(Runner-up, Royal Institute of Philosophy 2020 Philosophy Essay Prize) Technological developments have led to the digitization of certain sectors of the economy, and this has many authors looking ahead to the prospects of a post-work society. While it is valuable to theorize about this possibility, it is also important to take note of the present state of work. For better or worse, it is what we are currently stuck with, and as the COVID-19 pandemic has ensured, much of that work (...) is now taking place online. Though a ‘return to normalcy’ is on the horizon, part of that normalcy involves online work, which is itself a significant change in the lives of many workers. Here I develop an account of work on which work is teleologically structured. This gives the result that working is something we can fail at doing, even when we try, and we can also be unsure of whether we’ve succeeded or failed. The shift of certain work from in-person to online modes generates a persistent uncertainty for workers in affected professions. Because our ability to work is something we typically value, this uncertainty has significant negative consequences for a worker’s self-conception. Indeed, it is analogous to disorders of agency and generates a kind of alienation. (shrink)

Totalitarianism is perhaps unanimously regarded as one of the greatest political evils of the last century and has been the grounds for much of Anglo-American political theory since. Confucianism, meanwhile, has been gaining credibility in the past decades among sympathizers of democratic theory in spite of criticisms of it being anti-democratic or authoritarian. I consider how certain key concepts in the classical Confucian texts of the Mencius and the Xunzi might or might not be appropriated for ‘legitimising’ totalitarian regimes. Under (...) an Arendtian approach to understanding totalitarianism, it is precisely an unproblematised relation to a normative History and Nature that underlies the potential compatibility or incompatibility. I argue against a longstanding prejudice that if any form of Confucianism would be totalitarian, it would have to be Xunzian. Against this, I hope to show that if any form of Confucianism would be totalitarian, it might well be a naturalistic Mencian Confucianism instead of a constructivist Xunzian one. (shrink)

In this article, I critically reassess Iris Marion Young's late works, which centre on the distinction between liability and social connection responsibility. I concur with Young's diagnosis that structural injustices call for a new conception of responsibility, but I reject several core assumptions that underpin her distinction between two models and argue for a different way of conceptualising responsibility to address structural injustices. I show that Young's categorical separation of guilt and responsibility is not supported by the writings of Hannah (...) Arendt, which Young draws on, and that it is also untenable on independent systematic grounds. Furthermore, I argue that several of Young's other criteria fail to clearly demarcate two distinct phenomena. I therefore propose to transcend Young's distinction between two models in favour of a related, but conceptually different distinction between two forms of responsibility: interactional and structural. Embracing this terminology facilitates the conceptualisation of the general features of responsibility that are shared by both forms, including their retrospective and prospective time-direction and their applicability to individual, joint and group agency. The distinction between interactional and structural responsibility also yields a more compelling general account of the role of background structures, and of blame within ascriptions of political responsibility. (shrink)

Kirjasymposioartikkeli esittelee Hanna Meretojan teoksen The Ethics of Storytelling: Narrative Hermeneutics, History, and the Possible (Oxford University Press, 2018) keskeisimmät ajatukset ja kytkee ne laajempaan hermeneuttiseen ja jälkistrukturalistiseen ajatteluperinteeseen, etenkin Jean-François Lyotardin luonnehdintaan jälkimodernista aikakaudesta suurten modernien historiallisten metakertomusten horjumisen ja pienten paikallisten kertomusten moneuden aikakautena. Tässä valossa Meretojan hermeneuttista kertomusetiikkaa voidaan lukea ennen muuta pienten, ei-totalisoivien kertomusten etiikkana. Artikkeli esittää, että tällaiselle etiikalle löytyy hedelmällinen vertailukohta Hannah Arendtin totalitarismiteoriasta, joka sijoittaa ideologiset metakertomukset totalitaarisen hallinnan ja sen tuottaman ”banaalin pahuuden” (...) ytimeen; niin Arendtin kuin Meretojankin kertomusetiikan keskeisenä viitekohtana on holokausti moderniteetin eettisenä nollapisteenä. Nämä yhteydet tuovat esiin Meretojan hahmotteleman hermeneuttisen etiikan laajan teoreettisen kaikupohjan myöhäismodernissa ajatteluperinteessä. Lopuksi pohditaan kysymystä hermeneuttisen pienten kertomusten etiikan jatkuvasta ajankohtaisuudesta sosiaalisen median ja sen ”kuplien” aikakaudella. (shrink)

