Critical Theory, Misc

A new book by Leonardo Caffo, Fragile Umanità, is reviewed. Fragile Umanità serves as a primer intended to introduce both professionals and non-professionsals to the concepts of contemporary posthumanism and the failures of humanist philosophies. The book's core methodology is to outline the differences between humanist and posthumanist philosophies and show how the latter is less contentious and favourable. The book is stylistically engaging, lucid and academically current, providing both novice readers and seasoned scholars with an easy-to-read introduction to posthumanist (...) theory for Italian scholars. (shrink)

This essay stages a dialectical confrontation between Adorno–Horkheimer on one hand and Benjamin–Badiou on the other against the background of the former's reductive portrait of Ulysses in Dialectic of the Enlightenment, which depicts him as a proto-bourgeois archetype of profit-seeking and acquisitive ethos. In sharp contrast, Walter Benjamin's allegorical materialism foregrounds, by dialectical illumination, hieroglyphic traces of Homeric virtues. These, I argue, are sustained and further amplified by Alain Badiou's topological ethics and loop-politics.

Against the enthusiasm for dialogue and deliberation in recent democratic theory, the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito and French philosopher Jacques Rancière construct their political philosophies around the nondialogical figure of the third person. The strikingly different deployments of the figure of the third person offered by Esposito and Rancière present a crystallization of their respective approaches to political philosophy. In this essay, the divergent analyses of the third person offered by these two thinkers are considered in terms of the critical (...) strategies they employ. Contrasting Esposito’s strategy of “ethical dissensus” with Rancière’s strategy of “aesthetic dissensus,” it is argued that Esposito’s attempts to recruit the figure of the third person to dismantle the dispositif of the person are politically problematic, while Rancière’s alternative account of the third person is more promising for political theory and practice. (shrink)

‘Post-truth’ is a failed concept, both epistemically and politically because its simplification of the relationship between truth and politics cripples our understanding and encourages authoritarianism. This makes the diagnosis of our ‘post-truth era’ as dangerous to democratic politics as relativism with its premature disregard for truth. In order to take the step beyond relativism and ‘post-truth’, we must conceptualise the relationship between truth and politics differently by starting from a ‘non-sovereign’ understanding of truth.

El artículo revela cómo la filosofía que desarrolló Karl Marx estuvo centrada en el tema de la vida. La esencia de la comprensión marxiana de la sociedad y la historia no radica en una primacía abstracta de lo económico, sino en el proceso real de producción y reproducción de la vida. Es la vida –y no la economía por sí misma– la que constituye el fundamento de la concepción materialista de la historia desarrollada por Marx.

Over three decades, Axel Honneth has developed one of the most fully-structured recognition paradigms in the field of social philosophy. Although it has undergone considerable theoretical changes, this paradigm retains a strong unity. I will analyze it in light of the Frankfurt school critical social theory research program. By so doing, I aim, first, to outline a defense of Honneth’s theory against growing criticisms, which tend to see depletion of its critical insights in his most recent works. Secondly, I aim (...) to highlight that most of the weaknesses pointed out by his critics derive from the methodology with which Honneth frames the concept of recognition, and which he explicitly related to the Frankfurt school critical social theory. Thirdly, I argue that, insofar as we are at present witnessing a transformation in the nature of current struggles for recognition, it is precisely one of the premises of this methodology that runs the risk of being undermined (i.e. the classical relation between theory and “praxis”). (shrink)

In this chapter I argue that the work of mourning of by those in (post)-crime generations for the victims of past crimes is the precondition to a) take responsibility for such crimes, b) show solidarity with the victims of crimes (such as the support of victims’ claims for reparations), and c) make sure that the crimes of the past are not repeated. Only if people engage in the painful work of mourning for the victims of past crimes can this change (...) in the level of consciousness be brought about. If mourning as a theoretical and practical concept is dismissed then people are in danger to repeat the horrors of the past. The core aim of this chapter is to get a better understanding of those factors that hinder individuals and collectives to accomplish the work of mourning. It shows that making past crimes a taboo topic interferes with the work of mourning, which is why political and social theorists must pay close attention to the connection between taboo and failures to mourn. I bring Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich in conversation with Theodor W. Adorno, Sigmund Freud, and Georgio Agamben, to defend my argument. The chapter is composed of four sections, including the introduction. (shrink)

I review Amy Allen's Book: The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016) as part of a Review Symposium: -/- In her latest book, The End of Progress, Amy Allen embarks on an ambitious and much needed project: to decolonize contemporary Frankfurt School critical theory. As with all of her books, this is an exceptionally well-written and well-argued book. Allen strives to avoid making assertions without backing them up via close and careful textual reading of the (...) thinkers she engages with. In what follows I will state why this book makes a central contribution to contemporary critical theory (in the wider sense), after which I pose a few questions. These questions are not meant to prove that there are any serious problems with her argumentation. Rather, they are meant in the spirit of dialogue and to allow her to further elaborate her work for the audience... (shrink)

For the past decade and a half, social and political thinkers have appropriated the Hegelian trope of a “struggle for recognition” to generate theories that lead to a democratic politics of inclusion. The different strands within the “politics of recognition debate” share the conviction that “recognition” is a central human good and the precondition for justice in pluralist societies. However, the French psychoanalytic philosopher Jacques Lacan questions an ethics based on recognition. I share Lacan’s suspicion of an ethics based on (...) recognition or its counterpart—misrecognition. Contemporary thinkers, who have wrought this trope for politics have continued to mythologize it, thereby not so much contributing to a politics of inclusion, but instead, perpetuating a politics of exclusions. What parades as a pluralist society where subjects supposedly “equally recognize each other in their diversity” often ends up in the exclusion of different subjects, such as women, sexual and racial minorities, and the poor. Although the influence of the politics of recognition is fading, perhaps because some thinkers have realized its inherent problems, it remains a dominant strand in contemporary political theorizing. (shrink)

