The article analyses the reception of Hume’s moral philosophy in the lectures and manuscripts of Edmund Husserl and in the published lectures of Franz Brentano, on which Husserl originally based his views. I first present the reasons that led Brentano to appreciate Hume’s sentimentalist background in moral philosophy and to criticize Hume’s relativism. I then show how Husserl, following the critique of psychologism in his Logical Investigations, builds on this starting point and attempts to show a possible contradictory nature of (...) Hume’s moral relativism. Finally, I consider whether Hume’s doctrine contains phenomenological insights that Husserl overlooks. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Politické myšlení Davida Huma. Základní otázky, východiska a inspirace pro americké otce zakladatele by Adéla RádkováHynek JanoušekAdéla Rádková. Politické myšlení Davida Huma. Základní otázky, východiska a inspirace pro americké otce zakladatele [The Political Thought of David Hume. Basic Questions, Premises, and Inspiration for America’s Founding Fathers]. Prague: Togga, 2019. Pp. 201. Paperback. ISBN 978-80-7476-169-0, $10.00.The work of David Hume has never been a major focus of interest in (...) the Czech lands. Recently, however, a certain shift has been taking place. Hume’s Treatise has been translated into Czech for the first time, a new translation of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion has been published to replace the archaic nineteenth-century translation, and the archaic translation of the second Enquiry will soon be replaced by a new one as well. Texts are also being published that attempt to show the wider scope of Hume’s work. The book reviewed here is one of them. Adéla Rádková’s text is the first Czech book to introduce Hume as a political thinker to the Czech public. The book itself consists of two relatively separate parts, which seem to be different in content and intent. While the first part, along with the preface, summarizes Hume’s life and work and includes a brief introduction to the basic ideas of Hume’s moral and political philosophy, the second part contributes to the interpretation of the influence of Hume’s political philosophy on the American Founding Fathers, especially on James Madison.In the introduction, the book first presents a history of overall interpretations of Hume’s work, beginning with Thomas Edward Ritchie and Dugald Stewart, who, in agreement with their teacher Reid, saw Hume as a radical skeptic. A significant change comes with Norman Kemp Smith’s well-known interpretation, according to which the theory of moral sentiment forms the basis of Hume’s project, which Hume adapted to his conception of belief. Once we stress that the investigation of emotion- and passion-based human nature is to be based on the experiential method of observation, we arrive, according to Rádková, at the common element of the otherwise very different naturalistic interpretations of David Hume’s philosophy to which she herself subscribes.Two more recent interpretations of Hume’s philosophy are also mentioned, namely Paul Russell’s interpretation of Hume’s work in terms of his critique of religion, and James Harris’s view that the attempt to see Hume as a systematic philosopher who, in his works, pursues the project of the science of man announced in the Treatise, is a misunderstanding of the role of a man of letters in the eighteenth century.Rádková finds Russell’s interpretation interesting but hard to reconcile with some of Hume’s political essays and with his History of England, in which Hume advocates [End Page 181] a pragmatic politics that is so bound up with religious considerations that it is hard to defend the view that Hume was trying to push religion out of the public sphere.Harris’s point about Hume not being a systematic thinker and about Hume’s abandonment of the Treatise in his advertisement needs to be set in the context of Hume’s life. Hume published this advertisement only a year before his death, and he used it to discourage readers from reading the Treatise because he though the book was stylistically clumsy and unsatisfactory in certain respects. He does not mention abandoning his philosophical project. Harris’s assertion (viii) that Hume was a free intellectual who did not want to be intellectually constrained in the wide range of his research flies in the face of Hume’s willingness to be constrained at least twice—if only he had been given the professorship he sought first in Edinburgh (1745) and then in Glasgow (1751). Rádková also holds that Hume, in his later writings, does not abandon his intention to give an account of human nature with regard to the general principles of morals, politics, and criticism, which he announced in the Preface to... (shrink)

1. The aim of the present article is not to compare Hume’s and Husserl’s philosophy or to trace Hume’s influence on Husserl’s phenomenology in detail. Such tasks would clearly exceed the limits of...

