This chapter presents a constructivist reading of Dewey's work by establishing a line of development between Dewey's 1896 essay on the reflex arc and the social constructivism explicit in his later works. It demonstrates the relevance of classical Pragmatism to current issues in the philosophy of education, highlighting key theoretical and conceptual components of the cultural construction of meanings, truth claims, and identities. It also looks into Dewey's short essay “Knowledge and Speech Reaction” to identify the connection between (...) speech acts, the constitution of stimuli by responses, and the construction of knowledge objects by the operations of inquiry. (shrink)

Dewey's 1896 paper, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology," was acclaimed 50 years later as the most important paper published in The Psychological Review in its first half-century of history. Today, Dewey's paper appears to be headed toward oblivion. Considering it worthy of resurrection, we use it as a starting point for tracing out the gradual evolution of Dewey and Bentley's formulation of their transactional viewpoint to its culmination in their book, Knowing and the Known. An exposition of (...) the transactional paradigm is developed via competing, contemporary self-actional and interactional theoretical systems. Then, the space-time postulates of self-actional, interactional, and transactional approaches are spelled out as they enter into philosophical, biological and psychological inquiry. Among prevailing theories, most of which fall into the self-actional/interactional categories, Kantor's interbehavioral viewpoint stands apart from the rest. And while it shares a certain similarity with the transactional approach, the historical record should document it as an independent and parallel development, dating back to Kantor's first publications almost seven decades ago. Furthermore, Kantor's system goes far beyond Dewey and Bentley's "unfractured observation," by providing highly refined analytic procedures in his theoretical constructs. (shrink)

John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein offer devastating critiques of the dominant model of human action that each inherited in their own time. Dewey, very early in his philosophical career, ostensibly put the stimulus–response mechanical understanding of action to rest with his “reflex-arc” concept article. Wittgenstein famously redescribed action as moves within language games that interconnect to constitute an interpretively open-ended form of life. In each case, these fundamental insights serve as heuristics, guiding our intellectual activity with regard to (...) understanding our practices, and as reminders in approaching problems. Several scholars have interpreted Dewey and Wittgenstein as allies in a grand project of... (shrink)

This article deals with the concepts, processes, and antagonisms that are associated with the notion of postsecularity. In light of this article’s expanded interpretation of José Casanova on the secular and secularization, as well as thoughts on James A. Beckford’s take on public religions, five rubrics on the postsecular derived from critical theory and an understanding of ‘reflexive secularization’ are presented. This term focuses on secularization processes and how these practices unleash complementary as well as antagonistic tendencies, a confrontation of (...) normativities and specific social-empirical challenges. From this basis it is argued that social-empirical analysis should focus on non-naturalistic relations between individuals occupying structurally equivalent positions in narrative networks. A plurality of normativities are seriously considered as ideas circulating through social relations where the critical competence of the participants of such communication processes are provoked to subvert anything – including any normative positionality – as taken for granted. Moves towards the decolonization of the secular/postsecular dyad are emphasized, with ramifications for thinking about the urban, which point to the universal and authentic foundations of the human condition that are brought into play. (shrink)

This article addresses the need for adaptive ethical analysis within machine learning that accounts for emerging problems concerning social bias and generative adversarial networks. I use John Dewey’s criticisms of the reflex arc concept in psychology as a basis for understanding how these problems stem from human-gan interaction. By combining Dewey’s criticisms with Donna Haraway’s idea of cyborgs, Luciano Floridi’s concept of distributed morality, and Shaowen Bardzell’s recommendations for a feminist approach to human-computer interaction, I suggest (...) a dynamic perspective from which to begin analyzing and solving issues of injustice evident in this particular domain of machine learning. (shrink)

In the preface to this work, Thayer explains that his purpose is to present "the classic writings of pragmatism" defined as "the original and formative expressions of this philosophy articulated by its most eminent spokesmen." The selections are from Peirce, James, and Dewey as well as brief readings from Mead and C. I. Lewis. Each selection is accompanied by a brief introduction. In addition to these selectional introductions, there is also a two-part general introduction. The first part is a short (...) historical piece by Thayer situating pragmatism in the context of western thought. The second part is a 1931 article by Dewey outlining the development of pragmatism in Peirce and James. These informative introductions should be of value to the philosophical novice who finds himself in many anthologies afloat on the sea of primary sources without the aid of the historical context necessary to fix his position. The individual selections have been carefully chosen and well coordinated. Insofar as they cluster about the central theme of the epistemological nature of pragmatism, they avoid the pitfall of attempting to elucidate the entire philosophy of many thinkers in one volume. The Peirce section includes in addition to the usual articles, "The Fixation of Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear," selections from Peirce's later writings including the 1905 article, "What Pragmatism Is" in which he differentiates his pragmatism from that of James. The section on James incorporates important sections from The Principles of Psychology together with the famous essay "The Will to Believe" and two lectures on the pragmatic concept of meaning and truth from Pragmatism. The Dewey selection provides a judicious collection of his writings from the 1896 article on the "Reflex Arc Concept" advocating the integration of organism and action to the general analysis of intelligent action in his 1938 book, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. Also included is a chapter from The Quest for Certainty describing the application of pragmatic method to the realm of moral value. The contents of this volume are rounded out with a piece by Mead on social consciousness and the social self and an article by C. I. Lewis on the pragmatic conception of the a priori. Thayer has produced an excellent anthology of pragmatic philosophy well suited to any course in classical American philosophy emphasizing an epistemological approach.--W. J. L. (shrink)

Dewey on the reflex arc concept--an important theme in William James.

