Though the names “Judith Butler” and “Martin Heidegger” rarely come together in Butler and Heidegger scholarship, the critical encounter between these philosophers might help us conceptualize the relationship between freedom and marginalization. In this paper, I will read Butler from the perspective of the Heidegger of Being and Time and claim that what Butler's philosophy suggests is the radical dependency of one's freedom on the cultural resuscitation of socially murdered racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, and sectarian/confessional minorities. More specifically, I will (...) claim that the socially sanctioned subject's freedom is dependent on the marginalized Other's freedom, and, conversely, the marginalized Other's freedom is dependent on the socially sanctioned subject's freedom. (shrink)

David Lewis is most famous in the analytical metaphysics literature for his analysis of the truth conditions of counterfactual conditionals in terms of possible worlds, and for his analysis of causation in terms of counterfactual conditionals. He uses a notion of comparative similarity of possible worlds in his analysis of counterfactual conditionals. However, since he attributes reality to possible worlds he has attracted many criticisms. The aim of our paper is to present some counterfactuals whose account cannot be given within (...) a Lewisian framework, and to point to some devastating results for Lewis of such an inadequacy. (shrink)

Foucault's philosophy is often divided into three periods: the archeological period of the 1960's, the geneological period of the 1970's, and the ethical period of the 1980's. Considering the subjects Foucault worked on, the methods he employed, and the nature of his analyses in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's, it seems prima facie that there is a considerable difference between the different periods of Foucault's career. Nevertheless, Fooucault claims that he has been working on the same subject, that is, the (...) construction of subjective experience, throughout most of his career. The aim of this paper is to question, via the presentation of two sexual case studies taken from the history of psychiatry, what kind of portrait of Foucault has painted if we take him by his word. These studies will also help us ask how we can give an account of the construction of sexual experience from the perspective of Foucault the archaeologist, the genealogist, and at the same time, the ethicist. (shrink)

Özet: 20. yüzyılın son çeyreğinde, çıkış noktasını mensubu olduğu kültüre, ulusa veya devlete karşı korunması için bireysel haklarla donatılmış ve içerisinde yetiştiği kültürü rasyonel yetileri ile değerlendirip terk edebilme gücüne sahip “birey” anlayışında bulan “bireyci” liberalizmin içerisinden, bireylerin “kültürel” varlıklar olduklarını, bireysel özgürlüğün “kültürlerin korunması” olmaksızın icra edilemeyeceğini, bunun için de “kültürel azınlık hakları”nın liberalizmin olmazsa olmazı olduğunu savunan “liberal çokkültürcülük” doğmuştur. Bu yazıda, liberal çokkültürcülüğün en önemli versiyonlarından biri olan “ulusalcı liberalizm” incelenecek ve onun kadınlardan, LGBTİ bireylerinden ve dini (...) veya mezhepsel muhaliflerden oluşan “azınlık-içindeki-azınlık” gruplarının ortaya çıkardığı çoğulculuğu kapsayacak teorik araçlar geliştiremediği; bu yüzden de yeterince çoğulcu olmadığı iddia edilecektir.In the last quarter of the 20th century, liberal multiculturalism was born out of individualistic liberalism. Whereas the latter takes as its starting point the individual, who is supposed to be protected against the intrusions of his/her culture, nation, or state via individual rights, and who is capable of leaving the cultural heritage s/he was raised into; the former takes human beings as cultural entities, and defends that individual freedom cannot be performed without the protection of culture and that cultural minority rights are the sine qua non for liberalism. In this essay, I will examine one of the most important versions of liberal multiculturalism, namely national liberalism, and argue that it is not pluralistic enough due to the fact that it has not created the necessary tools to accommodate the sort of pluralism that is formed out of minorities-within-minorities. (shrink)

