Various kinds of contemplative practices have been a part of the western philosophical tradition since the Age of Antiquity. Today, however, philosophy as a way of life has ceased to be an integral part of academic practice. The capability to gain knowledge or understanding is believed to come out of pure intellectual endeavor, without exercising the mind and body holistically. This has created a blind spot for philosophy, where no profound pedagogical and moral transformation of subjectivity can be articulated. Furthermore, (...) meditation practices have often been understood as egoistic, apolitical activity. Our purpose is to suggest that this understanding is due to the liberalist and Cartesian tradition of subjectivity today widely proliferated in education. However, through an analysis of a meditation exercise in breathing, it is possible to deconstruct these notions and open novel vistas for thinking about the relationship between truth and subjectivity in education. A simple breathing exercise can dissolve the dualisms ingrained in occidental philosophy and culture - which has many socio-political implications for educational theory and praxis. (shrink)

This paper deals with Derrida's analysis of Kant's Critique of Judgment in his essay 'Economimesis'. I argue that Derrida's analysis of Kant's aesthetics can be used to describe the aporia within Kantian politics between rebellion and progressive revolutionary acts. The focus of my argument falls on examining how the recent debate over Derrida's ethics can be usefully considered from the background of this treatment of Kant. In particular, the analysis Derrida gives of Kant's aesthetics commits him to a series of (...) conceptual constraints that can be detected in his recent commentaries on 'forgiveness' and 'hospitality'. I suggest that these recent commentaries on political topics also depart from his earlier practice of ethics in 'Economimesis' as a 'witnessing' of the particular. This departure can be clearly seen once the Kantian background to Derrida's recent writing is set out. (shrink)

This article will examine the emergence of a distinct bourgeois identity in modernity which differentiated itself from comparable social groups through its desire to exert 'virtuous' control through engagement with reform and philanthropy, and through the symbolic construction of a transgressive, socially marginal but redeemable other as subject of this reform. The ontological insecurities of late modernity had a profound impact on the sources of bourgeois identity, and this article will explore the emergence of the cultural omnivore as a new (...) form of social distinction which is no longer virtuous, but is still a manifestation of the desire to express identity through demonstrating control. It will outline the impact of the emerging omnivore on relationships between the bourgeois self and the marginal/deviant other, particularly in terms of the extent to which the reconceptualisation of 'other' as cultural univore exacerbates the exclusion and criminalisation of the marginalized other. (shrink)

This essay proposes to examine minority literature, and the scandals often associated with it, as a function of economy and choice. Rather than weighing the political strategies of identity and representation available to minority literature, this approach aims to dissect the ways its circulation is conditioned both by the modern liberal principle of self-ownership and by the flexible conversion of value among different economies characteristic of late capitalist forms of recognition. The entanglement of these spheres of value becomes explicit in (...) the moment of choice inherent to scandal, where the political or philosophical questions of minority identity are reduced to a matter of expenditure. Using the insights of Amartya Sen and Jean Baudrillard on the prerogative of choice in the constitution of capitalist subjects, I argue that it can offer a more comprehensive account of the political valence of minority literature, and its scandals, than the hermeneutics of representation. (shrink)

The redefinition of rights of equality and liberty by radical and deliberative democrats during the last decades of the 20th century resulted in the denial that a consideration of property is integral to political philosophy. Theorizing property as intrinsically political demands a return to Marx but on terms he may not have recognized. I outline a politics of property in this paper contending that there can be no universal justification for any regime of property. Property is by definition the institution (...) of a wrong. The articulation of something as property establishes a border, determining what can be owned, how far ownership extends, where it is limited, as well as terms of use and terms of abuse. It establishes a set of property relations, and defines a vocabulary of the proper. Here sovereign state power is enlisted to enforce relations of property beneficial to some, but not all. A challenge to any political regime must of necessity put in to question both the forms of proper behaviour, and the regime of property. These are intrinsically related to each other. I conclude by arguing that democracy is always improper. Property, in all of its forms entails enclosure. Enclosure requires the drawing and the maintenance of boundaries of exclusion and inclusion. The sovereign determination of the proper, as well as of the exception to the proper defines trespass. Trespass is a form of democratic enactment when, and if, it destabilises enclosure. (shrink)

This article underlines and draws attention to critical insights 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)