Social Philosophy, Misc

Rainer Forst and others claim that normative moral and political claims depend for their justification on meeting a requirement of reciprocal and general acceptability (RGA). I focus on a core component of RGA, namely, the idea of reciprocity of reasons, distinguish between two readings of RGA, and argue that if reciprocity of reasons is understood in Forst’s terms, then RGA, even on the most promising reading, may not serve as a requirement of moral or political justification at all. The discussion (...) concludes with constructive observations on a path forward for theorists who nevertheless are inclined to hold on to RGA. (shrink)

Political leaders may change their mind about a policy, or even a significant moral issue. While genuinely changing one’s mind is not hypocritical, there are reasons to think that leaders who claim such a change are merely hypocritically pandering for political advantage. Indeed, some social science studies allegedly confirm that constituents will judge political leaders who change positions as hypocritical. Yet these studies are missing crucial details that we normally use to distinguish genuine mind changers from hollow hypocrites. These details (...) suggest ways in which political leaders can communicate that their mind change is genuine without necessarily being judged hypocritical. (shrink)

Transhumanism proposes human enhancement while regarding the human body as unfit for the future. This fulfills age-old aspirations for a perfect and durable body. We use “alienation” as a concept to analyze this mismatch between human aspirations and our current condition. For Hannah Arendt alienation may be accounted for in terms of earth- and world-alienation, as well as alienation from human nature, and especially from the given. In transhumanism, the biological body is an impediment to human accomplishment. At most, this (...) movement accepts “clean” bodies, not bodies with excretions. We argue that real human bodies are valued in the event of giving birth, so a modified concept that Arendt proposed, natality, seems a suitable way to explore the dialectic alienation-reconciliation involving the body, when re-read by some feminist scholars. (shrink)

Roberto Frega’s Pragmatism and the Wide View of Democracy reformulates the question of democracy posed by our current historic conjuncture using the resources of a variety of pragmatic thinkers. He brings into the contemporary conversation regarding democracy’s fortunes both classical and somewhat neglected figures in the pragmatic tradition to deal with questions of power, ontology, and politics. In particular, Frega takes a social philosophical starting point and draws out the consequences of this fundamental shift in approach to questions of democratic (...) and political theory. This turn to social philosophy as a theoretically more sufficient conceptual vocabulary, extended in detail by Frega, raises questions regarding the work that a social ontology does in clarifying the role of economic and political approaches to democracy that are worth further exploration. Likewise, the practical proposals for moving beyond methodological nationalism with respect to forming publics for the sake of problem-solving, while providing a clarifying and fresh starting point, are still too beholden to models of agency and expressions of coordinated action that themselves are the very fruit of those systems which undermine democratic power in the first instance. (shrink)

In order for the concept, 'recognition', to play a critical role in social theory, it must be possible to draw a distinction between due recognition and failures of recognition. Some recognition theorists, including Axel Honneth, argue that this distinction can be preserved only if we presuppose that due recognition involves a rational response to "evaluative qualities" that can be rightly perceived in the context of social interaction. This paper points out a problem facing recent defenses of this "perception model" and (...) proposes a solution. I begin by making explicit three criteria broadly shared by recognition theorists: an adequate theory of recognition must be (a) critical, capable of drawing a distinction between due recognition and recognitive failure; (b) minimally idealist, able to accommodate the mediating role of subjectivity in human receptivity to value; and (c) historicist, should not rule out a priori that the values involved in recognitive practice are historically emergent. I then argue that Honneth's version of the perception model cannot fulfill these criteria simultaneously. Drawing upon an Aristotelian notion of evaluative perception and working through an example from Zadie Smith's On Beauty, I defend an alternative view that is, I argue, better equipped to meet these three criteria. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

In this chapter, I try to answer the above question, and another question that it presupposes: can philosophy of language help us navigate the political news cycle? A reader can be sceptical of a positive answer to the latter question; after all, citizens, political theorists, and journalists seem to be capable of following current politics and its coverage in the news, and there is no reason to think that philosophy of language in particular should be capable of helping people make (...) sense and respond to the news. I will illustrate the application of philosophy of language to three contrasting strategies of political propaganda: dogwhistles, meaning perversions, and bald-faced lies. I hope that these help us see that philosophy of language can be a good tool in diagnosing demagoguery, and in resisting it. (shrink)

chapter on perception and bias including implicit bias.

