This paper is concerned with rethinking the nature of social life in terms of how it appears — not to us academics at the centre of it, as consisting in a system, or a plurality of systems -but how it might appear from a position more in on the margins, at those moments when ordinary people must relate themselves to each other, unsystematically and practically. To do this, we must also rethink the nature of language and thought as possessing within (...) these moments, a formative or creative character — for it must have the ability to create practical connections between aspects of people's lives, as required, on the spot. This is to privilege the role of rhetoric in these regions over that of logic. This also leads to a rethinking of ideology and power: as being to do with, not ideas, but the practical shaping (or not) — in moments when in practical communication with others — of collective, sharable forms of life. Where it is in such moments, in which different people meet each other in socially constructing their lives together, that political struggles are their most intense, and where ideology can be detected at work. (shrink)

This paper explores how gender can operate as a disguise for class in an examination of the self-sacrifice of the Maiden in Euripides' Children of Herakles. In Part I, I discuss the role of human sacrifice in terms of its radical potential to transform society and the role of class struggle in Athens. In Part II, I argue that the representation of women was intimately connected with the social and political life of the polis. In a discussion of iconography, the (...) theater industry and audience I argue that female characters became one of the means by which different groups promoted partisan interests based on class and social status. In Part III, I show how the Maiden solicits the competing interests of the theater audience. After discussing the centrality and marginality of the Maiden's character, I draw upon the funeral oration as a comparative model with which to understand the quite different role of self-sacrifice in tragedy. In addition to representing and mystifying the interests of elite, lower class and marginal groups, the play glorifies a subordinate character whose contradictory social status embodies the social position of other “marginal” members of Athenian society. The play stages a model for taking political action to transform the social system and for commemorating the tragic costs of such undertakings. (shrink)

This article seeks to examine how religious ideas that are not the focus of a particular halakhic question become the crux of the ruling, thereby molding it and dictating its bias. We will attempt to demonstrate this through a study of Jewish medical ethics, based on some of the rulings of one of the greatest halakhic decisors of the previous generation: Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg (1915–2006). Rabbi Waldenberg molds his rulings on the basis of a religious principle asserting that the (...) legitimacy of any medical procedure is qualified and limited. Rabbi Waldenberg rejects certain accepted medical practices, including plastic surgery, in vitro fertilization, and organ transplants. Even if these procedures are regarded by other halakhic decisors as being legitimate, for Rabbi Waldenberg they are ethically and religiously improper, and therefore they are halakhically forbidden. (shrink)

This article is a review of the contemporary ‘leftist’ republican project. The project stands on two legs, and we examine them both in turn. The first leg is a novel reading of history. This reading suggests, on the one hand that, contrary to some popular assumptions, republicanism does have a leftist, even a radical stream. But on the other hand, it also suggests that several authors and movements that did not self-identify as republicans actually did, in fact, employ a characteristically (...) republican thinking. The second leg of the project is a normative one. It is essentially an attempt by political philosophers to demonstrate that there is something in republican theory from which all these leftist, even radical streams spring forth. Primarily, it is suggested that it is republicanism’s sensitivity to the freedom-restricting role of great inequalities of power that provides the normative resource for the development of a characteristically republican critique of capital and capitalism. We briefly review the main arguments in favor of these claims, and also, as a conclusion, raise a few challenges that the ‘leftist’ republican project potentially faces. (shrink)

Much contemporary social epistemology takes as its starting point individuals with sophisticated propositional attitudes and considers (i) how those individuals depend on each other to gain (or lose) knowledge through testimony, disagreement, and the like and (ii) if, in addition to individual knowers, it is possible for groups to have knowledge. In this paper I argue that social epistemology should be more attentive to the construction of knowers through social and cultural practices: socialization shapes our psychological and practical orientation so (...) that we perform local social practices fluently. Connecting practical orientation to an account of ideology, I argue that to ignore the ways in which cognition is socially shaped and filtered is to allow ideology to do its work unnoticed and unimpeded. Moreover, ideology critique cannot simply challenge belief, but must involve challenges to those practices through which we ourselves become the vehicles and embodiments of ideology.V. (shrink)

