The article analyses experimental “solidarity games” with two benefactors and one beneficiary. Depending on their motive for giving—e.g., warm glow, altruism, or guilt—the benefactors’ response functions are either constant, decreasing, or increasing. If motives interact, or if envy is a concern, then more complex (unimodal) shapes may emerge. Controlling for random utility perturbations, we determine which and how many motives affect individual decision making. The main findings are that the motives of about 75% of the subjects can be identified fairly (...) sharply, that all of the motives discussed in the literature co-exist in the population, and that for any given individual no more than two motives (out of six motives considered overall) are identified. We conclude that a unifying motive for solidarity cannot be derived even when we allow for individually heterogeneous parameterization: different subjects give for different reasons and all existing social preference theories are partially correct. (shrink)

This article considers the question ‘What makes hope rational?’ We take Adrienne Martin’s recent incorporation analysis of hope as representative of a tradition that views the rationality of hope as a matter of instrumental reasons. Against this tradition, we argue that an important subset of hope, ‘fundamental hope’, is not governed by instrumental rationality. Rather, people have reason to endorse or reject such hope in virtue of the contribution of the relevant attitudes to the integrity of their practical identity, which (...) makes the relevant hope not instrumentally but intrinsically valuable. This argument also allows for a new analysis of the reasons people have to abandon hope and for a better understanding of non-fundamental, ‘prosaic’ hopes. (shrink)

Why have so many people responded to the insecurity, exploitation, alienation, and isolation of precarity capitalism by supporting the far right? In this timely book, Claudia Leeb argues that psychoanalytic and feminist critical theory illuminates how economic and psychological factors interact to produce this extreme political shift. Contesting the Far Right examines right-wing recruitment tactics in the United States and Austria, where people discontented with the status quo have turned to far-right parties and movements that further cement capitalism’s adverse (...) effects. Leeb contends that Freudian psychoanalytic theory and early Frankfurt School Critical Theory provide analytical tools to explain this apparent contradiction in psychological terms. Living under precarity capitalism generates feelings of failure and anxiety, which people experience as non-wholeness, because it has become difficult if not impossible to live up to the fetish of economic, interpersonal, and bodily success, and the far right preys on such feelings. Its psychologically oriented propaganda tactics produce the illusion of wholeness and a positive sense of self while leaving the socioeconomic conditions that cause people’s suffering intact. At the same time, they remove the inhibitions that keep people’s repressed aggression and racist and sexist attitudes in check. To demonstrate the workings of this process, Leeb compares cases including Trump and the alt-right in the United States and the Freedom Party and the identitarian movement in Austria. At once theoretically rich and politically engaged, this book also offers ways to resist the far right and counter the psychological appeal of its propaganda techniques. (shrink)

This book, inspired by the sociologist Günter Dux, co-edited by the historian Hans Ulrich Vogel, and introduced by Mark Elvin, is a collective intellectual ...

The use of psychoanalytic ideas to explore social and political questions is not new. Freud began this work himself and social research has consistently drawn on his ideas. This makes perfect sense. Social and political theory must find ways to conceptualise the relation between human subjects and our social environment; and the distinctive and intense observation of individual psychical structuring afforded within clinical psychoanalysis has given rise to rich theoretical and methodological resources for doing just this. However, psychoanalytic concepts do (...) not remain the same when they are rearticulated in the context of research. This book traces the reiteration and transformation of concepts in the psychoanalytic theory of Freud, Klein and Lacan, the social theory of Butler, Derrida, Foucault, Laclau and Zizek, and case studies of empirical research ranging from the classic Tavistock Institute studies to contemporary work in politics, gender studies, cultural studies and education. Each chapter explores one cluster of concepts: Melancholia, loss and subjectivity Overdetermination and free association Resistance, reflexivity and the compulsion to repeat Repression, disavowal and foreclosure Psychic defenses and social defenses Arguing against the reification of psychoanalytic concepts, Claudia Lapping suggests the need for a reflexive understanding of the play of attachments and substitutions as concepts are reframed in the contrasting activities of psychoanalysis and research. (shrink)

After considering Buber’s and Levinas’s critiques of Heidegger and of each other, I propose that we should acknowledge authenticity, “essential relations” of love and friendship, and holiness as aspects of a good life, though they pull in different directions. We should resist the temptation to take sides in a battle between different approaches to the complex nature of our social being.