This article argues that diverse theorists have reasons to theorize about fairness in nonideal conditions, including theorists who reject fairness in ideal theory. It then develops a new all-purpose model of ‘nonideal fairness.’ §1 argues that fairness is central to nonideal theory across diverse ideological and methodological frameworks. §2 then argues that ‘nonideal fairness’ is best modeled by a nonideal original position adaptable to different nonideal conditions and background normative frameworks (including anti-Rawlsian ones). §3 then argues that the parties to (...) the model have grounds to seek a variety of remedial social, legal, cultural, and economic ‘nonideal primary goods’ for combating injustice, as well as grounds to distribute these goods in an equitable and inclusive manner. Finally, I illustrate how the model indexes the nonideal primary goods it justifies to different nonideal contexts and background normative frameworks, illustrating why diverse theorists should find the model and its output principles attractive. (shrink)

Philosophical works on actual causation make wide use of thought experiments. The principal aim of this paper is to show how thought experiments are used in the contemporary debate over actual causation and to discuss their role in relation to formal approaches in terms of causal models. I claim that a recourse to thought experiments is not something old fashioned or superseded by abstract models, but it is useful to interpret abstract models themselves and to use our intuitions to judge (...) the results of the model. Recent research on actual causation has stressed the importance of integrating formal models with some notion of normality; I suggest that thought experiments can be useful in eliciting intuitions where normality is not intended in a statistical sense. The first expository part gives a short presentation of the notion of actual causation, summarising some typical problems of counterfactual approaches and how they are treated in causal and structural models. The second part focuses on the problems of model isomorphism and criticises some radical ideas opposing the role of thought experiments, claiming that they may also be of use in evaluating formal models. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Alexander Dietz argues that what I have called the ‘institutional critique of effective altruism’ is best understood as grounded in the claim that ‘EA relies on an overly individualistic approach to ethics, neglecting the importance of our collective obligations’. In this reply, I argue that Dietz’s view does not represent a plausible interpretation of the institutional critiques offered by others, primarily because, unlike Dietz, they appear to believe that their critiques provide reasons to (...) reject the EA view about the content of our individual obligations. I also argue that EA’s identity as a social movement provides grounds for denying Dietz’s claim that it is objectionably incomplete. (shrink)

The paper addresses the question of the nature and limits of philosophical thought experiments. On the one hand, experimental philosophers are right to claim that we need much more laboratory work in order to have more reliable thought experiments, but on the other hand a naturalism that is too radical is incapable of clarifying the peculiarity of thought experiments in philosophy. Starting from a historico-critical reconstruction of Kant’s concept of the “experiments of pure reason”, this paper outlines an account of (...) thought experiments in philosophy that tries to reconcile the thesis of a principled difference between scientific and philosophical TEs with the position of a methodological naturalism that does not admit any difference in kind between the methods of science and of philosophy. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 71-87.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

The critical theory tradition has, since its inception, sought to distinguish its perspective on society from more purely descriptive or normative approaches by maintaining that persons have a deep-seated interest in the free development of their personality—an interest that can only be realized in and through the rational organization of society, but which is systematically stymied by existing society. Yet it has struggled to specify this emancipatory interest in a way that avoids being either excessively utopian or overly accommodating to (...) existing society. Despite the fact that Hegel’s concept of reconciliation is normally thought to run aground on the latter horn of this dilemma, this book argues that reconciliation is the best available conceptualization of this emancipatory interest. It presents Hegel’s idea of freedom as something actualized in individuals’ lives through their becoming reconciled to how society shapes their roles, prospects, and sense of self; it presents reconciliation as being less a matter of philosophical cognition, and more of inclusion in a responsive, transparent political process. It then introduces the concept of reification, which—through its development in Marx and Lukács, through Horkheimer and Adorno—substantiates an increasingly cogent critique of reconciliation as something unachievable within the framework of modern society. Giving equal attention to psychoanalysis and legal theory, the second half critically appraises the writings of Rawls, Honneth, and Habermas as efforts to spell out what a concept of reconciliation more democratic and inclusive than Hegel, yet sensitive to the reifying effects of legal systems, might mean. (shrink)

