Ancient philosophy is often distinguished from modern philosophy regarding its affinity to spirituality. In antiquity, philosophy meant a way of life rather than a body of knowledge. Yet according to Michel Foucault, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit constitutes an important exception to modern philosophy’s break with spirituality, as it integrates structures of spirituality into modern forms and ideals of philosophy. This article builds on Foucault’s analysis by revealing the structures of spirituality that are present within the Phenomenology of Spirit. It argues (...) that in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit the exercise of reason is itself understood as a spiritual exercise. The case of Hegel shows that modern philosophy is not as a whole opposed to the conception of philosophy as a way of life but contains strands that are in line with the ancient tradition. (shrink)

Moral philosophy in all its contemporary forms, whether consequentialist, formalist, contractarian, utilitarian, or virtue ethicist, presumes the possibility of formulating principles of conduct that apply universally to all human beings. Standard exceptions are infants and young children, persons who are clinically insane, and persons with reduced mental capacity. These exceptions are recognized by all modern systems of morality and law. The inability to distinguish right from wrong, due to immature age, mental disorganization, or insufficient intelligence is grounds to exempt any (...) given person from moral responsibility and moral agency.Human beings not bound by such conditions are distinguished by their capacity .. (shrink)

The critical theory of the Frankfurt School starts with an explanatory-diagnostic analysis of the social pathologies of the present followed by anticipatory-utopian reflection on possible treatments for these disorders. This approach draws extensively on parallels to medicine. I argue that the ideas of social pathology and crisis that pervade the methodological writings of the Frankfurt School help to explain critical theory’s contention that the object of critique identifies itself when social institutions cease to function smoothly. However, in reflecting on the (...) role that reason and self-awareness play in the second stage of social criticism, I contend that this model is actually better conceptualized through the lens of the psychoanalyst rather than the physician. Although the first generation’s explicit commitment to psychoanalysis has dissipated in recent critical theory, faith in a rationalized ‘talking cure’ leading to greater self-awareness of existing pathologies remains at the core of the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: L’Expérience intérieure de Georges Bataille formule une ontologie de l’hétérogénéité opposée à l’homogénéité du système de Hegel. Bataille définit la pensée de Hegel comme la commensurabilité d’éléments disparates au sein d’un projet unifié, et c’est à cette homogénéité dirigée par un but qu’il oppose les éléments hétérogènes du non-savoir et du sacrifice, lesquels échappent à toute commensurabilité. Cet article se livre à une évaluation critique de l’œuvre de Bataille, tant comme ontologie viable que comme critique valide de Hegel, et (...) fait valoir qu’elle échoue sur ces deux plans. L’échec de Bataille tient à son refus de saisir l’essence de la pensée hégélienne: être hétérogène, cela signifie être opposé à soi. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Starting from a philosophical, literary and historical frame of reference (Heraclitus, Hegel, Tolstoy, and Clausewitz), the paper aims to find a ‘deconstructive’ and anthropo-ethical way out of the binary opposition of war and peace (Levinas and Girard). ‘Apocalyptic reasoning’, inspired by a biblical view of man, gives insight into (in/un)human violence, and opens up a new perspective on necessary and possible conversion.

Recent social theory has begun to reconsider how the activity of work can contribute to well-being or autonomy under the right conditions. However, there is no consensus on what this contribution consists in, and so on precisely which normative principles should be marshalled to critique harmful or repressive forms of workplace organisation. This paper argues that Richard Sennett’s concept of work as craft provides a normative standard against which the organisation of work can be assessed, especially when explained within a (...) broadly Aristotelian account of the conditions of human flourishing. More precisely, the paper argues that a craft norm can meet the standards of social critique within the Frankfurt School tradition of Critical Theory, as this tradition has been interpreted by Axel Honneth. Honneth himself now rejects craft norms as too utopian and parochial to inform Critical Theory under contemporary economic conditions. In reply, this paper uses sociological studies of call centre workers to illustrate how work motivated by craft ideals can be sustainable rather than utopian, and how craftsmanship can inform social critique across a wide variety of industries and management practices. (shrink)

