He focuses on Hegel and Nietzche, perhaps to give Mallarme and Kafka a breathing spell. Paper edition (unseen), $10.95. No index or bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

This book is a translation of Maurice Blanchot's work that is of major importance to late 20th-century literature and philosophy studies. Using the fragmentary form, Blanchot challenges the boundaries between the literary and the philosophical. With the obsessive rigor that has always marked his writing, Blanchot returns to the themes that have haunted his work since the beginning: writing, death, transgression, the neuter, but here the figures around whom his discussion turns are Hegel and Nietzsche rather than Mallarme and Kafka. (...) The metaphor Blanchot uses for writing in The Step Not Beyond is the game of chance. Fragmentary writing is a play of limits, a play of ever-multiplied terms in which no one term ever takes precedence. Through the randomness of the fragmentary, Blanchot explores ideas as varied as the relation of writing to luck and to the law, the displacement of the self in writing, the temporality of the Eternal Return, the responsibility of the self towards the others. (shrink)

This article examines the cultural practices through which a group of professionals infuse their work and community with charisma. Although previous research has theorized the “charisma of office” (Weber 1978), we know little about how the occupants of such offices sustain it. I focus on a group of psychoanalytically-inclined psychotherapists, whose field, despite its early charismatic beginnings, has been especially embattled in recent decades. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data, I reveal how they share stories emphasizing their “idealization” (...) by others, draw boundaries between their professional and private lives to manage their work identities, and perform interpersonal affective work that shores up their claims to extraordinary abilities. Together, these cultural practices constitute charisma within the professional group. This article thus makes a case that, as expertise becomes increasingly contested, we must look beyond social organization and the evidentiary bases of knowledge to understand professional authority. (shrink)

Working beyond the inclination to inaugurate alternative theoretical traditions alongside canonical sociology, this article demonstrates the value of recovering latent gender theory from within classic concepts—in this case, Weber’s “charisma.” Close readings of Weber reveal, (a) tools for theorizing extraordinary, non-masculinist agency, and, (b) clues that account for the conventional wisdom (popular and scholastic) that charisma is “not for women.” While contemporary movements may be tempted to eschew charismatic leadership per se because of legacies of dominance by (...) men, there is value in Weber’s formulation, which anticipated the performative turn in social theory that would destabilize biologistic gender ontologies. Value in this exchange also flows back to Weber: by confronting his intermittent tendency to describe charisma in terms that we now recognize as “customs of manly power,” we reveal heretofore unseen imperfections (i.e., traditionalist modes of legitimation) in his ideal-type. This engagement thus demonstrates an empowering mutuality between contemporary gender theory and “the classics.” The article ends by theorising the nexus of gender and charisma in the case of Trump, pointing to possibilities for vitiating Donald Trump’s charisma, as well as for anti-Trumpian charisma. (shrink)

Bowman-Smart et al. (2023) argue for a framework to examine the ethical issues associated with genetic screening for non-medical traits in the context of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT). Such s...

The concept of vocal charisma has changed in the past decades from something that people have to something that people do, thereby stimulating research on how vocal charisma can be created and improved. Broadening the perspective on vocal charisma beyond the speaker’s performance itself to the context of the speech, we conducted acoustic-prosodic analyses of public speeches of two prominent Israelian politicians – Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz. The speech material consisted of 311–516 prosodic phrases per (...) politician from the election campaigns 2019–2020 and, crucially, was balanced so as to include an equal number of pre- and post-election speeches. Results show a superiority of Netanyahu over Gantz in almost all facets of vocal charisma, although Gantz caught up over time. Moreover, unlike Gantz, Netanyahu showed a strong adaptation of his vocal charisma patterns to before- and after-election contexts. Scrutinizing this versatility difference, an additional perception experiment with 42 listeners and excerpts from the two politicians’ speeches was carried out. Results show that Netanyahu’s speech excerpts were, unlike those of Gantz, mainly rated as more charismatic in those contexts in which they were performed. Gantz’ post-election speech excerpts, by contrast, were primarily rated as not fitting into that context, i.e., as unfolding their charisma better in a pre-election context. Moreover, listeners also rated Netanyahu as overall more charismatic than Gantz. The combined production and perception evidence suggests the relevance of context in the evaluation and interpretation of vocal charisma signals. (shrink)