Ideology is commonly defined along functional, epistemic, and genetic dimensions. This article advances a reasonably unified account that specifies how they connect and locates the mechanisms at work. I frame the account along a recent distinction between anchoring and grounding, endorse an etiological reading of functional explanations, and draw on current work about the epistemology of delusion, looping effects, and structuring causes to explain how ideologies originate, reproduce, and possibly collapse. This eventually allows articulating how the legitimating function of ideologies (...) relates to the constitutive and causal role they play when embedded into the facts they are originally designed to anchor. (shrink)

La presente investigación analiza la práctica de la ortografía rrazional propuesta por los neógrafos chilenos, un grupo de intelectuales radicales que retomó la discusión lingüística en los últimos años de la reforma ortográfica chilena, a fines del XIX y comienzos del XX, para establecer un proyecto ideológico que no solo se ocupaba del aspecto lingüístico. A partir del uso de esta ortografía no oficial, considerada como un acto glotopolítico en sí mismo, se pudo observar que los neógrafos también difundieron con (...) fuerza temáticas libertarias y positivistas que los caracterizaron como un grupo anarquista, pero que a diferencia de otras manifestaciones anarquistas chilenas de la época, hizo la revolución desde el campo ortográfico, proponiendo un proyecto contrahegemónico lingüístico, político y social, cuyas representaciones hoy podemos clasificar dentro de los estudios de enfoque etnortográfico. (shrink)

El concepto de ideología es emblemático en el pensamiento y la trayectoria de Luis Villoro. El presente trabajo se propone examinar dicho concepto en relación con el diálogo que Villoro estableció con la obra de Karl Marx y la tradición marxista posterior. Dos cuestiones respecto a la dimensión política preocupan al autor. La primera debido a lo impreciso del término; la segunda, por el uso represivo de Marx en los Estados que pretendían ser sus herederos. Mi tesis principal es que (...) Villoro propone una ética de las creencias como respuesta crítica a esos dilemas políticos y fi losófi cos del concepto de ideología. (shrink)

Intertwined with the celebration of Athenian democratic institutions, we find in the "Oresteia" another chain of interactions, in which the elite families of Argos, Phokis, Athens, and even Mount Olympos employ the traditional aristocratic relationships of xenia and hetaireia to renegotiate their own status within-and at the pinnacle of-the civic order, and thereby guarantee the renewed prosperity of their respective communities. The capture of Troy is the result of a joint venture by the Atreidai and the Olympian "family" . Although (...) Agamemnon falls victim to his own mishandling of aristocratic privilege, his son is raised by doryxenoi in Phokis , a relationship which is mirrored by that with the Olympian "allies," Hermes and Apollo. Orestes' recovery of his father's position is thus shown to depend upon a network of "guest-friends" and "sworn-comrades," reinforced by the traditional language of oaths and reciprocal loyalty. In the Eumenides, the alliance between the Olympian and Argive royal families is re-invoked as the basis both for Athena's protection of Orestes, and finally for Zeus' concern for his daughter's Athenian dependents. In contrast to this successful "networking," and the resultant benefits that trickle down to the citizens of Argos and Athens, stand the seditious oaths and perverted "comradeship" of Aigisthos and Klytaimestra; likewise, the Erinyes are unable to draw on equivalent claims of pedigree or xenia to those enjoyed by Orestes and Apollo. Like all Greek tragedies, the "Oresteia" presents the action through constantly shifting viewpoints, those of aristocrats and commoners, leaders and led, while the propriety of this hierarchy itself is never questioned. And although the action moves from monarchical Argos to an incipiently democratic Athens, paradoxically we hear less and less about "ordinary," lower-class citizens as the trilogy progresses. Thus, at the same time that the trilogy reinforces the sense of collective survival and civic values , it also suggests that these can be maintained only through the proper interventions of their traditional leaders. Aeschylus' plays were composed during a time when the Athenian democracy was still developing, and elite leadership and patronage were still taken for granted. Attic tragedy and the City Dionysia may be seen as a site of negotiation between rival ideologies within the polis, wherein a kind of "solidarity without consensus" is achieved. Written and staged by the elite under license from the demos, the dramas play out dangerous stories of royal risk-taking, crime, glory, and suffering, in such a way as to reassure the citizen audience simultaneously of their own collective invulnerability, and of the unique value of their leading families. (shrink)