Modern capitalist societies are plagued by the prevalence of a series of oppositions, such as the subject/object, theory/practice, and the mind/body opposition. The problem with these oppositions is that they appear in an absolute opposition and in a hierarchical relation, which makes the negative pole (the object, practice and the body) appear inferior to the positive pole. In my previous work I have shown that the “inferior” pole is (often unconsciously) linked to women, racial minorities and working-class people, which leads (...) to injustices towards these groups and upholds the hierarchies themselves. -/- The central questions that concern me in this essay are the following: How are these oppositions connected and different from one another? And what can we do to challenge them and deal with the injustices they engender? I read Adorno in conjunction with Lacan to find answers to these questions, showing that at the center of Adorno and Lacan’s thought is an effort to expose and challenge hierarchical oppositions. (shrink)

A review of David M. Berry’s Critical Theory and the Digital (London: Bloomsbury, 2014) and Christian Fuchs’s Social Media: A Critical Introduction (London: Sage, 2014) which was published in Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy 2015, Issue 1: Pirates & Privateers.

Judith Butler is often referred to as a thinker who disputes the positive view of recognition shared by many social and political philosophers today and advances a more "ambivalent" account of recognition. While I agree with this general characterization of Butler’s account, I think that it is not yet adequately understood what precisely makes recognition ambivalent for Butler. Usually, Butler is read as providing an ethical critique of recognition. According to this reading, Butler believes that it is important for persons (...) to be recognized but that recognition is at the same time experienced as oppressive and hence is ethically ambivalent. Against this reading, I advance the view that Butler does not develop an ethical critique but rather an ideology critique of recognition. What makes recognition ambivalent for Butler is, as I will argue, that it can serve social functions behind the backs of the participants and be implicated in the reproduction of problematic social orders. I elaborate this argument by drawing on Butler’s analyses of the violent exclusion of genders that are not unambiguously male or female from the social realm, which, on my reading, is directly connected to the recognition of persons as male or female in everyday life. (shrink)

Singer argues that thinking on the Left insufficiently appropriates the broader insights about life and human nature made possible by Darwin. I think Singer has it backwards: the problem is not that Darwin has insufficiently been allowed to influence thinking on the Left, but, rather, that the meaning of “Darwinism” has been distorted by the wider scientific and intellectual communities broadly as a support for Right-wing views including patriarchy and racism since its early days. That Darwin’s theories have so often (...) been made to serve and support such views marks the power of ideology. The problem is not what bad scientists Leftists are, but why Singer thinks they bear the primary responsibility for explaining Darwinism to a world that still doesn’t get it. Even scientists have tended to associate Darwinism with a caricature of Hobbes’ “perpetual warre,”—in which only the activities of males in battle over resources, females, and territory, seem to matter. Yet, Darwinism is a theory of survival, not death. In contrast with the “Hobbesian” view of Darwinism, it is better understood as a theory that sees organisms as embedded within contexts of life-sustaining activities that define a form of life for their species’ within definite local environments. Their activities, understood as natural history, within the horizon of the life of a species in the midst of others, complete our picture of the lives of organisms. This view of life coordinates better with Leftist goals and attitudes than those typical on the Right, and it is not surprising that it has tended to be suppressed in popular and conventional scientific thinking. (shrink)

Foucault’s concept of ‘biopolitics’ has sparked a lively debate within critical theory, although Foucault himself rarely used it after The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. In this chapter I argue that the reasons both for the way ‘biopolitics’ stirred Foucault’s readers and for his subsequent abandonment are to be found in the relation between Foucault’s model of critique and the role ‘biopolitics’ plays in it: it names the counter-truths derived from Foucault’s critical diagnosis of the dispositif of sexuality. Since ‘biopolitics’ (...) was introduced as a notion with a specific critical function closely tied to Foucault’s model of critique, I first explicate this model of critique as a diagnostic practice of prefigurative emancipation before re-reading Le Volonté de Savoir from this methodological perspective. After Le Volonté Savoir, Foucault tried turning ‘biopolitics’ into a descriptive term, no longer naming the critical diagnosis but the object to be criticised. Yet within Foucault’s model of critique, this required him to produce a new critical diagnosis which he never did. The implication for contemporary usages of ‘biopolitics’ in critical theory is that it either needs to develop its own counter-truths from a critical analysis of biopolitics or use a different model of critique. (shrink)