There was a time when, in the Liberal Arts, philosophy and education enjoyed the most intimate and productive relationship. Drawing together philosophy and nature they sought to understand the greatest of human mysteries. This meant thinking about both the macrocosm and the microcosm and especially the relation between them. In this relation lies the most fundamental vocation of Liberal Arts education—Know Thyself. In my article I attempt to retrieve the philosophical education that lies between the individual and the universe. I (...) explore the macrocosm through Newton and Einstein, the microcosm through Heisenberg and Zizek, and the relation between them in the structure of the modern Kant/Hegel philosophical experience. The result—only relatively overambitious—is an educational theory of the uncertainty of the universe and everything in it. (shrink)

This article explores the implications of Gillian Rose's social and political theory of modernity. For Rose, modernity not only construes `the autonomous moral subject as free within the order of representations and unfree within its preconditions and outcomes' (1996: 57), it is also `the working out of that combination' (ibid.). The implications of this view are explored below, concentrating in particular on the way Rose tackled the aporias and contradictions of modern sociology and social theory. Its conclusion is twofold. First, (...) that Rose retrieves the absolute as fundamental to the meaning of social and political critique, and second that, in the face of demands for radical political action, not least in Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach, it is the religious dimension of our political experience that has been consistently overlooked. It is my argument that, in her concept of `the broken middle', Rose does not overcome the gap between theory and practice, but she does comprehend it as a way of life, one characterized by human struggling and failing. This way of life calls us to `mind the gap'. (shrink)

The reemergence of the question of suicide in the medical context of physician-assisted suicide seems to me one of the most interesting and fertile facets of late modernity. Aside from the disruption which this issue may cause in the traditional juridical relationship between individuals and the state, it may also help to transform the dominant conception of subjectivity that has been erected upon modernity's medicalized order of death. To enhance this disruptive potential, I am going to examine the perspectives on (...) death offered by two contemporary writers: Zygmunt Bauman and Jean Baudrillard. Each of these writers recognizes the centrality of death to modern culture, as Heidegger did, but they also go beyond him in specifying the ways in which death maintains a presence in late modernity, despite efforts to conceal it. In particular, both of these writers recognize the important role that medicine has played in ordering the modern conception of death. After situating these two perspectives in relation to each other, and in relation to Heidegger, who will serve here as a sort of benchmark, I will return to the issue of suicide. Given the differences in their readings of the role that death and medicine play in modern culture, these post-Heideggerians take strikingly different positions on this issue. By engaging these perspectives, I intend not only to point out the tremendous potential which this issue holds for a fundamental rethinking of modern subjectivity, but also reveal some of the dangers that may beset any naive optimism about the right to die. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper I explore a recently conceived notion of a modern liberal arts education which brings the ancient Aristotelian search for first principles into a modern metaphysics of Kant and Hegel. In the second part I examine two ways in which this modern conception of a liberal arts education intervenes in important social and political debates in Western culture. My concluding comments centre on the belief that twenty-first-century liberal arts education needs to provide more resistance (...) to a culture of capitalism by orienting itself to the tradition from a modern standpoint. (shrink)

: This article examines how some of Simone de Beauvoir's ethical notions about the Self-Other relation explored in her theoretical philosophy of the 1940s were developed in her subsequent autobiography. It argues that Beauvoir represents reciprocal alter-ity in these autobiographical texts through a testimonial engagement with autobiography conceptualized as an act of bearing witness for the Other, through the privileging of various interlocutors and privileged others with whom "the real" is experienced and through a negotiation with the reader. The article (...) also explores the wider question of how Beauvoir's engagement with autobiography might constitute a mode of ethical engagement with the Other. (shrink)

This article examines how some of Simone de Beauvoir's ethical notions about the Self-Other relation explored in her theoretical philosophy of the 1940s were developed in her subsequent autobiography. It argues that Beauvoir represents reciprocal alterity in these autobiographical texts through a testimonial engagement with autobiography conceptualized as an act of bearing witness for the Other, through the privileging of various interlocutors and privileged others with whom "the real" is experienced and through a negotiation with the reader. The article also (...) explores the wider question of how Beauvoir's engagement with autobiography might constitute a mode of ethical engagement with the Other. (shrink)