The article traces the origin and development of the concept of social skills in first and foremost American academic discourse. As soon as the concept of social skills was coined, the concern for people lacking such skills started and has been on the increase ever since. After the analysis of the academic history of the concept follows an examination of the implementation of a range of assessment instruments and training programmes related to social skills (...) in contemporary Danish welfare institutions. The analysis forwarded in the article thus demonstrates how an intellectual idea may develop and travel - and on its journey connect to pre-existing cultural logics and societal concerns. The idea of social skills has through its development been made uncontroversial – everybody wants to be skilful. The concept does, however, convey an individualistic view on social life and imposes a reflexivity over own performance on the participants. Further, its normative character contributes to a problematization of those who are perceived to lack these skills. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to explore Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of social science. To this end, the paper sheds light on the main epistemological presuppositions that undergird Bourdieu’s defence of reflexive sociology as a scientific endeavour. The predominant view in the literature is that, in most of his writings,Bourdieu has a tendency to embrace a positivist conception of social science. When examining Bourdieu’s conception of social science in more detail, however, it becomes clear that the (...) assumption that he remains trapped in a positivist paradigm does not do justice to the complexity of his multifaceted account of social science. In order to illustrate the complexity of Bourdieu’s conception of social science, the following analysis scrutinises ten epistemological tensions which can be found in Bourdieu’s writings on the nature of knowledge production. In view of these epistemological tensions, a more fine-grained picture emerges which demonstrates that Bourdieu invites,and indeed compels, us to reflect upon the complexity of the various tension-laden tasks posed by the pursuit of a critical social science. (shrink)

The critical realist and Bourdieusian conceptions of action fundamentally disagree on a number of fronts: the synthetic versus dualistic relationship between structure and agency; the social nature of the self/body; the link between morphogenesis and reflexivity. Despite these differences, this article argues that re-reading Bourdieu’s theories with attention to some of the core tenets of critical realism (emergence, the stratification of reality, and conjunctural causality) can provide insights into how the habitus is capable of reflexivity and social change. (...) In particular, this article reworks Bourdieu’s theory of habitus by suggesting that social selves are always situated at the intersection of multiple and competing social locations (or field positions) and that the habitus itself is always layered. Reflexivity arises from horizontal disjunctures (between field positions) and vertical disjunctures (across temporal sedimentation). (shrink)

In 1987, George Soros introduced his concepts of reflexivity and fallibility and has further developed and applied these concepts over subsequent decades. This paper attempts to build on Soros's framework, provide his concepts with a more precise definition, and put them in the context of recent thinking on complex adaptive systems. The paper proposes that systems can be classified along a ‘spectrum of complexity’ and that under specific conditions not only social systems but also natural and artificial systems can (...) be considered ‘complex reflexive.’ The epistemological challenges associated with scientifically understanding a phenomenon stem not from whether its domain is social, natural, or artificial, but where it falls along this spectrum. Reflexive systems present particular challenges; however, evolutionary model-dependent realism provides a bridge between Soros and Popper and a potential path forward for economics. (shrink)

This article offers an approach that combines, on the one hand, the philosophical notion of reflexivity, which is related to the ideas of self-reference and paradox, and, on the other hand, the sociological discussion of epistemic reflexivity as a problem of coherence, which was mainly initiated by certain branches of ethnomethodology and social constructionism. This combinatory approach argues for reflexivity as an epistemic criterion of ontological coherence, which suggests that social ontologies should account for the possibility of self-reflective (...) subjectivity – for otherwise they result in a paradoxical conclusion according to which a social scientist reflects on her or his ontological commitments even though these commitments deny her or him the capacity for self-reflection. This analysis presupposes that all human sciences are categorically premised on social ontologies; and it argues for an analytical distinction between self-reflection, which refers to the agential capacity for reflecting on one’s own commitments, and the epistemic criterion of reflexivity hereby proposed. These two analytically distinct though interdependent socio-theoretical concepts are frequently conflated in the literature; thus, this article also aims at a ‘clearing of the ground’ that can be of categorical use to the human sciences. (shrink)

This article relates to the CJEU’s understanding of the concept of the spouse in Case C-673/16 and its effect on the process of law application by Polish administrative courts. The authors considerations are based on the assumption that the CJEU’s interpretation of EU law in Coman and Others is of a dynamic-deliberative nature, based on functional rules, and that at the same it time takes into account a specific legal and socio-cultural context in which one of the fundamental freedoms (...) guaranteed by EU law is implemented. This judgment, as authors underline, confirms that a proper understanding of the current legal context of the concept of a spouse requires that the social and cultural context and the plurality of values arising from different lifestyles be taken into account in the application and interpretation of the law, all with a view to empowering the individual in his or her relationship with the State and raising the level of protection of human rights. Authors observe in the practice od Polish administrative courts that this CJEU’s judgment is important in the argumentative layer, but not decisive for the resolution of the case in specific situations where there is a need to address the effect of same-sex marriage in a case related to the implementation of the EU right to free movement. In this context authors consider whether the justification for rulings of administrative courts may be sought in John Gray’s concept of modus vivendi liberalism. (shrink)

In response to Strydom, Nicoll and Gregg's queries, I draw out some further implications of my analysis of theory classrooms. I aim to clarify the theoretical basis of my concepts of social order and fetishism. I end by considering the pedagogical implications of my analysis. It seems to me that the contradiction between critical values and the classroom's forms of authority remain irresolvable.

The observation that concepts used by social scientists are often problematic is not new; they have been described as Ballung concepts, cluster concepts, essentially contested, and reflexive; however, the need to work with these concepts remains. This article addresses the problem of variable choice in the social sciences by exploring and extending Woodward’s recommendations. This article demonstrates why Woodward’s criteria are difficult to apply in the social sciences and proposes an alternative, but complementary, framework for assessing variables.