Although the various interpretations of Foucault’s model of critique often seem to differ only in minor details, they seriously diverge by situating critique on different levels of abstraction in Foucault’s work. Mapping interpretations of Foucault’s critique according to this criterion shows that none of them pays full attention to all three of Foucault’s methodological imperatives which he calls nihilism, nominalism and historicism. The article offers such a reading of Foucault’s critique, interpreting it as a diagnostic practice of prefigurative emancipation. The (...) task of diagnosing the present explains how Foucault’s critique functions as a philosophical practice, and by making explicit in which ways it emancipates us, it gives us reasons why we might be interested in doing critique like that. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the relationship that exists between two distinct and seemingly incompatible bodies of scholarship within the field of contemporary philosophy of technology. The first, as argued by postmodern pragmatist Barry Allen, posits that our tools and what we make with them are epistemically important; disputing the idea that knowledge is strictly sentential or propositional, he claims instead that knowledge is the product of a performance that is both superlative and artefactual, rendering technology importantly world-constituting. The second, as argued (...) by Heidegger and his inheritors, is that technology is ontologically problematic; rather than technology being evidence of performative knowledge, it is instead existentially threatening by virtue of the fact that it changes the tenor of our relationship with the world-as-given. Despite the fact that these claims seem prima facie incompatible, I argue that they may be successfully reconciled by introducing a third body of scholarship: the philosophy of photography. For it is the case, I argue, that although we, qua human beings, occupy lifeworlds that are necessarily constituted by technology, technology also induces a kind of phenomenological scepticism: a concern that mediated action precludes us from the possibility of authentic experience. Arguing in favour of the sentiment that photographs serve as a kind of phenomenal anchor—a kind of machine for living—I claim that photographic images provide a panacea to this existential concern: despite being epistemically problematic, it is this selfsame epistemic “specialness” of photographs that forces us to phenomenologically recommit, if only temporarily, to the world in a serious way. Consequently, it is my belief that an analysis of our artefacts and the way they function is fundamentally incomplete without an analysis of the epistemic and ontological problems introduced of the photographic image; as I will demonstrate, the photographic image casts an extremely long shadow over the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

In this paper I will focus on the notion of “dominant patterns”, as revealed by the recently discovered typescript of what we can assume to be Dewey’s fragmentary and incomplete preliminary lectures notes for the Lecture Series on Social and Political Philosophy.1 I will show that the way the notion of “dominant patterns” is dealt with in the text of the lectures notes is not only consistent with the conceptual content of the whole series of the Lectures in China as (...) published by R. W. Clopton and Tsuin-Chen,2 but also gives us further arguments to appreciate the centrality of this question to the development of Dewey’s philosophical project during this period. In particular, I will argue that a comparative... (shrink)

Various media-theoretical studies have recently characterized the fourth industrial revolution as a process of all-encompassing technicization and cybernetization. Against this background, this paper seeks to show the timely and critical potential of Günther Anders’s magnum opus Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen vis-à-vis the ever-increasing power of cybernetic devices and networks. Anders has both witnessed, and negotiated, the process of cybernetization from its very beginning, having criticised not only its tendency of automatization and expansion, but also the circular logic and the “integral (...) power” it rests upon, including the destructive consequences for the constitution of the political and the social. In this vein, Anders’s oeuvre can indeed shed new light on the techno-logically organized milieus of the contemporary digital regime. The aim of the essay is, thus, not only to emphasize the contemporariness of Anders’s critical thought, but also use it to frame a critique vis-à-vis current neo-technocratic and, ultimately, post-political concepts, such as “algorithmic regulation”, “smart states”, “direct technocracy”, and “government as platform”. The essay finally seeks to, through Anders’s lens, address the question of the position and role of the critic in relation to ever expanding technical environments. (shrink)

A picture which reflects the contradictions of our era: Glutton adults, who are always bored and constantly demand new toys and hungry children who have grown untimely. Completely different lives in the same world: Those in the display windows and those in the garbage... This picture is the starting point of the Age of Gluttony. -/- Silier who uses a plain and fluent language, starts from a story of Kafka and touches upon the reasons of obedience to authorities, the internal (...) fears that hinder freedom and issues related with the “meaning of life”. She then proceeds by searching answers to new questions: How does the fetishism of happiness encourage individualism and prevent the flourishing of individuality? Taking inspiration from Kant, Marx, Mill and Sartre can we form a conceptual frame for critical and objective ethical values? -/- What are the different accounts of individuality that lay at the foundations of Marx’s goal of overcoming alienation and existentialists’ yearning for authenticity? How does postmodernism confuse different conceptions of “reason” and “progress”, to charge the Enlightenment as guilty for the crimes and devastation caused by capitalism? How were women transformed through history from goddess to pariah by being domesticated? Can motherhood experiences be saved from the oppressive effects of “motherhood ideology” and have a liberating potential? What kind of link exists between narcissistic individuals who relate freedom with the absence of rules and limits and the ideology of consumerism, which redefines gluttony as a virtue? As greedy companies which rule the world shape both consumers and employers in their image, how does the “irrational” system at the basis of “deformed” and alienated individuals become naturalised and invisible? (shrink)

