avoid the nullity of Derrida's (...) hors-texte and the irresponsible semiotic hedonism of the later Barthes. Marxist theorists such as Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton and Allon White immediately and effectively seized upon the translated work of the Bakhtin circle to bolster their arguments, but, as translations of the earlier and later philosophical material appeared, it became apparent that the relationship between work of the circle and the Marxist tradition was very problematic. With this, the American anti-Marxist Slavists – some of whom had been responsible for certain of these translations – moved onto the offensive, arguing that Bakhtin's work was fundamentally incompatible with, and in principle hostile to, Marxism. Occasionally, they went further, arguing that Bakhtin was quite unconcerned with politics and questions of power, being an ethical, or even a religious philosopher before all else. The Americans did have a point. Bakhtin certainly was not a Marxist and the Marxism of some of his early colleagues and collaborators was of a rather peculiar sort. Furthermore, the key problematic area was indeed Bakhtin's ethics which, it became ever more apparent, underlies his most critically astute and productive work and serves to blunt its political edge. Important points of contact between the work of the Bakhtin circle and Marxist theory do persist, however, as Ken Hirschkop and Michael Gardiner, among others, have continued to register. In this article, examining some of the sources of Bakhtin's philosophy, which have only just been revealed in the new Russian edition of his work, we shall analyse the features of Bakhtin's ethics that stifle the political potential of dialogic criticism, and we will suggest ways in which that potential may be liberated. (shrink)

This article provides a much‐needed review of the neural bases of implicit statistical learning. Batterink, Paller and Reber focus on the neural processes that underpin performance in experimental paradigms employed in implicit learning and statistical learning research. An important insight is that learning across all paradigms is supported by interactions between the declarative and nondeclarative memory systems of the brain. They conclude with a helpful discussion of future directions of research.

A 2015 experiment by Hanson and Delft colleagues provided further confirmation that the quantum world violates the Bell inequalities, being the first Bell test to close two known experimental loopholes simultaneously. The experiment was also taken to provide new evidence of ‘spooky action at a distance’. Here we argue for caution about the latter claim. The Delft experiment relies on entanglement swapping, and our main claim is that this geometry introduces an additional loophole in the argument from violation of the (...) Bell inequalities to action at a distance: the apparent action at a distance may be an artifact of ‘collider bias’. In the absence of retrocausality, the sensitivity of such experiments to this ‘Collider Loophole’ depends on the temporal relation between the entanglement swapping measurement C and the two measurements A and B between which we seek to infer a causal connection. CL looms large if the C is in the future of A and B, but not if C is in the past. The Delft experiment itself is the intermediate case, in which the separation is spacelike. We argue that this leaves it vulnerable to CL, unable to establish conclusively that it avoids it. (shrink)

The gendered occupational role can have an impact on both employees and organizations they work for. This study aims to explore different sides and factors that are related to experience, challenges, and coping mechanisms of male dry cleaners amidst gendered occupational roles. The methodology used were: Heideggeran Phenomenology, Semi- structured Interview Guide, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) by van Kaam and modified by Moustakas. This st udy had 15 participants. Based on the data collected, the following themes were identified in this (...) study; namely, (1) The Steadf ast, (2) and The Challenged. Likewise, the following sub themes were identified from the data- gathering and are based on their perspectives. Masculinity of a male laundry employee can really affect the perspective of an in dividual, the more the male look masculine the more that the people can easily conclude that his physique is not suitable on the jobs like laundry, because people always expect that men should work on a heavy work like truck, construction sites, etc. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