Are men oppressed as men? The evidence given in support of affirmative responses to this question usually consists in examples of harms, limitations, or requirements masculinity imposes on men: men are expected to pay on dates, men must be breadwinners for their families, men can be drafted for war, and so forth. This article explicates three hypotheses that account for the harms, limitations, and requirements masculinity imposes on men and, drawing on the work of Alison Jaggar, seeks to show that (...) these hypotheses collectively are explanatorily superior to the hypothesis the men are oppressed as men. (shrink)

For centuries, the major story of enlightenment was that education is and should be the cornerstone of our society. We try to educate people to make them respectable members of society, something which we inherently relate to being "better persons", firmly believing that education makes humans less prone to evil. Today, modern research seems to validate that premise: statistics verify that more education results to less crime. But is this picture accurate and does this mean anything regarding morality per se? (...) This paper tries to examine the facts with a more critical eye and determine whether education is indeed a source of ethics or not. The results of the analysis show that what we understand as education is not only unrelated to ethics but can also be a factor resulting in the degradation of morality in humans. Rousseau's arguments against science and arts are re-enforced with arguments stemming from other great philosophers and from modern experience itself. Using modern statistical analysis regarding the correlation of crime and education and through the examination of the modern regression in ethical issues, it becomes evident that education cannot and should not be a source of ethics. Knowing what is ethical is not as important as living an ethical life. Pharisees were the first to be denied the entrance to the kingdom of God. As Oscar Wilde once said, "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught". (shrink)

Drawing on select works of Adorno, we will first rehearse his reasons for a rejuvenation of philosophy and apply them to philosophers working on world philosophical traditions. We will then analyse Adorno’s arguments pertaining to the theory–praxis relation to ascertain whether his thought could accommodate a study of world philosophical traditions for the simple reason that they are present in a particular society. Shifting our focus slightly, we reflect upon how current ways of professional philosophizing affect the study of world (...) philosophical traditions. As the example of Māori philosophy demonstrates, current philosophical practices seem to delimit the search for the unconventional in academic philosophy. Through its philosophical appropriation, the so-called unconventional tends to mimic conventional patterns in academic philosophy. We will then attempt to find reasons to critique this process within the Adornoian framework itself. The conclusion draws together different strands of the discussion and delineates some paths to take forward the world philosophies project in an Adornoian spirit. (shrink)

The concept of toleration occupies an important position in contemporary societal debates. I will analyse the concept by considering the apparent inconsistency between what I regard as the genuine meaning of the concept of toleration and the prevalent common perception of toleration. One essential factor in the concept of toleration is the negative evaluation of the subject matter. However, this decisive feature appears to have become obsolete in the prevalent common perception of toleration. I will examine the normative implications of (...) the imprecise usage of ´toleration´/´tolerance´ caused by the vague perception of the concept. Furthermore, I argue there to be a significant, yet underemphasised linguistic power inherent to ´toleration´/´tolerance´, which is influential in how it perpetuates negative attitudes towards various minorities and maintains thereby unjust societal relations. Since ´toleration´/´tolerance´ appears insufficient to address the changed social reality in which attitudes towards minorities have remarkably progressed, I will adopt the approach of conceptual engineering to outline a concept capable of replacing ´toleration´/´tolerance´. I suggest that a new concept to supersede toleration should carry the ethos of respect, yet have the conceptual scope and precision of tolerance/toleration, to be intuitively appealing to replace it. I propose to replace ´toleration´ with ´respectation´ and ´tolerance´ with ´respectance´. (shrink)

In the social constructionist literature, little has been said about what it means for social factors to cause X in such a way that X would count as causally socially constructed. In this paper, I argue that being caused by social factors – and thus being causally socially constructed – is best defined in terms of a contrastive counterfactual notion of causation. Unlike some plausible alternatives, this definition captures what is at stake in actual social constructionist debates. It makes transparent (...) which factors the truth of a causal constructionist claim may depend on. By doing so, it sheds light on what the disagreements over whether X is causally socially constructed may turn on. It also helps us to see under which condition the claim that X is socially causally constructed is compatible with the claim that X is caused by biological factors. (shrink)