على الرغم من المحاولات الحثيثة أو المستمرة، في الفكر الغربي، كما في الفكر العربي، للتمييز بين النقد والانتقاد، ولتأكيد إيجابية النقد، لا سلبيته، ما زال الخلط أو اللبس بين النقد والانتقاد قائمًا وبارزًا، في كثيرٍ من الأحيان، حتى في بعض النصوص التي تتضمن محاولة القيام هذا التمييز¬، ولا زالت النظرة السلبية إلى النقد طاغيةً أو حاضرةً بقوةٍ، لدرجةٍ سمحت لفيصل دراج بالقول: «النقد في زماننا شبهة، ممارسة مشبوهة، فعل سيء الصيت.» وقبل مناقشة هذه النظرة السلبية للنقد، وربطها بالفكر النقدي عند (...) العظم، لا بد من التأكيد أن الخلط أو الالتباس بين النقد والانتقاد ليس قائمًا في اللغة العربية والفكر العربي فحسب، بل هو موجودٌ وبقوةٍ في اللغات الأجنبية (الإنكليزية والفرنسية والألمانية) والفكر الغربي عمومًا. -/- وإذا عدنا إلى "معجم اللغة العربية المعاصرة"، نجد في مادة "ن ق د": «نقد الشيء: بيَّن حسنه ورديئه، أظهر عيوبه ومحاسنه [...].» هنا يبدو أن النقد يتناول السلبيات والإيجابيات، لكن سرعان ما نجد: «نقَد الناس: أظهر ما بهم من عيوب [...].» هنا يصبح النقد مختصًّا بما هو سلبيٌّ فقط. والأمر ذاته نجده في شرح فعل "انتقد" والكلمات المرتبطة به اشتقاقيًّا (انتقاد، انتقادي ...إلخ): «انتقد الكتاب وغيره: أظهر عيوبه ومحاسنه، [...]. انتقد سلوك صديقه: استنكره وأبدى رأيًا شاجبًا له [...]. أسلوب انتقادي: يتميز بحدة النقد وإظهار المساوئ دون الالتفات إلى نقاط القوة.» فتارةً يتجسَّد الانتقاد في "إظهار العيوب والمحاسن"، وتارةً أخرى يتمثَّل في "إظهار المساوئ" فقط. -/- والالتباس ذاته تقريبًا موجودٌ في المصطلحات أو المفردات الإنكليزية والفرنسية والألمانية المعبرة عن النقد و/أو الانتقاد، ومعظم ترجماتها العربية. فإذا قبلنا التمييز الشائع بين مفردتي "critique" و"criticism" الإنكليزيتين (وسنقتصر هنا على وضع المقابل الإنكليزي، مع الإشارة إلى انطباق هذا التحليل اللغوي، انطباقًا كاملًا تقريبًا، على اللغتين الفرنسية والألمانية) على أساس أن الأولى تعني النقد (بمعنى إظهار الإيجابيات والسلبيات)، والثانية تعني الانتقاد (الاقتصار على إظهار السلبيات)، فإن هذا التمييز – الذي يستسهل بعض الكتَّاب( ) تبسيطه وإخفاء إشكاليته، أو يوحون، قصدًا أو عن غير قصدٍ، بوجود هذه البساطة – يتداعى إلى حدٍّ كبيرٍ، إذا أخذنا بعين الاعتبار، ليس فقط السيرورة التاريخية لنشوء واستخدام هذين المصطلحين( )، وإنما أيضًا دلالاتهما المتداخلة حاليًّا (من المعلوم أن "criticism"( ) تعني أيضًا النقد المختص أو "النقد الأدبي")، وإحالتهما، في اللغات الإنكليزية والفرنسية والألمانية، إلى فعلٍ واحدٍ "criticize أو criticise"، للتعبير عن فعلي "نَقَدَ" و"انتَقد" في اللغة العربية، وإلى صفةٍ واحدةٍ "critical"، للإشارة إلى ما هو "نقدي" و"انتقادي"، وإلى فاعلٍ، أو اسم فاعلٍ، واحدٍ "critic"، للإشارة إلى "الناقد" و"المنتقد". -/- كيف تعامل العظم - وهو المتقن للغات الأجنبية الثلاث المذكورة آنفًا - مع هذا التداخل الدلالي بين النقد والانتقاد؟ وإلى أيّ حدٍّ، وبأيّ معنىً، اتخذ، أو لم يتَّخذ، النقد عنده طابعًا أحاديًّا، من خلال الاقتصار على السلبيات فقط، أو على الإيجابيات فقط؟ وهل يمكن للتركيز على السلبيات، وإهمال الإيجابيات، أن يكون إيجابيًّا، أو ألا يكون سلبيًّا في المحصلة، على ما في ذلك من مفارقةٍ أو تناقضٍ ظاهريٍّ؟ إنَّ الإجابة عن هذه الأسئلة وغيرها يستلزم التحديد الدقيق والمتعدد المستويات أو الأبعاد، في الوقت نفسه، لمعاني كلٍّ من "النقد" و"الانتقاد" و"الإيجابي" و"السلبي"، إلخ. ويمكن لتعدد التحديدات أو التعريفات أن يسمح بإجابةٍ مركبةٍ وغنيةٍ متعددة المستويات عن هذه الأسئلة السابقة وما يماثلها، بحيث يكون النقد، على سبيل المثال، عند العظم، سلبيًّا على مستوىً أو أكثر، وإيجابيًّا على مستوىً أخر أو أكثر. وهذه الإجابات التي تأخذ شكل "نعم ولا" هو الأقرب إلى ما يمكن أن نسميه ﺒـ "الإجابة الفلسفية"، وهي في كل الأحوال، ليست غريبةً على الفلسفة، كما يؤكِّد العظم. -/- ولتوضيح مدى سلبية و/أو إيجابية النقد عند العظم، ومعنى أو معاني هذه السلبية و/أو الإيجابية، عمومًا، والعلاقة بين بعض صيغ النقد و/أو الانتقاد خصوصًا، سنستند إلى أربعة معايير مختلفةٍ أو متمايزةٍ نسبيًّا: التسويغ أو عدم التسويغ، المحايثة أو المفارقة، التركيز المتوازن على السلبيات والإيجابيات معًا، أم التركيز على السلبيات أو الإيجابيات فقط، وجود أو عدم وجود غرض أو هدف إيجابي. إن المحاكمات أو التقييمات التي تتسم بأنها مسوَّغة، و/أو محايثة، و/أو تركز، تركيزً "متوازنًا، على السلبيات والإيجابيات، و/أو التي تستهدف تحقيق أمر إيجابيٍّ، هي أقرب إلى ما يمكن تسميته، في هذا السياق، بالنقد؛ أما المحاكمات أو التقييمات التي تتسم بأنها غير مسوَّغةٍ، و/أو مفارقةٌ أو خارجيةٌ أو غير محايثةٍ، و/أو تقتصر على التركيز على السلبيات، و/أو لا تستهدف تحقيق أمرٍ إيجابيٍّ، فهي أقرب إلى ما يمكن تسميته، في هذا السياق، بالانتقاد. ومن الواضح أنه، واستنادًا إلى كل المعايير المذكورة، يكون النقد إيجابيًّا، أو أقرب إلى ما هو إيجابيٌّ، مقارنةً بالانتقاد الذي يكون سلبيًّا أو أقرب إلى ما هو سلبيٌّ. لكن تغير معاني السلبي والإيجابي أو "ماصدقاته"، يسمح لنا بزحزحة إشكالية العلاقة بينها (بين قيم السلب والإيجاب ومعانيها) بما يساعدنا على إبراز إيجابية ما نعدُّه، من منظورٍ آخر، سلبيًّا، وإبراز سلبية ما نعده، من منظورٍ آخر، إيجابيًّا. ويبقى أن نلفت الانتباه إلى أن محاولة التمييز بين مفهومي أو فكرتي النقد والانتقاد لا تهدف، ولا ينبغي أن تهدف، إلى الفصل الحاد أو الكامل بينهما؛ إذ يمكن النظر إلى بعض (وربما كل) صيغ الانتقاد على أنها مجرد أنواعٍ متميِّزةٍ من النقد، بوصفه حكمًا تقييميًّا في خصوص موضوعٍ ما. (shrink)