This essay aims at providing a brief analysis of John Dewey’s 1896 essay The reflex arc concept in psychology by identifying in it “proto-aesthetic” elements that will be thematized in an explicitly aesthetic sense only, almost forty years later, in Art as experience. This latter can be indeed considered both as a hapax and an apex of a path in which Dewey progressively focuses on matters that can be deemed properly aesthetic and of which The reflex arc (...) concept in psychology can be seen as one of the first steps. Our analysis will attempt at showing this connection by spanning the reflex arc idea, amended by Dewey in this essay, and that of “an” experience as a proper aesthetic experience through the fundamental concept of coordination. (shrink)

The tertiary industry development has increased researches on service relationship and professional skills needed in relational professions. Universities and education fields have also adapted their programs to ensure students acquire these new skills. However, knowledge on the topic is still incomplete. At the same time, professions are required to rationalize their outputs. To meet this requirement, the use of reflexive approaches has become common. Despite the increase of these approaches, few data are available on how they are conceived and used. (...) In order to identify the current perspectives, this article presents the results of a scientific literature analysis on reflexivity in four relational professions : social work, education, nursing and psychology. After presenting these perspectives, the results will be then discussed. (shrink)

The theory of “reflexive modernisation” requires not only the development of a novel view of society, but also the description of an entire new, already existing social state. In the light of this as well as in this society, the status and meaning of freedom and justice are different from those in modern political theories and modern societies. In what way and due to which theoretical and political reasons are the concept of ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’ eliminated in the (...) theory of “reflexive modernisation”, two indispensable concepts for political theory, and what is it that takes their place – are the most important questions the authoress attempts to answer. (shrink)

Reflexivity is a well-established theoretical and methodological concept in the human sciences, and yet it is used in a confusing variety of ways. The meaning of `reflexivity' and the virtues ascribed to the concept are relative to particular theoretical and methodological commitments. This article examines several versions of the concept, and critically focuses on treatments of reflexivity as a mark of distinction or source of methodological advantage. Although reflexivity often is associated with radical epistemologies, social scientists (...) with more conventional leanings often speak of reflexivity as a methodological tool, substantive property of social systems, or source of individual enlightenment. Radical and conventional social scientists alike tend to stress the importance of being reflexive, as opposed to being unreflexive, but they do not share a coherent conception of what `being reflexive' means or entails. As an alternative to reflexive self-privileging, I recommend an ethnomethodological conception of reflexivity as an ordinary, unremarkable and unavoidable feature of action. The ethnomethodological conception does not support a particular theoretical or methodological standpoint by contrasting it to an `unreflexive' counterpart. It has little value as a critical weapon or source of epistemological advantage, which, in the present context, can have advantages of its own for promoting peace and epistemic democracy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Social, the Outer and the ReflexiveSome More Dimensions of Subjectivity, Schizophrenia, and Its RecoveryThe author reports no conflicts of interest.First of all, I want to express my gratitude to the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry, Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, and the Karl Jaspers Award Committee for their recognition of my paper "Institution or individuality? Some reflections on the lessons to be learned from personal (...) accounts of recovery from schizophrenia" (Wannberg, 2024). I am also very thankful for Dr. Paul B. Lieberman's (2024) and Pr. Elizabeth Pienkos' (2024) stimulating comments on the paper.In the original paper, I used the case of the first person accounts of recovery from schizophrenia as a paradigm to elucidate the components of subjectivity more generally, as well as their logical relations. My main point was that considering the "recovery claim" as potentially endowed with a meaning sufficiently close to the official definition of the "personal" sense of recovery at stake—that is, in brief, having "become oneself" despite recurring or residual symptoms—invites us to question current phenomenological, narrative and constructionist approaches of the self in psychopathology. By contrast to these, I stressed the need of a conception of the self more sensible to its social and interpersonal dimensions, which I attempted to sketch out notably by resorting to Wittgenstein's (1953/1997) idea of "grammar." I am very happy that both Lieberman and Pienkos see the appeal to the social as a welcome move with regard to prevailing approaches to schizophrenia and its recovery. But what does it really mean for the subjective or the individual to be socially and interpersonally constituted, and how are we to account for that? [End Page 75]At a first glance, appealing to the social seems to be in line with current trends in psychopathology, including, as Pienkos points out, in the phenomenological tradition. She elsewhere announces a "shift in emphasis" currently taking place within phenomenological psychopathology, characterized by an increasing interest in the situated and dated aspects of subjectivity (Pienkos et al., 2023). This is a valuable turn. However, I am quite dubious that the well-known distinction between an "experiential" and a "narrative" self to which Pienkos appeals is apt to do all the conceptual work required to attain a satisfactory conception of the self and its social dimensions. In my original paper, I took the "recovery account" to challenge both these notions. As concerns the experiential dimension, I held that this type of account questions the phenomenologist's assumption that subjectivity is ultimately grounded in lived (self-)experience. Provided that typical symptoms of schizophrenia (e.g., thought insertion) are expressions of a disorder situated at this most "fundamental" level of the self and provided that they are stemming, at least according to one of the most widespread phenomenological models, from a trait-like disposition present before the onset of psychosis (e.g., Henriksen et al., 2019), it is quite natural to think that these symptoms persist in some form in the context of recovery (e.g., as intrusive thoughts or as "thoughts spoken out loud"). This is indeed the case for several of the authors "in recovery" in the Schizophrenia Bulletin's archives (e.g., Greenblat, 2000), which provided the main source of my analysis. But if this is so, we cannot see their recovery claim as an expression of a "whole" self, so to speak. So we must either say that "personal" recovery from schizophrenia is an illusion or a contradiction, or else we must revise the foundational status of the experiential dimension (other possible options are left aside for the purposes of this brief comment). I argue for the revisionist option. For the equation between the subjective and the experiential does not only lead to an unwelcomed skepticism about the recovery account. There are also more straightforward philosophical reasons for refusing it. Wittgenstein (1980) made a first important step by inviting us to better take into account the variability of the psychological concepts. He notably made a crucial categorical distinction between "lived experiences" (like sensations and mental images) and "attitudes" (like beliefs and intentions) such that all concepts which, when used in the first person... (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that trust is an important aspect of social reality, one that realist social theory has paid little attention to but which clearly resonates with a realist social ontology. Furthermore, the emergence of an interest in trust in specific subject fields such as organization theory indicates the growing significance of issues of trust as market liberalism has developed. As such, the emergence of an interest in trust provides support for Archer's characterisation of late (...) modernity in The Reflexive Imperative as a period of heterogeneity and greater incongruity. Commenting on this provides an opportunity to discuss the issue of habit in relation to trust and also the importance of the analysis of integration as a means to explain problems of trust. The commentary draws on examples from finance. (shrink)