The conceptualization of human agency is one of the oldest and most debated challenges in political theory. This essay defends the continuous relevance of this endeavour against a proliferating theoretical pessimism. Instead of engaging the much rehearsed structure-agency debate, the author conceptualizes agency in relation to discourses. However, such an approach inevitably elicits suspicion. Is discourse not merely a faddish term, destined to wax and wane with fleeting intellectual trends of the postmodern and poststructural kind? Does the concept of discourse, (...) as many fear, suck us into a nihilistic vortex and deprive us of the stable foundations that are necessary to ground our thoughts and actions? Not so, argues this essay, and defends an anti-essentialist stance as the most viable chance for retaining an adequate understanding of how people situate themselves as agents and influence their socio-political environment. The ensuing analysis, which focuses on everyday forms of resistance, demonstrates how the very acceptance of ambiguity, often misrepresented as relativism, is a crucial precondition not only for the conceptualization of human agency, but also for its actual application in practice. (shrink)

Hermeneutics, or the science of interpretation,is well accepted in the humanities. In thefield of education, hermeneutics has played arelatively marginal role in research. It isthe task of this essay to introduce thegeneral methods and findings of Paul Ricoeur'shermeneutics. Specifically, the essayinterprets the usefulness of Ricoeur'sphilosophy in the study of domination. Theproblem of domination has been a target ofanalysis for critical pedagogy since itsinception. However, the role of interpretationas a constitutive part of ideology critique isrelatively understudied and it is here thatRicoeur's (...) ideas are instructive. Last, theessay radicalizes Ricoeur's insights in orderto realize their potential to disruptasymmetrical relations of power in education. To this extent, the author contributes to thebuilding of a critical brand of hermeneutics,or the interpretation of domination. (shrink)

Educating students to become participatory citizens in their country is one of the explicit tasks of public education in a democratic-liberal state. In this article, I use civics education in Israel as a case study for the examination of the justification and the practicability of implementing political education in schools, as opposed to implementing its rivals –ideological education or a-political education. I argue that a liberal-democratic stance and its educational implication—political education—are two concepts submerged in ideology, and, as a result, (...) political education in schools is not ideology-free. I also argue that the common kind of political-civic education in Israel is irrelevant for the significant minorities of Palestinian and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish citizens. Revealing the emptiness and futility of present-day political-civil education leads me to propose to separate this education into different ideological-educational streams, allowing each of them to emphasize its ideology in civil-political education. (shrink)

Gender and advertising research have often centered on gender stereotypes, most of which emphasize the representation of women as ‘sex objects'. The representation of men in sexual stereotypes are often not dealt with, even though an increasing number of advertisements are now showing men as sex objects. In its contribution to gender, language and advertising research, this study looks at how men are represented in sexual stereotypes in Ghanaian radio commercials. Using a Feminist Critical Discursive Approach, six adverts on products (...) for sexual potency are examined. Through the analyses of various linguistic forms, the results show that ‘manliness’ is equated with sexual power, and this is a reproduction of the traditional male power stereotype, that is, the expectation that men are to be powerful. However, this power is subverted since it needs the ‘approval’ of women, thereby representing women as equally powerful. (shrink)

In this paper, I will analyze, as an example of political discourse, the songs used by Spain's two main political parties in the 2008 general elections. Just like other texts used in political electoral discourse, these songs form a part of a public and ideological discourse aimed at the election of a candidate. The whole of the candidate's discourse is aimed at convincing the electorate that she/he and his/her party are the best choice, while the opposing candidate is the worst. (...) In this paper, I will analyze how this strategy, quite typical in political ideological electoral discourse, is put into practice in the two songs. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct the central concept of the young Lukács’s and Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge, as they present it in their writings in the early decades of the twentieth century. I argue that this concept, namely Weltanschauung, is used to refer to some conceptually unstructured totality of feelings, which they take to be a condition of possibility of intellectual production, and this understanding is contrasted to an alternative construal of the term that presents it as logically structured, quasi-theoretical (...) background knowledge. This concept has Kantian reminiscences: it is a condition of possibility of intellectual production in general. The young Mannheim and Lukács rely on 'Weltanschauung' so understood as a phenomenon mediating between the facts of society and individual intellectual production and reception: it is seen as being conditioned by sociological facts and therefore as a historical and sociological category through which, and therefore indirectly, society enters into intellectual production. (shrink)