يتمحور البحث حول نقد صادق جلال العظم للتابوهات، عمومًا، وللتابو الجنسي، خصوصًا، وينطلق البحث من التشديد على أهمية النقد في فكر العظم، على مستويي؛ التنظير له، وممارسته في معظم أو جل أعماله، ليحاول، بعد ذلك، إبراز تلك الممارسة النقدية في ميدان التابوهات عمومًا، وتابو الجنس خصوصًا، وانطلاقًا من ذلك؛ تتمثل الأسئلة الأساسية التي يحاول البحث الإجابة عنها، في الآتي: ما أهمية النقد عمومًا، ونقد التابوهات خصوصًا، في فكر العظم؟ ما العلاقة بين النقد والتحريم، من منظور العظم؟ وإلى أي حدٍّ، وبأي (...) معنىً سعى العظم إلى تجاوز (الخطوط الحمر) في نقده لثالوث التابوهات (الجنس والدين والسياسة)؟ ما الذي ينقده العظم، تحديدًا، في ميدان التابو الجنسي؟ وما هي الإشكاليات الأساسية التي يتضمنها ويثيرها هذا النقد؟ للإجابة عن هذه الأسئلة؛ ستتجسد مقاربتنا المنهجية لنصوص العظم، في ما يمكن تسميته ﺒـ "الهيرمينوطيقا النقدية"؛ فهي هيرمينوطيقا، أو تتّصف بالسمة الهيرمينوطيقية، ليس بسبب بعدها التأويلي الصريح، أو اعتمادها على التأويل فحسب، (فبهذا المعنى، كل مقاربةٍ أو دراسةٍ هي هيرمينوطيقيةٌ، لأنها تأويليةٌ بالضرورة)؛ وإنما بسبب افتراضها، أيضًا، أن هذه النصوص تتضمن دلالاتٍ متكاملةً، تجسِّد كليةً متسقةً أو متناسقة العناصر، يمكن الإمساك بها، انطلاقًا من "المقاصد المعلنة" للكاتب، وعلى هذا الأساس، سنحاول، في عرضنا ومناقشتنا لنقد التابو (الجنسي) عند العظم، أن نستند، بالدرجة الأولى، إلى تنظير العظم نفسه حول هذه المسألة؛ أي إلى أقواله المحدَّدة وآرائه الصريحة في هذا الخصوص، قبل أن نضع هذه الرؤية النظرية في مواجهةٍ ثنائيةٍ: مع ذاتها من جهةٍ، (ضمن إطار ما يمكن تسميته بالنقد المحايث)، ومع انتقادات بعض المفكرين الذين دخلوا في حوارٍ أو سجالٍ معه، ومع رؤيتنا للواقع أو الفكر الذي يحاول العظم دراسته، (في إطار ما يمكن تسميته بالنقد الخارجي)، من جهةٍ أخرى. وهذه المواجهة النقدية المزدوجة مع ما هو محايث لفكر العظم، ومفارقٌ له، هي التي تمثِّل أساس البعد النقديِّ في دراستنا لهذا الفكر. (shrink)

لا جدال في مركزية أو أهمية ممارسة النقد والتنظير له في فكر العظم. وللوصول إلى فهمٍ أوليٍّ لهذه الأهمية وتلك المركزية، سنعمل، في هذا النص، على إبراز الصلة الوثيقة لممارسة النقد والتنظير له، في فكر العظم، بخلفيته أو نزعاته العلمية أو العلموية والتنويرية واليسارية – الماركسية؛ ثم سنقوم بتوضيح أو تأكيد الارتباط الوجودي أو الضروري، لهذه الممارسة وذاك التنظير، بسمة أو بحالة «الأزمة» الملازمة للواقع والفكر العربيين المعاصرين.