The essays are grouped in three sections. In Part I Vogel considers the relationship between feminism and socialism.

Addressing studying as a distinct educational concept and phenomenon in its own right, the essays in this volume consider study and studying from a range of perspectives. Countering dominant educational discourses, which place a heavy emphasis on learning and instruction, the contributors explore questions such as: What does it mean to study something? How is studying something different from being taught about it, or learning something about it? What does the difficulty demanded by study mean for the one who studies (...) and for the teacher? What mode of existence does study induce? The book highlights the significance of study not only, or even primarily, for its educational outcome, but as a human activity. (shrink)

Scientists engaged in global health research are increasingly faced with barriers to access and use of human tissues from the developing world communities where much of their research is targeted. In part, the problem can be traced to distrust of researchers from affluent countries, given the history of 'scientific-imperialism' and 'biocolonialism' reflected in past well publicized cases of exploitation of research participants from low to middle income countries. To a considerable extent, the failure to adequately engage host communities, the opacity (...) of informed consent, and the lack of fair benefit-sharing have played a significant role in eroding trust. These ethical considerations are central to biomedical research in low to middle income countries and failure to attend to them can inadvertently contribute to exploitation and erode trust. A 'tissue trust' may be a plausible means for enabling access to human tissues for research in a manner that is responsive to the ethical challenges considered. Preventing exploitation and restoring trust while simultaneously promoting global health research calls for innovative approaches to human tissues research. A tissue trust can reduce the risk of exploitation and promote host capacity as a key benefit. (shrink)

Die Studie richtet sich gegen die verbreitete Auffassung, Senecas Tragödien und Lucans Bürgerkriegsepos demonstrieren die Enttäuschung ihrer Autoren darüber, dass die stoische Doktrin angesichts des Bösen im menschlichen Handeln oder unvermeidbarer Schicksalsschläge keine überzeugende Antwort bereithalte. Die Werke beider Dichter setzen gezielt und in paralleler Behandlung die stoischen Fragestellungen zum Spannungsfeld von menschlicher Entscheidungsfreiheit und Determinismus literarisch um.

Providing a unique interpretation of Kant's theory of judgement as integral to his overall project, Claudia Brodsky explores his continued relevance to contemporary theoretical concerns. The Linguistic Condition traces how Kant combined sensus communis, or common sense with the communicative nature of judgement to reveal that, for him, acts of judgement are dependent on their linguistic articulation, so that in Kantian philosophy language and judgement are inextricably linked. In this first in-depth analysis of language in the Critique of Judgement, (...) Brodsky forms creative connections between literature and philosophy. (shrink)

Welche Rolle spielt Augenzeugenschaft in Kunst und visueller Kultur von ca. 1800 bis heute? Die Beiträge des Bandes untersuchen diese Frage an einem breiten Spektrum von Gegenständen: künstlerischen und nicht-künstlerischen Bildern, Aktionen und Installationen sowie Kunstinstitutionen und -literatur. Im Zentrum des Interesses steht, wie Effekte von Augenzeugenschaft hervorgerufen und Konstruktionen von Augenzeugenschaft bei der Produktion und Rezeption von Artefakten wirksam werden. Die Reihe der Beispiele ermöglicht erstmals einen vergleichenden und interdisziplinär anschlussfähigen Blick auf einen Diskurs und eine Praxis der Authentifizierung, (...) die im 18. bis 21. Jahrhundert immer wieder von Belang gewesen sind. (shrink)