Kant's 'Copernican Revolution', which began in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787), had, by the early 1790s, fundamentally altered the terrain of German philosophy – but not entirely in the way that Kant had foreseen. Skeptical challenges to Kant's discursive account of cognition, in which experience arises from the separate faculties of sensibility and understanding, had led thinkers such as K.L. Reinhold and J.G. Fichte to attempt to provide a first, foundational principle for the critical philosophy. These efforts were enormously (...) influential, but by the middle of the 1790s, they too were facing a great deal of critical scrutiny. The central challenge to the Fichtean project came from an unlikely quarter: a group of young thinkers and poets who are collectively known as the early Romantics. For the Romantics, Fichte's project remains too 'subjectivist', for it tries to provide an account of the world by beginning with the conditions that govern subjectivity alone. Rather, the Romantics argue that the world must be understood in terms of a monistic Absolute, akin to Spinoza's substance, in which all dualisms are overcome. It is with this step that Absolute Idealism comes on the scene, and sets the stage for the development of Hegel's system in the early 1800s. This essay, which continues the story of 'Who's Who from Kant to Hegel I', examines the ways in which early Romanticism reacted to the Fichtean project, looks at a variety of anti-foundationalist idealisms that the Romantics – in particular Hölderlin, Novalis, Schlegel, and Schleiermacher – developed, and traces the role that Friedrich Schelling plays in offering the first systematic account of Absolute Idealism. (shrink)

This paper claims rigour and sensitivity for a methodology used to explore multiple sources of data and expose the essential characteristics of a phenomenon in the human sciences. A descriptive phenomenological methodology was applied in a study of the experience of ten people with osteoarthritis receiving ginger compress therapy. The application of the phenomenological attitude, with reduction, bracketing and imaginative variation, allowed multiple sources of data – written, pictorial and oral – to be explicated. The applied methodology used is described (...) in this paper, with its six clearly defined steps illustrated by examples from the study. The findings demonstrate that phenomenological reduction enabled an indication of the potential benefits of ginger compress treatment as a therapy for people with osteoarthritis. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , May 2010, Volume 10, Edition 1. (shrink)

In ‘The Status of Content,’ Paul Boghossian points out an embarrassment in which A.J. Ayer finds himself in his extensive irrealism. Ayer embraces both an emotivist theory of ethics and a deflationary theory of truth. According to an emotivist theory, sentences that look like perfectly good declarative sentences, such as ‘One ought not to kill,’ should be interpreted as non-declarative sentences. According to a deflationary theory of truth, ‘truth’ is not a predicate of sentences, and sentences of the form ‘“p” (...) is true’ are equivalent to sentences of the form ‘p.’ Boghossian argues that emotivism and deflationism turn out to be incompatible.Boghossian's criticism should not be presented before we ask this question: What motivates Ayer's subversion of surface grammar? A typical motivation to provide an analysis of a certain region of discourse is to find a way in which patterns of inference and compositionality could be more perspicuously presented. (shrink)

This is a translation of Alexandre Koyré’s important, but overlooked essay “Hegel à Iéna.” The essay originally appeared in Alexandre Koyré, Etudes d’histoire de la pensée philosophique. A contribution to the philosophy of time, this essay had a profound but generally unrecognized influence on Alexander Kojève, Jean Hyppolite and Jacques Derrida.

This article explores the friendship of Maurice Blanchot and Georges Bataille through a close reading of their thought on death and dying. An intellectual and personal friendship, both conceived of death as an “impossible” space and “limit-experience” that not only constituted human subjectivity, but could also puncture it, leading to joy through deindividuation. This could only occur indirectly – for Bataille, via the sacrifice, eroticism, drunkenness or laughter – and for Blanchot, via literature. This line of thinking leads to varying (...) formulations of sovereignty at odds with the prosaic world of use-value. Proceeding first through their friendship, this paper then explores this thinking death through the contexts of French Hegelianism, Kojève and Heidegger. While holding much similar, the paper argues that Bataille’s transgressive, embodied and deindividuating visions of death present a form of community that was overlooked by Blanchot subsequently, with consequences for theories of community and collective power today. (shrink)