The following interview was conducted on July 13, 2009 at the JFK Institute for Graduate Studies, Freie Universität in Berlin, shortly after a conference, entitled “Class in Crisis: Das Prekariat zwischen Krise und Bewegung,” at which Harvey delivered a keynote address. The conference, organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, engaged the political, socio-economic, and conceptual dimensions of the so-called precariat class. The precariat is typically defined by short-term employment, persistent marginalization, and social insecurity—something of a fragmented urban underclass whose precariousness (...) is increasingly evident in traditionally middle-class economic life. While the concept of the precariat has yet to take root in English-language social theory, the work of Loïc Wacquant, for example, has been popularizing it. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Honneth’s philosophy of history is teleological in a narrow sense. This teleological character is problematic for the theory of the struggle for recognition, for the conception of history as such, and for the methodology of the normative reconstruction. In particular, the teleological conception gives to the theory of recognition a historical form that points out a unilateral character. Furthermore, the teleological neo-Hegelian methodology of normative reconstruction seems to adopt a too stark (...) trust in the progress of human societies faced with the problem of social, political and cultural regressions. (shrink)

From John Maynard Keynes’s prediction of a fifteen-hour workweek to present-day speculation about automation, we have not stopped forecasting the end of work. Critical theory and political philosophy have turned their attention away from the workplace to focus on other realms of domination and emancipation. But far from coming to an end, work continues to occupy a central place in our lives. This is not only because of the amount of time people spend on the job. Many of our deepest (...) hopes and fears are bound up in our labor—what jobs we perform, how we relate to others, how we might flourish. -/- The Return of Work in Critical Theory presents a bold new account of the human significance of work and the human costs of contemporary forms of work organization. A collaboration among experts in philosophy, social theory, and clinical psychology, it brings together empirical research with incisive analysis of the political stakes of contemporary work. The Return of Work in Critical Theory begins by looking in detail at the ways in which work today fails to meet our expectations. It then sketches a phenomenological description of work and examines the normative premises that underlie the experience of work. Finally, it puts forward a novel conception of work that can renew critical theory’s engagement with work and point toward possibilities for transformation. Inspired by Max Horkheimer’s vision of critical theory as empirically informed reflection on the sources of social suffering with emancipatory intent, The Return of Work in Critical Theory is a lucid diagnosis of the malaise and pathologies of contemporary work that proposes powerful remedies. (shrink)

In this paper I analyse the notion of critique, its subject and scope of validity in the context of critical metaphysics of Otto Liebmann. The main argument is preceded by introductory remarks in which historical context and intellectual background of this notion are discussed. The main focus of the paper is on the standpoint of Otto Liebmann, author of curricular for neo-Kantianism "Kant und die Epigonen", and who — however usually conceived to be forerunner of neo-Kantianism — quite paradoxically takes (...) somehow different position on metaphysics. It is different from so-called late neo-Kantianism which declared itself as opposite to metaphysics. Contrary to this, Liebmann accepted the possibility of metaphysics as a kind of crowning achievement and climax of scientific theories. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 62 Heft: 2 Seiten: 231-238.

Can we develop a definition of power that is satisfactorily determinate but also enables rather than foreclose important substantive debates about how power relations proceed and should proceed in social and political life? I present a broad definition of agential power that meets these desiderata. On this account, agents have power with respect to a certain outcome (including, inter alia, the shaping of certain social relations) to the extent that they can voluntarily determine whether that outcome occurs. This simple definition (...) generates a surprisingly complex agenda for substantive research. It is quite fruitful for both descriptive and normative purposes-or so this paper argues. The broad account of agential power offered here is partly developed through a critical engagement with Rainer Forst's important recent account of "noumenal power.". (shrink)

In this volume Axel Honneth deepens and develops his highly influential theory of recognition, showing how it enables us both to rethink the concept of justice and to offer a compelling account of the relationship between social reproduction and individual identity formation. Drawing on his reassessment of Hegel’s practical philosophy, Honneth argues that our conception of social justice should be redirected from a preoccupation with the principles of distributing goods to a focus on the measures for creating symmetrical relations of (...) recognition. This theoretical reorientation has far-reaching implications for the theory of justice, as it obliges this theory to engage directly with problems concerning the organization of work and with the ideologies that stabilize relations of domination. In the final part of this volume Honneth shows how the theory of recognition provides a fruitful and illuminating way of exploring the relation between social reproduction and identity formation. Rather than seeing groups as regressive social forms that threaten the autonomy of the individual, Honneth argues that the ‘I’ is dependent on forms of social recognition embodied in groups, since neither self-respect nor self-esteem can be maintained without the supportive experience of practising shared values in the group. This important new book by one of the leading social philosophers of our time will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, sociology, politics and the humanities and social sciences generally. (shrink)

The concept of respect plays a central role in several recent attempts to re-actualise the programme of a critical social theory. In Axel Honneth's most prominent version of that concept, respect is closely tied to the sphere of law, and it is limited to the recognition of a Kantian-type moral autonomy of the individual. So interpreted, the concept of respect can only have a very limited application in the field of education, where concern for the particular desires, intentions and beliefs (...) of mostly immature persons is at stake.However, more than forty years ago R. S. Peters did develop an extended concept of respect as a central component in education. This concept focuses exactly on those desires, intentions and beliefs, instead of on the very demanding capability of practical reasoning orientated towards the Kantian Categorical Imperative. My task in this paper is to explore the potential of Peters' concept of respect for the identification and description of educational pathologies and ultimately for the founding of a critical theory of education. (shrink)

In this pathbreaking study, Axel Honneth argues that "the struggle for recognition" is, and should be, at the center of social conflicts.

