An archive is a repository - that is, a place or space in which materials of historic interest or social significance are stored and ordered. A national archive is the storing and ordering place of the collective memory of that nation or people(s). This article provides a brief his torical/theoretical introduction to the politics of the archive in late capi talist societies and discusses this politics of memory via the performance of ordinary daily activities of librarians and archivists. Some relevant (...) political/discursive questions include: who controls, establishes and maintains the archive, and how do they do so? Which materials are preserved in the archive and which are excluded? As the documents and artifacts selected for the archive are ordered and classi fied, how do the schemas and structures applied include, exclude, fore ground or marginalize those materials? Finally, to what extent do the logical hierarchies for classification and arrangement reflect social or political hierarchies? Librarians and archivists face these concerns in HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 11 No. 4 © 1998 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi) [0952-6951(199811)11:4;17-32; 006604]their professional practice as they make decisions influenced by budgets, finite amounts of both physical and computer storage space and limited staff resources. The authors give real-life examples of choices made as archivists struggle to balance ideological goals made contradictory by practical constraints. For example, is it more appro priate to acquire as many materials as possible but be unable to describe, preserve and present them adequately, or is it preferable to describe, preserve and make fully available a more limited range of records and documents? Because of such practical concerns in modern technicist cultures, the explicitly political who often is reduced to the technically instrumental how - that is, political-moral questions are displaced to nonmoral and nonpolitical technical discourse, thereby establishing a 'meta-politics' that is understood only by the initiated. Conversely, archival activities such as acquisition, classification and preservation are 'technical' activi ties that may become explicitly 'political'. The article concludes that technical activities always are political, at least latently or potentially, even when they are not contested and made explicitly political. (shrink)

The article identifies a problem in socio-cultural-historical activity theory (SCHAT) with ignoring how hope and power constitute the theory itself, and suggests that this is why the tradition faces a bad choice between functionalist or utopianist reductions of its own social relevance. Currently, remedies for this kind of (perhaps shammed) innocence can be found in Foucauldian and Latourian approaches to knowledge. However, since these appear to presuppose the (often feigned) cynicism of a purely negative standpoint that fits all too smoothly (...) into the neoliberal management it describes, this presents us with an impossible choice or oscillation at another level. To get beyond it, we need the frankly self-reflected standpoint of ideology critique and the articulation of ‘concrete utopia’, i.e. real possibilities for social transformation. The approach is then realized and exemplified as part of an emergent practice research in the field of drug treatment. The field is broadly described as moving toward certain kinds of recognition of users’ standards, but also as filled with paradoxes that allow us to intervene with theory. One of these (sets of) paradoxes concerns the relations between state and civil (bourgeois) society that are played out in drug treatment. Contrary to the doxa of New Public Management, the (welfare) state’s normative power has not dissolved, only hides from itself. An immanent critique of practices and ideas in the field leads to the suggestion that its forms of recognition imply both submission of users, and the creation of positive standards and collectives. To intervene in this set of issues, we must expand the SCHAT reading of its own Hegelian-Marxist legacy, against the dominant liberal and scientistic trend, to engage with theories of recognition. A contemporary, participatory concept of recognition is sketched, which seeks to sublate (include and supersede) submission into the building of the generalizing ethics of a collective. (shrink)

Hoping is an integral part of what it is to be human, and its significance for education has been widely noted. Hope is, however, a contested category of human experience and getting to grips with its characteristics and dynamics is a difficult task. The paper argues that hope is not a singular undifferentiated experience and is best understood as a socially mediated human capacity with varying affective, cognitive and behavioural dimensions. Drawing on the philosophy, theology and psychology of hope, five (...) modes of hoping are outlined: patient, critical, sound, resolute and transformative. The key aim of the paper is to illustrate how different modes of hoping are associated with different pedagogical strategies. Phrased differently, the paper seeks to delineate a range of pedagogies of hope. The phrase ‘pedagogy of hope’ is very much associated with critical theory—one thinks instantly of, for example, Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux or bell hooks. There are many pedagogies of hope, however, and an explicitly conservative text such as William Bennett’s Book of Virtues has as strong a claim to the title as Freire’s radical and utopian ideas. A broader argument, therefore, is that there is nothing inherently radical or subversive about a pedagogy of hope. Pedagogies of hope can serve to reproduce social relations as well as to transform them. (shrink)

The significance of utopian thought for education can be made evident through reconceptualizing utopia and approaching it alongside the notion of dystopia. Awareness of dystopian elements of reality radicalizes the kind of critique that assists utopian thought and makes engagement with it more pressing. Awareness of the lurking danger of future dystopia goes hand in hand with a utopia that is cautious and vigilant of its own possible turn into catastrophe. If education is not just an institution of the unreflective (...) socialization and social integration of the young immersed in technicist and prudentialist goals, if it is about futurity and vision of a better world, it has to rely on, and renegotiate, utopian thought. Yet, all this presupposes a new descriptive account of the self and the world that breaks with the kind of anthropology and ethics that generated a particular conception of utopia as impossible and purely oneiric. (shrink)