RESUMO: Em grande medida, os estudos sobre a constituição do arcabouço teórico do lacanismo têm ocorrido ao largo do exame de sua historicidade. Essa negligência reforça o ocultamento do processo social que levou a produção lacaniana a uma profunda integração entre a formalização e a etificação da teoria. Esse processo não pode ser compreendido sem a contextualização crítica da conjuntura política que cercou a proposta e a existência da École Freudienne de Paris, fundada por Lacan, em 1964. A estreita convivência (...) com os jovens militantes dos grupos da esquerda extraparlamentar da época, notadamente os maoístas, e a assimilação de suas problematizações fizeram do pensamento lacaniano e da EFP o espaço de objetivação de um discurso movido pela paráfrase política e seus efeitos de engajamento. Este artigo pretende expor as linhas de estruturação político-social dos conceitos forjados por Lacan, em meio à instituição e à consolidação de sua Escola. ABSTRACT: To a great extent the studies of the constitution of the Lacanism theoretical framework have occurred off the examination of its historicity. This neglect strengthens the concealment of the social process that led the Lacanian production to a deep integration between the theory formalization and the theory ethification. This process can not be understood without grasping the context of the political environment that surrounded the proposal and the existence of École Freudienne de Paris, founded by Lacan in 1964. The close contact with the young militants of the extra-parliamentary left groups of the time, notably the Maoists, and the assimilation of the problems they rose made the Lacanian thought and EFP the place of objectification of a speech moved by the political paraphrase and their engagement effects. This article aims to expose the lines of political and social structure of concepts forged by Lacan through the establishment and consolidation of his School. (shrink)

Nietzsche famously rails against Christian virtues such as humility and compassion. Yet he is well aware that historical Christians, especially those in positions of power, typically preached such values but did not practice them. This raises the question whom Nietzsche is really targeting in his animadversions against Christian virtues. The answer developed here is that his real targets are his contemporaries, including atheist, socialists such as Eugen Dühring, who, with their advocacy of egalitarian, democratic social and political policies, are trying (...) to implement the values Christians long preached but rarely practiced. In nominating moderns, including those who seek the realization of enlightenment liberal democratic values, rather than past Christians, as Nietzsche’s real targets we create space for reconciling Nietzsche’s claim that he accepts the past (as embodied in his doctrine of amor fati) with his project of seeking to open up new possibilities for the future. In the concluding sections the questions are raised to what extent do Nietzsche’s attacks on Christian virtues exhibit the very ressentiment he so vehemently criticises as a source of Christian values, and whether his criticism of the modern social and political implementation of those values is really supported by his own values. (shrink)

Wright, Ken Review of: Matter and what matters: Some science for the religious and some religion for scientists, Lionel Sharman, Steele Roberts, Wellington, 2013, 116 pp., NZD 24.99.

The issue whether there is any necessary connection between time and change turns, I argue, on the problem of what constitutes an accurate measurement of how much time passes. Given a plausible hypothesis about how time is measured, Shoemaker’s well known argument that time can pass without change can be seen to be unsound. But Shoemaker’s conclusion is not therefore false. The same hypothesis about time measurement supports a revised version of Shoemaker’s argument, and the revised argument does establish that (...) the passage of a quantity of time does not require that change occur during that time. Though Shoemaker’s conclusion is vindicated, it does not follow that there is no necessary connection at all between time and change. On the contrary, there is a connection which is simply of a different kind from the one Shoemaker had in mind. (shrink)

Many have argued that human enhancement, in particular bioenhancement via genetic engineering, brain-interventions or preimplantation embryo selection, is problematic even if it can be safely implemented. Various arguments have been put forward focusing on issues such as the undermining of autonomy, uneven distribution and unfairness, and the alteration of one’s identity, amongst others. Nevertheless, few, if any, of these thinkers oppose vaccines. -/- In what follows, I argue for the permissibility of a limited set of cognitive enhancements – in particular, (...) the enhancement of evaluative judgment and self-control – by analogy with the permissibility of vaccines. As a result, it follows that if one accepts the permissibility of vaccines one will also, other things being equal, be committed to the permissibility of these enhancements. I then consider and respond to a number of possible objections in order to defend and clarify my position. (shrink)

Advocacy publications, particularly those focused on the reporting and analysis of religious news and theology, have proliferated throughout American history. Today some 3,000 religious periodicals continue to vie for the eyes and hearts of American readers. Like their mainstream journalistic counterparts, advocacy publications over the years have formed professional associations that provide ongoing seminars, workshops, and professional standards for conduct and mutual accountability such as codes of ethics.

Ken Elkins retired as chief photographer of the Anniston Star in 2000, and this selection of his work demonstrates his brilliant eye for finding and capturing images of rural southern lives and landscapes in all their difficulty, candor, and humor. These are unadorned images of a timeless landscape and proud resourceful people, who know well their neighbors, honor their past, and face the tests of daily life with wit and a stoic sense of endurance.