_Factory of Strategy_ is the last of Antonio Negri's major political works to be translated into English. Rigorous and accessible, it is both a systematic inquiry into the development of Lenin's thought and an encapsulation of a critical shift in Negri's theoretical trajectory. Lenin is the only prominent politician of the modern era to seriously question the "withering away" and "extinction" of the state, and like Marx, he recognized the link between capitalism and modern sovereignty and the need to destroy (...) capitalism and reconfigure the state. Negri refrains from portraying Lenin as a ferocious dictator enforcing the proletariat's reappropriation of wealth, nor does he depict him as a mere military tool of a vanguard opposed to the Ancien Régime. Negri instead champions Leninism's ability to adapt to different working-class configurations in Russia, China, Latin America, and elsewhere. He argues that Lenin developed a new political figuration in and beyond modernity and an effective organization capable of absorbing different historical conditions. He ultimately urges readers to recognize the universal application of Leninism today and its potential to institutionally -- not anarchically -- dismantle centralized power. (shrink)

An introduction to a special issue of Symposium on normativity and freedom.

Two critical yet comic elements, beyond the more obvious narrative of persecution, reveal themselves in Adorno's recorded nightmare. The first is comic because it so aptly displays his relentless critical impulse despite himself, the way in which theory invades the private sphere of his dreams: even in sleep, Adorno finds himself at once reading phenomena and on guard against a false transcendence from which they could, in the last instance, be deciphered.1 The second is more patently absurd, yet perhaps more (...) difficult to assess: that he should gain permission to interrupt an unspeakably cruel and final punishment, an essentially hopeless…. (shrink)

Most people would agree that we should behave and act in a responsible way. Yet only 200 years ago, ‘responsibility’ was only of marginal importance in discussions of law and legal practice, and it had little ethical significance. What is the significance of the fact that ‘responsibility’ now plays such a central role in, for example, work, the welfare state, or the criminal justice system? What happens when individuals are generally expected to think of themselves as ‘responsible’ agents? And what (...) are the consequences of the fact that the philosophical analysis of ‘responsibility’ focuses almost exclusively on conditions of agency that are mostly absent from real life? -/- In this book, Frieder Vogelmann demonstrates how large parts of philosophy have fallen under responsibility’s spell, and he uses a Foucauldian approach in an attempt to break it. The three axes of power, knowledge, and self are used in a detailed analysis of the practical regimes of labour (including the welfare state), criminality (including policing, punishment practices, and criminal proceedings), and philosophy, and of the two subject positions required by ‘responsibility’ – those of the attributors and bearers of responsibility – within them. The power relations between these positions, which Vogelmann carefully excavates from the grounds of our practices, reveal that the deck is stacked unevenly from the start. (shrink)

The question of the influence of Islamic philosophy on Western critical theory is far from being a well-established area of research and not without controversy. It becomes even more controversial when integrating an Islamic discourse as having implications for Marxist aesthetics. This is very true in the case of Avicenna and Ernst Bloch, an area which has not been addressed adequately. This article, therefore, explores how Avicenna was integrated into a materialist Western discourse, through playing a major role in what (...) Bloch termed the Aristotelian Left, an idea that Bloch expressed in full in his Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left (1952). I argue that, no matter how controversial the integration of Avicenna’s position on matter might be, it has significant implications for Bloch’s Marxist aesthetics and his warm stream of Marxism. By examining these implications, the present article sheds light on the possibilities latent in Islamic philosophy, in one of its variation, for a critical theory of culture and society. (shrink)

In this paper, I will analyze Axel Honneth’s theory against the background of some of the criticisms that Amy Allen levelled against it. His endeavor seems to partially compromise his ability to identify the domineering forms of power that the subject does not acknowledge consciously and affectively. I will argue that, despite some significant limitations, Honneth’s theory has become increasingly able to analyze social negativity since The struggle for recognition. Also, in both defending Honneth’s methodology and delimiting its scope, I (...) aim to contribute to the debate between two understandings of power: power as ‘domination’ and power as ‘constitution’. (shrink)

Recently, following the social and subjective consequences of the neoliberal wave, there seems to be a renewed interest in work as occupying a central place in social and subjective life. For the first time in decades, both sociologists and critical theorists once more again regard work as a major constituent of the subject’s identity and thus as an appropriate object of analysis for those engaged in critique of the social pathologies. The aim of this article is to present a succinct (...) analysis of Axel Honneth’s thoughts on the concept of work and to propose an approach granting it a more substantial role in social theory. To this end, this article will embark upon a reappraisal of the importance of the material and psychological dimensions of the subject’s interactions in the world of work. It aims to demonstrate that the normative demands associated with these dimensions are, like the normative demands of recognition, immanent and universal. In other words, it will argue that the normative ideals related to individuals’ bodily and psychic life (in the workplace and beyond) are not necessarily utopian in the negative sense (abstract and unrealistic). If this is indeed the case, theorists could take these normative demands for emancipation as a guide to analyzing the sociological, political and moral implications of the transition from the ‘Fordist’ to the ‘post-Fordist’ organization of labor. (shrink)

Kemajuan ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi dewasa ini merupakan bukti dari pencapaian intelektual manusia. Perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan tidak semata-mata dibuktikan melalui wujud kemajuan “cepat-saji” dalam praksis kehidupan. Zaman sekarang segala hal mudah dicari dan didapat, mulai dari memesan online makanan hingga mengunduh referensi ilmu pengetahuan. Kematangan proses keilmuan tidak dapat terlepas dari berbagai lintas peristiwa historis revolusi ilmu pengetahuan.