The name the “Prague school of Brentano” refers to three generations of thinkers who temporarily or permanently lived in Prague, bound together by teacher/student relationships, and who accepted the main views of Franz Brentano’s philosophy. This chapter discusses central aspects of the philosophical work done in the School.

The goal of the present article is to describe the Brentanian background of several topics concerning judgments and assertions in Husserl’s Logical Investigations. Why did Husserl abandon Brentano’s theory of two judgmental forces? Is the “is true/false” to be understood as an expression of judgmental force or as a logical predication? Is a “common expression” of the objective validity of judgment equivalent with our expression of our belief in that validity? Does the linguistic sign of the logical force manifest this (...) force or not? In order to provide a better understanding of Husserl’s approach, the paper also discusses his earlier views on these issues in recently published manuscripts from the early 1890s and in his Logic Lectures from the year 1896. (shrink)

The text first briefly summarizes the contents of Annik Waldow's book and then attempts to highlight the diverse meanings of the concept of bodily experience in eighteenth-century philosophy, especially in the philosophy of David Hume. After a brief distinction between subjective and objective bodily experience in Descartes, I point to six different meanings of this concept in David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. One of these notions, the body as a center of reference, turns out to be important for interpreting (...) the meaning of Hume's notion of the general point of view and of moral judgment of character. In connection with this, I conclude by providing two somewhat different readings of Hume's example of judging Marc Brutus's character from T 3. 3. 1. 16, which works with finding the optimal point of view that implies the bodily form of our experience. (shrink)

Brentanova teorie času a časového vědomí patří mezi základní témata celé Brentanovy filosofie. Nabízí celou řadu spjatých témat, které určují dvě hlavní otázky. Jak bychom měli ontologicky popsat čas jako takový? A jak vlastně vnímáme čas? Na tyto otázky poskytl Brentano různé odpovědi v celé řadě různých pozic, které vypracovával od počátku své filosofické práce během své Würzburgské profesury až do posledních okamžiků před smrtí. Cílem této studie je představit souhru těchto problémů v Brentanově analýze času a ukázat, že je (...) bohatým zdrojem filosofických hádanek, jejichž řešení je stále otevřenou otázkou. (shrink)

Následující text vydal v roce 1930 Oskar Kraus pod názvem Zur Phänomenognosie des Zeitbewußtseins v časopisu Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie, 75, n. 1-2, s. 1-22. Obsahuje výňatky z korespondence Franze Brentana a pražského profesora Karlo-Ferdinandovy univerzity Antona Martyho z roku 1895 a část Martyho přednášky o Brentanově teorii časového vědomí z téhož roku. Tématem textu je zdůvodnění přechodu od modelu časového vědomí, který pracuje s časovou modifikací předmětů představování, k modelu, který pracuje s časovou modifikací intencionálního vztahu k předmětu. (...) Ve verzi, která je zde zachycena, jde o přechod ke kontinuální modifikaci aktů souzení, které předmět „kladou“. Čtenáře, který by se zajímal o popis a hlubší zdůvodnění vývoje a povahy Brentanových teorií časového vědomí, bych odkázal na následující texty: Chisholm, R. : „Brentano’s Analysis of the Consciousness of Time“. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 6, 3-16, a Chrudzimski, A. : Intentionalität, Zeitbewusstsein und Intersubjektivität, Studien zur Phänomenologie von Brentano bis Ingarden, Ontos, Frankfurt. V češtině pak na Janoušek, H. : „Brentanova teorie času a časového vědomí“. Pro-Fil, 18, no. 1,, dostupné online na stránkách časopisu Pro-Fil. (shrink)