Although Hegel'sLectures on the History of Philosophywas teaching material intended for students and published posthumously, it would be wrong to regard this work as irrelevant to his philosophical project. In his introduction to theLectures, Hegel emphasised that the history of philosophy should not be treated as a mere accumulation of opinions, or as a random collection of correct and incorrect views according to some later standards. The history of philosophy, just like art, religion andRecht, reflects the necessary logical determinations of (...) the Idea, and in this sense it should be studied with the intent of revealing those determinations. Hegel, of course, intended his project to be sufficiently established through thePhenomenologyand theLogicwithout the need to resort to any historical manifestations of culture. However, his interpretation of the history of philosophy does reveal his own philosophical agenda more straightforwardly than the ahistorical complex accounts of his other major works.Hegel's intention was to present the development of the history of philosophy as a reflection of the development of the Idea. Therefore, one would assume that the further we go back in time, we would find philosophers whose doctrines were less mature and more distant from Hegel's own conception of philosophy. However, Hegel seems to have singled out a few favourite philosophers, to whom he did not hesitate to attribute insights that could not possibly have been developed at the time, according to his pre-conceived pattern of development. One famous example was Aristotle, whom he credited with the conception of a Reason that becomes its own object, i.e., Reason which is ‘in and for-itself.’ A philosopher belonging to the ‘objective’ stage of the spirit could not normally have achieved such a conception. (shrink)

I argue that Irigaray's recent work develops a theoretically cogent and politically radical form of realist essentialism. I suggest that she identifies sexual difference with a fundamental difference between the rhythms of percipient fluids constituting women's and men's bodies, supporting this with a philosophy of nature that she justifies phenomenologically and ethically. I explore the politics Irigaray derives from this philosophy, which affirms the sexes' rights to realize the possibilities of their rhythmically diverse bodies.

Despite growing appreciation in recent decades of the importance of shared intentional mental states as a foundation for everything from divergences in primate evolution, to the institution of communal norms, to trends in the development of modernity as a socio-political phenomenon, we lack an adequate understanding of the relationship between individual and shared intentionality. At the same time, it is widely appreciated that deontic reasoning concerning what ought, may, and ought not be done is, like reasoning about our intentions, an (...) exercise of practical rationality. Taking advantage of this fact, I use a plan-theoretic semantics for the deontic modalities as a basis for understanding individual and shared intentions. This results in a view that accords well with what we currently have reason to believe about the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of norm psychology and shared intentionality in human beings, and where original intentionality can be understood in terms of the shared intentionality of a community. (shrink)

Advocates of dialogic communication have promoted two-way symmetrical communication as the most effective and ethical model for public relations. This article uses John Durham Peters's critique of dialogic communication to reconsider this infatuation with dialogue. In this article, we argue that dialogue's potential for selectivity and tyranny poses moral problems for public relations. Dialogue's emphasis on reciprocal communication also saddles public relations with ethically questionable quid pro quo relationships. We contend that dissemination can be more just than dialogue because it (...) demands more integrity of the source and recognizes the freedom and individuality of the source. The type of communication, such as dialogue or dissemination, is less important than the mutual discovery of truth. Reconciliation, a new model of public relations, is proposed as an alternative to pure dialogue. Reconciliation recognizes and values individuality and differences, and integrity is no longer sacrificed at the altar of agreement. (shrink)

Many philosophers working today on the normativity of language have concluded that linguistic activity is not a matter of rule following. These conversations have been framed by a conception of linguistic normativity with roots in Wittgenstein and Kripke. In this paper I use conceptual resources developed by the classical American pragmatists and their descendants to argue that punctate linguistic acts are governed by rules in a sense that has been neglected in the recent literature on the normativity of language. In (...) the course of arguing for this conclusion I defend a Kantian conception of rationality as rule-obeying activity, and I argue that this conception is compatible with a naturalistic understanding of ourselves as rational beings governed by rules of thought and action. (shrink)

I use a distinction between single-minded and indifferent choice attitudes, modeled across maximally determinate plans of action, as a basis for interpreting deontic claims – about what ought, ought not, and may be done – as expressing a mode of relation between mind and world that gives voice to the exercise of practical rationality. At the same time, I use maximally determinate possible worlds to model descriptive claims in order to understand them as involving a mode of relation between mind (...) and world that manifests our theoretical rationality. The result is of interest to both linguists looking for a formal treatment of deontic modality that captures the role prescriptive mental states play in our lives, and philosophers interested in substantive questions about action-guiding and representational mental states as exercises of practical and theoretical rationality. (shrink)

