The oral eye is a metaphor for the dominance of global designer capitalism. It refers to the consumerism of a designer aesthetic by the 'I' of the neoliberalist subject, as well as the aural soundscapes that accompany the hegemony of the capturing attention through screen cultures. An attempt is made to articulate the historical emergence of such a synoptic machinic regime drawing on Badiou, Bellmer, Deleuze, Guattari, Lacan, Rancir̈e, Virilio, Ziarek, and Zizek to explore contemporary art (post-Situationism) and visual cultural (...) education. Jagodzinski develops the concept of an 'avant-garde without authority,' 'self-refleXion' and 'in(design)' to further the questions surrounding the posthuman as advanced by theorists such as Hansen, Stiegler and Ziarek's 'force' of art. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Žižek’s stance on ideology. I begin with an overview, move to his understanding of the ‘act’ and then move into the second part of the paper which is a discussion of the first part in relation to his encounter with Deleuze in Organs Without Body. I claim that this was a missed encounter, or rather it will always remain an impossible encounter given that Lacan, Badiou and Žižek’s philosophical embrace of negativity bumps up squarely against (...) Deleuze and Guattari’s affirmative stance. This deadlock does not offer a ‘solution’ as much as the political consequences that emerge from the two paths taken. It is further claimed that these crossroads are separated by two very different understandings of infinity as they are developed in the Kantian antinomy of the mathematical and dynamic sublime. (shrink)

This essay attempts to examine the difficult question of sex scandals both in public school settings and in the academy. It raises issues over the way authority in the classroom is unequally exercised by both male and female teachers in terms of power and seduction. However, the Law remains explicit when it comes to judging who is at fault within a-student relationship that collapses into the bedroom. The ethics that surround such sexual affairs is raised through the psychoanalytic and philosophical (...) writings of Jacques Lacan. The essay ends by offering a surprised perspective over the question whether an ethics of diabolical evil is possible, given that such affairs are differentiated as post-Oedipal relationships where age differentiations have become blurred. (shrink)

This volume weaves together a variety of perspectives aimed at confronting a spectrum of ethico-political global challenges arising in the Anthropocene which affect the future of life on planet earth. In this book, the authors offer a multi-faceted approach to address the consequences of its imaginary and projective directions. The chapters span the disciplines of political economy, cybernetics, environmentalism, bio-science, psychoanalysis, bioacoustics, documentary film, installation art, geoperformativity, and glitch aesthetics. The first section attempts to flesh out new aspects of current (...) debates. Questions over the Capitaloscene are explored via conflations of class and climate, revisiting the eco-Marxist analysis of capitalism, and the financial system that thrives on debt. The second section explores the imaginary narratives that raise questions regarding non-human involvement. The third section addresses ’geoartisty,’ the counter artistic responses to the speculariztion of climate disasters, questioning eco-documentaries, and what a post-anthropocentric art might look like. The last section addresses the pedagogical response to the Anthropocene. (shrink)

The interest in the relationship between pedagogy of the classroom informed by psychoanalytic discourse has grown in recent years to the point where there is a critical mass of educators who are utilizing neo-Lacanian and Kleinian psychoanalytic theory in their educational research.

The Academy seems to operate with a swarm consciousness; suddenly we find ourselves on a new landscape laden with new percepts and affects to be deciphered as signs, as Deleuze and Guattari might a...

In this essay I bring together Lacan, Žižek, Deleuze and Guattari as mediators and intercessors for one another. The tensions that exist between them still continue to reverberate throughout the academic community. The intent is to query their pedagogies in what they are trying to ‘do’ within the context of capitalism in particular. I have called their pedagogies anomalous in keeping with their thrust of becoming other in their own particular ways through what I take to be three pedagogical conceptual (...) personae: saint, jester and nomad. I try to show how Deleuze and Guattari managed to supplant and perhaps overcome Lacan's own pedagogical project to have psychoanalysis as a way out from capitalism, which has been continued today by Žižek. I do this by showing how Lacan's mathemes, used in his four discourses, can be understood as having been deterritorialised by Deleuze and Guattari to present us with a counter-actualised pedagogy that challenges psychoanalysis as presented by both Lacan and Žižek. Nevertheless, reconciliations between the thought of Deleuze, Guattari and Lacan are possible. The reader will also find that particular door open, yet not fully explored here. (shrink)