This paper examines different mechanisms for adjudicating disagreement about distributive justice. It begins with a case where individuals have deeply conflicting convictions about distributive justice and must make a social choice regarding the distribution of goods. Four mechanisms of social choice are considered: social contract formation, Borda count vote, simple plurality vote, and minimax bargaining. I develop an agent-based model which examines which mechanisms lead to the greatest degree of satisfying justice-based preferences over the course iterated social choices. Agents are (...) ascribed two kinds of motivations: they wish to realize justice and to receive a greater package of goods. Each agent seeks to realize her ideal distribution, and the failure to do so leaves agents “disappointed,” resulting in their trading off the pursuit of gains in justice in favor of gains in self-interest. Mechanisms are assessed using the metric of how many agents remain interested in justice over the course of iterated adjudication. The mechanisms are also examined under some non-ideal conditions, such as the presence of power asymmetries or strategic behavior. Several significant results are addressed: social contract formation and simple plurality voting are robust under the conditions considered, bargaining is a highly ineffective means of adjudicating distributive disagreement, and lastly allowing for concessions in justice for gains in self-interest proves to be a crucial mechanism for ensuring the stability of resolutions. (shrink)

Людина у своєму житті проявляє активність, все її життя є певною формою активності. Діяльність є формою такої активності. Вона передбачає наявність мети, а також засобів завдяки яким ця мета може бути досягнута.

The first thing we must keep in mind is that when saying that China says this or China does that, we are not speaking of the Chinese people, but of the Sociopaths who control the CCP -- Chinese Communist Party, i.e., the Seven Senile Sociopathic Serial Killers (SSSSK) of the Standing Committee of the CCP or the 25 members of the Politburo etc.. -/- The CCP’s plans for WW3 and total domination are laid out quite clearly in Chinese govt publications (...) and speeches and this is Xi Jinping’s “China Dream”. It is a dream only for the tiny minority (perhaps a few dozen to a few hundred) who rule China and a nightmare for everyone else (including 1.4 billion Chinese). The 10 billion dollars yearly enables them or their puppets to own or control newspapers, magazines, TV and radio channels and place fake news in most major media everywhere every day. In addition, they have an army (maybe millions of people) who troll all the media placing more propaganda and drowning out legitimate commentary (the 50 cent army). -/- In addition to stripping the 3rd world of resources, a major thrust of the multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative is building military bases worldwide. They are forcing the free world into a massive high-tech arms race that makes the cold war with the Soviet Union look like a picnic. -/- Though the SSSSK, and the rest of the world’s military, are spending huge sums on advanced hardware, it is highly likely that WW3 (or the smaller engagements leading up to it) will be software dominated. It is not out of the question that the SSSSK, with probably more hackers (coders) working for them then all the rest of the world combined, will win future wars with minimal physical conflict, just by paralyzing their enemies via the net. No satellites, no phones, no communications, no financial transactions, no power grid, no internet, no advanced weapons, no vehicles, trains, ships or planes. -/- There are only two main paths to removing the CCP, freeing 1.4 billion Chinese prisoners, and ending the lunatic march to WW3. The peaceful one is to launch an all-out trade war to devastate the Chinese economy until the military gets fed up and boots out the CCP. -/- An alternative to shutting down China’s economy is a limited war, such as a targeted strike by say 50 thermobaric drones on the 20th Congress of the CCP, when all the top members are in one place, but that won’t take place until 2022 so one could hit the annual plenary meeting. The Chinese would be informed, as the attack happened, that they must lay down their arms and prepare to hold a democratic election or be nuked into the stone age. The other alternative is an all-out nuclear attack. Military confrontation is unavoidable given the CCP’s present course. It will likely happen over the islands in the South China Sea or Taiwan within a few decades, but as they establish military bases worldwide it could happen anywhere (see Crouching Tiger etc.). Future conflicts will have hardkill and softkill aspects with the stated objectives of the CCP to emphasize cyberwar by hacking and paralyzing control systems of all military and industrial communications, equipment, power plants, satellites, internet, banks, and any device or vehicle connected to the net. The SS are slowly fielding a worldwide array of manned and autonomous surface and underwater subs or drones capable of launching conventional or nuclear weapons that may lie dormant awaiting a signal from China or even looking for the signature of US ships or planes. While destroying our satellites, thus eliminating communication between the USA and our forces worldwide, they will use theirs, in conjunction with drones to target and destroy our currently superior naval forces. Of course, all of this is increasingly done automatically by AI. -/- By far the biggest ally of the CCP is the Democratic party of the USA. -/- The choice is to stop the CCP now or watch as they extend the Chinese prison over the whole world. -/- Of course, universal surveillance and digitizing of our lives is inevitable everywhere. Anyone who does not think so is profoundly out of touch. -/- Of course, it is the optimists who expect the Chinese sociopaths to rule the world while the pessimists (who view themselves as realists) expect AI sociopathy (or AS as I call it – i.e., Artificial Stupidity or Artificial Sociopathy) to take over, perhaps by 2030. -/- Those interested in further details on the lunatic path of modern society may consult my other works such as Suicide by Democracy-an Obituary for America and the World 4th Edition 2019 and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization 5th ed (2019) . (shrink)