The five narratives identified by the DEEPEN-project are interpreted in terms of the ancient story of desire, evil, and the sacred, and the modern narratives of alienation and exploitation. The first three narratives of lay ethics do not take stock of what has radically changed in the modern world under the triple and joint evolution of science, religion, and philosophy. The modern narratives, in turn, are in serious need of a post-modern deconstruction. Both critiques express the limits of humanism. They (...) do not imply, however, that these narratives should not be taken seriously. In particular, the enduring presence of three ancient narratives in laypeople’s symbolic thought is highly significant in terms of the role that the logic of the sacred keeps playing in the workings of modern societies. Lay people’s implicit understanding of how modern technology tends towards catastrophe and apocalypse provides the strongest argument for taking these narratives seriously. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that hoping is an integral part of what it is to be human. The present article strives to make sense of the myriad competing conceptions of hope that have emerged over the past half-century. Two problems with the literature are highlighted. First, discussions of hope tend to take place within rather than between disciplines. Second, hope is often taken to be an undifferentiated experience. In order to address the first problem, the article takes an interdisciplinary approach, (...) drawing on research from the fields of philosophy, anthropology, psychology, theology and politics. In order to address the second problem, the article proposes that hope be regarded as a human universal that can be experienced in different modes. A variety of theories and models of hope are discussed, including those offered by Marcel, Dauenhauer, Bloch, Moltmann, Bovens, Pettit, Snyder, Rorty and Gutiérrez. While many of these claim to have identified the characteristics of hope, it is argued that each captures something about a particular mode of hoping. The theories and models are integrated into a framework comprising five modes of hoping: patient, critical, estimative, resolute and utopian. Examining hope in this way, as a human universal that can be experienced in different modes, may help us see the varying conceptions that presently exist within the human sciences not as conflicting, nor even as competing, but rather as complementary. (shrink)

The modern tendency to treat all Greek Golden Age textuality as apolitical and escapist has contributed to the ongoing neglect of the first Western educational text, Hesiod's Works and days. Most commentators have missed the interplay of utopian and dystopian images in Hesiodic poetry for lack of the appropriate conceptual framework. Once the escapist prejudice is overcome, the Hesiodic text appears as the first extant Occidental coupling of political utopianism with emancipatory ethico-political education. Once freed of its dated metaphysical-theological resonances, (...) Hesiodic utopianism is compatible with a renewed political and ethical education for cosmopolitanism and justice because the embarrassingly detailed and teleological element of temporal modern utopias and the equally embarrassing rigid architecture of spatial utopias are absent. There is no strict utopian prediction and the message for change is articulated for the whole of humanity. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the way in which proximity and distance have been made relevant to cosmopolitanism and I discuss the significance contemporary theory attributes to border crossing. By employing colonial border crossing and its rationalization as an example, and by drawing from Alain Badiou's critique of political philosophy, I expose some of the problems of facile and faddish approaches to planetary movement. I argue that the real borders to be crossed by true cosmopolitans are internal and, regrettably, traversible, (...) raised at an early age, preserved through education and carried along wherever one goes. Then, I show how this thesis relativizes the drastic choice between cosmopolitanism and patriotism that is imposed by many current theories. By elaborating on Heraclitus's dictum that ‘the citizens must defend the law, as they would defend the wall of the city’, I sketch an account of patriotism that is (a) compatible with, and conducive to, cosmopolitanism as well as (b) mindful of the duplicity of the interplay of proximity and distance. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues that complexity theories have limited use in the study of society, and that social processes are too complex and particular to be rigorously modeled in complexity terms. Theories of social complexity are shown to be inadequately developed, and typical weaknesses in the literature on social complexity are discussed. Two stronger analyses, of Luhmann and of Harvey and Reed, are also critically considered. New considerations regarding social complexity are advanced, on the lines that simplicity, complexity (...) that can be modeled, and incondensible complexity permeate society simultaneously. The difficulty of establishing complexity models for processes involving ongoing interpretation is discussed. It is argued that the notions of system and environment need recasting in social studies. Existing social studies and literature, it is argued, reflect a polymorphous, contextual, contingent, labyrinthine, dramatic and political face to social complexity. Students of social complexity must be literate in such studies. (shrink)

Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with the promise of democracy; therefore, there was a need for critical conceptualization of the first principles that undergird American democracy and the genesis of democratic social change in America. This constructivist grounded theory study aimed to construct a grounded theory that provides an understanding of the process of American democratic social change as it emerged from the nation’s founding documents. A post hoc polytheoretical framework including Foucault’s, Bourdieu’s, and Marx and (...) Engels’s theories of power was used to understand power dynamics. The research question focused on understanding the process of democratic social change in America. The sample comprised the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution. The documents were retrieved from the National Archives and Library of Congress. The data analysis plan incorporated successive comparison, situational and dramaturgical analysis, deconstruction, and perspective taking as strategies. The result was the construction of a democratic social change process theory preceded by five grounded theories: (a) first principles of democracy, (b) first principles of democracy conceptual framework, (c) socio-ethical principles of democracy, (d) demoralizing process, and (e) either-or approach to democracy. Positive social change implications include applying a democratic social change process to future social change endeavors across domains and levels of analysis, a normative framework for a republican form of government, and a tool to analyze and minimize the latent consequences of social justice policies. (shrink)

Background: The United States symbolizes democracy in the new world and contributes to global prosperity. Nevertheless, incrementalism is a historically dominant national approach to public policy implementation that delays democracy and undermines human dignity. Human flourishing and national development are endangered by slow-moving democratic changes. This necessitates a social justice framework that traces the exploitation of incrementalism and the consequences of opportunity gaps. Objectives: This study aims to construct a grounded theory to address and answer the following research question: Are (...) anti-democratic concepts part of a process or strategy that hinders democratic change, and what reinforces it, if anything? Methods: Two categories emerged from a grounded theory of democratic social change. This combination of anti-democratic tenets and democratic principles led to abductive reasoning to fill the research gap. Results: The key finding was the existence of a systematic approach that led to democracy while simultaneously disempowering the same group through legal and extralegal means. Two processes hinder democracy: incrementalism and an anti-democratic demoralizing process. A constructivist social justice grounded theory was developed to analyze and evaluate public policy for barriers and facilitators of democracy. A thorough analysis and evaluation of the impact and consequences of public policy is recommended to better understand how such policies impede democracy and influence American perceptions of justice. (shrink)

An outstanding group of leaders left evidence that a richer and more sustainable democracy could be achieved with American independence and democratic principles integrated into a new republican form of government. They were moved by principles that are the very spirit of democracy. These principles are needed to enhance democracy and improve well-being. Using the constructivist tradition of grounded theory and Aristotle’s conception of abstraction, the article proposes a theory of the first principles of democracy based on substantive data: the (...) Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. Knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security are the first principles of democracy and are regarded as the bedrock of democracy and a government framework for the people. This theory contributed to a formal model of democratic social change. It also contributes a conceptual framework that supports Solum’s semantic originalism, a theory of constitutional interpretation. The principles of democracy can revitalize democracy and provide new possibilities by protecting education as an innate human right, abolishing capital punishment, criminalizing private prisons on the stock market, and reevaluating the proportionality of prison sentences. (shrink)

Many different versions of cultural studies have emerged in the past decades. While during its dramatic period of global expansion in the 1980s and 1990s, cultural studies was often identified with...

Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with Lincoln’s promise of democracy; therefore, there is a need for a critical conceptualization of the first principles that undergird American democracy and the genesis of democratic social change in America. This study aimed to construct a grounded theory that provides an understanding of the process of American democratic social change. The result was the construction of two frameworks: the demoralization process that triggers social change, and a formal grounded theory that (...) could explain democratic social change endeavors across different domains and levels of analysis. This democratic social change grounded theory answers the research question: How do the principles of the American founding documents provide an understanding of the process of American democratic social change? (shrink)

Narratives of hope are omnipresent in democratic life, but what can they tell us about the structure and orientation of politics? While common, they are often reduced to an all-compassing understanding that overlooks hope's various forms and implications. Democratic theory, however, lacks the theoretical language to attend to these distinctions. The aim of this essay is thus to define a collective and political account of hope and recover the normative basis of a democratic theory of hope. Drawing on the literature (...) on hope and juxtaposing it with extracts from Harvey Milk's ‘The Hope Speech,’ I first distinguish its collective experience before turning to Hannah Arendt. While Arendt rejects a politics of hope that turns away from the world, exploring how she thinks with and against hope provides a theoretically fruitful approach that elevates the in-betweenness of its worldly expression. From that standpoint, I relate the work and experience of hoping with others to her notions of natality, action and promises. These three conceptual touchstones provide the normative basis of a democratic theory of hope and help situate a collective sense of possibility inherent in democratic politics. (shrink)

This chapter explores the personal and professional obstacles faced by Humanities and Social Science scholars contemplating pre-publication of their scholarly work in an on-line network. Borrowing a theoretical framework from the radical educational theorist Ivan Illich, it also develops the idea that pre-publication networks offer higher education a bottom-up, decentralized alternative to business-modeled e-learning. If learners would only embrace this more anarchical medium, appreciating writing for pre-publication as a process of open-ended discovery rather than product delivery, then the prospect of (...) deinstitutionalizing e-learning could become an exciting new reality. The chapter’s methodology is a combination of normative-theoretical analysis and small sample (n=2) case study based on the author’s personal and professional experiences. While the generalizability (or external validity) of the conclusions is limited, the author hopes to motivate further inquiry into the connection between on-line pre-publication and e-learning. (shrink)