Un des effets de la radicalisation de la modernité tient à la montée de l’incertitude qui déstabilise les institutions les plus solides de notre culture, dont notamment la science, et à la généralisation de la sémantique du risque qui affecte les processus de prise de décision. Parmi les centres de recherche en sciences sociales spécialisés sur les risques en Europe, deux grands établissements ont retenu plus particulièrement notre attention en raison de leur polarité. Nous établirons des comparaisons entre deux projets (...) menés par Wolfgang Van den Daele, Wissenschaftszentrum , Berlin, et Robin Grove-White et Brian Wynne, Centre for the Study of Environmental Change , Lancaster. L’expérience menée par le WZB autour de l’évaluation des risques associés à la diffusion des organismes génétiquement modifiés dans l’agriculture et l’alimentation a conduit l’équipe à défendre une procédure strictement technique favorable à la normalisation des biotechnologies. Pour les chercheurs du CSEC, au contraire, l’élargissement des évaluations des innovations technologiques à des considérations éthiques, économiques, politiques et sociales s’impose. Le différend atteste de l’immersion des sciences et de leurs controverses dans des visions du monde et des Weltanschauungen : il compromet l’éventualité d’une entente entre les protagonistes du conflit.One of the consequences of advanced modernity is the intensification of uncertainty, which destabilizes the main institutions of our world. The production of knowledge and the legitimacy of decisions are mainly affected by this transformation, as the semantics of risk shows. We spent several stays at different research institutions in France, Germany and the United Kingdom to study the variations in the social sciences framing of risk issues. We will focus our attention on two teams of researchers, because of the exemplariness of their positions structuring the field. We follow a comparison between two projects led by Wolfgang Van den Daele at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin , and Robin Grove-White and Brian Wynne at the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change in Lancaster . Their conclusions based on an experiment to evaluate the risks associated with the introduction of GMOs in agriculture and food, differ radically. The WZB argues for a strict delimitation and restriction of risk assessment, while the CSEC argues for the integration of ethical and sociopolitical considerations in the discussions about the diffusion of technical innovations in society. The strength of both arguments illustrates the articulation of science and its controversies with Weltanschauungen and sociophilosophical background, which contribute to the stabilization of each position and thus reduces the chances for a resolution of controversy. (shrink)

Is there a corporate social work? Do business corporations as a part of their ‘social responsibility’ aim to socially empower the community by enhancing their basic ‘capability’ registers? While the newly acquired critical conscience has made social work ethics self-reflexive and thus interrogative about a lot of concept-metaphors taken for granted in traditional social work discourse, the language of ‘empowerment’ seems to have still bullied this apocalyptic, experimental eye. All the negative effects of power are (...) lost in the blood of positive nonchalance that seems to promise the granting of power to the people people’s empowerment)—as if. Corporate social responsibility leading to social empowerment which we term as—Corporate Social Work —thus is affirmed in more ways than one. This article—instead of an external disavowal—offers through a theoretical and an empirical problematic—an internal unpacking of the concept metaphor ‘empowerment’—where ‘empowerment’, ‘doing empowerment’ and ‘being empowered’ are demonstrated to be completely separate registers awaiting an ethical reckoning. Having completed this separation—however, the article proposes a discourse ethical monitoring of the capability approach where empowerment participates only as a fractured phrase in dispute. (shrink)

In her book, The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt states: “we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anybody else”. In this statement, we are the same and yet nobody is ever the same as anybody else. This may sound contradictory yet what it means is that there is a common base which makes us all the same, and precisely because of this base, we are able to make comparisons and (...) hence differentiate one from the other because we are all different. When analyzing two concepts, an equal status in at least one normatively relevant respect is needed. Where there is one, there is the other precisely because of the other and vice versa. The fact that it is only at least one respect that is needed implies the existence of other aspects that act as common distinguishing factors. Therefore, distinction implies equality. The paper will explore how according to Arendt, equality, a political concept, has been perverted into a social concept. In her view, previously, differing circumstances and conditions served as “protection” and actually had a protective role. An explanation will thus be given as to how a lack of these differences in the modern period has resulted in a challenge and how this challenge has created unexpected problems for the human condition. This implies reflexivity between political theory and the human agent, and will be presented from Arendt’s perspective. (shrink)

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)

George Soros makes an important analytical contribution to understanding the concept of reflexivity in social science by explaining reflexivity in terms of how his cognitive and manipulative causal functions are connected to one another by a pair of feedback loops (Soros, 2013). Fallibility, reflexivity and the human uncertainty principle. Here I put aside the issue of how the natural sciences and social sciences are related, an issue he discusses, and focus on how his thinking applies in economics. (...) I argue that standard economics assumes a ‘classical’ view of the world in which knowledge and action are independent, but that we live in a complex reflexive world in which knowledge and action are interdependent. I argue that Soros's view provides a reflexivity critique of the efficient market hypothesis seen as depending on untenable claims about the nature of random phenomena and the nature of economic agents. Regarding the former, I develop this critique in terms of Cauchy distributions; regarding the latter I develop it in terms of rational expectations and rational addiction reasoning. (shrink)