The study aims to show that the Kantian distinction of synthetic and analytical resolution of the courts is originally epistemic and not purely logical. Proof of this proposition is done so that in the first step are distinguished two types of synthetic and analytical predicate relation to the subject - logical-semantic and epistemic. Furthermore, the examples demonstrated that Kant was familiar cases in courts, which are found only logico-semantic synthetic or analytic connection of concepts in trials. Consequently, Kant care for (...) them and are therefore not in terms classifiable Critique of Pure Reason, Kant even offers a way to understand its logic and Prolegomena. Based on various Kant notes offered by Article resolution three types of synthetic courts and courts of two kinds of analysis. The final part of the article is devoted to a brief outline of the relationship of epistemic and epistemic-synthetic-analytic courts, because the courts are due to which Kant its resolution synthetic and analytical courts instituted . Shown is both preferred synthesis of ideas before analysis, first, how Kant based his teachings on unum, verum, bonum featured specific tasks analysis concepts. article is supplemented by a short reflection on Kant's definition of the principle of the dispute and by showing a significant difference between Kant and Bolzano definition of analytic courts, whose oversight can lead to misunderstanding the context in which resolution synthetic and analytical courts in Kant belongs. (shrink)

Článek analyzuje původní verzi Husserlovy kritiky Brentanova pojetí časového vědomí, která je obsažena v Husserlových Přednáškách k fenomenologii vnitřního časového vědomí, a Husserlovu snahu vyřešit Brentanův argument nekonečně nekonečného regresu v rukopisném textu O primární modifikaci paměti. Z Husserlovy kritiky si všímá jen dvou bodů. Za prvé kritiky Brentanova prezentismu, tj. názoru, že časové vědomí je založeno v bodu přítomnosti, v němž jsou psychické fenomény, které názor času konstituují, dány současně. Za druhé Husserlovy výtky, že Brentano nepoužívá pro výklad vědomí (...) času schéma počitkový obsah – pojetí počitkového obsahu. Za tímto účelem rekonstruuje text Brentanovu teorii v podobě, v které ji znal Husserl, a vykládá jak Brentanovy důvody pro odmítnutí časové povahy vnitřního vnímání, tak nedořešené problémy Brentanova hlediska. Následně se pokouší dokázat, že Husserl Brentanův prezentismus podcenil a že věcné problémy, které s jeho odmítnutím souvisely, musel řešit zavedením absolutně „kvazi-prezentního“ vědomí a odmítnutím schématu obsah – pojetí pro výklad konstituce imanentních časových jednot. Oba zvolené body Husserlovy kritiky Brentana se tak v pozdějších vrstvách přednášek ukazují jako částečně neoprávněné.The article discusses the original version of Husserl’s critique of Brentano’s concept of time consciousness, which forms a part of Husserl’s Lectures on the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time. Next, it gives an overview of Husserl’s attempt to solve Brentano’s argument from the infinitely infinite regress against the consciousness of internal time. Two points of Husserl’s critique of Brentano are analyzed. The first point concerns Husserl’s critique of Brentano’s presentism. Brentano holds that consciousness of time is contained in the time point of the present now, in which psychical phenomena constituting our time consciousness are given simultaneously. The second point concerns the lack of content – apprehension scheme in Brentano’s explanation of the time consciousness. The article reconstructs Brentano’s position in the form known to Husserl and explains Brentano’s reasons for refusing the internal consciousness of time as well as problems connected with this refusal. An analysis of Husserl’s text proves that Husserl underestimated Brentano’s presentism and that he was forced to introduce a concept of the absolute time consciousness to solve the problems connected with his refusal of Brentano’s position. Since Husserl had to eventually give up the content – apprehension scheme in his explanation of immanent time unities, his original critique of Brentano is shown to be partly unjustified. (shrink)

Brentanova teorie času a časového vědomí patří mezi základní témata celé Brentanovy filosofie. Nabízí celou řadu spjatých témat, které určují dvě hlavní otázky. Jak bychom měli ontologicky popsat čas jako takový? A jak vlastně vnímáme čas? Na tyto otázky poskytl Brentano různé odpovědi v celé řadě různých pozic, které vypracovával od počátku své filosofické práce během své Würzburgské profesury až do posledních okamžiků před smrtí. Cílem této studie je představit souhru těchto problémů v Brentanově analýze času a ukázat, že je (...) bohatým zdrojem filosofických hádanek, jejichž řešení je stále otevřenou otázkou. (shrink)