The concept of vocal charisma has changed in the past decades from something that people have to something that people do, thereby stimulating research on how vocal charisma can be created and improved. Broadening the perspective on vocal charisma beyond the speaker’s performance itself to the context of the speech, we conducted acoustic-prosodic analyses of public speeches of two prominent Israelian politicians – Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz. The speech material consisted of 311–516 prosodic phrases per (...) politician from the election campaigns 2019–2020 and, crucially, was balanced so as to include an equal number of pre- and post-election speeches. Results show a superiority of Netanyahu over Gantz in almost all facets of vocal charisma, although Gantz caught up over time. Moreover, unlike Gantz, Netanyahu showed a strong adaptation of his vocal charisma patterns to before- and after-election contexts. Scrutinizing this versatility difference, an additional perception experiment with 42 listeners and excerpts from the two politicians’ speeches was carried out. Results show that Netanyahu’s speech excerpts were, unlike those of Gantz, mainly rated as more charismatic in those contexts in which they were performed. Gantz’ post-election speech excerpts, by contrast, were primarily rated as not fitting into that context, i.e., as unfolding their charisma better in a pre-election context. Moreover, listeners also rated Netanyahu as overall more charismatic than Gantz. The combined production and perception evidence suggests the relevance of context in the evaluation and interpretation of vocal charisma signals. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida's face appeared prominently on the covers of his books as well as inside them, on posters for his public lectures, on drawings and lithographs. Derrida was also a film star whose face appeared on screen, demonstrated by the fact that at least three films depict him in some depth and reveal his talents and charisma as a performer. In the first of these, in chronological order, Ghost Dance, directed by Ken McMullen in 1983, Derrida, playing himself, is (...) asked whether he believes in ghosts and replies with a smile: ?that's a hard question because you see I am a ghost.? ?The cinema is the art of invoking ghosts,? he declares and then proceeds to explain that film is always a mise-en-scène of ghosts who send us to an invisible beyond. ?A ghost is a trace that signals in advance the presence of its absence.? This is a structure the film borrows from Sioux attempts to establish a relation with ancestors, to let their history haunt them, to make the past a living future. For Derrida, the figure of the ghost was to resurface ? perhaps we should say return ? with Specters of Marx (1993). This essay will be a ghost dance that attempts to argue that Jacques Derrida is not only a revenant (a returner) but also an arrivant, one who arrives. (shrink)

With a few exceptions all the essays in this issue of Daedalus are biographies of world intellectual and political leaders. Erik Erikson's "psycho-historical" examination of Gandhi is followed by sketches of Nkrumah, Ataturk, de Gaulle, Bismarck, Andrew Johnson, Newton, James Mill, and William James. There are three exceptions to the biographical motif: 1) an essay on charisma which, although it does not go much beyond Weber, does offer a concise anatomy of the various dimensions of this slippery category (...) which is an underlying theme throughout many of the biographies; 2) a short essay proposing that obstacles to change in underdeveloped countries are connected with obstacles to the perception of change; and 3) an essay which examines the relation of the American intellectual-academic community to government during the first half of this century. Dankwart Rustow's introductory essay consists of "scattered remarks" on various methodologies for the exploration of the anatomy of leadership. His organizing themes are leadership as communication, leadership as learning process, and leadership as sense of timing.--S. O. H. (shrink)