I argue that while moral exemplars are useful, we must be careful in our use of them. I first describe forgiveness exemplars that are often used to persuade victims to forgive such as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jesus of Nazareth. I also explain how, for Kant, highlighting these figures as moral exemplars can be useful. I then explain two kinds of rhetorical strategies that are used when attempting to convince victims to forgive. Last, I explain (a la (...) Kant) how the use of exemplars does not empower but instead disempowers victims. My overall claim is that using exemplars to persuade victims to forgive is problematic. It is best if we rely on decisive reasons to forgive instead of focusing on people who have forgiven. (shrink)

Michelle’s thesis explores the extent to which a researcher could contribute to change by engaging leaders in conversations that might intensify commitment to or the direction of their actions around socio-environmental decline in Bermuda as a country historically organised in the tradition of an entrepreneurial for-profit enterprise. The framing of a space to reflect on highlighted the significance of time that led to the bricolage design of a heuristic device called a moon gate. Time, the keystone of the moon gate, (...) created a prism lighting up the twists and turns of kaleidoscopic images of the chaos of the markets and the creative diversity of human and nonhuman participants. She undertook a philosophical approach with her study of the contested space of time around sensitivity to maintaining a fulcrum point based on the wellbeing of people and planet. (shrink)

What is Christian about Christian bioethics? The short answer to this question is that the Incarnation should shape the form and content of Christian bioethics. In explicating this answer it is argued that contemporary medicine is unwittingly embracing and implementing the transhumanist dream of transforming humans into posthumans. Contemporary medicine does not admit that there are any limits in principle to the extent to which it should intervene to improve the quality of human life. This largely inarticulate, yet ambitious, agenda (...) is derived first in late modernity's failed, but nonetheless ongoing, attempt to transform necessity into goodness, and second the loss of any viable concept of eternity, thereby stripping temporal existence of any normative significance. In short, medicine has become the vanguard of a profane attempt to save humankind by extracting data from flesh. In response, it is contended that an alternative Christian bioethics must be shaped by the Incarnation, the Word made flesh. This assertion does not entitle Christians to oppose the posthuman trajectory of contemporary medicine on the basis of any natural or biological essentialism. Rather, it is an evangelical witness to the grace of Christ's redemption instead of the work of self-transformation. It is Christ alone who thereby makes the vulnerability and mortality of finitude a gift and blessing. Specifically, it is maintained that the chasm separating necessity and goodness cannot be filled but only bridged through the suffering entailed in Christ's cross, and through Christ's resurrection eternity becomes the standard against which the temporal lives of human creatures are properly formed and measured. Consequently, Christian bioethics should help us become conformed to Christ rather than enabling selftransformation. (shrink)

Arendt's concept of common sense has generally been misunderstood. It is almost exclusively interpreted in light of Kant's common sense, either as an espousal of the latter or as a distortion of it. This narrow reading of Arendtian common sense has led to a problem, as her uses of the concept do not always fit its Kantian understanding. This has led to accusing her of being inconsistent, or as holding on to several, incompatible concepts of common sense.This article argues that (...) Arendt has one complex concept of common sense, used more or less consistently throughout her writings. Rather than understanding Arendt's common sense in light of Kant's, as most readers do, I demonstrate its links to Aristotle and to the eighteenth‐century Scottish school of common sense. By doing so I turn attention to a difficulty that has thus far not been adequately treated, namely the fact that Arendt presents two, allegedly contradictory pictures of the relation between common sense on the one hand and science and philosophy on the other: a picture in which science and philosophy depend upon common sense, versus one in which they find themselves in a conflict that eventually leads to the loss or demise of common sense. The last part of the article suggests a way to settle the tension between these two pictures, by understanding the political significance Arendt ascribes to them as two distinct yet complementary ways of approaching the modern phenomenon of totalitarianism. (shrink)

There is nothing new or even faintly original in the neoconservative foreign policy vision. It simply recycles the old national security ideology for a post-Cold War era. Consistent with this ideological agenda, conservatives have also been advancing the case for the strong executive who operates above the law. In championing the principle of the strong executive, they are seeking to re-define the meaning of modern republicanism around this principle. During the 1960s Hannah Arendt and Hans Morgenthau developed a broad critique (...) of the national security state and its ideology in their opposition to the Vietnam War. This essay examines their critique, and the alternative conception of republicanism they developed as part of this critique. (shrink)