Ve své studii se pokouším zdůvodnit význam Husserlova základního rozlišení mezi samostatnými a nesamostatnými částmi v celku jeho filosofování. K tomu je potřeba popsat, jak toto rozlišení vyrůstá z obecné systematiky Logických zkoumání a jak je touto systematikou jakožto nástroj jejího vypracování předpokládáno. Abychom tento rozdíl pochopili musíme jej nejdříve zasadit do kontextu Husserlovy čisté logiky. V ní tento rozdíl patří zprvu do oblasti čisté logiky, která se nazývá formální ontologií, neboť každý předmět může být chápán jako aktuální nebo možná (...) část nějakého celku. Přihlédneme-li blíže, můžeme v oblasti částí rozlišit samostatné a nesamostatné části. Zatímco samostatné části mohou být myšleny mimo spojení se svými celky, nesamostatné se vzpírají jakémukoliv pokusu o toto uchopení, neboť je v jejich případě logicky absurdní. To nás přivádí k ideji obecného zákona, který vyjadřuje „logickou“ potřebu nesamostatných částí po doplnění. Tento zákon je založen v obecné povaze nesamostatné části a předepisuje, jakým způsobem se odehrává její doplnění a jaké druhy částí mohou toto doplnění uspokojit. Přitom kladu důraz na to, že podle Husserla je možno získat specifický obsah tohoto zákona pomocí variace, jež užívá bytí nesamostatné části jako index pro rozlišení mezí neboli nejnižší species částí, které jej mohou doplnit. Takový popis výrazně napomáhá pochopení smyslu pojmu variace a fundace v Husserlově filosofii. Dále se pokouším ukázat, že Husserl používá tento pojem obecného zákona a variace v oblasti formální logiky, aby vysvětlil ideu syntaktických zákonů a že jej využívá i v průběhu svého pozdějšího vypracování materiálních ontologií, aby vysvětlil syntetické soudy apriori. Nakonec poukazuji na určitou obtíž, která se objevuje, chceme-li chápat rozdíl mezi samostatnými a nesamostatnými částmi jako skutečný formálně ontologický rozdíl. (shrink)

This volume brings together contributions that explore the philosophy of Franz Brentano. It looks at his work both critically and in the context of contemporary philosophy. For instance, Brentano influenced the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, the theory of objects of Alexius Meinong, the early development of the Gestalt theory, the philosophy of language of Anton Marty, the works of Carl Stumpf in the psychology of tone, and many others. Readers will also learn the contributions of Brentano's work to much debated (...) contemporary issues in philosophy of mind, ontology, and the theory of emotions. The first section deals with Brentano’s conception of the history of philosophy. The next approaches his conception of empirical psychology from an empirical standpoint and in relation with competing views on psychology from the period. The third section discusses Brentano’s later programme of a descriptive psychology or “descriptive phenomenology” and some of his most innovative developments, for instance in the theory of emotions. The final section examines metaphysical issues and applications of his mereology. His reism takes here an important place. The intended readership of this book comprises phenomenologists, analytic philosophers, philosophers of mind and value, as well as metaphysicians. It will appeal to both graduate and undergraduate students, professors, and researchers in philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

This volume brings together contributions that explore the philosophy of Franz Brentano. It looks at his work both critically and in the context of contemporary philosophy. For instance, Brentano influenced the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, the theory of objects of Alexius Meinong, the early development of the Gestalt theory, the philosophy of language of Anton Marty, the works of Carl Stumpf in the psychology of tone, and many others. Readers will also learn the contributions of Brentano's work to much debated (...) contemporary issues in philosophy of mind, ontology, and the theory of emotions. The first section deals with Brentano’s conception of the history of philosophy. The next approaches his conception of empirical psychology from an empirical standpoint and in relation with competing views on psychology from the period. The third section discusses Brentano’s later programme of a descriptive psychology or “descriptive phenomenology” and some of his most innovative developments, for instance in the theory of emotions. The final section examines metaphysical issues and applications of his mereology. His reism takes here an important place. The intended readership of this book comprises phenomenologists, analytic philosophers, philosophers of mind and value, as well as metaphysicians. It will appeal to both graduate and undergraduate students, professors, and researchers in philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

The discovery of dietetics -- Philosophy of the nature of man -- Therapy of body and soul -- The philosophical legacy of On regimen.