How can one distinguish the concept of second modernity from the concept of postmodernity? Postmodernists are interested in deconstruction without reconstruction, second modernity is about deconstruction and reconstruction. Social sciences need to construct new concepts to understand the world dynamics at the beginning of the 21st century. Modernity has not vanished, we are not post it. Radical social change has always been part of modernity. What is new is that modernity has begun to modernize its own (...) foundations. This is what it means to say modernity has become reflexive. It has become directed at itself. This causes huge new problems both in reality and in theory. There has been a pluralization of the boundaries within and between societies, between society and nature, between Us and Other, between life and death. This pluralization also changes the inherent nature of boundaries. They become not so much boundaries as a variety of attempts to draw of boundaries. Border conflicts become transformed into conflicts over the drawing of boundaries. Where postmodernism simply celebrates this multiplication of boundaries, the theory of second modernity starts with the problem this new reality poses for individual and collective decisions, and with the problem that the continued existence of such decisions poses for theory. Institutions that are capable of such conscious boundary drawing are enabled in a way that those of the first modernity were not. But this process also generates qualitatively new kinds of trouble and crises. To investigate those troubles is to unveil the emergence of the second modernity. (shrink)

This article develops the thesis that normative social orders are always fore-structured by horizons of possibilities. The thesis is spelled out against the background of a criticism of ethnomethodology for its hermeneutic deficiency in coping with radical reflexivity. The article contributes to the debates concerning the status of normativity problematic in the cultural disciplines. The concept of hermeneutic pre-normativity is introduced to connote the interpretative fore-structuring of normative inter-subjectivity. Radical reflexivity is reformulated in terms of hermeneutic phenomenology.

Many scholars continue to accord routine action a central role in social theory and defend the continuing relevance of Bourdieu's habitus. Simultaneously, most recognize the importance of reflexivity. In this article, I consider three versions of the effort to render these concepts compatible, which I term "empirical combination," "hybridization," and "ontological and theoretical reconciliation." None of the efforts is ultimately successful in analytical terms. Moreover, I argue on empirical grounds that the relevance of habitus began to decrease toward the (...) end of the 20th century, given major changes in the structures of the advanced capitalist democracies. In these circumstances, habitual forms prove incapable of providing guidelines for people's lives and, thus, make reflexivity imperative. I conclude by arguing that even the reproduction of natal background is a reflexive activity today and that the mode most favorable to producing it—what I call "communicative reflexivity"—is becoming harder to sustain. (shrink)