In Capitalism, Alienation and Critique Asger Sørensen offers a wide-ranging argument for the classical Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, thus endorsing the dialectical approach of the original founders (Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse) and criticizing suggested revisions of later generations (Habermas, Honneth). Being situated within the horizon of the late 20th century Cultural Marxism, the main issue is the critique of capitalism, emphasizing experiences of injustice, ideology and alienation, and in particular exploring two fundamental subject matters within this horizon, namely economy (...) and dialectics. Apart from in-depth discussions of classical political economy and Hegelian dialectics, the explorative and inclusive argument also takes issues with Émile Durkheim’s theory of value, the general economy of Georges Bataille and the dialectics of Mao Zedong. -/- - See below External Links to the book's homepage at the publisher Brill and to the Introduction. - See also External Links to a Youtubevideo from a seminar on the book in Belgrade, November 2019 and two Author Meet Critics sections from 2020 and 2021. (shrink)

The article analyzes cultural crisis as a decline in human existential creativity. A review of the problematic nature of the conception of creativity shows that this concept is not strictly defined. Non-classical philosophers were among the first to theoretically ground the importance of creativity for an individual, their quality of life, the well-being of society, and the development of culture. From this philosophical perspective, it is shown that a human being has, as a natural creative faculty, an innate ability to (...) create. This existential human creativity can be defined as the self-development of one's personality, the creation of one's life and environment. The causes and consequences of a decline in creativity are analyzed in the context of Spengler's conception of cultural crisis. The conclusion is reached that creative activity and creativity can be taken to be the most profound goal of a personality and its most perfect form of existence. From this existential creativity stems an authenticity of life, a creation of spiritual values, and an improvement and development of cultural forms. The disjunction of culture and civilization reveals that the establishment of an era of civilization and mass culture marks the decline of authentic culture as regards vibrant existential creative activity. (shrink)

Is the corrupt behaviour of public officials a politically relevant kind of wrong only when it causes the malfunctioning of institutions? We challenge recent institutionalist approaches to political corruption by showing a sense in which the individual corrupt behaviour of certain public officials is wrong not only as a breach of personal morality but in inherently politically salient terms. To show this sense, we focus on a specific instance of individual corrupt behaviour on the part of public officials entrusted with (...) the power to implement public rules in a liberal democracy. Although not necessarily unlawful, their behaviour is politically wrong qua corrupt when it contradicts surreptitiously the requirement of public justification that undergirds the public order. Then, we distinguish this form of corruption as surreptitious action from such unlawful but publicly justifiable kinds of political misbehaviour as civil disobedience. (shrink)