At the center of this paper are three questions: in the absence of a religious worldview, can one gain access to the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation, can reconciliation be achieved in the absence of forgiveness or does the former depend in some way upon the latter, and can we make sense of a restorative approach to justice in the absence of either forgiveness or reconciliation? To answer these questions, I look closely at the concept of forgiveness in the first (...) section of this article with the goals of disentangling it from its religious undertones and emphasizing its importance to the very concept of restorative justice. Drawing on both theoretical work and practical examples, I argue that forgiveness is not necessarily a religious concept ? contrary to common perception ? and that, contra Zehr, it is a foundational component of restorative justice. Having considered this first problem, I turn ? in the second section ? to a discussion of the concept of reconciliation, arguing that personal and political reconciliation must be separated from one another and from the concept of forgiveness. Ultimately, I conclude that forgiveness and reconciliation are quite different concepts, that the latter relies on the former, and that the latter is a goal rather than a necessary component of restorative justice. Drawing largely on the work of Hannah Arendt, Susan Dwyer, Trudy Govier, and Howard Zehr, as well as discussions with members of Murder Victims? Families for Reconciliation, I argue that political reconciliation between groups can be achieved in the absence of personal reconciliation between individual victims and perpetrators in those groups. Further, I demonstrate that restorative practices open up the possibility of both types of reconciliation, but that they are ultimately founded only on the principle of forgiveness. (shrink)

This article underlines and draws attention to critical insights that Esposito makes regarding the prospects of rethinking community in a globalized world. Alongside Agamben and Nancy, Esposito challenges the property prejudice found in mainstream models of community. In identity politics, collective identity is converted into a form of communal property. Borders, sovereign territories, and exclusive rights are fiercely defended in the name of communal property. Esposito responds to this problem by developing what I call a “deontological communal contract” where being (...) and ethics are prioritized over having and economics. I examine this new perspective on community in relation to mainstream models found in contemporary and classical social theory. (shrink)

We have arrived at a situation in which policymakers and ethicists are considering abandoning informed consent in the governance of certain new technologies, many of which are related to large-scale information systems. A paradigm case is the problem with using individuals’ informed consent to regulate biobanks. As sometimes suggested, there is a need for “new ethical frameworks.”.

This article offers the critical concept misfit in an effort to further think through the lived identity and experience of disability as it is situated in place and time. The idea of a misfit and the situation of misfitting that I offer here elaborate a materialist feminist understanding of disability by extending a consideration of how the particularities of embodiment interact with the environment in its broadest sense, to include both its spatial and temporal aspects. The interrelated dynamics of fitting (...) and misfitting constitute a particular aspect of world-making involved in material-discursive becoming. The essay makes three arguments: the concept of misfit emphasizes the particularity of varying lived embodiments and avoids a theoretical generic disabled body; the concept of misfit clarifies the current feminist critical conversation about universal vulnerability and dependence; the concept of misfitting as a shifting spatial and perpetually temporal relationship confers agency and value on disabled subjects. (shrink)

Pragmatic pluralism denotes a particular approach to problems of international human rights and protections that departs from conventional cosmopolitan approaches. Pragmatic pluralism argues for situated and localized forms of cooperation between state and non-state actors, particularly religious groups and organizations, that may not share the secular, juridical understandings of rights, persons, and obligations common to contemporary cosmopolitan theory. A resource for the development of such a model of pragmatic pluralism can be found in the work of Hannah Arendt. Arendt's early (...) dissertation "Love and Saint Augustine" affords a model of religious community and obligation that can be read productively alongside her later political writings. The possibilities inherent in a cooperative reading of these two parts of her work can be illustrated in relation to an issue of particular concern to cosmopolitan theorists: the international refugee crisis. (shrink)

Philosophy for Children claims to foster not only critical thinking, but also creative and caring thinking. However, its theoretical foundations draw mainly on the analytic and pragmatist philosophical tradition. Consequently, and made evident by the choice of the terms ‘caring thinking’ and ‘creative thinking’, it seem to reduce these concepts mostly to ‘thinking skills’. In this article I will first briefly explicate the difficulties of such a reduction. Secondly I will try to resolve this problem by embedding rationality, creativity and (...) caring in a more holistic anthropology. To this end I will refer to the German philosopher and poet Friedrich Schiller, who anchors reason and the emotions in aesthetics (that is, the relationship with the sensuous world). Finally, the article calls on the thought of D. W. Winnicott in order to show how Philosophy for Children can embrace an active creation of an emotionally meaningful (caring) and rationally reflected (critical thinking) reality through the sensuous play with concepts (creativity). (shrink)