In this essay I bring Gregory Bateson together with Deleuze and Guattari (primarily with the latter) to show their ecological compatibility, especially with Guattari’s ecosophy. I do this against the backdrop of the Anthropocene which presents us not only with a ‘climate’ of post-truth and political corruption, but also with the so-called climate crisis. In the context of these two broad examinations, I ask what can an artisan-artist-designer do given this problematic context? My reply is to call on ‘speculative design’ (...) by an ‘avant-garde without authority’ to expose the symptoms of the Anthropocene era. (shrink)

One would have to be too “simple” to believe that thought is a simple act, clear unto itself, and not putting into play all the powers of the unconscious, or all the powers of nonsense in the unconscious.1As someone who has taken out the time to study Deleuze|Guattari’s oeuvre,2 rather than targeting just one book, A Thousand Plateaus in such a superficial way, reading Estelle Jorgensen and Iris M. Yob’s “deconstruction” of this particular work has been a very painful experience, (...) “painful” in the sense the way their text “screams” at them for their outright poetic mystifications, which many scholars have relished but which certainly has caused them great consternation.3 Deleuze|Guattari’s philosophy is discordant... (shrink)

This essay explores Badiou's writings on art and inaesthetics. It reviews his notion of the artistic event, comments on his 15 theses on contemporary art and examines his notion of inaesthetics. What follows is then applied to art and its education in terms of his search for a ‘third position’ that would challenge the extremes of capitalist design innovation and Romantic idealism that in his summation define the contemporary landscape.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Subject of Art Badiou's Five Problems Badiou's Inaesthetic Badiou Exposed Why Art Can't Be Taught—It Can However Educate! Notes References.

This volume, the first of a two volume set, addresses three major areas in response to the post-Anthropocene: childhood, environment and indigeneity. Each of these areas is broadly addressed in relation to the concerns that have arisen both theoretically and educationally. The author terms these to be encounters as each area presents a particular problematic when addressing the phase change that the planet is undergoing where the anthropogenic labour of global humanity is contributing to climate change, endangering our very existence. (...) There has been a concerted effort to overcome the nature-culture divide in education. The author reviews this development in the first section where there has been a particular emphasis placed on childhood education. In the second section he turns to the pedagogical theories that are attempting to overcome this same divide in environmental and science education. The last section attempts to bring into the conversation the vast literature on Indigeneity and their attempts to revise traditional education to meet these extraordinary times. (shrink)

As a follow up to Pedagogical Encounters in the Post-Anthropocene, Volume I, this book addresses three major areas in response to the post-Anthropocene: Technology, Neurology, Quantum. Each of these areas is broadly addressed in relation to the concerns that have arisen both theoretically and educationally. As in Volume I, the author terms these to be encounters as each area presents a particular problematic when addressing the phase change that the planet is undergoing where the anthropogenic labour of global humanity is (...) contributing to climate change, endangering our very existence. Technology in education has been a significant development. There is a concerted effort to review this development placing stress on the rise of learning machines and algorithms. In the second encounter the vast literature on neurology is addressed, especially neurodiversity and the various symptoms that have emerged in the post-Anthropocene era. The last section reviews issues related to quantum theory as this is fundamental to tensions between physics and metaphysics. The volume concludes with the author’s own pedagogical proposal for the future. (shrink)

'What is real?' has been one of the key questions of philosophy since its beginning in antiquity. But it is not just a question that philosophers ask. This Very Short Introduction discusses what reality is by looking at a variety of arguments, theories, and thought-experiments from philosophy, physics, and cognitive science.

The focus of this article is the question whether the notion of being in a position to know is closed under modus ponens. The question is answered negatively.