With a few exceptions all the essays in this issue of Daedalus are biographies of world intellectual and political leaders. Erik Erikson's "psycho-historical" examination of Gandhi is followed by sketches of Nkrumah, Ataturk, de Gaulle, Bismarck, Andrew Johnson, Newton, James Mill, and William James. There are three exceptions to the biographical motif: 1) an essay on charisma which, although it does not go much beyond Weber, does offer a concise anatomy of the various dimensions of this slippery category (...) which is an underlying theme throughout many of the biographies; 2) a short essay proposing that obstacles to change in underdeveloped countries are connected with obstacles to the perception of change; and 3) an essay which examines the relation of the American intellectual-academic community to government during the first half of this century. Dankwart Rustow's introductory essay consists of "scattered remarks" on various methodologies for the exploration of the anatomy of leadership. His organizing themes are leadership as communication, leadership as learning process, and leadership as sense of timing.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag setzt sich kritisch mit einer Schlüsselkategorie der Weber’schen Soziologie auseinander: dem Charisma. Dieser Kategorie war und ist bis heute ein großer kommunikativer Erfolg beschieden, hat also eine breite Rezeption in der internationalen Forschung erfahren. Dieser Umstand bedeutet allerdings nicht, dass Webers Charisma-Begriff keine Kritik erfahren hätte. Ganz im Gegenteil. Fast jeder Weber-Kenner hat auch Kritik an der fraglichen Kategorie geäußert. Dieser gilt es in dem Beitrag nachzuspüren, um zu einer Erhöhung des Problembewusstseins der Forschung hinsichtlich (...) der Rede vom ‚Charisma‘ beizutragen. Zugleich wird der Versuch unternommen, die fragliche Kategorie differenztheoretisch und relational zu wenden, um somit ihr heuristisches Potential zu schärfen. (shrink)

Previous studies have consistently argued that employees' perception of their leaders as charismatic will positively influence their willingness to commit themselves to the ethical and philanthropic objectives of the organization. However, the empirical relationship between charisma and employee work effort is only modestly explored. This study hypothesizes that in decentralized, professional, and normative organizations characterized by demanding and philanthropic tasks, group belonging, in its capacity to socially and professionally support employees, is better suited to explain employee work effort than (...) leadership charisma. Hierarchical regression analyses based on data from a bishopric supported this assumption. Practical and theoretical consequences are discussed. (shrink)

Charisma is a concept with a peculiar history. It arose from theological obscurity through social science, from which it passed into popular culture. As a social science concept, its significance derives in large part from the fact that it captures a particular type of leadership. But it fits poorly with other concepts in social science, and is problematic as an explanatory concept. Even Weber himself was torn in his use of the concept between the individual type-concept and a broader (...) use of it to characterize the sacral character of culture and institutions. Which use is fundamental? Neither use seems to be able to be extended to account for the other, and in practice the term serves as a heterogenous residual category. Shils’ argument that the charisma of central institutions was fundamental was an attempt to make sense of the examples of institutional charisma that fell into this residual category, such as the jury, and assimilated charisma to the idea of the holy. But this conflicts with Weber’s idea of the originary or creative character of individual charisma, which by definition cannot derive from preexisting sacral qualities. Weber’s account of individual charisma focuses on success, and this suggests the idea that the power of the charismatic leader arises from the ability to confound and surpass expectations - to be extraordinary. This allows us to reconsider ‘originary’ charisma, and assimilate it both to rational choice and to Steiner’s account of taboo. A leader who produces a change in our risk perceptions by proving our previous perceptions wrong by the success of the leader’s actions is providing a novel rational choice for us: a new option together with new estimates of the risk in a course of action. Weber explained the situation of primitive or magical morality in terms of magical charisma producing taboos that were then rationalized, leading to permanent norms - which relies on the notion of charisma without explaining it. But Steiner goes further, by suggesting that taboo represents the intellectual organization of danger through the act of interdiction. The power to interdict is not based on some other power, but rather the power to organize danger through interdiction is originary. Is there originary charisma today? Or is the commonplace use of the term ‘charisma’ a transformation of the concept into something else? In popular culture, the term refers to role-models who break new ground, and if we consider the ‘dangers’ that they appear to their audiences to overcome, the phenomenon is not so different. Charisma seems to collapse into personal style, but in a world in which the old interdicts have lost their power, style itself becomes a matter of experimental success in the face of social danger. (shrink)

