Jen Hedler Hammond reviews Kevin Floyd’s The Reification of Desire: Toward a Queer Marxism. Floyd’s book succeeds in producing a dialogue between Judith Butler and Fredric Jameson that will no doubt have far-reaching consequences for both queer and Marxist theory. But what insight does this dialogue provide into the undertheorized position of women in Marxism and Queer Studies alike?

David Hume (1711–1776) described the question of liberty and necessity as ‘the most contentious question of metaphysics, the most contentious science’ (Hume [1748] 1975, p. 95). He was right about it being contentious. Whether it is metaphysical is another matter. I think that what is genuinely metaphysical is an assumption that Hume, and a good many other philosophers, make in their treatment of the question. The assumption is about language and reality. I call it ‘the conformity assumption’. But more about (...) that shortly. Let us begin at the obvious beginning, by considering what the terms ‘liberty’ and ‘necessity’ mean in the expression ‘liberty and necessity’. (shrink)

The literature in economic methodology has witnessed an increase in the number of studies which, drawing upon the postmodern turn in social sciences, pay serious attention to the non-epistemological-discursive elements of economic theorizing. This recent work on the "economic discourse" has thus added a new dimension to economic methodology by analyzing various discursive aspects of the construction of scientific meanings in economics. Taking a similar stance, this paper explores Michel Foucault's archaeological analysis of scientific discourses. It aims to show that (...) his archaeological reading of the history of economic thought provides an articulate non-epistemological framework for the analysis of the discursive elements in the history of economics and contemporary economic theorizing. (shrink)

This Master of Arts thesis is in two parts: a novel, An Anarchy of Man, and an exegesis which places the novel in relation to philosophical concerns about the self and the way those concerns are portrayed in selected works of Western literature. The novel is set in Canberra and Sydney and tells the story of the relationship between two characters: Joe and Gin. It explores the way we in the modern Western world think about ourselves and those around us. (...) Chapter One considers the view of the self in the work of the philosopher Rene Descartes and explores how this view is portrayed in three contemporary Australia novels, and in An Anarchy of Man. Chapter Two examines post-Cartesian views of the self, especially those in the work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and then considers the way the self is portrayed in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and in my own An Anarchy of Man. Chapter Three examines postmodern conceptions of the self and considers how these conceptions are portrayed in the work of the contemporary American novelist Don DeLillo and in my own An Anarchy of Man. (shrink)

I develop two different epistemic roles for emotion and desire. Caring for moral ends and people plays a pivotal though contingent role in ensuring reliable awareness of morally salient details; possession of various emotions and motives is a necessary condition for autonomous understanding of moral concepts themselves. Those who believe such connections compromise the "objective" status of morality tend to assume rather than argue for the bifurcated conception of reason and affect this essay challenges.

The industrialisation of agriculture has led to considerable alterations at both the technological and economical levels of animal farming. Several animal welfare issues of modern animal agriculture – e.g. stress and stereotypical behaviour – can be traced back to the industrialised intensification of housing and numbers of animals in production. Although these welfare issues dictate ethical criticism, it is the claim of this article that such direct welfare issues are only the forefront of a greater systemic ethical problem inherent to (...) industrialisation. Consequently, this article provides an analysis of the foundational ethical problems in animal agriculture which derive from overly positivistic science and free-market ideology. It will be argued that both these ways of thinking allow for a systematic reification and commodification of animals and that this contributes to language and attitudes which cannot encompass ethical consideration of animals. (shrink)

Sarah Brouillette suggests that literary studies can help de-naturalize contemporary capitalism by accounting for the rise of the pervasive vocabulary that imagines work as a form of self-exploration, self-expression, and self-realization. She discusses two manifestations of this vocabulary. One is the notion of a “creative class” branded by Richard Florida, management professor and guru consultant to government and industry. The other is the theory of “immaterial labor” assembled within autonomist Marxism. Despite their obvious differences, Brouillette demonstrates that both conceptions are (...) more symptoms than diagnoses of a now dominant tendency to fathom creativity both ahistorically — as the essence of experimentation emanating from an internal natural source — and contradictorily — as newly valuable to capitalism but romantically honorable and free. (shrink)

According to the dominant methodology of contemporary analytic philosophy, philosophical intuitions play evidential roles for or against philosophical theories. However, intuitions can play the supposed role successfully only if they are justified. Phenomenalism, as one of the proposed theories that aims to explain and argue for justifiedness of intuitions, claims that intuitions are justified because they have a certain phenomenal character: Intuitive contents seem to be true. Furthermore, it argues that sensory perception has similar phenomenal character, in virtue of which (...) it is justified. This analogy confirms the justifiedness of intuitions. In this paper, however, we shall argue that there is at least one another epistemological feature of sensory perception which is relevant to its justifiedness, that is self-correction. Although sensory perception is highly self – correcting, intuitions normally resist self – correction, even in the case of further recalcitrant evidences. The disanalogy threatens phenomenalist analogy for justifiedness of intuitions. (shrink)