Do psychological perspectives constitute the only way through which the role of musical creativity in education can be addressed, researched and theorised? This essay attempts to offer an alternative view of musical creativity as a deeply social and political form of human praxis, by proposing a perspective rooted in the thought of the political philosopher and activist Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997). This is done in two steps. First, an attempt is made to place the pursuit of the concept of musical creativity (...) within a larger educational and societal context of conflicting trajectories that run through (a) Modernity and (b) Education. Then, I revisit the issue of educational value of improvising and composing through creating conceptual links between the process of music-making through improvisation and composition and the project of political autonomy as conceived by Castoriadis. By foregrounding instituting imaginary over instituted imaginary, improvising and composing become active processes of positing new legitimacies, and of creating a music-making context that searches for its own foundations. It is in and through creative musical praxis that we can think about issues of hierarchies, musical values, social dimensions of different music-making processes, our relationship to past values and to historical dimensions of music. By arguing that improvisation and composition might be seen as ways of positing the issue of political autonomy in musical terms, this paper emphasises the role of improvisation and composition as a mode of potentially transformative educational practice that may foster the development of critical consciousness, linking music education to a larger project of re-discovering and at the same time re-defining democracy. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to interpret the educational philosophy of John Dewey in a way that accomplishes two goals. The first of these is to avoid any reference to Dewey as a propagator of a particular scientific method or to any of the individualist and cognitivist ideas that is sometimes associated with him. Secondly, I want to overcome the tendency to interpret Dewey as a naturalist by looking at his concept of intelligence. It is argued that ‘intelligent experience’ is (...) the basic concept of education. I suggest how this concept should be understood. I propose to look at it as an interplay between the faculties of imagination and judgment. (shrink)

This article shows that Held's central philosophical concern is with the manner in which the withdrawal of world is apparent in kairological moments disclosed in fundamental moods. The phenomenology of world is for him a way of overcoming voluntarist nominalism. World is of its nature a limit to will and is experienced in the passivity of being acted upon. It is shown how Held emphasizes the common origins of philosophy and politics in the fundamental moods of wonder and awe. In (...) the final section it is argued - with reference to his more recent encounter with theological and scriptural themes - that Held's understanding of kairos and doxa is one-sided. By failing to account for the biblical transformation of both terms, especially St Paul's conception of the kairos as a suspension of world and by equating the Judaeo-Christian God with its voluntaristic conception, Held fails to give sufficient weight to the singularity of the kairos in the kenotic humbling of will implicit in the Christian notions of creation and incarnation. (shrink)

The regulation of innovation reflects a specific imaginary of the role of governance that makes it external to the field it governs. It is argued that this decision and rule-based view of regulation is insufficient to deal with the inescapable uncertainties that are produced by innovation. In particular, relying on risk-based knowledge as the basis of regulation fails to deal sufficiently both with the problem that innovation ensures the future will not resemble the past, and with the problem that the (...) social priorities that underlie innovation often remain unquestioned. Recently, rights-based frameworks have been defended as principle-based approaches to innovation governance that address the gaps which trouble an understanding of regulation as guided by risk-based decision procedures. An alternative view of governance is defended, based on a concept of care drawn from feminist ethics and other traditions. Care aims, not at justifying punctual decisions, but at transforming institutions and practices, with the goal of creating specific institutional ‘virtues’, and requires the broad and deep participation of publics in shaping innovation. In this way, governance is made internal to innovation. (shrink)

This paper aims to impregnate the concept of educational leadership with new meanings and new possibilities. I draw on Hannah Arendt’s political thought, particularly, her concepts of plurality and natality alongside the distinction she made between who and what we are, to propose a new ethics for educational leadership. An ethics of plurality and natality resists a dominant understanding of education as developing a what, namely, producing persons with particular qualities and talents. I include a research story from the field (...) of early childhood education to illustrate why pluralizing the identities of children by revealing their who-ness through pedagogical narratives should be considered as a significant dimension of contemporary educational leadership. (shrink)

In much theory there is a tendency to place thought above action, or the opposite, action over thought. The consequence of the first option is that philosophy or scientific evidence gains the upper hand in educational thinking. The consequence of the second view is that pragmatism and relativism become the dominant features. This article discusses how different branches of the Aristotelian tradition can mediate between these two views. I argue, contrary to some other Aristotelian approaches, that thinking and action are (...) both separated and yet prerequisites for each other and point to some educational consequences of this way of thinking. To build this argument I draw on selected aspects of the philosophy of Hanna Arendt, Leo Strauss and John Dewey. (shrink)

Current interpretations of the political theory of Judith Shklar focus to a disabling extent on her short, late article (1989); commentators take this late essay as representative of her work as a whole and thus characterize her as an anti-totalitarian, Cold War liberal. Other interpretations situate her political thought alongside followers of John Rawls and liberal political philosophy. Challenging the centrality of fear in Shklar's thought, this essay examines her writings on utopian and normative thought, the role of history in (...) political thinking and her notions of ordinary cruelty and injustice. In particular, it shifts emphasis away from an exclusive focus on her late writings in order to consider works published throughout her long career at Harvard University, from 1950 until her death in 1992. By surveying the range of Shklar's critical standpoints and concerns, it suggests that postwar American liberalism was not as monolithic as many interpreters have assumed. Through an examination of her attitudes towards her forebears and contemporaries, it shows why the dominant interpretations of Shklarmigrare flawed. In fact, Shklar moved restlessly between these two categories, and drew from each tradition. By thinking about both hope and memory, she bridged the gap between two distinct strands of postwar American liberalism. (shrink)

. Possibly preventing catastrophes: Hannah Arendt on democracy, education and judging. Ethics and Education: Vol. 7, Creating spaces, pp. 237-249. doi: 10.1080/17449642.2013.766540.