1. Die erste Hälfte des Kommentars, mit Ausnahme der Kapitel über die Weltseele.

Does the real world, defined as a world of objects that exist independent of human interests, concerns, and cognitive activities, really exist? Jan Westerhoff argues that we have good reason to believe it does not. His discussion considers four main facets of the idea of the real world, ranging from the existence of a separate external and internal world, to the existence of an ontological foundation that grounds the existence of all the entities in the world, and the existence of (...) an ultimately true theory that provides a final account of all there is. As Westerhoff discusses the reasons for rejecting the postulation of an external world behind our representations, he asserts that the internal world is not as epistemically transparent as is usually assumed, and that there are good reasons for adopting an anti-foundational account of ontological dependence. Drawing on conclusions from the ancient Indian philosophical system of Madhyamaka Buddhism, Westerhoff defends his stance in a purely Western philosophical framework, and affirms that ontology, and philosophy more generally, need not be conceived as providing an ultimately true theory of the world. (shrink)

This article aims to present a detailed analysis of the “Christian natural philosophy” elaborated by the German humanist philosopher and theologian Otto Casmann (1562–1607) in his various works. To this end, Casmann’s general idea of philosophia Christiana is discussed and critically evaluated. Regarding natural philosophy, or physics, attention is paid mainly to topics such as cosmogony and cosmology, which Casmann promised to have developed biblically and independently of the pagan (namely Aristotelian) tradition. However, when Casmann’s natural philosophy is analyzed in (...) detail, his resolute emphasis on the literal reading of the Bible, the cornerstone of his entire concept, turns out to be problematic. Similarly, despite his resolutions, his natural‑philosophical views are, to a considerable extent, still dependent on Aristotelian terms and concepts. (shrink)

Analogien lassen sich aus unserem vernünftigen Nachdenken und Argumentieren kaum wegdenken. Ganz zurecht stellen sie eines der klassischen Themen der Argumentationstheorie dar. Doch wie genau sollte die argumentative Rolle von Analogien in Argumentrekonstruktionen dargestellt werden? Das ist die Leitfrage dieses Beitrags. Zunächst wird mit Michael Dummetts Schach-Analogie ein prominentes Beispiel dargestellt und eine genauere Charakterisierung des Analogiebegriffs vorgeschlagen. Danach wird die gängigste Rekonstruktionsform von Analogien diskutiert, das Analogieargument, und in einigen Punkten verfeinert. Vor diesem Hintergrund schlägt der Beitrag eine zweite, (...) alternative Rekonstruktionsform vor, in der zwei analoge Argumente an die Stelle eines einzelnen Analogiearguments treten. Nachdem diese beiden Rekonstruktionsformen an einem weiteren berühmten Beispiel vorgeführt wurden, an Peter Singers Teich-Analogie, wird diskutiert, wie sich diese beiden Varianten gegenseitig ergänzen und welche Stärken und Schwächen sie haben. Es zeigt sich, dass Analogien nicht nur in Form von Analogieargumenten einen zentralen Topos eines Einzelarguments darstellen. Darüber hinaus kann die Untersuchung analoger Argumente bereits selbst als argumentationstheoretische Topik verstanden werden. (shrink)

Analogien lassen sich aus unserem vernünftigen Nachdenken und Argumentieren kaum wegdenken. Ganz zurecht stellen sie eines der klassischen Themen der Argumentationstheorie dar. Doch wie genau sollte die argumentative Rolle von Analogien in Argumentrekonstruktionen dargestellt werden? Das ist die Leitfrage dieses Beitrags. Zunächst wird mit Michael Dummetts Schach-Analogie ein prominentes Beispiel dargestellt und eine genauere Charakterisierung des Analogiebegriffs vorgeschlagen. Danach wird die gängigste Rekonstruktionsform von Analogien diskutiert, das Analogieargument, und in einigen Punkten verfeinert. Vor diesem Hintergrund schlägt der Beitrag eine zweite, (...) alternative Rekonstruktionsform vor, in der zwei analoge Argumente an die Stelle eines einzelnen Analogiearguments treten. Nachdem diese beiden Rekonstruktionsformen an einem weiteren berühmten Beispiel vorgeführt wurden, an Peter Singers Teich-Analogie, wird diskutiert, wie sich diese beiden Varianten gegenseitig ergänzen und welche Stärken und Schwächen sie haben. Es zeigt sich, dass Analogien nicht nur in Form von Analogieargumenten einen zentralen Topos eines Einzelarguments darstellen. Darüber hinaus kann die Untersuchung analoger Argumente bereits selbst als argumentationstheoretische Topik verstanden werden. (shrink)