In this article I ask how fruitful the concept of alienation can be for thinking critically about the nature and causes of the contemporary environmental crisis. The concept of alienation enables us to claim that modern human beings have become alienated or estranged from nature and need to become reconciled with it. Yet reconciliation has often been understood—notably by Hegel and Marx—as the state of being ‘at-home-with-oneself-in-the-world’, in the name of which we are entitled, perhaps even obliged, to overcome anything (...) in nature that is alien to the human mind. This approach to alienation derives ultimately from the German Idealist philosopher J. G. Fichte. I explore an alternative conception of alienation and reconciliation to be found in the work of the Early German Romantics, especially Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis. The Romantics think of reconciliation as including a dimension of alienation, in the form of an awareness that nature is greater than and exceeds the understanding of human beings, insofar as we are merely limited parts of the all-encompassing whole that is nature. I argue that this is a more fruitful approach to alienation and reconciliation than that pursued by Fichte, Hegel, and Marx. (shrink)

This paper deals with some issues underlying the role of education in the preparation of students for democratic participation. Throughout, I maintain two basic ideas: first, that a political action undertaken to obtain practical ends reflects a set of privately held values whose recognition is therefore essential to any idea of the political; second, that the continued viability of liberal democracy is dependent upon its openness to alteration through its recognition of private values. In order to bring these ideas to (...) light more clearly, I will develop my position in the form of a critique of some contemporary liberal theories of civic education, most notably Amy Gutmann's, as expressed in her influential work Democratic Education. Maintaining Gutmann's requirement of educational relativism, I intend to show how her emphasis on individual deliberation as a goal of education fits within a system of deliberative democracy, and that the two serve to minimize, on the individual level, the ability of individuals to seek recognition within the public sphere, and on the political level, the ability of democratic institutions to be renewed through participation. (shrink)

This article critically examines the rationales for the well-settled principle in sentencing law that an offender’s remorse is to be treated as a mitigating factor. Four basic types of rationale are examined: remorse makes punishment redundant; offering mitigation can induce remorse; remorse should be rewarded with mitigation; and remorse should be recognised by mitigation. The first three rationales each suffer from certain weaknesses or limitations, and are argued to be not as persuasive as the fourth. The article then considers, and (...) rejects, two arguments against remorse as a mitigating factor in sentencing: that the crime, not the offender, is the focus of punishment; and that the truly remorseful offender would not ask for mitigation. The article concludes with a brief consideration of whether a lack of remorse should be an aggravating factor. (shrink)

This paper focuses on one of C. S. Peirce's criticisms of G. W. F. Hegel: namely, that Hegel neglected to give sufficient weight to what Peirce calls "Secondness", in a way that put his philosophical system out of touch with reality. The nature of this criticism is explored, together with its relevant philosophical background. It is argued that while the issues Peirce raises go deep, in some respects Hegel's position is closer to his own than he may have realised, whilst (...) in others that criticism can be resisted by the Hegelian. (shrink)

In this article I seek to explain Hegel’s significance to contemporary meta-ethics, in particular to Kantian constructivism. I argue that in the master–slave dialectic in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel shows that self-consciousness and intersubjectivity arise at the same time. This point, I argue, shows that there is no problem with taking other people’s reasons to motivate us since reflection on our aims is necessarily also reflection on the needs of those around us. I further explore Hegel’s contribution to the (...) debate about internal and external reasons. I end by arguing that we should understand reasons as historically constructed in the sense that who counts as an intrinsic bearer of value changes over time. I thus argue that the struggle for recognition is in fact the beginning of the long march toward the idea of recognition and the Kantian kingdom of ends. This march, however, is driven by the need to overcome injustice as it is instantiated at the beginning of history by the master’s absolute domination of the slave. (shrink)

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel argues that the development of the religions of the world leads up to and culminates in Christianity, which is the one true religion. One key element which separates Christianity from the other religions, according to Hegel, concerns the issue of alienation. He argues that the previous religions all contain some form of alienation, which can be found in their conceptions of the divine. In this paper, I wish to examine Hegel’s view (...) that Christianity alone overcomes religious alienation. What is it that makes Christianity so special in this regard? This is a particularly important issue given that the question of alienation is so central in the post-Hegelian thinkers such as Feuerbach, Bauer, and Marx, who all insist that, far from overcoming alienation, Christianity is guilty of causing it. I wish to argue that this issue provides new insight into the old criticism of Hegel as a thinker of abstraction. (shrink)