This article addresses rabbi and philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes’s claim that he had “presented the apocalypse of the revolution, although free from the illusions of messianic Marxists like Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin.” Detailing the shape of Taubes’s thought in relation to Bloch and Benjamin, it explores the manner in which Taubes embraces their respective messianisms while also charting an interiorized departure predicated upon a history of messianic crisis in Sabbateanism and early Christianity. Further, it frames this in terms (...) of their respective historical contexts. Contrary to the Weimar-era messianism of Bloch and Benjamin inflected by an open futurity despite catastrophe, Taubes's messianism takes shape in response to a foreclosed future brought on by the events of the postwar era. (shrink)

In 1959, the Charles Darwin Station and the Galápagos National Park were established, formally inaugurating conservation on the archipelago. In the same year, a utopian colony from the United States arrived. Whereas scholars have dismissed the latter and focused on the former, this essay unveils the science-inspired utopianism common to both enterprises. Investing science with the exclusive role of producing all knowledge and steering politics, leaders of the two initiatives aspired not only to protect nature but also to forge a (...) new humanity. Describing how such ambitions burst along lines of race, class, and nationality, I argue that these enterprises consolidated the current understanding of the Galápagos as “pristine”: a site fit for research and tourism but unhospitable to people. Drawing on archival and historical documents, this essay aims to reinvigorate two conversations: one between science and technology studies and conservation, and the other between STS and utopian studies. If recent attempts at bridging the divide between science and imagination have emphasized how powerful actors shape human society, this essay considers the long-lasting effects of scientific imaginaries on a politics of nature. (shrink)

Proceedings of the Sixth Argumentor Conference held in Oradea/Nagyvárad, Romania, 11–12 September 2020.

During the last two decades, a sharp re-reading of St. Paul’s letters allowed several thinkers to embed a messianic element in their political philosophy. In these readings, the messianic refusal of the world and its laws is understood through the suspensive act of ‘subtraction’ – a movement of withdrawal which nonetheless proved too often ineffective when translated in political practice. -/- After having analysed Agamben’s declension of Subtraction in terms of ‘inoperativity’, this article focuses on the notion of Parousia as (...) a key element to understand his anti-utopian account of messianic time. In contrast with Agamben’s reading, Bloch’s interpretation of the Pauline Parousia envisages the messianic event as infra-historical, but at the same time opened to ultimate (meta-historical) purposes. Bloch’s messianic call – I argue – takes the form of mediation, a correction of subtraction towards the direction of a more committed political engagement. I conclude suggesting that the concrete implementations of this mediation perform their emancipatory function in so far as they assume the character of practical ethics, with the attention directed to the underprivileged and marginalised. (shrink)

Can we understand (German) idealism as emancipatory today, after the new realist critique? In this paper, I argue that we can do so by identifying a political theology of revolution and utopia at the theoretical heart of German Idealism. First, idealism implies a certain revolutionary event at its foundation. Kant’s Copernicanism is ingrained, methodologically and ontologically, into the idealist system itself. Secondly, this revolutionary origin remains a “non-place” for the idealist system, which thereby receives a utopian character. I define the (...) utopian as the ideal gap, produced by and from within the real, between the non-place of the real as origin and its reduplication as the non-place of knowledge’s closure, as well as the impulse, inherent in idealism, to attempt to close that gap and fully replace the old with the new. Based on this definition, I outline how the utopian functions in Kant, Fichte and Hegel. Furthermore, I suggest that idealism may be seen as a political-theological offshoot of realism, via the objective creation of a revolutionary condition. The origin of the ideal remains in the real, maintaining the utopian gap and the essentially critical character of idealism, both at the level of theory and as social critique. (shrink)

The student as consumer has emerged as a common motif and point of contestation in educational philosophy over the past two decades, as part of the critique of the neoliberal educational re...

Human rights are both a means for the ideological justification of the status quo and for its utopian subversion. In order to account for this paradox we need to consider the role that our capacity to form images plays in human rights discourses. I will first discuss how best to conceptualise the capacity to produce images, which is the focus of this paper. In order to go beyond the impasse generated by philosophical approaches to imagination as an individual faculty, and (...) by sociological approaches to the imaginary understood as a social context, I propose to use the category of the ‘imaginal’, understood simply as that which is made of images and can therefore be both the product of an individual faculty and a social context. Second, I show how the imaginal enters the three major strategies of justifications of human rights, when we think of them as ‘human’, as ‘rights’ and as ‘rational’. Finally, I will show that the imaginal is also the force that compels us to enforce human rights, to put ourselves in the shoes of others and imagine a world that is different from the one in which we are currently living. (shrink)