In his most recent voluminous work Das Recht der Freiheit (2011) Axel Honneth brings his version of the recognition paradigm to full fruition. Criticizing Kantian theories of justice, he develops a Hegelian alternative which has at its core a different conception of freedom. In this paper, I will scrutinize Honneths latest work to see whether he offers a promising alternative to mainstream liberal theories of justice. I will focus on two key differences with Kantian theories of justice. Substantively, Honneth criticizes (...) the Kantian concept of ‘reflexive freedom’ and proposes instead as the core of his own theory the concept of ‘social freedom’. Methodologically, he proposes a method of ‘normative reconstruction’, and explicitly develops this in contrast to Kantian constructivism. I investigate the robustness of these shifts by seeing how they are actually used in Honneth’s reconstruction of the market sphere. I conclude that his method of normative reconstruction does not provide the kind of guidance Honneth thinks it does. His conception of social freedom fares slightly better but can either be reduced to the mainstream’s idea of reflexive freedom, or else faces some serious challenges. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 56–58 Nechvatal, Joseph, Immersion Into Noise , Open Humanities Press, 2011, 267 pp, $23.99 (pbk), ISBN 1-60785-241-1. As someone who’s knowledge of “art” mostly began with the domestic (Western) and Japanese punk and noise scenes of the late 80’s and early 90’s, practices and theories of noise fall rather close to my heart. It is peeking into the esoteric enclaves of weird music and noise that helped me understand what I think I might like art to be: (...) A way of learning about the world through perturbation—exploration by incitement and speculation of possible conditions. What I have always loved about artistic investigations influenced by noisy aesthetics or sensibilities is that they can be simultaneously transcendent and absurd, amusing and revelatory, singular and pluralistic, mindless and intensely penetrating. The provocative friction that noise brings to bear on aesthetic experience, artistic practice, and “the” Art World acts as a kind of impulse response, proposing new energies while revealing underlying structure; noise signals are a simultaneous synthesis and analysis of spaces, subjects and relations. About two weeks prior to Christmas 2011, Joseph Nechvatal was generous enough to spend some time with me at 39 Quai des Grands Augustins, Paris . We each had one glass of red wine, briefly discussed common acquaintances, shared points of interest, and his published writings. We also, I recall, disagreed lightheartedly about how much contemporary relevance the ideas of telematic-artist Roy Ascott have for today’s art-and-technology practitioner (Joseph > Jamie). After the encounter, I read through a PDF version of Immersion Into Noise Joseph was kind enough to send me ( the HTML version is here ). A number of points of entry into cultures of “noise” are available these days. There are the acoustic-spatial approaches of thinkers like Douglas Kahn, Brandon LaBelle and Salome Voegelin; the techno-cultural musicologies of Jonathan Sterne and David Toop; the political writings of Jacques Attali, former adviser to President François Mitterrand, in his Noise: The Political Economy of Music (spoiler alert: It’s not really about music). Enter the new writings of one Joseph Nechvatal, with his invitation of an Immersion Into Noise . Nechvatal has been active for over 20 years in on- and off-line discussions of art, technology, virtuality, as well as his own set of art-theoretical departures and terminologies. A practicing artist, and instructor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Immersion Into Noise , is Nechvatal’s third published volume. His writings, broadly, address a concern with the possibilities of a synthesis between the biological and the virtual, and the contemporary artistic resonances that these possibilities suggest. Nechvatal’s project is to try to name contemporary currents of artistic practice within our technologized culture. He comes at this through art history, post-modern philosophy, anthropology and consciousness studies. Portions of Immersion Into Noise have appeared in his PhD dissertation, as well as online art publications like Zing Magazine . An open-access publication, and part of the impressive and heartening activities of the Open Humanities Press, Nechvatal’s book is a somewhat unexpected addition to the Critical Climate Change series edited by Tom Cohen of SUNY University and Claire Colebrook of Penn State. Other titles in the series have address themes of post-globalism and cultures of threat. Joseph Nachvetal’s title is the first to focus entirely on art history, art practice and aesthetics. It is awkward to too easily fit Nechvatal’s writings in with the aforementioned burgeoning canon of cultural and artistic practice in, and writings on, noise (Russolo, Schaeffer, Cage and Yves Klein through to Kahn, LaBelle, Voegelin, et. al). Immersion Into Noise is not primarily an examination of sound-noise or phenomenologies of sound, and the relativist, non-objectivist possibilities arising therefrom in social, public, and exhibition art practices. Although Nechvatal makes mention of sonic practice and experience (his own encounter in 1968 with the technological complex was set in motion at a Jimi Hendrix concert at the Chicago Coliseum), he does so only by way of introducing a broader concept of “art-noise.” The noise-scape can envelope various kinds of involvement in all kinds of art, by artists, audiences, and distributed amalgams of all of these. Midway through the book, we are offered characteristics of an “immersive noise vision theory.” This theory, leading to an even more syncretic thinking about the art experience, is sketched out through further reference to the author’s personal observation, as well as his art-historical research and notes. Personal examples take on the reflex of a kind of art-noise-travel-writing, as Nechvatal visits Ryoji Ikeda’s Datamatics [ver 2.0] installation at the Centre Pompidou, Paris), hears Cecil Taylor at Alice Tully Hall in New York, spends time with the cave paintings of Lascaux, France, and explores the Wagner-inspired Venus Grotto of Linderhof, Bavaria, to name a few. These site-events, to varying degrees, are renderings of noise-art’s potential to “place us back into a ritual position by dragging art down into the felt 360° noise-perspective of the enthusiastic and participatory.” (p.103) The arc of the ideas proposed here position immersiveness, saturation and “scopic all-over tension” as most productively foundational to noise art, or art-noise. An itinerary from the most ancient of artistic expressions (cave drawings) to the most digital of presentations is charted (Ikeda’s minimal/maximal bitwise works for synchronized audio and visual projection). The harsh sonic onslaught of Masami Akita (a.k.a. Merzbow), is, under this analysis, not so far from colossal denseness of the churches of the High Baroque (Nechvatal visits the Rosario Chapel in Santo Domingo Church, Puebla, Mexico). And there is much more here, eaten up by noise: A rethinking of the work of Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, Nicolas Schöffler (whom Nechvatal names the true “the Father of Cybernetic Art”) and the Happenings of Alan Kaprow, all as art-noise in their own right. Each of these artists and moments demonstrate techniques of destabilization, immersiveness, frame-breaking and “all-over fullness and fervor.” Here is writing on art and art history that is as ambitious as it is promising: “wildly visionary,” Nechvatal states as in conclusion. Self-admittedly far-reaching to the point of verging on totalization, we are asked to consider that the moments, spaces, arts and artists Nechvatal appreciates in the book all derive from an increasingly prevalent “noise consciousness.” Along the way we gain an appreciation of noise as a productive and proactive tension in art, rather than an unwanted signal or unwelcome intrusion. Most promising here for me are Nechvatal’s revealing descriptions of the potential for noise to make manifest the material-perceptual framework of individual and collective art experience. How might we allow what we have been repeatedly taught is our contemporary condition of “information overload” to transform itself into a calm, warm, sympathetic kind of inundation. Treatment of experience in this way, dissolves boundaries between the bodily, informational, material and technical complexes that make up our world, and is the promise of a radical, if momentary, Immersion Into Noise. (shrink)

Reflexive pluralism is here put forward as the conception that is most reasonable for supporters of political liberalism to hold at a period when the reasons justifying acceptance of political and religious pluralism seem inadequate.

Reflexive pluralism is here put forward as the conception that is most reasonable for supporters of political liberalism to hold at a period when the reasons justifying acceptance of political and religious pluralism seem inadequate.

According to many theorists, discrimination either requires a better treated comparator or can occur only if the discriminator belongs to a socially salient group different from that of the discriminatee. Both claims are philosophically important since they have important implications for which account of the moral wrongness of discrimination is correct, e.g., if no comparator is required, the wrongness of discrimination cannot result from treating different people as unequals since the unequal treatment of persons is not an essential feature of (...) discrimination. Most theorists who have written on the topic see their account as articulating the folk concept of discrimination. However, none have subjected their putative articulations thereof to experimental testing. This is what the present study does. Its results are mixed, interesting, and call for further studies. Regarding comparativity, surprisingly, respondents are more disposed to classify a situation as discriminatory when there is no comparator than when there is one. Regarding reflexivity, respondents are more likely to classify our vignettes as involving discrimination when the discriminator is from another socially salient group than the discriminatee as to ethnicity but not when it comes to gender. Hence, non-reflexivity does not appear to be a conceptual requirement on discrimination. Remarkably, our study also shows that the mere reference to a majority, outgroup person in our vignettes makes respondents more likely to classify the vignette as involving discrimination against a minority person, even when the majority group person does not play the role of a comparator. (shrink)