Ethno‐cultural minority rights have been regarded as a part of human rights since the last decade of the twentieth century. These rights are often formulated in predominantly culturalist terms. Citing the importance of culture in the lives of members, they are conceptualized as tools for protecting the distinct identity of minority cultures. This paper claims that this way of formulating minority rights is to portray minority communities as if they were not concerned with the pathologies of modern democracies, such as (...) the increasing marginalization of citizens from democratic life, far‐right populism, and the subordination of democracy into the functional requirements of economy. Accordingly, it argues for a theory of minority rights that formulates these rights as tools for protecting democracy against such pathologies. In doing so, it takes its point of departure from Jürgen Habermas’s communicative action theory and his understanding of democracy and public autonomy. (shrink)

Queering Multiculturalism argues for group-specific rights for ethno-cultural minorities, but without ignoring the possibility that such rights may lead to ethnic chauvinism, balkanization, and the cultural marginalization of minorities-within-minorities, such as ethnic LGBT people.

Martin Heidegger was not only one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century but also a supporter of and a contributor to one of the most discriminatory ideologies of the recent past. Thus, "the Heidegger's case" gives us philosophers an opportunity to work on discrimination from a philosophical perspective. My aim in this essay is to question the relationship between freedom and discrimination via Heidegger's philosophy. I will show that what bridges the gap between Heidegger's philosophy and a discriminatory (...) ideology such as the National Socialist ideology is Heidegger's conceptualization of freedom with the aid of a monolithic understanding of history--one that refuses to acknowledge the plurality and heterogeneity in the socio-historical existence of human beings. Accordingly, I will claim that the Heideggerian freedom depends on the social, if not literal, murder of the marginalized segments of a given society. However, I will refuse to conclude that Heidegger's philosophy is a Nazi philosophy and that it should never be appropriated as long as we want to purify our thoughts from discriminatory ideas. Rather, I will re-appropriate Heidegger, against Heidegger, to read and interpret Michel Foucault's and Judith Butler's philosophies. My aim here is to construct a social ontology that may justify anti-discriminatory policies. More specifically, through my Heideggerian readings of Foucault and Butler, I will argue that one's freedom is dependent on the cultural resuscitation of socially, and sometimes literally, murdered racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, and sectarian/confessional minorities. (shrink)

‘Authority’ is a term widely used in scholarly debate, including the history of philosophy. However, what is meant by this term is not always clear and the concept is not very well defined. One reason for this is certainly that the phenomenon itself is complex and the corresponding terms are used with a degree of latitude. This makes it difficult to adequately compare and connect the insights that various case studies have to offer. For historians of philosophy, it is thus (...) important to get a sufficient grasp of the concept of authority. This is even more urgent when one studies commentary traditions, in which secondary texts are written in virtue of the existence of texts clad with high authority. Our article combines historical textual research with insights from epistemology, thus providing a discussion of the concept of authority and its importance in textual traditions. We propose a descriptive model that can be used for examining epistemic authority in historical texts. An example from ancient Platonism serves to show both the complexity of the phenomenon and the clarifications that our approach may offer. (shrink)

In his very last, now famous, interview, Michel Foucault states that his philosophical thought was shaped by his reading of Heidegger, even though he does not specify what aspects of Heidegger’s philosophy inspired him in the first place. However, his last interview is not the only place where Foucault refers to Heidegger as his intellectual guide. In his 1981/1982 lecture course, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Foucault confesses that the way Heidegger conceptualized the relationship between subject and truth was a (...) starting point for him for thinking about the relationship between truth, subject, subjective-transformation, and freedom. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to reconstruct the Foucault-Heidegger encounter from the perspective of subject-truth relation. I will ask how Heidegger and Foucault conceptualized the relationship between truth, self-transformation, and freedom. And I will claim that for both Foucault and Heidegger, freedom lies in constantly and creatively repeating the traditional possibilities of existence in order to question the reified patterns of interpretation, and in order to reveal the anxiety–engendering–truth that what is regarded as natural and inevitable in human life is historically contingent and transformable. (shrink)

Este artigo se resume em seis observações acerca do conceito de aretê, que, no transcurso da cultura grega, contém não apenas um, mas vários significados. Na medida em que percorre tais significados, o artigo também se ocupa em averiguar como se deu um estreitamento na significação da aretê de um ponto de vista cívico, voltado para à qualificação do ser cidadão, e também filosófico, referido à vida moral enquanto qualificação do ser homem. Tendo, pois, em vista estes dois aspectos – (...) o ser cidadão e o ser homem – o artigo põe igualmente em destaque o teor da confabulação entre sofistas (Protágoras e Górgias) e filósofos (Sócrates e Platão) a respeito do agir mais apropriado enquanto aretê. (shrink)