In this thesis, the framework within which long-term goals are set and subsequently achieved or approached is analyzed. Sustainable development and climate change are areas in which goals have tobe set despite uncertainties. The analysis is divided into the normative motivations for setting such goals, what forms of goals could be set given the empirical and normative uncertainties, and how tomanage doubts regarding achievability or values after a goal has been set. Paper I discusses a set of questions that moral (...) theories intended to guide goal-setting should respond to. It is often claimed that existent normative theories provide only modest guidance regarding climate change, and consequently have to be revised or supplemented. Two such suggested revisions or supplements are analyzed in order to determine whether they provide such guidance. Paper II applies the deep ecological framework to survey the extent to which it can be utilized to discuss issues concerning the management of climate change. It is suggested that the deep ecological framework can provide guidance by establishing a normative framework and an analysis of how the overarching values and principles can be specified to be relevant for actions. Paper III is focused on normative political theory, and explicates the two dimensions of empirical and normative uncertainty. By applying recent discussions in normative political theory on ideal/non-ideal theory, political realism, and the relation between normative demands and empirical constraints,strategies for managing the proposed goals are suggested. Paper IV suggests a form of goal that incorporates uncertainties. Cautious utopias allow greater uncertainty than realistic goals,but not to the same extent as utopian goals. Such goals have a performance-enhancing function. A definition and quality criteria for such goals are proposed. Paper V considers whether a goal that is becoming all the more unlikely to be achievable should be reconsidered. The paper focuses on the two degrees Celsius target, and asks whether it could still be a sensible goal to aspire to. By applying the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, the role of such obligations is investigated. Paper VI surveys how to treat circumstances in which an already set goal should be reconsidered and possibly revised, and what would evoke doubt in the belief upon which those goals have been set.Two situations are analyzed: a problematic or surprising event occurs, upsetting confidence in one’s relevant beliefs, or respectable but dissenting views are voiced concerning one’s means and/or values. It is suggested that the validity of doubt has to be considered, in addition to the level in a goal-means hierarchy towards which doubt is raised. (shrink)

El presente artículo considera la reactualización nostálgica del bolero en relación con la creación de una comunidad retro-utópica, la que da cuenta de la transformación capitalista del tiempo en mercancía. Lo anterior se realiza por medio de la consideración del grupo chileno La Flor del Recuerdo que retoma las canciones canónicas del género musical. Después de una contextualización del bolero y de su mutabilidad a lo largo del tiempo, se analizará un conjunto de canciones interpretadas por dicho grupo, con el (...) fin de concluir sobre los alcances de la retro-utopía a la hora de una contaminación capitalista del tiempo. (shrink)

This paper offers responses to the challenges and questions rasied by the comments of John M. Meyer, Gwen Ottinger, Mark Reiff, and Steve Vanderheiden to my book Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change and Global Poverty. Their concerns are insightful, many, and varied. My reply focuses on the following themes: The relationship between moral concern about climate change and moral concern abut global poverty, the role of hope in responding to climate change, the problem of plutocratic influences in democratic politics and international (...) negotiations, the role of technology in responding to climate change, and the value presuppostion of the book. I cannot do justice to all of the interesting points the commentators make, but I hope at least to have mustered decent replies in these areas. (shrink)

„Kann das Anthropozän gelingen?" Der Begriff „Anthropozän" fungiert in aktuellen Debatten als Chiffre für eine mehrfache Krise. Empirisch wird der Begriff verwendet, um den von Menschen verursachten Bruch mit dem stabilen Zeitalter des Holozäns zu bezeichnen. Normativ wird er gebraucht, um zu Neuanfängen aufzufordern: beim Verständnis und bei der praktischen Ausgestaltung menschlicher Verhältnisse zur Natur. Zugleich gerät der Begriff zunehmend selbst in die Kritik: dass er mit seinem Bezug auf ‚den Menschen‘ die tatsächlichen Verantwortlichkeiten für die aktuellen Natur- und Klima-Katastrophen (...) verdecke. Der Band macht sich das Schillern des Anthropozän-Begriffs zunutze. In interdisziplinärer Perspektive – aus der Philosophie, Theologie, Geographie, sowie den Literatur-, Politik-, Sozial- und Klimawissenschaften – verbindet er kritische und affirmativ-konstruktive Debatten: Welche Menschenbilder, Motive, Macht- und Gewaltstrukturen bestimmen die gesellschaftlich vorherrschenden Naturverhältnisse? Was wären alternative Vorstellungen des menschlichen Lebens mit der Natur als Teil der Natur? Wie sind die Praktiken der Nachhaltigkeit zu beurteilen, die von den Regierungen, auf dem kapitalistischen Markt und in der Zivilgesellschaft gebahnt werden? (shrink)