The conceptualization of the vital force of living beings as a kind of breath and heat is at least as old as Homer. The assumptions that life and living things were somehow causally related to 'heat' and 'breath' would go on to inform much of ancient medicine and philosophy. This is the first volume to consider the relationship of the notions of heat, breath, and soul in ancient Greek philosophy and science from the Presocratics to Aristotle. Bringing together specialists both (...) on early Greek philosophy and on Aristotle, it brings an approach drawn from the history of science to the study of both fields. The chapters give fresh and detailed interpretations of the theory of soul in Heraclitus, Empedocles, Parmenides, Diogenes of Appolonia, and Democritus, as well as in the Hippocratic Corpus, Plato's Timaeus, and various works of Aristotle. (shrink)

This paper deals with the possibilities of using the ethical considerations of Baruch Spinoza in a psychotherapeutic context. I begin the interpretation by defining the basic features of Spinoza’s ethics and their connection with the whole of his philosophical system. The core of the study is the interpretation of Spinoza’s theory of affectivity and especially his concept of the transformation of passive affects into active, and what role philosophical knowledge plays in this transformation. The third part of the study then (...) tries to show how selected points of Spinoza’s introduced ideas can be useful for psychotherapeutic work. As much as the connection between philosophical ethics and psychotherapy seems obvious to many non-experts, most professionals on both sides are vehemently opposed to it. I believe that Spinoza’s thinking is an example of how the boundaries of these disciplines can be meaningfully bridged. (shrink)

Článek aktualizuje úvahy Sigmunda Freuda o pudových kořenech válečného násilí, zejména jak je předložil ve spisku Proč válka. K zachycení významu současných proměn na poli destruktivity je navržen koncept destruktivní revoluce, jehož terminologické zachycení má poukazovat na analogii s procesem známým jako sexuální revoluce. Klíčovým aspektem hypotetické probíhající destruktivní revoluce má být zvědomění skutečnosti, že destrukce může způsobovat slast a že mezi základní destruktivní projevy patří autoagrese. Smyslem předložených úvah je nabídnout perspektivu, z níž se válečné násilí jeví jako kontraproduktivní (...) odvedení energie našich pudových snah od jejich adekvátních cílů. (shrink)

The concept ofmimēsiswas ‘shared by most authors, philosophers and educated audiences in the classical period, in antiquity as a whole, and even later’, although it has probably never been developed into a well-articulated theory. As far as we can judge from the extant evidence, the meaning of the expressions μίμησις and μιμέομαι differs from author to author and sometimes even from passage to passage. Ancient Greek views onmimēsishave often been discussed in modern scholarship, mainly within the field of history of (...) art, and it has been demonstrated repeatedly that the traditional English translation ‘imitation’ is not always appropriate for the ancient texts and that in many contexts it is rather misleading. In the following study I aim to focus on this concept as it was employed in the oldest Greek cosmological and philosophical theories. As a rule, the study of these theories is complicated by their fragmentary state of preservation and by their distortion through the specifically Platonic views that were dominant among the later doxographers. I shall suggest that the Platonizing tendency still prevalent today, which tends to translate and interpretmimēsisas ‘imitation’ or ‘copy’, should be carefully revised in the light of the Hippocratic evidence and specifically in view ofDe victu, probably the oldest authentic, non-fragmentary, and non-Platonic document attesting the concept ofmimēsis. (shrink)