In the context of reflections on modernity, an increasingly widespread belief seems to be emerging: the subject at which it is necessary to direct our attention, to which to throw a lifeline as it were, is the concrete and real human being, alone and at the same time besieged by increasingly tight and numerous systemic schemes. Are the “human subject” and his social context only undergoing a deep transformation, or are they actually in danger? This “new” knowledge involves all the (...) humanistic and social sciences, such as philosophy, anthropology, psychology, economics, political science, and theology, in a sort of fusion and pact for mankind. Great spiritualities include life experiences and ideas that reverberate on everyday life, lifestyles, and culture. From the very beginning, Chiara Lubich’s spirituality, is based on two fundamental concepts: unity and forsaken Jesus, has been perceived as a new way to know God, but also as an idea that is able to renew human life, as well as to penetrate social and cultural realities. (shrink)

“Supposing that truth is a women-what then?” This is the very first sentence in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil . Not very often are philosophers so disarmingly explicit in their intention to discomfort the reader. In fact, one might say that the natural state of Nietzsche’s reader is one of perplexity. Yet it is in the process of overcoming the perplexity that one realizes how rewarding to have one’s ideas challenged. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche critiques the (...) mediocre in modernity and challenges the reader to accept their state of becoming and accept improvisation and creativity of the process. Nietzsche’s book is carefully designed to disorient the reader, to systematically provoke and tease her to the point of stealing away her certainties. It is challenging yet rewarding to overcome the perplexities of Nietzsche’s teachings. (shrink)

Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most scathing and powerful critiques of philosophy, religion, science, politics and ethics ever written. In it, Nietzsche presents a set of problems, criticisms and philosophical challenges that continue both to inspire and to trouble contemporary thought. In addition, he offers his most subtle, detailed and sophisticated account of the virtues, ideas, and practices which will characterize philosophy and philosophers of the future. With his relentlessly energetic style and tirelessly probing manner, Nietzsche (...) embodies the type of thought he wants to foster, while defining its historical role and determining its agenda. This edition offers a new and readable translation, by Judith Norman, of one of the most influential texts in the history of philosophy, together with an introduction by Rolf-Peter Horstmann that sets it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

I present an account of an aspect of people’s intellectual characters that has yet to receive such direct treatment in the literature on the intellectual virtues. That aspect is our capacity to influence others in ways that make inquiry go more successfully, which I call “intellectual charisma”. In presenting this account, I first draw on work in empirical psychology to build a partial picture of intellectual charisma as a social-psychological phenomenon. I then draw on this partial picture in (...) defining intellectual charisma, explaining some important features of it, and making the case that it meets some important conditions for qualifying as an intellectual virtue. I conclude by first discussing some of the ways that including intellectual charisma within our overall picture of the intellectual virtues changes that picture, and then outlining some of the benefits that result from those changes. (shrink)

Weber's account of charisma solved certain specific problems in the philosophy of law by using a concept from the history of church law. The concept Weber generalized from, originally formulated by R. Sohm, relied on the notion of divine inspiration; Weber's uses required a substitute causal force. The standard substitutes are culturalist, in which the power of the charismatic leader or the state comes from meeting cultural expectations for leaders, or contractual, in which leaders give followers something they want. (...) Neither account squares with the fundamental use of the idea, to explain cultural innovation and internal change in followers. A new model of the character of charisma that fits these needs is proposed. In it, the leader is seen as a person who both offers a choice of a new vision of risks and opportunities and, through his or her own conduct, provides evidence of the realizability of this vision through submission. The example of Frank Lorenzo, a case of business charisma, is discussed in detail. (shrink)