This article proposes a locative function as a defining feature of situated art. All artworks orient their beholders, but situated art is characterized by this context-sensitive orientation entering the work’s content. In so doing, it facilitates ‘here’- and ‘now’-thoughts, not only towards the “real” situation encountered (the work’s outer orientation) but to the work’s “virtual” or “bracketed” realm (its inner orientation). These orientations overlap, but do not necessarily align; indeed, situated works often construct a tension through a deliberate miscalibration of (...) these orientations. But what is the mechanism by which such works afford indexical thought towards their worlds? Drawing upon Gareth Evans’s account of demonstrative content, I contend that sensory imagination—conceived in Evans’s terms as an additional conceptual component—plays a necessary role in negotiating demonstrative thought towards two (or more) separate spaces conceived as “here.” This is something the beholder brings to the work. (shrink)

Wright, Ken Review of: Atmosphere of hope: Searching for solutions to the climate crisis, by Tim Flannery, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2015, pp. 245 +ix.

Wright, Ken Review of: Against the spirit of the age, by Brian J. Coman, Connor Court Publishing, Ballarat, Vic, 2015, pp., xiii + 181.

Wright, Ken Review of: Moral tribes: Emotion, reason, and the gap between us and them, by Joshua Greene, Atlantic Books, London, 2014, pp.422.

Wright, Ken Review of: Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities, by Martha C. Nussbaum, Princeton University Press, 2012, xv + 168 pp. $27.95.

Biological understanding of human cognitive functions is incomplete because of failure to understand the evolution of complex functions and organisms in general. Here, that failure is attributed to an aspect of the standard neo-Darwinian synthesis, namely commitment to evolution by natural selection of genetic programs in stable environments, a position that cannot easily explain the evolution of complexity. When we turn to consider more realistic, highly changeable environments, however, another possibility becomes clearer. An alternative to genetic programs—dubbed “biogrammars”—is proposed here (...) to deal with complex, changing environments and explain evolving complexity from pre-genetic life to human socio-cognitive functions. (shrink)

Taking its cue from this special issue on the interweaving of different types of time through science and museum collections, this epilogue gives an overview of what sorts of new insights seem possible when different temporal qualities embedded in all collections are allowed to come together? What can we learn from juxtaposing the timings of museums, laboratories, and clinics? Can they lead to better understands of the processes of decay, and the potential for reanimation, inherent in all museum objects?

Later Platonists and their Heirs among Christians, Jews and Muslims offers a thought-provoking exploration of the reception of Platonism among communities of faith from early Christianity to the sixteenth century, from the Byzantine East to the Latin West. Rare emphasis is placed on the importance of Platonic thought and its diffusion in late antique and medieval Syria, Armenia, and Georgia but also among Arab and Jewish intellectuals from the seventh century onwards. As such, the volume makes a statement against the (...) separation of Neoplatonic philosophy from Christianity and the other Abrahamic faiths, since all four traditions promoted a life of virtue and goodness despite operating under different divine auspices. The volume seeks to establish paths of transmission and modes of adaptation across times and places. (shrink)

This article proposes an essential interrelatedness of Vermeer’s strategies of inclusion and exclusion of an implied beholder. I will argue that such strategies mutually reinforce each other, to the extent that the plausibility of one is arguably dependent upon the possibility of the other. This is evidenced by Vermeer’s subtle manipulations of pictorial space, and the article traces a decisive shift in his familiar use of barriers from those aimed at an external presence to those oriented towards an internal beholder. (...) The feasibility of this interdependence rests upon a theory of imaginative engagement with paintings that can accommodate both an internal beholder and the felt lack of occupancy of the imagined situation’s point of view. I argue that the Dependency Thesis, as set out by M. G. F. Martin, can provide plausibility for both kinds of imaginative engagement with paintings, when sensory imagination is conceived as an instance of imagining seeing. These engagements exploit the notorious emptiness of imagination’s necessarily perspectival point of view. (shrink)

The provability problem in intuitionistic propositional second-order logic with existential quantifier and implication (∃,→) is proved to be undecidable in presence of free type variables (constants). This contrasts with the result that inutitionistic propositional second-order logic with existential quantifier, conjunction and negation is decidable.