For Plato and Aristotle, arete (traditionally translated as "virtue") was the essential object of human admiration and striving, and even the key to happiness. Their work continues to inspire reflection on fundamental questions of ethics and politics today, as the fourteen new essays collected here demonstrate. -/- Contributors: Lidia Palumbo, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Ryan M. Brown, Jay R. Elliott, Guilherme Domingues da Motta, Federico Casella, Jonathan A. Buttaci, George Harvey, Mark Ralkowski, Gary S. Beck, Paula Gottlieb, Giulio di Basilio, Audrey (...) L. Anton, and Elena Bartolini. (shrink)

1. Aretè : idei i obrazi v sbornata dobrodetelnost -- 2. Aretè : ekzistent︠s︡ialno-t︠s︡ennostna sistema -- 3. Aretè : obuchenie i vŭzpitanie na lidera -- 4. Aretè : upravlenie na dŭrzhavnostta i sigurnostta -- 5. Aretè v muzei︠a︡ : razvitie v strukturata i upravlenieto na evropeĭskii︠a︡ istoricheski muzeĭ -- 6. Avtoreferat na Aretè-logii︠a︡ : knigi I-V.

Aretism: An Ancient Sports Philosophy for the Modern Sports World provides a tripartite model of sports ethics founded on ancient Greek principles and focused on personal, civic, and global integration. Heather Reid and Mark Holowchak apply these concepts as a "golden mean" between the extremes of the commercialist and recreational models of competition. This treatment is most applicable to students and academics concerned with the philosophy of sport, but will also be of interest to those in sports professions.

Pedloen prce je textov filosofickou analzou prvn sti Platnova dialogu Menn, piem se sna pedvst, jak v konkrtnm literrnm dle Platnov je obsaen stet mezi silou ji skomrajcho svta tradice (s jejmi hodnotami lidskho ivota), a silou jedince, kter hodnoty lidskho ivota sm pro sebe vydobyl v kritick diskusi s tradic. Vechny ti pokusy definovat co je vlastn aret, odhaluj pi pelivm rozboru pouh rtorick stetnut Menna se Skratem jako pklad stetu dvou odlinch paradigmat a sil, uvedench ve.

This study approaches arete as excellence( W. Jaeger). lt understands Husserlian thought as a monadology in which a dynamic dwells: that of the telos that leads to the fulfillment ofends submitted to " the absolute ought". The development of this investigation is carried out within the framework of the moral person's genesis and its intersubjective connections. The question of life's meaning and its relation to ethics are manifested in their teleological orientation. Existential considerations, the analyses of "position takings" and (...) the meaning of the ethical reductionare the starting-points of this investigation on Husserl's theory of theperson. The divine entelechy ends up being the moral person's telos. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to computer ethics regard computers as tools, andfocus, therefore, on the ethics of their use. Alternatively, computer ethicsmight instead be understood as a study of the ethics of computationalagents, exploring, for example, the different characteristics and behaviorsthat might benefit such an agent in accomplishing its goals. In this paper,I identify a list of characteristics of computational agents that facilitatetheir pursuit of their end, and claim that these characteristics can beunderstood as virtues within a framework of virtue ethics. This (...) frameworkincludes four broad categories – agentive, social, environmental, and moral– each of which can be understood as a spectrum of virtues rangingbetween two extreme subcategories. Although the use of a virtue frameworkis metaphorical rather than literal, I argue that by providing a frameworkfor identifying and critiquing assumptions about what a `good' computer is,a study of android arete provides focus and direction to the developmentof future computational agents. (shrink)

La controversia en torno a la unidad del Parménides de Platón y al sentidode su primera parte continúa. El autor presenta una posible solución señalando la coincidencia de su estructura con el símil de la línea. Ello lo lleva a ubicar al joven Sócrates en el segmento correspondientea la óuivoux y al viejoParménides en el segmento de olc;. Como el que '"tiene inteligencia"de la verdad basado en su aprehensión del Uno-Bien, Parménides resulta siendo el representante de la areté del filósofo.