В статті здійснено корпусне, міждисциплінарне, емпіричне соціально-філософське дослідження можливостей актуалізації поняття та практики класової свідомості в метамодернізмі на основі чотирьох джерел: праць видатних західних філософів 1900-2023 рр. (5064 англомовних книжок і статей), праць Карла Маркса та Фрідріха Енгельса (43 томи), української соціологіні Олени Сімончук і дописів у Facebook-групі громадського руху українських медикінь «#БудьякНіна». Перші два джерела дозволили зрозуміти первинну логіку цього поняття, а також його філософську логіку та суперечливість на фоні історичного досвіду ХХ ст., тобто пов’язаних з ним трансформацій в (...) західному суспільстві та пролетарських революцій. Виявилося, що розум, однорідність і цілеспрямованість, які очікувалися в теорії від практики робітничого, революційного руху, проявив панівний клас, інтегрувавши робітничий клас на Заході, а на Сході, замість автентично пролетарських революцій, відродилися тиранія та відчуження від широких народних мас з боку професійних революціонерів, а згодом, й державно-партійної бюрократії. Втім, поняття класової свідомості лише частково можна вважати деактуалізованим, оскільки це поняття передбачає стадії розвитку класової свідомості. Два останніх джерела в нашому дослідженні дозволили продемонструвати, що в сучасних українських умовах можна говорити про сформованість 2-х стадій розвитку класової свідомості: розуміння власних інтересів і нерівності. Це створює можливості стверджувати, що метамодерністське перевідкриття історії, зокрема має відношення й до поняття та практики класової свідомості сучасних робітників, що дає надію на більш вдалий римейк емансипативного потенціалу марксистських ідей для розв’язання сучасної кризи капіталістичного людства у XXI cт. Підкреслимо, що дослідження було зроблено за допомогою використання корпусної лінгвістики, завдяки якій були проаналізовані великі обсяги текстів, як філософів, так й учасників руху «#БудьякНіна», що дозволило виділити головні контексти та фокус їхніх текстів, а також поставило усе дослідження на міцну емпіричну базу. (shrink)

The main theme of the article, which by genre falls into the area of semiotically influenced philosophy, is a reflection on the relationship between the human and the non-human, using two partial but parallel discourses. The first discourse is the perspective of general semiotics, which is defined in the article on the basis of two distinct forms of rationality that, in different guises, still intervene in debates about the nature of the humanities and social sciences today. The first form of (...) this rationality is semiological, which can be classified under the encyclopaedic rubric of structuralism, and which has its main source of inspiration in general linguistics and its continuation in philosophical anti-humanism. The second perspective has its origins in Peirce’s logicist theory of the sign and his pragmatist metaphysics, and opens up thinking about the sign, the human, and the non-human to a non-language-centric view of the world. Despite their demonstrable theoretical and methodological incompatibility, the present text treats them as incompatible but largely complementary perspectives. It is in their mutual exposition that one can see the moments in which the view of modern human as a semiological and semiotic animal takes shape. The text brings this fundamental and founding theoretical schism into focus by examining two images from post/modern art: Ted Chiang’s “The Great Silence” and Jorge Luis Borges’ “Averroës’s Search.”. (shrink)

This essay contextualizes the Dantean figure of Ulysses, as conceived by Yuri M. Lotman, and draws this key figure of modernity into a network of mutually interconnected discourses: primarily transhumanist visions of the human future in space, which nevertheless arise from the specifically modern epistemic dimension of “restlessness,” and intertwine with post-war astronautics, cyborg visions of human re-engineering, and revolutionary considerations of speculative realism. The key is Lotman’s emphasis on Ulysses as a figure of “energy of thought”; in this regard, (...) the essay shows how the original poetic “decision,” embodied by the Ulysses figure, advocates implicit cruelty in the name of the future (treated as an inevitable fate), and how this decision generates a logical and progressively unfolding series of “inhuman” images of man situated in the universe as an event of saturation of matter with merciless intelligence. (shrink)

Many utopian visions operate by scapegoating an Otherness. They blame an ‘enemy’ for an unbearable, dystopian current reality, holding the ‘enemy’ responsible for it or for obstructing the passage to a desired, new reality. Then they exclude (or even promise the elimination of) this ‘enemy’. Despite the renewed interest in utopias, such utopian frames remain theoretically neglected or, worse, they are considered typical of the logical structure of utopianism. This paper aims to show that this issue merits a different political-philosophical (...) attention. We begin with operations of utopian predicates in the relevant scholarship and distinguish them from the operations of the term ‘incriminatory’ that we are introducing. We term incriminatory the kind of utopian frame whose future-oriented, idealized and desired image is constructed in and through an incriminated ‘Other’. We indicate the re-conceptualizing merits of this new term and then we discuss the affirmative utopianism that does not incriminate a specific Other. Our main argument, which we deploy contra Yannis Stavrakakis’s position, is that utopias are not unavoidably or inherently incriminatory. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article examines the temporal rhetoric of Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future to discuss how the new generation of climate movement organizations offers ideas of an open future that can be acted upon. Research has shown how climate organizations create economic and social disruptions. However, as the article shows, they also create temporal disruptions. Taking theoretical inspiration from critical utopian studies, the article states that the climate activists should be understood as utilizing a disruptive utopian method that aims (...) to disrupt the present and thereby open the future. The method relies on utopias that are relational and open, not static or absolute. Hence, the utopianism employed by these groups is not about closure and perfection, but rather about openness and offering alternatives. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Ernst Bloch is a philosopher of hope, of this there can be no doubt. It is the fidelity to the proposition that a better world is possible that undergirds Bloch’s work. Yet, the hopeful tenor of Bloch’s philosophy, as I argue here, is accompanied by a second, more subterranean strand: a concern with the phenomenon of disappointment. Bloch has an interest in what happens after hope fails; those moments when the desire for utopia confronts the impossibility of its realisation. (...) By considering Bloch’s philosophical history of the defeat of the chiliastic movements of the medieval moment alongside his ontology of not-yet-being, the claim is made that disappointment has a constitutive role in the philosophy of hope, such that the dream of a new world is mediated through the history of its failures. Hope and disappointment are entangled, the power of the former indexed to the act of confronting the latter. (shrink)