A novel theoretical framework for an embodied, non-representational approach to language that extends and deepens enactive theory, bridging the gap between sensorimotor skills and language. -/- Linguistic Bodies offers a fully embodied and fully social treatment of human language without positing mental representations. The authors present the first coherent, overarching theory that connects dynamical explanations of action and perception with language. Arguing from the assumption of a deep continuity between life and mind, they show that this continuity extends to language. (...) Expanding and deepening enactive theory, they offer a constitutive account of language and the co-emergent phenomena of personhood, reflexivity, social normativity, and ideality. Language, they argue, is not something we add to a range of existing cognitive capacities but a new way of being embodied. Each of us is a linguistic body in a community of other linguistic bodies. The book describes three distinct yet entangled kinds of human embodiment, organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective; it traces the emergence of linguistic sensitivities and introduces the novel concept of linguistic bodies; and it explores the implications of living as linguistic bodies in perpetual becoming, applying the concept of linguistic bodies to questions of language acquisition, parenting, autism, grammar, symbol, narrative, and gesture, and to such ethical concerns as microaggression, institutional speech, and pedagogy. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the way in which Korsgaard’s approach to obligation as springing from the reflective rejection of that which threatens one’s own identity can account for obligations towards others, without making the latter relative to obligations to oneself. To this end, I begin by stressing the role of reflexivity in ethical relationships, and show how this reflexivity is mediated by reference to law, which applies both to the self and to the other. On this basis, I then (...) argue that Korsgaard’s account of the interplay between practical and moral identity reflects the very structure of practical reason, which requires both a particular and a universal premise in order to issue practical reasons for action– and the corresponding obligations. Within this framework, I argue that Korsgaard’s solution to the problem outlined above lies in having stressed the shareable character of reasons such that it is neither your reason nor my reason that obligates me, but rather reason as such. This solution, however, requires a further argument aimed at clarifying what makes your reasons different from my own. (shrink)

Colin Hay’s and Vivien Schmidt’s responses to my previous critical engagement with their respective versions of neo-institutionalism raise the issue of how scholars may account for the ideational power of political processes and how ideas may generate both stability and change. Even though Hay, Schmidt, and I share a common philosophical ground in many respects, we nevertheless diverge in our views about how to account for ideational power and for actors’ ability to navigate a social reality that is saturated with (...) structures and meaning. There continues to be a need for an analytical framework that incorporates discourse and a constitutive logic based upon the power in ideas. Post-structural institutionalism (PSI) analyzes discourse as knowledge claims by means of the concept of a constitutive causality, analytically identified in respect to institutions, such that the substantive content of ideas/discourse provides ideational power and generates immanent change. (shrink)

Сьогодні стан розвитку філософії часто характеризують як «криза раціональності». Пов’язане це перш за все з тим, що як вважають деякі дослідники раціональні методи пізнання не вирішують філософських проблем і направлені цілком на таку ж раціональну реальність якою не є сучасний світ. Постає питання про виправданість у класичній філософії та науці панування раціональних методів пізнання. Але питання не лише у цьому, важливо говорити про те, що сьогодні ми розуміємо під раціональністю. Чи йде мова про відхід від раціональності, чи про її нові (...) форми, прояви, виміри щодо дослідження феноменів. Метою даного дослідження є виявлення раціональних аспектів нормативної поведінки у філософії І. Канта. Розглядаючи це питання необхідно звернутися до обґрунтування раціональності нормативності класиком філософської думки, застосовуючи методологію безпосередньо І. Канта та іншу. До методів дослідження відносяться: співпадіння історичного і логічного, компаративний аналіз, методологічний принцип додатковості та ін. Дослідження феномену нормативної поведінки у філософії І. Канта показує важливість принципу раціональності, обов’язку, свободи в аналізі такого важливого явища як соціальна поведінка. Від того яким чином людина визначає підстави нормативності залежить яким чином вона буде діяти: підпорядковувася чи не підпорядковуватися ним, як вона буде реалізовувати своє соціальне буття. (shrink)