It is a widely accepted idea that German Idealism stands on two pillars: Kant and Spinoza. The aim of this essay is to critically reflect on this way of understanding the history of philosophy through a study of the reception of Spinoza in the early writings of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. This analysis will show that each of them builds a different image of Spinoza that is not based on the scholarly study of his works, but rather deeply conditioned by (...) other readings and controversies of the time. Each assigns a central role to that image of Spinoza in the justification of his own system, and in each case that theoretical function is different: Spinoza is viewed as an enemy (Fichte), a possibility and a source of inspiration (Schelling), and a model of true philosophy (Hegel). (shrink)

This article proposes a new interpretation of the ontological significance of the Biblical statement ‘I am that I am’ that focuses on the relationship between the Heideggerian notion of the being that is beyond all entities and the German Idealist concern with the irreducibility of subjectivity. This focus is put forward as an effective way of philosophically elaborating what are argued to be the twin aspects of the statement—the being that transcends predication, and an irreducibly first person ontology. This elaboration (...) is performed by discussing the way in which these two themes have been approached at certain pertinent points in the history of metaphysics. With regard to the theme of transcendent being, an overview of the medieval Scholastic debates on the issue precedes a direct discussion of the Heideggerian position. As for the theme of the irreducibility of first person ontology, an overview of the relevant theories of the various German Idealist philosophers precedes a direct engagement with what Heidegger has to say on this issue. The overall argument here is that it is possible coherently to conceive of the pure being that transcends all entities in terms of the ‘I’ of an absolute subject without eliding the difference between being and entities, without succumbing to what Heidegger regards as an onto-theological oblivion of being. (shrink)

The present paper is an attempt to develop late Professor K. Satchidananda Murty’s quest to articulate Immanent and Transcendent in his philosophical journey from Upanishads to German idealism and Marxism. It is proposed to be achieved by explicating Murty’s understanding of the views of Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx on human condition and its transcendence or emancipation. For this purpose, I will discuss consciousness as the ultimate reality being transcendent and immanent in Vedanta as well as in German idealism. The (...) ambition and challenge of the present article is to pursue Murty’s cross-cultural perspective to the extent that the ideas of thinkers of very different traditions, especially culturally and intellectually distinct traditions, are contested on the fullness of thought concerning immanent and transcendent as is evident in comparing Sankara, Kant, and Hegel on consciousness in relation to Buddha and Marx on suffering and alienation. Whereas Murty refers to them, from cross-cultural perspective, with limited end to substantiate his position on the “realm between” derived from Upanishads and Vedanta infused with Buddhism, I wish to present, from the same perspective, some clarifications, annotations, and summations from German idealism and Marxism, which may be useful for expanding Murty’s preliminary acquaintance with them. I wish to argue that though there is antithetical nature of these perspectives, yet the distinctions between immanent and transcendent have been one of the fundamental conceptual linkages under different cultural background. (shrink)

This article elucidates Márkus’ new Marxist philosophy of language based on his critique of the paradigm of language represented by Popper, Wittgenstein, Lévi-Strauss, and Gadamer. His critique suggests that instrumental rationality, pure reason, alienated reason, and objective and idealistic rationality of the paradigm of language are elements that should be overcome. From his critical perspective, value rationality, practical reason, personal reason, and historical materialism are advocated instead. He not only critically develops the philosophy of language but also adds new levels (...) of meaning to Marxism. (shrink)

This article reconstructs and evaluates a debate between Pippin and Žižek over the proper interpretation of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, in relation to Hegel’s concept of reconciliation. Both Pippin and Žižek agree that Vertigo exemplifies Hegelian reconciliation: Scottie exhibits Hegel’s reconciliatory “negation of negation” when he realizes that his lost love Madeleine had really been Judy all along, thereby losing his original loss. Yet Pippin and Žižek disagree on the precise significance of the concept of reconciliation both for the film and for (...) the contemporary world. Žižek argues for a revolutionary reading of reconciliation in Vertigo: we learn from reconciliation that we must make a revolutionary break from the present world, in order to bring about a wholly new world. Pippin argues for a reformist reading of reconciliation in Vertigo: we learn from reconciliation that we must find the “traces of reason” latent in the present world, in order to gradually reform it for the better. Ultimately, I argue that Žižek’s reading offers the more authentically Hegelian approach to interpreting Hitchcock’s Vertigo. But if nothing else, the Pippin-Žižek debate demonstrates the profound intellectual fecundity of the intersections between film and philosophy for understanding our current historical moment. (shrink)