The notion of a community of inquiry has been treated by many of its proponents as being an exemplar of democracy in action. We argue that the assumptions underlying this view present some practical and theoretical difficulties, particularly in relation to distribution of power among the members of a community of inquiry. We identify two presuppositions in relation to distribution of power that require attention in developing an educational model that is committed to deliberative democracy: (1) openness to inquiry and (...) readiness to reason, and (2) mutual respect of students and teachers towards one another. Our contention is that these presuppositions, presented as preconditions necessary to the creation of a community of inquiry, are not without ideological commitments and dependent upon the ability of participants to share power. Using group dynamic theories and the ideas of Hannah Arendt, we argue that behaviours commonly interpreted as obstacles to dialogue or reflective inquiry could provide opportunities for growth. (shrink)

This article discusses the political possibilities of personal forgiveness in transitional justice. Personal forgiveness is extended by a single human victim who has been harmed by a wrongdoer. The victim forgives only that harm which has been done to him or to her. Personal forgiveness is distinguishable from three other forms of forgiveness: group forgiveness, legal forgiveness (a form of group forgiveness), and political forgiveness. In the context of transitional justice, I argue that: (1) personal forgiveness is a necessary condition (...) for political forgiveness; (2) group forgiveness (including legal forgiveness), while not without a normative function, cannot effectuate either personal or political forgiveness, and (3) personal forgiveness requires a shared narrative framework to lead to political forgiveness. These assertions lead to two further observations. First, because the state has a normative role in its (limited) capacity to forgive on its own behalf and a practical role in its ability to spread and to transmit a shared narrative framework, the state is an important actor in political forgiveness. Second, because the primary historical example of political forgiveness in transitional justice is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that unfolded within an explicitly Christian theological framework, it may be that the shared narrative framework need be religious or even Christian in nature. (shrink)

Abstract The aim of this paper is to discuss which stance towards the allocation of labor and leisure would be defensible from the perspective of modern liberal political theory. There is a long tradition in philosophy defending an ideal of leisure, but this tradition has been rightly criticized for being too perfectionist. A liberal perspective seems more attractive in not dictating how much time people spend in labor or leisure, but leaving this choice to individuals. The question is whether this (...) is possible. After scrutinizing the traditional philosophical defense of leisure I focus on Robert Goodin and his collaborators' recent proposal to think about labor and leisure in terms of ?temporal autonomy?. I show that their concept is a great improvement over the older philosophical theories, both in its conceptualization of labor and leisure and in its ambition to leave labor/leisure choices to individuals. Nonetheless, it contains an important unresolved ambiguity about whether discretionary time maximization is a desirable end. Since the exercise of one's temporal autonomy can undercut the temporal autonomy of others in society, this leads to a dilemma. This dilemma can be resolved either in a libertarian or in a sufficientarian direction. I provide a cautious defense of the sufficientarian conception of temporal autonomy, because it accounts for the intuition in the older tradition of leisure that it is important not to be overwhelmed by the demands of labor, while also retaining the liberal emphasis on individual choice. (shrink)

Derrida's purpose in ‘Death Penalties’ (2004), is to show how both arguments in favour of capital punishment, exemplified by Kant's, and arguments for its abolition, such as those of Beccaria, are deconstructible. He claims that ‘never, to my knowledge, has any philosopher as a philosopher, in his or her own strictly and systematically philosophical discourse, never has any philosophy as such contested the legitimacy of the death penalty.’ (2004, 146) Derrida also asks how it is possible ‘to abolish the death (...) penalty in a way that is based on principle, that is universal and unconditional, and not because it has become not only cruel but useless, insufficiently exemplary?’ (2004, 137) In my paper, I examine Derrida's claim about the lack of systematic opposition to the death penalty on the part of philosophers and suggest an answer to his question concerning the possibility of a universal and unconditional opposition to capital punishment. (shrink)

Three clinical cases of very ill neonates exemplifying extreme ethical situations for nurses are interpreted through Arendt's concepts of life and natality, and Agamben's critique of bare life. Agamben's notions of form-of-life, as the inseparability of zoe/bios, and testimony are offered as the potential foundation of nursing ethics.