El presente artículo esboza a partir de la segunda hipótesis del Parménides y del "pasaje matemático" del Epinomis, la figuración de areté enel último Platón, asociada a la efectividad del tránsito ontológico desde el 'ser' hacia la génesis. No obstante, al introducir la 'necesaria realidad de la génesis' en el marco eidético, Platón se ve obligado a postular la presencia del 'no-ser' dentro dela propia economía ontológica -como se puede leer en el Sofista- y a otorgarle paradójicamente el grado de (...) mismidad absoluto. ¿Cómo se presenta este 'no-ser' en el centro de las eíde? La respuesta es sorprendente. (shrink)

This essay on “The Status of Health in Plato’s Theory of Goods” discusses how health figures as a “good” in the framework of Plato’s general theory of human goods. It starts with meta-ethical distinctions regarding how things can be classified as “good,” including the conceptual distinctions between intrinsic, final, and constitutive goods. I then discuss passages in Plato that shed light on the function of health as an “instrumental good” that contributes to an undisturbed mode of existence free to pursue (...) truly valuable goals. Against Stoicising interpretations, I show that Plato maintains that health, as an instrumental good, makes a difference with respect to the quality of a virtuous person’s life. I then turn to the famous classification of goods introduced at the beginning of Republic II. The main concern there is the controversial status of justice as a good, but the division also mentions health as a good worthy to be pursued in its own right and not just on account of its causal consequences. Since this classification and how it is used create serious problems for the interpretation, I first try to work out a solution, focusing on the status of justice as an intrinsic, final and constitutive good. In my concluding segment, I then explain on what basis Plato can classify health as not only an instrumental, but also a (weak) constitutive good. This requires a discussion of how Plato views the relation of the body to the human ‘self.’ My answer credits him with a more differentiated understanding of this relation than is usually assumed. (shrink)

[1]: meha-haḳdamah ṿe-ʻad pereḳ 19 --.

The problems analyzed in this text fall into the broadest understanding of political theology. Its subject is Socrates’ attitude toward democracy, and to be more precise, Socrates’ relations with the Athenian democracy of the 5th century. A standard viewpoint perceives Socrates as an unyielding critic of democracy, who attacks, derides and despises it. While reading Plato’s dialogues one may come to the conclusion that democracy was not Socrates’ political ideal. But was Socrates rightly perceived by his contemporaries as a misodemos (...) and crypto-oligarch? One may argue – and this is the fundamental thesis of this paper – that Socrates’ relations with the Athenian democracy are more complex, and it is this complexity that is a problem. One may claim that, at least in the early dialogues, “Socrates and democracy” create different tensions than in later Plato’s dialogues. Plato deeply misunderstood the democracy outlined by the figure of Socrates and his practice of life as presented in the earlier dialogues. Nor did he understand the relations implied by the figure of Socrates between democracy, knowledge and aretai. Plato the philosopher left to us a complex project for the polis in his Republic, with guarantees that every generation would have a Socrates. Plato wanted to have a guarantee, to reduce the reality of the polis and politics to an efficient mechanism, that is, to achieve what Socrates thought impossible. (shrink)

El artículo discute la cuestión de si Platón creía que, en el asunto de la areté, la psyché femenina tenía una inclinación natural a la inmoralidad en un sentido que no tenía la psyché masculina, y que por ende era signiticativamente distinta a la psyché masculina. Se arguye que el Timeo (y en menor grado. las Leyes) sugiere fuertemente que sí lo creyó, aunque afortunadamente las consecuencias políticas que intirió de ello (en las Leyes) resultan positivas en lugar de negativas. (...) Se arguye, por el contrario, que Aristóteles -aun cuando sigue manteniendo la teoría lamentable de la inferioridad de las mujeres-habla de diferentes quanta de (una y la misma) areté en las almas masculinas y femeninas, en lugar deuna diferencia en su misma areté. (shrink)