Norbert Elias (2001) produced one of the most influential theories on the history of violence in human societies in terms of ‘the civilizing process’. With the transformation of feudalism, the rise of bourgeois society and the development of the modern state, interpersonal violence was increasingly regulated by social norms that emphasized self-restraint and personal discipline. His theory was a moral pedagogics of the body in which the ‘passions’ are self-regulated through detailed social regimes. While his theory is influential, it has (...) also been the subject of systematic criticism. I examine three obvious lacunae in Elias’ theory. First, his theory does not provide an adequate account of the role of religion in the civilizing process, particularly with respect to controlling human violence, and I examine Elias’ theory through a commentary on charisma and the sacred in human society, namely the role of sacred violence. Second, Elias had relatively little to say about the interaction between military technology and interpersonal norms. Modern technology has made it possible, both in peace and war, for the state and modern military institutions to gain control of forms of mass violence that were unimaginable in less civilized societies. We could accept Elias’ proposition about constraint in terms of interpersonal violence, but argue that modern technology has obviously enhanced the capacity of the means of violence in society. This ‘de-personalization’ of violence is consistent with aspects of Elias’ civilization theory. However, the theme of technology was completely understated. Third, apart from Elias’ interest in art and society as a consequence of his teaching appointment in Ghana (1962–4), his theory was primarily concerned to explain aspects of social change in European society. An exploration of the evolution of military violence and charisma among American Plains Indians, especially the Cheyenne, is intended as an elaboration of the debate around Elias’ ‘figurational sociology’. Through an examination of the training of warriors in nomadic Plains culture, their mode of warfare is defined as a form of spiritual violence, because warfare was bound up with religious norms of conduct and their military interaction was highly ritualized. These spiritual technologies are an important illustration of military technologies of self-creation. My account concludes with an examination of the nature of modern conflict between professional armies within an international human rights framework. The democratization of warfare results in the routinization of military charisma and the charismatic hero survives primarily in popular culture as a celebrity. (shrink)

Challenging recent arguments that the implicit poetics of Homeric epic presents a poetry without rhetoric and a view of bards as independent of the context of performance, this article explores the Phaiakian episode in the Odyssey in an effort to demonstrate that the interactions between Odysseus' tale, the songs of Demodokos, and Homer's treatment of his hero reveal the workings of a rhetorical poetics. The predominance of a rhetorical stance in the poem is closely related to skepticism, the chief cognitive (...) state of agents in the Odyssean world, and to the proto-Machiavellian treatment of aretē as a performative excellence combining practical intelligence, a situational approach to speech, and an appreciation for the relativism of value-traits that link rather than alienate the hero and the bard. (shrink)

The elite theory of Max Weber has recently been rediscovered by political scientists and political theorists who have sought to explore both the heuristic and the normative potential of plebiscitary leader democracy. Notwithstanding the merits of this wave of studies, this paper argues that attention should be shifted from Weber's context-specific defence of plebiscitary leadership in post-WWI Germany to his broader conception of charisma as an attempt to grasp the enigma of significant social and political change. Contemporary democratic theory, (...) this paper contends, can fruitfully draw on Weber to sink into the antinomies and ambiguities of a transformative democratic politics. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists both ask questions about what the world is like. How do these fields interact with one another? How should they? Naturalism Beyond the Limits of Science investigates an approach to these questions called methodological naturalism. According to methodological naturalism, when coming up with theories about what the world is like, philosophers should, whenever possible, make use of the same methodology that is deployed by scientists. Although many contemporary philosophers have implicit commitments that lead straightforwardly to methodological (...) naturalism, few have a clear understanding of how widespread and disruptive methodological naturalism promises to be for the field. By way of a series of case studies involving laws of nature, composition, time and modality, and drawing on historical and contemporary scientific developments including the discovery of the neutrino, the introduction of dark energy, and the advent of relativity theory, this book demonstrates the ways in which scientists rely on extra-empirical reasoning and how that very same extra-empirical reasoning can yield surprising results when applied to philosophical debates. Along the way, Nina Emery's investigation illuminates the complex relationship between philosophy and the sciences, and makes the case that philosophers and scientists alike would benefit from a greater understanding of the connections between the two fields. (shrink)