The rise of networked social movements contesting neo-liberal globalization and protesting the summits of global finance and governance organizations has posed an analytical challenge to social movement theorists and called into question the applicability to this global milieu of the familiar concepts and heuristics utilized in social movement studies. In this article, we argue that the self-defining alter-globalization movement(s) might instead be engaged with as an expression and effect of global complexity, and we draw upon a ‘minor’ (...) literature in social movement studies that includes Gregory Bateson, Gilles Deleuze and Alberto Melucci to illustrate our claims. This article uses a Deleuzian reading of complexity to describe the phase space of the ‘movement of movements’, and its perturbation of global civil society through the iteration of sense-making processes (reflexive framing) and the exploration of singularities inhering in social movement ‘plateaux’. Those transnational gatherings, protests and social forums facilitated by computer-mediated communications and the advent of unprecedented mobility which constitute a ‘shadow realm’ that remains largely invisible to political exchange theories operating within the conceptual confines of the nation-state. (shrink)

Honor is a difficult field of inquiry that deserves systematic attention from social scientists. Honor is an internalized concern for recognition and approval that links reputation with conduct and helps sustain existing patterns of social selection and evaluation. The paper argues that scholars are remiss that consider the field of honor obsolete or a residual category left over from the transition to modern forms of social organization. A modern conception of honor is identified in the relationship of (...) a reflexive self and a larger moral and institutional order. A further effort is made to elaborate a reflexive approach to honor informed by the intersection of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social reproduction and Erving Goffman's theory of self presentation. Honor is theorized as a multi-dimensional field that legitimates prevailing standards of evaluation and social selection contested in staged and consecrated interactions that are central to social reproduction. (shrink)

Proceeding from the debate opened by Beck, Giddens and Lash’s Reflexive Modernization, this paper seeks to clear the way for a more consistent and coherent concept of reflexivity in relation to the cultural-symbolic foundations of society. Seeing that Lash in his contribution to the debate inadvertently raises a key problem, i.e., the broad cognitive problem, the paper develops a critique of his hermeneutic culturalism. It focuses on the disparity between the position explicitly put forward in the debate with Beck (...) and Giddens and the cognitive one which more or less implicitly comes into play throughout his relevant essays. The disparity shows up already in his treatment of the problem of mediation, but it comes graphically to a head in his appropriation of Bourdieu. To lend the analysis some profile and depth, the argument is supported by elements of a socio-cognitive theory which has been gaining visibility in both social theory and the philosophy of social science. While the paper is critical of Lash, its overall aim is to strengthen his contribution to the debate. (shrink)

Current human/social science research supports Don Ihde’s postphenomenology. In particular, archeology and anthropology support Ihde’s instrumental realism, and history identifies the culture that nourished Platonic and Aristotelian separation of mentality and materiality. Deweyean pragmatism, beginning with his analysis of the reflex arc, supports both instrumental realism and an interrelational ontology that rejects the residual Cartesian dualism in Husserlian phenomenology. Ihde’s acknowledgment of the affinity between postphenomenology and Deweyean pragmatism enables expanding his prevalent epistemological and structural orientation to encompass (...) a normative dimension. Peter-Paul Verbeek’s focus on the ethical dimension of how products are designed and how things interact with humans is an important expansion of pragmatic postphenomenology as well as an expansion of current research on the “4e’s” of cognition—embedded, embodied, enacted, and extended—to include a fifth: ethical. (shrink)

Current human/social science research supports Don Ihde’s postphenomenology. In particular, archeology and anthropology support Ihde’s instrumental realism, and history identifies the culture that nourished Platonic and Aristotelian separation of mentality and materiality. Deweyean pragmatism, beginning with his analysis of the reflex arc, supports both instrumental realism and an interrelational ontology that rejects the residual Cartesian dualism in Husserlian phenomenology. Ihde’s acknowledgment of the affinity between postphenomenology and Deweyean pragmatism enables expanding his prevalent epistemological and structural orientation to encompass (...) a normative dimension. Peter-Paul Verbeek’s focus on the ethical dimension of how products are designed and how things interact with humans is an important expansion of pragmatic postphenomenology as well as an expansion of current research on the “4e’s” of cognition—embedded, embodied, enacted, and extended—to include a fifth: ethical. (shrink)

This article theorizes a research process in a highly politicized environment in which we, as feminist researchers, found ourselves standing outside the feminist standpoint which dominated Irish public discourse, viz advocacy of a Swedish-style, neo-abolitionist, prostitution policy. We suggest that our increasing personal and intellectual discomfort as that policy position gained support contained valuable epistemic insight. We theorize this principally by drawing on Pillow’s concept of ‘reflexivities of discomfort’. This article offers an account of the messy dynamics of a (...) research process in which we, in time, recognized our own psychosocial worlds as sites of social critique. We contribute to debates about reflexivity by exploring the insights which this approach brought when applied to the dynamics of power politics between us as researchers and the wider policy field within which we were immersed. (shrink)

Social robotics are autonomous robots or Artificial Moral Agents (AMA), that will interact respect and embody human ethical values. However, the conceptual and practical problems of building such systems have not yet been resolved, playing a role of significant challenge for computational modeling. It seems that the lack of success in constructing robots, ceteris paribus, is due to the conceptual and algorithmic limitations of the current design of ethical robots. This paper proposes a new approach for developing ethical capacities (...) in robotic systems, one based on the concept of Aristotelian phronesis. Phronesis in principle reflexes closer human ethics than the ethical paradigms we employ today in ethical robotics. This paper describes the essential features of phronesis and proposes a high-level architecture for implementing phronetic principles in autonomous robots. Phronetic robotics is in its early stages of conceptualization, so many of the presented ideas are speculative and require further research.2. (shrink)