The Indian philosopher Acarya Nagarjuna (c. 150-250 CE) was the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Path) school of Mahayana Buddhism and arguably the most influential Buddhist thinker after Buddha himself. Indeed, in the Tibetan and East Asian traditions, Nagarjuna is often referred to as the "second Buddha." This book presents a survey of the whole of Nagarjuna's philosophy based on his key philosophical writings. His primary contribution to Buddhist thought lies in the further development of the concept of sunyata or (...) "emptiness." For Nagarjuna, all phenomena are without any svabhava, literally "own-nature" or "self-nature," and thus without any underlying substance. Particular emphasis is put on discussing Nagarjuna's thinking as philosophy. The present discussion shows how his thoughts on metaphysics, epistemology, the self, language, and truth present a unified theory of reality with considerable systematic appeal. The book offers a systematic account of Nagarjuna's philosophical position. It reads Nagarjuna in his own philosophical context, but also shows that the issues of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy have at least family resemblances to issues in European philosophy. (shrink)

Multi-modal versions of propositional logics S5 or S4—commonly accepted as logics of knowledge—are capable of describing static states of knowledge but they do not reflect how the knowledge changes after communications among agents. In the present paper (part of broader research on logics of knowledge and communications) we define extensions of the logic S5 which can deal with public communications. The logics have natural semantics. We prove some completeness, decidability and interpretability results and formulate a general method that solves certain (...) kind of problems involving public communications—among them well known puzzles of Muddy Children and Mr. Sum & Mr. Product. As the paper gives a formal logical treatment of the operation of restriction of the universe of a Kripke model, it contributes also to investigations of semantics for modal logics. (shrink)

A number of well-developed theories shed light on the question, under what circumstances our beliefs enjoy epistemic justification. Yet, comparatively little is known about epistemic defeat--when new information causes the loss of epistemic justification. This book proposes and defends a detailed account of epistemic defeaters. The main kinds of defeaters are analyzed in detail and integrated into a general framework that aims to explain how beliefs lose justification. It is argued that defeaters introduce incompatibilities into a noetic system and thereby (...) prompt a structured re-evaluation process that makes a justified reinstatement of the defeated belief impossible. The account is then applied to the topic of disagreement, where it is used in an argument for conciliationism, as well as a new explanation for higher-order defeat. Throughout the book, the notion of defeat is the center of attention, while a number of new issues are discussed at the intersections of defeat and justification. Specifically, new problems are raised for broadly internalist accounts of defeat, a fully descriptive reliabilist account of defeat is provided, and the case for normative defeat is revisited. (shrink)

This paper analyses recent calls for so called “neurorights”, suggested novel human rights whose adoption is allegedly required because of advances in neuroscience, exemplified by a proposal of the Neurorights Initiative. Advances in neuroscience and technology are indeed impressive and pose a range of challenges for the law, and some novel applications give grounds for human rights concerns. But whether addressing these concerns requires adopting novel human rights, and whether the proposed neurorights are suitable candidates, are a different matter. This (...) paper argues that the proposed rights, as individuals and a class, should not be adopted and lobbying on their behalf should stop. The proposal tends to promote rights inflationism, is tainted by neuroexceptionalism and neuroessentialism, and lacks grounding in relevant scholarship. None of the proposed individual rights passes quality criteria debated in the field. While understandable from a moral perspective, the proposal is fundamentally flawed from a legal perspective. Rather than conjuring up novel human rights, existing rights should be further developed in face of changing societal circumstances and technological possibilities. (shrink)