This article is a philosophical analysis of escapism as a pedagogical possibility, with a particular focus on TV series. Taking my own, as well as students, experience of escapism into TV series as a starting point, that is, their ability take us somewhere far away, something which has become more acute during the pandemic time since we remain more or less self-isolated because of the corona virus Covid-19, the article discusses escapism in relation to distraction and attention in life as (...) well as within teaching, but also in relation to colportage, hope and social justice. According to Ernst Bloch, social justice cannot materialize without regarding things differently. Something that is often dismissed as mere escapism might be a seed for a new and more humane social order, as it can be seen as an “immature, but honest substitute for revolution”. Drawing on Bloch’s understanding of colportage and hope, as well as Walter Benjamin’s understanding of mass culture and cinema, the article treats escapism and TV series not as something simple, but rather as possible seeds for a new social order and thus as having pedagogical possibilities. (shrink)

The modern idea of emancipation is linked to the goal of overcoming dependencies and domination. However, as argued in the article, negative dialectics of emancipation must also be problematized. The project of emancipation, as it was formulated in the Age of Enlightenment, was often particular and was associated with the establishment of new forms of domination. Especially the project of liberation from the constraints of nature through technical development led to the domination of nature. In view of the ecological crisis, (...) the dark side of this project is becoming apparent today. The ecological base of human development is at risk. It is therefore necessary to pursue the idea of a reflexive emancipation, which also takes nature into account in order to enable a sustainable technology development. Emancipatory Technology Studies should therefore support an emancipatory technology policy which promotes a positive dialectical movement that overcomes the contrast between submission to nature and technical mastery of nature. (shrink)

This article examines the evolution of Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of culture during his over-sixty-year-long scholarly activity. Bauman wrote his first books on the theory of culture (Culture and Society; Sketches in the Theory of Culture) when he was a Professor at Warsaw University. The ideas put forward at that time were later developed in his writings. This applies in particular to the critical nature of his thought, the combination of synchronic and diachronic perspectives, the inclusion of the context of the (...) social structure as well as his references to the structural dimension and to agency. Later years – starting with the publication of the book, Culture as Praxis – saw Bauman’s growing emphasis on the transcendence of the existing reality and the creative role of an individual in the transformation of cultural reality. This article shows how other theorists of culture inspired Bauman and how he critically referred to them. The article offers a holistic look at Zygmunt Bauman’s oeuvre. It also creates an opportunity for English-speaking readers to become familiar with Bauman’s writings in his mother tongue. (shrink)

This paper examines Henry Giroux’s critical pedagogy, and explores the interconnections among education, democracy, and hope. Whereas critical pedagogy rejects foundationalism, it still requires a normative foundation to criticise oppressive situations and pose a vision of the future. Giroux rejects foundationalism and regards oppressive force such as neoliberalism as an enemy of both hope and democracy. He regards hope as an act of imagination, something to be cultivated, which can be regarded as a medium of mobilisation. This seems inconsistent with (...) the tenets of critical pedagogy, as mobilisation is often thought to suppress individual human agency, which Giroux and other critical pedagogues have emphasised heavily. This paper solves this inconsistency via the radical democracy advocated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and Gramscian insights regarding hegemony and education, and redefines the role of hope in Giroux's theory. Giroux’s framing of hope moves us towards certain normative claims and mobilises people to desire democracy as a normative foundation for society. (shrink)