This article reflects on securitization efforts with respect to ‘killer robots’, known more impartially as autonomous weapons systems (AWS). Our contribution focuses, theoretically and empirically, on the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a transnational advocacy network vigorously pushing for a pre-emptive ban on AWS. Marking exactly a decade of its activity, there is still no international regime formally banning, or even purposefully regulating, AWS. Our objective is to understand why the Campaign has not been able to advance its disarmament agenda (...) thus far, despite all the resources, means and support at its disposal. For achieving this objective, we challenge the popular assumption that strong stigmatization is the universally best strategy towards humanitarian disarmament. We investigate the consequences of two specifics present in AWS, which set them apart from processes and successes of the campaigns to ban anti-personnel landmines, cluster munitions, and laser-blinding weapons: the complexity of AWS as a distinct weapons category, and the subsequent circumvention of its complexity through the utilization of pop-culture, namely science fiction imagery. We particularly focus on two mechanisms through which such distortion has occurred: hybridization and grafting. These provide the conceptual basis and heuristic tools to unpack the paradox of over-securitization: success in broadening the stakeholder base in relation to the first mechanism and deepening the sense of insecurity in relation to the second one does not necessarily lead to the achievement of the desired prohibitory norm. In conclusion, we ask whether it is not the time for a more epistemically-oriented expert debate with a less ambitious, lowest common denominator strategy as the preferred model of arms control for such a complex weapons category. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Aristotle’s methodology of science and its application to the study of the human soul. My aim is to contrast two significantly different methodological approaches and to formulate two pairs of premises that Aristotle employs in two clearly differentiated and independent fields of study, namely in his zoological works and in the works of practical philosophy. Acknowledging these principles, as I suggest, may shed a new light on the methodological difficulties that Aristotle indicates in the introductory chapters (...) of his De anima. (shrink)

The paper discusses the sharp semantic shifts of the Greek expressions psychê and sôma between the Archaic and Classical era. Concerning the documentary evidence of the medical, rhetorical and philosophical literature at the end of the 5th century BC, I argue that speculations on human health and disease attested in some of the Hippocratic treatises involved a specificnotionofthebody-souldistinctionandalsothatthisnotionprovides an important contrast to the definitionofphilosophyasatherapyofsoul.

Cílem knižní studie je postihnout pravidla platící v agonálním prostoru, do něhož literární znalci svými promluvami a texty jako subjekty vstupují a v jehož rámci jsou vzájemně poměřováni, posuzováni a hodnoceni. Autor přitom vychází z předpokladu, že myšlení o literatuře spoluformuje nadosobní pamět' určitého kolektiva a současně je také prostorem pro individuální tvořivost znalců. Literární historiky, teoretiky, kritiky či učitele interpretuje jako aktivní účastníky řečových her, kteří musí své názory a koncepty formulovat a prosazovat v kooperaci a konkurenci s ostatními, (...) což je také nutí volit jisté role a strategie. A protože si je vědom také toho, že pravidla hry jsou v čase proměnná, zachycuje rovněž posuny v myšlení o literatuře od pozitivistického důrazu na fakta přes víru, že klíčem k poznání je volba správné metody, tedy obecně aplikovatelného postupu, až po současnou konceptuální literární vědu, která hodnotově preferuje jednorázové demonstrace novosti, kreativity a neopakovatelné jedinečnosti. Vychází v edici Literární řada. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to provide a multi-perspective examination of one of the most important contemporary security issues: weaponized, and especially lethal, artificial intelligence. This technology is increasingly associated with the approaching dramatic change in the nature of warfare. What becomes particularly important and evermore intensely contested is how it becomes embedded with and concurrently impacts two social structures: ethics and law. While there has not been a global regime banning this technology, regulatory attempts at establishing a ban (...) have intensified along with acts of resistance and blocking coalitions. This article aims to reflect on the prospects and limitations, as well as the ethical and legal intensity, of the emerging regulatory framework. To allow for such an investigation, a power-analytical approach to studying international security regimes is utilized. (shrink)