Drawing on a close reading of Pierre Bourdieu’s works, I offer five lessons for a science of crime and punishment: always historicize; dissect symbolic categories; produce embodied accounts; avoid state thought; and embrace commitment. I offer illustrative examples and demonstrate the practical implications of Bourdieu’s ideas, and I apply the lessons to a critique of orthodox criminology.

It has been widely argued that Michel Henry dismisses the importance of the subject's worldly and intentional mode of existence in his account of the well-being of life. However, through a careful analysis of Henry's theory of life and his study of culture and barbarism, I will demonstrate that the prevailing position on this point is both correct and incorrect: (i) correct in that absolute life does not require a moral transformation of the world; and (ii) incorrect inasmuch as Henry's (...) philosophy does not, for all that, deny that, from the perspective of human beings, the subject's existence in the world does indeed matter to the well-being of their life. In my view, Henry's work harbours the implication that, from the perspective of the subject's existence in the world, the creation of a moral world through the development of the correspondence between one's inner life and the natural world is humanity's most pressing task, to the point that his entire phenomenology is oriented toward the achievement of this end. I will highlight two of the ways in which the subject's existence is vital to life's well-being: (i) as an expression of life; and (ii) as more or less befitting of life's current needs. As part of this study, I argue that some of Henry's conclusions regarding theoretical knowledge and its part in the aforementioned correspondence between life and the natural world do not entirely agree with his own analyses and therefore need to be reformed. (shrink)

This paper develops a new interpretation of Heidegger's concept of conscience in order to show to what extent his thought establishes the possibility of civil disobedience. The origin of conscience lies in the self's appropriation of language as inviting a reciprocal response of the other (person). By developing the social dimension of dialogue, it is showsn that conscience reveals the self in its capacity for dissent, free speech, and civil disobedience. By developing the social roots of conscience, a completely new (...) light is cast on the political implications of Heidegger's thought. (shrink)

In the first experiment, I exhibit unreliable judgment about the primeness or divisibility of four-digit numbers, in contrast to a seeming Excel program. In the second experiment, I exhibit an imperfect memory for arbitrary-seeming three-digit number and letter combinations, in contrast to my seeming collaborator with seemingly hidden notes. In the third experiment, I seem to suffer repeated defeats at chess. In all three experiments, the most straightforward interpretation of the experiential evidence is that something exists in the universe that (...) is superior in the relevant respects – theoretical reasoning (about primes), memorial retention (for digits and letters), or practical reasoning (at chess) – to my own solipsistically-conceived self. (shrink)

This article mounts a defense of my and Slavoj Žižek’s co-edited anthology, Subject Lessons: Hegel, Lacan, and the Future of Materialism, against the two main criticisms of it made throughout Graham Harman’s article “The Battle of Objects and Subjects”: (1) that we and our fellow contributors are guilty of gross overgeneralization when we classify thinkers from various schools of thought – among them New Materialism, object-oriented ontology, speculative realism, and actor–network theory – under the broad rubric of the “new materialisms”; (...) and (2) that despite our pretensions to the mantle of materialism, our Lacano-Hegelian position is actually a full-blown idealism. In responding to and attempting to refute these criticisms, I make the case that our Lacano-Hegelian model of dialectical materialism is an “extimate materialism.”. (shrink)

Stephen Engstrom has recently offered an excellent account of morality as practical cognition. He emphasizes the formal conditions of practical knowledge, which he finds in Kant. Engstrom also aligns his account with constructivism, claiming that value is constructed through these formal conditions, chiefly universalisability. In this paper, I employ a variant of Hegel’s empty-formalism objection to challenge the moral significance of the mere form of practical knowledge. I hope to show that Engstrom’s constructivism is neither philosophically compelling, nor required by (...) the rest of his position. In its place, I propose a realist understanding of the value of practical knowledge. (shrink)