Today dominative power operates apart from, and exterior to, those state governmentalities that the "body politics" of Stanley Hauerwas disavows as "constantinian" entanglements such as military service, governmental office, and conspicuous expressions of civil religion. This is especially true with respect to those biopolitical modalities David Theo Goldberg names as "racelessness," by which material inequalities are racially correlated, thereby allowing whiteness to mediate life and ration death. If, as Hauerwas contends, radical ecclesiology is indeed a theopolitical alternative to the nation–state's (...) politics of violence, then it must prove itself resistant to such racialized violence. However, inasmuch as the (largely) uncontested fact of ecclesial segregation recapitulates these broader stratifications and exclusions, the church functions as a passive civil religion and itself participates in the politics of "nonviolent violence." Thus, Hauerwas must do something that he has been reluctant to do. He must talk about race and racism more directly, specifying how his ecclesiological theopolitics resists such forms of violence; more importantly, he must demonstrate how actual ecclesial congregations instantiate such resistance. In short, to be truly nonviolent, Hauerwas's body politics must become a politics of bodies. (shrink)

In this article, I shall evaluate critically the democratic citizenship education project in South Africa to ascertain whether the patriotic sentiments expressed in the Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy (2001) are in conflict with the achievement of reconciliation and nation building (specifically peace and friendship) after decades of apartheid rule. My first argument is that, although it seems as if the teaching of patriotism through the Department of Education's democratic citizenship agenda in South African schools is a laudable initiative (...) that can contribute toward establishing a definitive break with our apartheid past, the expression of blind patriotic sentiments (such as pledging allegiance to one's country and its citizens only) as articulated in the Manifesto can potentially marginalise others (immigrant communities) as the country endeavours to build its fledgling democracy. My second argument is that the intended democratic form of patriotism of the Department of Education can possibly be undermined by cultivating a culture of ‘safe expression’, which could slow down the country's quest for reconciliation and nation building. (shrink)

Literature about the significance of cultivating democratic citizenship education in universities abounds. However, very little has been said about the importance of friendship in sustaining democratic communities. In this article I argue for a complementary view of friendship based on mutuality and love—with reference to the seminal ideas of Sherman and Derrida. My view is that teaching and learning ought to be used as pedagogical spaces to nurture forms of friendship which not only encourage mutuality but also love in order (...) to make possible the taking of risks on the part of students and teachers. And, if teachers and students act with mutuality and love they would be more favourably positioned in their society to take risks and to enact democratic justice. (shrink)

This article elaborates on a view of human subjectivity as open and intersubjectively constituted and discusses it as a presupposition for student's participation in educational situations. It questions the traditional persistent concept of subjectivity as inner and private, the homo clausus, which puts self realization before recognition of the other and individual cognition before mutual meaning. From the perspective of homo clausus participation is thus limited to mere situated activity. A concept of human subjectivity as open and plural, homines aperti, (...) makes it possible to conceptualize educational situations relationally and to take the in‐between as point of departure for understanding pedagogical relationships. Participation can then be understood in terms of involvement in meaning making, knowledge construction and mutual will formation. The relevance of analyzing discrepancies between concepts in educational theory is that they direct our interest and our attention differently. This is also how theoretical understandings work in the praxis of teaching; teachers’ actions are certainly not guided by their theories, but their conceptions about such basic issues as subjectivity and self make some actions and decisions seem more intelligible than others. (shrink)

What can Hannah Arendt's writings offer to current thinking on the environment? Although there are some obvious connections between her work and current issues in environmental ethics, not very much has been written on the topic. This article argues that Arendt's philosophy is particularly fruitful for environmental thinking because she explicitly links the material and biological conditions of human existence with the political conditions of human freedom. This is articulated in the article as the requirement of both constrained consumption and (...) unconstrained deliberation. The article elaborates these notions before concluding that Arendt's philosophy uniquely combines the existential task of self-understanding with the practical task of confronting our environmental challenges. (shrink)

The "Practice Turn" in the Contemporary Socio-Human Sciences The paper provides an overview of the current situation in the socio-human sciences, which is characterised by attempts to overcome traditional one-sided approaches and look for new alternatives. One of the latest alternatives to traditional approaches in the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences is the "practice turn". It is the turn to another, non-traditional approach to practice but also to Aristotelian phronesis. The author gives an account of three main tenets (...) of this turn with reference to both ancient Greek and modern conceptions of practice. (shrink)