International Relations's intellectual history is almost always treated as a history of ideas in isolation from both those discursive and political economies which provide its disciplinary and wider context. This paper contributes to this wider analysis by focusing on the impact of the field's discursive economy. Specifically, using Foucaultian archaeologico-genealogical strategy of problematization to analyse the emergence and disciplinary trajectories of Constructivism in IR, this paper argues that Constructivism has been brought gradually closer to its mainstream Neo-utilitarian counterpart through a (...) process of normalization, and investigates how it was possible for Constructivism to be purged of its early critical potential, both theoretical and practical. The first part of the paper shows how the intellectual configuration of Constructivism and its disciplinary fortunes are inseparable from far-from-unproblematic readings of the Philosophy of Social Science: the choices made at this level are neither as intellectually neutral nor as disciplinarily inconsequential as they are presented. The second and third parts chart the genealogies of Constructivism, showing how its overall normalization occurred in two stages, each revolving around particular practices and events. The second part concentrates on older genealogies, analysing the politics of early classificatory practices regarding Constructivism, and showing how these permitted the distillation and immunization of Constructivism – and thus of the rest of the mainstream scholarship which it was depicted as compatible with – against more radical Postmodernist/Post-structuralist critiques. Finally, the third part focuses attention on recent genealogies, revealing new attempts to reconstruct and reformulate Constructivism: here, indirect neutralization practices such as the elaboration of ‘Pragmatist’ Constructivism, as well as the direct neutralization such as the formulation of ‘Realist’ Constructivism, are key events in Constructivism's normalization. These apparently ‘critical’ alternatives that aim to ‘provide the identity variable’ in fact remain close to Neo-utilitarianism, but their successful representation as ‘critical’ help neutralize calls for greater openness in mainstream IR. Rather than a simple intellectual history, it is this complex process of reading and producing that counts as ‘Constructivism’, which explains both the normalization of Constructivism and the continued marginalization of Postmodernist/Post-structuralist approaches in mainstream IR's infra-disciplinary balance of intellectual power. (shrink)

International Relations's intellectual history is almost always treated as a history of ideas in isolation from both those discursive and political economies which provide its disciplinary and wider context. This paper contributes to this wider analysis by focusing on the impact of the field's discursive economy. Specifically, using Foucaultian archaeologico-genealogical strategy of problematization to analyse the emergence and disciplinary trajectories of Constructivism in IR, this paper argues that Constructivism has been brought gradually closer to its mainstream Neo-utilitarian counterpart through a (...) process of normalization, and investigates how it was possible for Constructivism to be purged of its early critical potential, both theoretical and practical. The first part of the paper shows how the intellectual configuration of Constructivism and its disciplinary fortunes are inseparable from far-from-unproblematic readings of the Philosophy of Social Science: the choices made at this level are neither as intellectually neutral nor as disciplinarily inconsequential as they are presented. The second and third parts chart the genealogies of Constructivism, showing how its overall normalization occurred in two stages, each revolving around particular practices and events. The second part concentrates on older genealogies, analysing the politics of early classificatory practices regarding Constructivism, and showing how these permitted the distillation and immunization of Constructivism – and thus of the rest of the mainstream scholarship which it was depicted as compatible with – against more radical Postmodernist/Post-structuralist critiques. Finally, the third part focuses attention on recent genealogies, revealing new attempts to reconstruct and reformulate Constructivism: here, indirect neutralization practices such as the elaboration of ‘Pragmatist’ Constructivism, as well as the direct neutralization such as the formulation of ‘Realist’ Constructivism, are key events in Constructivism's normalization. These apparently ‘critical’ alternatives that aim to ‘provide the identity variable’ in fact remain close to Neo-utilitarianism, but their successful representation as ‘critical’ help neutralize calls for greater openness in mainstream IR. Rather than a simple intellectual history, it is this complex process of reading and producing that counts as ‘Constructivism’, which explains both the normalization of Constructivism and the continued marginalization of Postmodernist/Post-structuralist approaches in mainstream IR's infra-disciplinary balance of intellectual power. (shrink)