The paper aims to clarify the interpretation of Kantian morality and Hegelian ethical life given by Honneth and Habermas; it try in particularly to explain the several meanings and forms of Honneth’s relaunch of Hegel’s conception of Sitt- lichkeit. The Author aims at the same time to show some structural limits of this neo-Hegelian ethical perspective from a political point of view, also in relation to the concept of «immanent critique» adopted by Honneth, and differentiated by him from the concept (...) of «internal criticism» developed by Michael Walzer. The Author observes that the immanent approach of Honneth’s normative reconstruction and social critique seems to have some problems to take in account the plurality of different and con icting ethical-political orientations. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill takes social pressure to be a serious threat to individuality, and his proposed limit to the “authority of society” in On Liberty is meant to restrain its force. This proposal creates practical and conceptual difficulties, though, because considerable social pressure can be produced as an unintended, cumulative effect of individuals simply exercising their own liberty. Existing scholarship largely underrates the degree to which this undermines the coherence of his ambitions. I argue that the puzzle cannot be resolved (...) without rejecting part of his framework, even though his concerns about social pressure are not misplaced. (shrink)

The article considers the problem of the system model of family counseling, in particular, the analysis of the family as a social system, as a complex of elements and their properties, which are in dynamic connections and relationships. The analysis of the theory of systems and the description of the principles of family counseling is carried out. Particular attention is paid to highlighting the main provisions of the individual (“adlerian”) psychology in counseling the family. -/- Currently among specialists there is (...) a high interest in the provision of psychological assistance to a family in crisis. This is largely due to the fact that over the past decades, the institution of the family in this country is experiencing an increase in destructive tendencies. This is evidenced by an increase in the number of appeals to school psychologists, psychological counseling, psychological services and centers from both the individual members of the family and families in general. -/- The psychological help to the family is positioned as a relatively new field of practice for a psychologist. The practice of counseling, including family, is largely determined by the theoretical skills of the counselor, primarily as (s)he understands the personality, determination of behavior, the source of family problems, and the possibility of change. Today, practitioners prefer the integrative method, which is a system approach. -/- The purpose of this article is to analyze the theory of systems as the basis of family counseling. The system model of family counseling is considered to be one of the youngest and most widespread models that received their recognition at the end of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This chapter offers a reinterpretation of Heidegger’s conception of the social world in order to overcome the tension between its conflicting positive and negative characterisations in Being and Time. Rejecting a purely positive or a purely negative reading of das Man, the chapter follows Stephen Mulhall in carving out a middle ground between the two. The chapter takes seriously Heidegger’s claim that it is possible for das Man to undergo an authentic transformation, exploring how best to conceive of this idea. (...) It is argued that the authentic transformation of das Man and the everyday way of being it engenders, is most productively understood with reference to Dasein’s relation to das Man and the way Dasein grasps the world as meaningful. Through this reading it is shown how both an authentic and an inauthentic mode of everydayness can be accommodated. The chapter concludes with an examination of the consequences of this interpretation, arguing for the critical and political potential of authenticity as an attentive and engaged mode of being-in-the-world. (shrink)

Розвиток суспільства, його зміни і трансформації кидають соціальній філософії як науці про соціальне буття все нові виклики. Сучасна реальність потребує нових підходів, які б дозволили розкрити сутність соціальної активності, дій і подій, що відбуваються. Особливо актуальним сьогодні стає питання про поведінку особистості у суспільстві. Але проблема у тому, що в межах існуючих наукових підходів важко визначитися щодо розуміння її поведінкової активності у соціальному бутті, вона більш відповідає принципам раціональності чи є ірраціональною? Сьогодні важливим є філософський дискурс щодо розуміння проблеми раціональної (...) поведінки як процесу переосмислення самої раціональності, формування ставлення до неї у різні часи та доречності сумнівів у ній як мотиваційний домінанті поведінки сучасної людини. В цьому відношенні цікавим є філософській аналіз поглядів представників німецької класичної філософії щодо цих питань І. Канта і Г. Гегеля. Метою статті є показати підстави необхідності раціональної, розумної поведінки особистості у соціальному бутті суспільства. Чому саме німецька класична філософія? Справа в тому, що саме в цей період формується філософське уявлення про розумність як свободу і обов’язок. І оскільки далі філософія піде шляхом критики розумності і раціональності, важливо визначитися з тим, якими є ці класичні філософські постулати розуму і розумності як критерію людської поведінки. (shrink)