Artikel ini memaparkan perihal gagasan rasionalitas teknologis Herbert Marcuse dalam kerangka filsafat teknologi. Dalam perkembangannya filsafat teknologi Herbert Marcuse mengalami peluang kemajuan dan juga celah-celah kritik. Selain itu, rasionalitas teknologis sangat berpengaruh terhadap perang melawan strategi neo-liberal. Karena dalam rasionalitas teknologis memuat seluruh siasat kapitalisme dalam melakukan strategi seperti halnya membuka jalur demokrasi, memanipulasi media dan bahasa, serta menelurkan nalar positivistik dalam segala kegiatan kemanusiaan yang justru telah menyengsarakan seluruh aspek kehidupan. Perkembangan rasionalitas teknologis dalam lingkaran Teori Kritis, karenanya, masih (...) dapat dipertimbangkan sebagai suatu teori yang berpeluang untuk menembus batasan-batasan ekstrim kehidupan masyarakat kontemporer. (shrink)

In Axel Honneths Recht der Freiheit (RF) dienen persönliche Beziehungen, zu welchen Honneth neben Familien- und Liebesbeziehungen auch die Freundschaft zählt, der Verwirklichung einer „besondere[n], schwer zu charakterisierende[n] Form von Freiheit“ (RF 233). Diese Behauptung fügt sich ein in die Kernthese des Rechts der Freiheit. Demnach vermochte es die „Freiheit im Sinne der Autonomie des Einzelnen“ innerhalb unzähliger „Vorstellung[en] vom Guten“ als einzige, die moderne Gesellschaft nachhaltig zu prägen, wohingegen alle anderen Werte, die in der Moderne wirkmächtig geworden sind, als (...) „Facette[n] der konstitutive[n] Idee der individuellen Autonomie“ (RF 35) verstanden werden müssen. Wir argumentieren, dass Honneths Erörterung des Werts von Freundschaft in dreierlei Hinsicht sein Ziel verfehlt: Erstens zwingt sie Honneth zu einer radikalen Beschneidung des Freundschaftsbegriffs, indem er einen überzogenen Kontrast zwischen antiken und modernen Konzeptionen von Freundschaft zeichnet. Zweitens marginalisiert Honneth mit seiner Betrachtung andere Axiologien der Freundschaft, welche dieser gewichtige instrumentelle, konstitutive und finale Werte zuweisen. Drittens scheint selbst eine schwächer angelegte These, die den Wert, den Freundschaften für die individuelle Freiheit haben, auf die Stellung eines primus inter pares zurückstuft, immer noch den zentralen Wert, den Freundschaften für uns haben sollten, zu verfehlen. Dadurch wird Honneths Kernthese von der Exklusivität des Wertes der Freiheit für unsere Gesellschaft in Frage gestellt. (shrink)

In the field of critical philosophy, the view of Michel Foucault has been subject to very extensive discussion. It has been an ongoing puzzlement how he could reject any talk about ahistorical universals and at the same time claim philosophy – at least in its genealogic form – to be of critical importance. How could he claim any analysis to have only local significance, and at the same time take the view that some analyses can show other views to be (...) problematic? According to what standards?A common strategy against Foucault has been to state that he is not as neutral as he claims to be – that underneath his analysis of, say, prison (Discipline and Punish – 1975) or sexuality (The History of Sexuality 1-3 – 1976/1984) there is a hidden universal normativity that shapes his critique of these fields. Another approach to the seemingly paradox claim by Foucault has been to deny the critical aspect of his work. This has been Jürgen Habermas’ strategy – most thoroughly carried out in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985). In the following I will try to articulate a notion of critique that will demonstrate that it nevertheless does make sense to attribute a critical approach to the Foucaultian writings. Foucault’s critical approach has certain difficulties, but I will argue that it at the same time has certain qualities that can broaden the more traditional account of critique that can be extracted from for example Habermas’ writings. This I will do by (II) demonstrating in what sense it is possible for Foucault to maintain a concept of critique, without having to commit himself on universals. I will show that in Foucault’s writings, critique is understood as reality resisting a conceptual grip – critique is a pointing out of a resistance against or response to the understanding activity. Critique is understood as something that is put upon us. After this I will (III) show that Habermas’ opposition to the position of Foucault springs from a focus on critique as an activity between acting agents. This view is seen in his emphasis on communicative actions and validity claims and in his hesitance towards “natural” reality in discursive matters. But as I will show, this hesitance is rather an effect of than a cause to his basic notion of critique: his latest change in view on reality, has not brought a similar change in the concept of critique. Finally, I will (IV) show how both Foucault and Habermas are important in illuminating the notion of critique – that they complement, rather than exclude, each other. (shrink)

"Introduzione" alla raccolta di articoli di Rahel Jaeggi "Forme di vita e capitalismo", curata e tradotta da Marco Solinas, e uscita per Rosenberg & Sellier nel 20016.