This article draws on Hannah Arendt’s analysis of authority in education, along with her insights into the workings of the imagination and the thinking process, to argue that participation in education should be conceived as an invitation to become towards the world. The potential of this invitation, the article argues, is located in the educator’s imaginative and thoughtful responsibility to receive the young as they are and as they are becoming on the one hand, and to represent the world to (...) them, on the other hand. The ways in which this potential can be negated are examined in relation to Arendt’s accounts of non-thinking and wilfulness. The article advances to the conclusion that participation in an education is possible only where young persons are received by educators who are persistently awake to their responsibility to receive the young people they educate anew. (shrink)

Las tecnologías de la inteligencia artificial (IA) hacen emerger con mayor fuerza una pregunta central para la filosofía contemporánea: ¿cómo se generan los desplazamientos éticos a través de la producción de nuevas formas de convivencia tecnológica? Saber en qué consisten estos desplazamientos y si contribuyen, o no, a determinados tipos de convivencia es más urgente que precipitarse a una producción de normativa que no se enfrenta a los cambios inherentes al nuevo entorno. Pero una de las consecuencias que apuntan en (...) este enfoque es que la programación, sometida a las lógicas de la anticipación, no puede resolver el problema simplemente. La programación tiende a la formación de nichos o esferas en los que los individuos se desenvuelven perdiendo visión de la complejidad; la delegación de los cálculos a las máquinas hace que disminuya no sólo la capacidad del cálculo aritmético sino la imaginación matemática, creando nichos epistémicos crecientemente reservados a las máquinas; la minería de datos borra las diferencias entre lo público y lo privado, afianzando modos de comportamiento que esquivan la autorreflexión y el escrutinio de nuestras acciones en relación al bien común. Pero ¿pueden los programas desenvolverse en un sentido contrario, fortaleciendo las destrezas epistémicas, haciendo visible la complejidad, la participación política y la diversificación de bienes comunes en un mundo tecnológicamente denso? O en otros términos, ¿podemos encontrar en ellos claves para una ética robusta de la convivencia tecnológica? Las contribuciones de este número desgranan las transformaciones en las nociones de autonomía, creatividad y precariedad en el contexto de la IA. (shrink)

En este artículo se propone repensar la cuestión específica de la autoridad y captar cómo se entrelaza con la acción y la performatividad. Primero, se lleva a cabo una exposición de la acción según el pensamiento de Arendt y se muestra su carácter rupturista, natalicio y performativo. Luego, se aborda el problema de la performatividad en Butler y cómo no puede ser explicada exclusivamente desde la perspectiva de los actores. A continuación, se conecta lo anterior con la cuestión de la (...) autoridad y se plantea una reconsideración de ésta que nos puede ayudar a comprender cómo los espectadores pueden tener un rol activo y productivo en el éxito de la acción y en su incidencia en el mundo. (shrink)

In the educational strand of cosmopolitanism, much attention has been placed on theorizing and describing who is cosmopolitan. It has been argued that cosmopolitan sensibilities negotiate and/or embody such paradoxes as rootedness and rootlessness, local and global concerns, private and public identities. Concurrently, cosmopolitanism has also been formulated as a globally-minded project for and ethico-political responsibility to human rights and global justice. Such articulations underscore cosmopolitanism in anthropocentric terms. People can be cosmopolitan and cosmopolitan projects aim to cultivate cosmopolitan subjectivities. (...) What is striking about scholarship in educational cosmopolitanism is its lack of serious attention placed on the greatest global threat facing not only but largely created by human beings: environmental degradation. In this paper, I provide an overview of key texts written on the who in educational cosmopolitanism which helps lay the groundwork for an analysis of what is cosmopolitan. Regarding the what, I examine a range of boundary-defying emergencies described in cosmopolitan terms including climate change, radioactive poisoning of the planet, and bioinvasion. In the last analysis, I consider what it would take and what the possibilities are for our species to be truly committed to caring not only for the human world. (shrink)

When we talk about things like the 'lost art of letter-writing' or the 'digital communications revolution,' what do we mean? What do we lose and what do we gain as we move towards digital ways of being in the world? Critically engaging with many of the canonical writers in the philosophy of technology , and following what has been termed the 'empirical turn' in that discipline, this thesis answers such questions by means of a philosophical, comparative study of epistolary technics (...) and praxis in the early nineteenth and 21st centuries, making use of Romantic era archival letters and related materials to compare and contrast our own, Internet-enabled experience of communicating over distance. In so doing, it seeks to contribute towards our understanding of the ways in which information and communication technologies influence humanity by taking a long-view of many of the more radical claims for the ways in which the Internet effects change in culture, society and self. The thesis is structured thematically, with chapters examining the experience of distance and presence in these two periods, the potential for meaningful engagements by way of communicative media, the technological reconfiguration of social networks, and shifts in the public/private distinction. In its conclusions it is broadly sympathetic to the somewhat pessimistic positions of Heidegger and Borgmann, finding evidence and supplying argument to support the notion that the Internet does in some circumstances serve to diminish our meaningful involvements with the world and each other. It is, however, critical of many of the more extreme arguments for the substantive impact of the Internet, which very often lean too heavily towards naive technological determinism, neglect the social shaping of technology, overemphasise the radical novelty of the Internet, or simply deny or downplay many of its undoubted benefits. (shrink)