This paper examines expressed hopelessness among environmental activists in Extinction Rebellion. While activists claim that they have lost all hope for a future without global warming and species extinction, through despair emerges a new hope for saving what can still be saved—a hope for what is left. This radical hope, emerging from despair, may make Extinction Rebellion even more effective. Drawing from personal interviews with 25 Extinction Rebellion activists in the United Kingdom and the published work of other Extinction Rebellion (...) activists, this paper identifies signs of radical hope. While activists have cast off false hope and passive hope, a new hope for what is still possible remains. This hope is based on virtue ethics: doing what is right in the moment, rather than being attached to a desired outcome. This drives forward activism despite the results. Through their principle of regenerative culture, Extinction Rebellion activists learn to support each other and be prepared for a more turbulent and challenging future. Through a regenerative culture they can salvage and repair what is left and sustain radical hope. (shrink)

This article is an extended discussion from the recent opening presentation for the Annual Winchester Advanced ‘Philosophy for Children’ Seminar in Climate Change Education, Hope and Philosophy for Children. The presentation and text originate from Rosamonde Birch's (2019) Masters’ dissertation research discerning hope through an Education for Sustainable Development Philosophy for Children workshop.

This paper argues that children as members of a perennial psychoclass represent one potential vanguard of an emergent shift in Western subjectivity, and that adult–child dialogue, especially in the context of schooling, is a key locus for the epistemological change that implies. I argue from Herbert Marcuse’s prophetic invocation of a “new sensibility,” which is characterized by an increase in instinctual revulsion towards violence, domination and exploitation and, correspondingly, a greater sensitivity to all forms of life. As the embodiment of (...) a form of philosophical “post-animism” or hylozoism, it represents the evolutionary shift that, it could be argued, our species requires for survival at this historical moment. I suggest that the evolutionary phenomenon of neoteny—the long formative period of human childhood and the pedomorphic character of humans across the life cycle—makes of the adult-collective of school a primary site for the reconstruction of belief. After exploring child–adult dialogue more broadly as a form of dialectical interaction between what John Dewey called “impulse” and “habit,” I argue for a form, or archetype of schooling first articulated in ancient Greece called skholé, a space that functions, according to Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons, as a “meeting place,” a “form of gathering and action” dedicated to inquiry, and not to the production of calculated, preordained outcomes—a space removed from the world of production, and characterized by a form of temporality associated with childhood: aion, or “timeless time,” as opposed to kronos, or linear time. Skholé is dedicated to emergence and cultural reconstruction, which follows from an educative relationship between adults and children based on understanding the latter as bearers of the “novel,” and on a faith in the “reorganizing potentialities” of childhood impulse, or interest—that is, on natality as a fundamental principle of cultural evolution. (shrink)

The language of hope is a ubiquitous part of political life, but its value is increasingly contested. While there is an emerging debate about hope in political philosophy, an assessment of the prevalent scepticism about its role in political practice is still outstanding. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of historical and recent treatments of hope in political philosophy and to indicate lines of further research. We argue that even though political philosophy can draw on recent (...) analyses of hope in analytic philosophy, there are distinct challenges for an account of hope in political contexts. Examples such as racial injustice or climate change show the need for a systematic normative account that is sensitive to the unavoidability of hope in politics as much as its characteristic dangers. (shrink)

Given the sociopolitical crisis and turmoil in the world today, there is a great need for philosophical and sociocultural critiques that are not only concerned with deconstructing the present and the past but also with offering forward-looking, radical solutions to the problems and challenges we face. Drastic times call for drastic measures, including in exploring and advancing a flagrantly partisan scholarship with explicitly transformative activist agendas of strengthening the public and personal agency needed to constrain capital for the sake of (...) social and economic justice. The argument advanced in this article is that Marxism – reinvigorated, re-envisioned and infused with insights from recent scholarship in feminism, critical pedagogy, cultural-historical and critical race theories, and new materialism, among others – can offer a new worldview in which political imagination and other phenomena of human subjectivity find their due, that is, central and formative place to thus allow for the advancement of research with activist agendas as a form of resistance. In utilizing such a worldview, research and theoretical constructions can break away from the ethos of adaptation and instead to actively strive for social transformation based in a radical reworking of the status and role of political imagination and associated notions of agency, hope, and commitment. (shrink)

A mythic symbolic type is a binary-structured, gender-oriented cultural mask. Whoever enters it will never exit and will behave according to the mask’s logic. The article focuses on the men of the semi-commune Little Home trapped in the mask. It will examine this cultural structure’s organization of binary-opposition in a unique kind of intensity, I called “masculine waves.” In the final part, a discussion will be presented in the context of Deleuze’s Becoming and Bloch’s utopia.

Darko Suvin’s Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, first published by Yale University Press in 1979, has been the single most influential work in the history of academic science-fiction studies. As Veronica Hollinger observed: “Metamorphoses is the significant forerunner of all the major examinations of the genre”. Mark Bould and Sherryl Vint make more or less the same point: “Disagreeing with him [Suvin] is a considerable part of SF scholarship—he... set... the terms by which SF has subsequently been studied”. Perhaps not quite (...) so significant for utopian studies, Metamorphoses was nonetheless a crucially important text here too. For the fundamental novelty of its argument lies in the... (shrink)