Most work on reflexivity has focused on individuals exercising their reflexivity through discourse. However, agents have three major aspects (intentionality, causal efficacy and embodiment) and they are fundamentally social. This article examines the possibility of collective reflexivity conducted not just by saying, but also by doing—that is, through their embodiment. By expanding the concept of ‘performatives’ to encompass not just speech acts but also acts that speak (i.e. embodied activities as socially meaningful) and applying the work of Charles (...) S. Peirce in order to develop an ontology of embodied reflexivity, it becomes possible to determine several criteria defining embodied collective reflexivity. Assessing possibilities such as legislative debate, political demonstrations, religious ritual and dramatic performance reveals that a certain set of practices does in fact meet those criteria and discloses additional aspects of what constitutes embodied collective reflexivity. (shrink)

The forceful impact of Michel Foucault’s work in the humanities and social sciences is apparent from the sheer abundance of its uses, appropriations, and refigurations. This article calls for greater self-conscious reflexivity about the relationship between our uses of Foucault and the opportunities afforded by his work. We argue for a clearer distinction between analytics and concepts in Foucault-inspired work. In so doing we draw on key moments of methodological self-reflection in Foucault’s Collège de France lectures and elsewhere. This (...) distinction helps identify different ways that Foucault might be put to productive use today as well as what can go wrong therein, a concern we develop with reference to Giorgio Agamben’s post-Foucaultian contributions to political theory. We are eager to open up a possibility that has been infrequently explored despite Foucault’s contemporary influence—-the idea that critique in and through Foucault is empirical critique. This idea can help facilitate a gain in reflexivity in the broader landscapes of contemporary theory, inquiry, and critique. (shrink)

To understand the distinctive characteristics of the institutions of law, one needs to understand the idea of law. Understanding the nature of law is not ultimately a matter of achieving a careful description of social practices but a matter of grasping the idea towards which those practices must be understood as oriented. The idea of law is the focal point that enables us to make coherent sense of the otherwise diverse features of practice, but it is not itself a (...) matter of observable practice. It resembles a notional point in space that enables us to grasp the relationship between various parts of a complex drawing, although in itself it forms no part of the drawing. But how is such an idea to be investigated? We expect a clear understanding of the idea of law to explain our settled understandings about what will and will not count as an instance of legal ordering. We expect it, in other words, to explain some at least of the minimum conditions for applicability of the idea. But, since the idea of law is invoked within the practices of law, we also expect a philosophical understanding of that idea to clarify its role in guiding and orienting practice, and not simply in describing practice. Although the practices of law are oriented towards the idea of law, that idea is not straightforwardly available to be read in the surface appearance of the practices. For such practices, while involving systematic appeal to the idea of law, operate for the most part on the basis of that unreflective conformity that assists the stable functioning of most human institutions. Can we begin by identifying a "minimum specification" of the concept of law, in the form of a set of conditions without which nothing could count as law at all? From such a minimum specification, can we proceed in some orderly and intellectually defensible way towards "later phases" of the concept, with their "qualitative changes as well as additions and complications"? The possibility is worth exploring, however unfashionable may be the philosophical viewpoint from which it springs. Fuller's famous story of Rex, and his failed attempts to enact law, identifies the minimum conditions that something must satisfy in order to count as an instance of law. Fuller's theory becomes interesting when he proceeds to demonstrate that the eight desiderata (identified as minimum conditions), when taken collectively, be regarded as a guiding ideal for legal thought: the ideal that we usually label "the rule of law". Fuller claimed that his eight requirements represent an "inner morality of law". Hart's critique of Fuller appeared to suggest that the moral value of compliance with the eight requirements is wholly contingent upon the law's content, and that the eight requirements are more akin to precepts of efficiency than to moral standards. This criticism has been widely endorsed as correct. In fact, the criticism is not correct. The eight requirements are not principles of efficacy, but (when taken together) represent a moral ideal for legal systems. Fuller never really succeeded in giving a clear explanation of the moral status of his eight requirements. I argue that Fuller's eight desiderata represent an intrinsically moral ideal that we may call "freedom as independence from the power of another". This is the aspect of freedom that distinguishes the slave from the free man. My theory seeks to establish the existence of a very tight and necessary connection between law and morality. Positivists will find it impossible to deny that governance by law involves some degree of compliance with Fuller's eight requirements, and that such compliance necessarily involves the realisation of some degree of freedom as independence. If they are tempted to deny that freedom as independence is a distinct aspect of freedom, they must also argue that connections between slavery and the lack of freedom are purely contingent. If they accept that the lack of freedom as independece is what makes a slave a slave, but they deny that freedom as indepenence is a moral value, they must say that there is nothing intrinsically morally wrong with slavery: the moral wrongness of slavery would then have to be seen as stemming from purely contingent features of the slave's position. The value of freedom as independence may be thin. But it is real, it is genuinely valuable, and it is tightly connected to the existence of law. (shrink)

This book, which represents probably the most comprehensive discussion of the emergence of modem social science yet produced, is of far more than merely historical interest. The contributors set out to rewrite the history of the social sciences and to show the limitations of conventional conceptions of their development. These tasks they accomplish with great success and much distinction. Yet in so doing they contribute in a direct way to our understanding of the relation between social analysis (...) and the nature of human societies today. The brilliant and distinctive perspective of the papers in this collection is to demonstrate, with many specific examples, that social science and modem institutions have helped shape each other in mutual interplay. Modem systems are in some part con stituted through the reflexive incorporation of developing social science knowledge; on the other hand, the social sciences organise themselves in terms of a continuing reflection upon the evolution of those systems. Such a perspective, as Wagner and Wittrock in particular make clear, does not in any way either impugn the status of knowledge claims made within social science or destroy the independent reality of social institutions. The book questions the notion that the institutionalising of the social sciences can be understood as a process of their increasing autonomy from extemal social connections. 'Autonomy' forms a mode of legitima tion and a basis of power rather than a distinctive phenomenon as such. (shrink)