This dissertation seeks to reactivate the Marxist transition debate, by conceptualising transition as a problem in its own right, moving away from a stagist vision of the development of modes of production. Part I outlines the historical materialist parameters of the ontology of transition, and traces the concept across classical and western Marxism. This section draws from Althusserian theory to sketch out a conception of historical time as a multiplicity of dislocated trajectories. This is followed by a critique of post-Marxism, (...) based on the disappearance of the concept of transition in the discursive turn. It is argued that transition should be retained as a sociologically rigorous concept, and that among various strands of Marxist theory there is evidence of its efficacy. Part II analyses contemporary left theory and politics through the dichotomy of melancholy and utopia, and argues that they exemplify temporal complexity and illuminate current impasses on the left. Part III applies the findings of the preceding parts to strategic questions of demands, agency and strategy. This is achieved through a substantive discussion of postwork theory as a new postcapitalist vision, embodying issues of temporality, transition and utopia. The thesis concludes that the neglected problem of transition and the notion of multiple temporalities are important theoretical tools for addressing questions of historical epistemology and left strategy. Understanding transition as an embedded societal tendency is valuable to critical social theory, and provides the means to theorise postcapitalist futures. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe notion of ideology is related to social and material reality and especially to the processes of social reproduction. Therefore, the analysis of ideology seems to fall into the domain of discourse analysis. The analysis of language and practices of signification in social contexts constitutes the basic triangle of discourse analysis. However, the Marxist concept of ideology always refers to some kind of falsity, that ultimately enables the researcher to not only analyse but also to criticize ideologies. Ideologies are always (...) in some way false, injust or inadequate. It is at this point that discourse analysts usually raise the most serious objections as they understand truth itself as a discursive product, resulting from powerful struggles of domination and exclusion. The present article explores in how far the Marxist notion can be used for the purpose of discourse analysis. It argues that even the notion of falsity as present in classical Marxism can be adapted for understanding and criticizing contemporary ideologies. I start by presenting some common understandings of ideology in the field of Discourse Studies. In a second step I will analyse elements of the notion of ideology in Marx's early writings, especially in the debate with the Young Hegelians and ask what this means for empirical discourse analysis. I will then point towards elements of the critique of ideology in Marx mature ‘political economy’ that could be fruitful for Discourse Studies. Finally, I will try to reconcile a Marxist concept of ideology based ultimately on a notion of falsity with such discourse analytical approaches highly suspicious of the possibility of the existing ‘politics of truth’. We will see that, due to the relation between ideas and material organization in ideologies, the critique of ideologies becomes not only a critique of practices of justifications but turns into a genuine social critique. (shrink)

The widespread and long-lived failings of academic economics are due to an over-reliance on largely inappropriate mathematical methods of analysis. This is an assessment I have long maintained. Many heterodox economists, however, appear to hold instead that the central problem is a form of political-economic ideology. Specifically, it is widely contended in heterodox circles that the discipline goes astray just because so many economists are committed to a portrayal of the market economy as a smoothly or efficiently functioning system or (...) some such, a portrayal that, whether sincerely held or otherwise, is inconsistent with the workings of social reality. Here I critically examine the contention that a form of political-economic ideology of this sort is the primary problem and assess its explanatory power. I conclude that the contention does not fare very well. I do not, though, deny that ideology of some sort has a major impact on the output of the modern economics academy. However it is of a different nature to the form typically discussed, and works in somewhat indirect and complex ways. Having raised the question of the impact of ideology I take the opportunity to explore its play in the economics academy more generally. (shrink)

Marx’ın nesne ve yöntem tartışmalarının dar kalıbıyla açıklanamayan tek bilimi, insani ihtiyaçlara yanıt vermeyi amaçlaması bakımından bir idealdir. Frankfurt Okulu’nun eleştirel toplum analizi tam olarak bu ideali gerçekleştirme denemesidir. Frankfurt Okulu, mevcut toplumsal yapı ile insani gereksinimler arasındaki ilişkiyi bir bilinç geliştirime sorunu olarak görmekte ve bu soruna aydınlanmacı eleştiri fikrini tarihsel materyalizmin temel savlarıyla birleştirerek çözüm sunmaktadır. Bu girişim, eleştiriyi epistemolojinin alanı dışına taşıdığı gibi tarihi de doğru biçimde toplumun ontolojik zemini haline getirmiştir. Bu çalışmada, Horkheimer, Adorno ve Marcuse’ün (...) bu amaç doğrultusunda sundukları katkılarda, tarih ve toplum ilişkisi bakımından bir boşluk olduğu ve bu boşluğun Benjamin’in tarihe yönelik tezleriyle tamamlanıp tamamlanamayacağı tartışılmaktadır. (shrink)