This essay explores recent scholarship on Hannah Arendt's contribution to the field of global justice. I show that many of Arendt's ideas have been brought to bear fruitfully on some of the most pressing global issues of our day. I turn first to the area in which Arendt has, arguably, been most influential, namely human right. I then look at recent scholarship on Arendt and various issues in global justice, including immigration, statelessness, human security, global poverty, political reconciliation, and global (...) democracy. This essay offers a critical analysis of the ways that Arendt's work has been employed in discussions of global justice and highlights the contributions that she has made to this field of thought.© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. (shrink)

Starting with service robotics and industrial robotics, this paper aims to suggest philosophical reflections about the relationship between body and machine, between man and technology in our contemporary world. From the massive use of the cell phone to the robots which apparently “feel” and show emotions like humans do. From the wearable exoskeleton to the prototype reproducing the artificial sense of touch, technological progress explodes to the extent of embodying itself in our nakedness. Robotics, indeed, is inspired by biology in (...) order to develop a new kind of technology affecting human life. This is a bio-robotic approach, which is fulfilled in the figure of the cyborg and consequently in the loss of human nature. Today, humans have reached the possibility to modify and create their own body following their personal desires. But what is the limit of this achievement? For this reason, we all must question ourselves whether we have or whether we are a body. (shrink)

This essay presents an integrated account of Michael Wyschogrod's Zionism as a function of his broader theological anthropology, eschatology, and carnal interpretation of Israel's election. Against Leora Batnitzky, I show that Wyschogrod's Zionism, while definitively messianic, is decidedly not fanatical or fundamentalist. Against Meir Soloveichik, I show that Wyschogrod has maintained this non-fanatical messianism consistently throughout his career, and so his pacific political prescriptions are organically at one with his vigorous calls for Jewish sovereignty over the land.

The idea of self-forgiveness poses a serious challenge to any philosopher interested in giving a general account of forgiveness. On the one hand, it is an uncontroversial part of our common psychological and moral discourse. On the other, any account of self-forgiveness is inconsistent with any general account of forgiveness which implies that only the victim of an offense can forgive. To avoid this conclusion, one must either challenge the particular claims that preclude self-forgiveness or offer an independently plausible account (...) of self-forgiveness. I deploy both strategies in this article, explaining what self-forgiveness is and how it is possible. (shrink)

Is love essential to ethical life, or merely a supplement? In Kant's view, respect and love, as duties, are in tension with each other because love involves drawing closer and respect involves drawing away. By contrast, Irigaray says that love and respect do not conflict because love as passion must also involve distancing and we have a responsibility to love. I argue that love, understood as passion and based on respect, is essential to ethics.

Hannah Arendt’s exposition of the human condition provides the basic framework for a theoretical perspective on close relationships. According to Arendt, the human condition is comprised of three modes of activity: labor, work, and action. Labor is need-driven behavior, work concerns goal-directed activity and the fabrication of things, and action involves the mutual validation of unique individuals. Within this framework, the gift is the means by which relational ties are made concrete. I propose a model of gift-giving organized by two (...) axes: whether or not the partner is singularized by the gift and whether or not the gift is given with an expectation of a return gift. I then apply this model to the three modes of the human condition. (shrink)

The practice of terminating a pregnancy following the diagnosis of a fetal abnormality raises questions about notions of bodily normality and the ways these shape ethical decision-making. This is particularly the case with terminations done on the basis of ostensibly minor morphological anomalies, such as cleft lip and isolated malformations of the limbs or digits. In this paper, I examine a recent case of selective termination after a morphology ultrasound scan revealed the fetus to be missing a hand . Using (...) the work of Georges Canguilhem, I show that a person with acheiria could be considered normal. Further, I show that this case reveals a kind of “undecidability” in the significance of fetal sex/gender and disability in termination. From this, I consider the conceptual interaction of disability with sex/gender, to argue that the ethics of disability termination are not as distinct from those of sex/gender selection as is commonly supposed. (shrink)