Mutual feedback between human-made environments and facets of thought throughout history has yielded two myths: the Garden and the Citadel. Both myths correspond to Jung’s feminine and masculine collective subconscious, as well as to Nietzsche’s premise of Apollonian and Dionysian impulses in art. Nietzsche’s premise suggests, furthermore, that the feminine myth of the Garden is time-bound whereas the masculine myth of the Citadel, or the Ideal City, constitutes a spatial deportment. Throughout history the two myths have continually molded the built (...) environment and thought, but the myth of the Ideal City – from Plato to Descartes to modernity – came to dominate city-form and ensuing aspects of contemplation. This relationship seems to have shifted during the twentieth century. Intellectual dispositions have begun to be largely nurtured by an incongruous city-form emerging from the gap between the incessant promise for an automated, well-functioning city, on the one hand, and looming alienation, coupled with the factual, malfunctioning city, on the other hand. Urban decay, a persisting and time-bound urban event that is a byproduct of this configuration, suggests the ascent of the Garden myth in post-modern city-form. (shrink)

This article is intended as a brief introduction to the lifeworld approach to empirical research in education. One decisive feature of this approach is the inclusion of an explicit discussion of its ontological assumptions in the research design. This does not yet belong to the routines of empirical research in education. Some methodological consequences of taking the lifeworld ontology as a ground for empirical research are discussed as well as the importance of creativity in the choice of method for particular (...) projects. In this way, the lifeworld approach has its own particular perspective in phenomenological, empirical research in education. The article concludes with a description of an empirical study based on the lifeworld approach in order to illuminate the possibilities for empirical research in education as well as the significance of this approach for education. (shrink)

Massively multiplayer online games are not merely electronic communication systems based on computational databases, but also include artificial intelligence that possesses complex, dynamic structure. Each visible action taken by a component of the multi-agent system appears simple, but is supported by vastly more sophisticated invisible processes. A rough outline of the typical hierarchy has four levels: interaction between two individuals, each either human or artificial, conflict between teams of agents who cooperate with fellow team members, enduring social-cultural groups that seek (...) to accomplish shared goals, and large-scale cultural traditions, often separated into virtual geographic regions. In many MMOs, both magic and religion are represented, in ways that harmonize with a social-scientific theory that defines them in terms of specific versus general psychological compensators. This article draws empirical examples from five diverse MMOs: Dark Age of Camelot, Dungeons and Dragons Online, World of Warcraft, A Tale in the Desert and Gods and Heroes. (shrink)

This article provides a critique of the IWC's traditional focus on anthropocentric conservation in the governance of whaling. It is argued that this position, which relies on accepting the view that we have no direct moral duties to whales, is out of step with the moral status that now tends, in theory and practice, to be granted to animals. More specifically, anthropocentric conservation conflicts with the widespread acceptance, in theory and practice, that non-human animals such as whales have moral standing, (...) that what we do to them matters to them directly. This does not mean that whaling should necessarily be prohibited on ethical grounds, although the animal welfare analysis of whaling sketched in this article does suggest that, on balance, it is difficult to defend morally. Rather, it is being claimed that it is morally objectionable to deny, as the whaling nations do, that the IWC ought to be mandated to consider the welfare implications of whaling. (shrink)

What becomes of our clearest theories of explanation, when faced with the unpalatable quantum phenomena that seem to undermine the direct conceptual connection between the fundamental material entities and the self-standing material objects of everyday parlance? The general explanatory theory advocates unification of explanatory concepts with everyday discourse, identification of essentially similar characteristics between direct experience and the hypothesised explanatory ontology, and a conceptualisation of phenomena in terms of objects enduring causally regulated change. On the other hand quantum theory feeds (...) antirealist suspicions about the worth of realist explanatory endeavour with examples of phenomena in which the structure of material separation and individuation based on spatial extension is insufficient for construction of deeper explanatory narratives. An example from history of science, that of Newton’s law-constitutive definition of objects in response to D escartes problem of bodies is used to suggest a possible strategy for explanations unifying the quantum and common-sense conceptual domains, provided the anti-realist challenge to such enterprise is read as questioning the epistemological justification of interpretation of experience in both cases.Što se događa s najjasnijim dostupnim teorijama objašnjenja kada se suoče s problematičnim kvantnim pojavama koje naizgled potkopavaju neposrednu konceptualnu poveznicu između fundamentalnih materijalnih entiteta i samoopstojnih materijalnih predmeta iz svakodnevnog govora? Opća teorija objašnjenja preporuča objedinjenje teoretskih eksplanatornih pojmova sa svakodnevnim govorom, određenje esencijalno sličnih karakteristika između neposrednog iskustva i hipotetske eksplanatorne ontologije te konceptualizaciju pojava kroz predmete koji istraju kroz uzročno regulirane promjene. S druge strane, kvantna teorija potkrjepljuje antirealistične sumnje o valjanosti eksplanatornog nastojanja realizma primjerima pojava u kojima je struktura materijalne razdvojenosti i individuacije temeljene na prostornoj protežnosti nedovoljna za izgradnju dubljih eksplanatornih narativa. Primjerom iz povijesti znanosti, Newtonovom definicijom predmeta temeljenom na zakonima kao odgovorom na Descartesov problem materijalnih tijela, daje se moguća strategija izgradnje objašnjenja koja objedinjuju kvantne i “zdravorazumske” konceptualne domene, ukoliko se antirealistična kritika te izgradnje u oba slučaja shvati kao propitivanje epistemološkog opravdanja tumačenja iskustva. (shrink)