In this paper, we first set out three requirements that each e-theory – a theory whose task is to explain data – must fulfill in order to be one such good theory: i) an ontological requirement, i.e. adequate simplicity, ii) a methodological requirement, i.e. plurality of research procedures, iii) an epistemological requirement, i.e. compatibility with the best available epistemical procedures. Moreover, we will claim that from the metaphilosophical point of view, unlike scientific naturalism on the one hand and supernaturalism on (...) the other, liberal naturalism is the only philosophical approach capable of fulfilling all such requirements. (shrink)

The proponents of critical pedagogy criticize the earlier Neo‐Marxist theories of education, arguing that they provide only a ‘language of critique’. By introducing the possibility of human agency and resistance, critical pedagogists attempt to develop not only a pedagogy of critique, but also to build a pedagogy of hope. Fundamentally, the aim of critical pedagogy is twofold: 1) to correct the pessimistic conclusions of Neo‐Marxist theories, and 2) to transform a ‘language of critique’ into a ‘language of possibility’ . Then, (...) what political projects do critical pedagogies present to us? What alternative visions of schooling do critical pedagogies offer against the mainstream pedagogy? The purpose of this paper is to identify main projects of critical pedagogy, and to explore overarching politics that underlie the field of critical pedagogy. Although there are diverse theories and approaches in critical pedagogy, three overarching projects can be identified, which I call: 1) the project of experience, 2) the project of anti‐system, and 3) the project of inclusion. Based on an examination of the general trends and characteristics of these three projects of critical pedagogy, I argue that three prominent politics that underlie the field of critical pedagogy are culturalist politics, self/identity politics, and grassroots politics. In trying to better understand why and how critical pedagogy has developed the political stances as it has, the last part of the paper links these three politics to the historical developments of the New Left and the New Social Movements. (shrink)

This article theorizes the inseparable relationship of power and knowledge. It argues that there is a transhistorical constant in the production and dissemination of knowledge: a dialectical contradiction within its institutional heart. The production, dissemination and, importantly, the consolidation of knowledge, is bound up with the obfuscation of this and restriction or prevention of knowledge dissemination. These latter processes are part of the concept I call structural mystification. The article explains and theoretically justifies this concept and details the manner of (...) its working, using the example of educational systems. (shrink)

In this paper three models of teaching and learning medical ethics are discussed critically, the traditional and revised vocational models, and the patient-centred model. The autonomy-oriented patient-centred ethics of Beauchamp and Childress is rejected in favour of a hermeneutic practical ethics. A performative conception of ethics teaching is recommended as the most appropriate model for use in the theory and practice of ethics pedagogy.

An anti-representationalist view of language and a deflationary view of truth, key themes in contemporary pragmatism and especially Richard Rorty, do not undermine the notion, in critical theory, of ideology as 'false consciousness'. Both Foucault and Marx were opposed to what Marxists call historical idealism and so they should be seen as objecting to forms of ideology-critique that do not sufficiently avoid such an 'Hegelian' perspective. Foucault's general views on the relations between truth and power can plausibly be construed in (...) a way that makes them compatible with a Marxian critical theory. (shrink)

A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.

The infinite problems attendant with mass public schooling requires evermore resilient and innovative theories to buttress an account of education that is socially defensible. While educational inequality could previously be attributed to developing nations due to their economic underdevelopment, developed nations too, with growing rapidity have to confront their internal burgeoning crises in education. It is against this backdrop that I focus on the possibility of expanding a notion of critical pedagogy by nesting the concept of cosmic pedagogy therein. As (...) such, I draw on the Montessorian theory of cosmic education;Bazalukan theory of the formation of a planetary and cosmic personality; and Freireian critical pedagogy to discover the resonance and disharmony between these conceptual positions. Of the three theoretical frames, each can in their own right be considered a methodological approach to address particular problems in education and society at large. So it is with these theories and methods in mind that I suggest and reflect upon the ways that education might nudge us along in our attempt to be fully human and to occupy the space of intelligent matter in an ever expanding universe. (shrink)