It seems that more often than not, refugees and asylum seekers are associated with the notion of ‘limbo’. This terminology is used to illustrate situations in which people are unable to access systems that would alleviate their ‘standstill’ lives. In other words, when it is said that people are in limbo, it is understood they have a sense of hopelessness. Specifically, in the media, at least three examples of ‘limbo’ are often used: limbo as a physical space, limbo as a (...) type of legal conflict or legal irreconcilability and metaphysical limbo or the type of limbo that exists in one’s mind. Unfortunately, the refugee experience is so commonly associated with the idea of limbo that it appears to be the central space that refugees ‘belong’—presumably, due to the inaccessible or unpreventable nature of their predicament, they are unable to escape their life in limbo. However, it is important to understand that limbo does not simply ‘exist’. It is something that is created. In the case of Australia, refugee limbos appear as certain types due to the restrictive nature of the Government’s laws and policies. This article explores the usage of the term ‘limbo’ in the media in order to draw attention to its overwhelming presence and map specific types of discourse and ideologies. Further, it is shown that limbo should not be considered something which is out of our control or something inherent in the refugee experience but instead, is a tool used by governments to restrict refugee access to the border and systems of protection. (shrink)

Introduction - From the Illiad to the Studies on Hysteria: A chronology of the discovery of the unconscious mind - Freud's theories of the unconscious mind - Jung's collective unconscious - Lacan's linguistic paradigm.

Had anybody told me at the beginning of my university studies that I would end up as a historian of science, I would not only have shaken my head in disbelief, I would in all probability not even have understood the prophecy. When I left high school, my interests ranged from literary writing to the life sciences. After an initial attempt to study biochemistry, which I aborted after a year, my early university education was in philosophy, with an emphasis on (...) continental philosophy, from Descartes to Spinoza, from Kant to Hegel, from Nietzsche to Heidegger, pretty much the curriculum that would dominate the vast majority of the philosophical institutes in German universities in the mid-1960s. Having moved from Tübingen to Berlin, in addition I absorbed early on, as part of a group of students around Jacob Taubes, what came to be subsumed under the label of structuralism and post-structuralism: linguistics and semiotics from the Prague School through Noam Chomsky to Julien Greimas, grammatology from Ignace Gelb to Jacques Derrida, historical epistemology in its latest, Canguilhemian and Foucauldian versions, literary theory as practiced by Roland Barthes, to mention just a few names that formed the horizon of our student reading circles. (shrink)

There is quite some ethical controversy on Evidence-based Medicine (EbM) with regard to issues of physician autonomy as well as its allocative implications. Yet, there are some shortcomings in the current debate. First of all, some of the arguments brought up against EbM are similarly defaults of “classical medicine” as well, for instance its negligence of social aspects of medicine. Second, it is often maintained that EbM is just a tool to attain cost containment. This argument is false in two (...) regards for neither is there any idea of cutting costs in the roots of EbM nor does EbM once practiced necessarily lead to less costs as there can be underuse as well as overuse. Third, both opponents and proponents of EbM come up with the same arguments against each other. Both maintain that the other way of practicing medicine does not allow for physicians’ autonomy and free judgment. Therefore, we are going to search for the different presuppositions on which these “reproaches” rely. In this way we can demonstrate that both opponents and proponents rely on different notions of autonomy and free judgment in their argument. Finally, we hope to show that some of the ethical criticism may be raised against classical medicine as well and that allocation in terms of costs is not primarily an aim of EbM. (shrink)

To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic implications of CSR for corporations and less on an evaluation of CSR from a wider political, economic and social perspective. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by critically engaging with marketing campaigns of so-called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (...) (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough's approach, we unfold a three-step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers' tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands. Theoretically, we base our analysis on McCracken's model of the cultural meaning of consumer goods, which, we argue, offers a critical perspective of the recent emergence of CSR and business ethics initiatives. We discuss how these marketing campaigns can be framed as historical struggles associated with neo-liberal ideology and hegemony. Our analysis demonstrates how such CSR strategies are part of a general process of the reproduction of capitalist modes of accumulation and legitimation through the usage of cultural categories. (shrink)

My research into Virtual Reality technology and its central property of immersion has indicated that immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) electronic systems is a significant key to the understanding of contemporary culture as well as considerable aspects of previous culture as detected in the histories of philosophy and the visual arts. The fundamental change in aesthetic perception engendered by immersion, a perception which is connected to the ideal of total-immersion in virtual space, identifies certain shifts in ontology which are relevant (...) to a better understanding of the human being. This understanding was achieved through a broad inquiry into the histories of Virtual Reality, philosophy, and the visual arts and has lead to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness indicative of immersive culture. The primary subject of this discourse is immersion then: an experience which will be identified within the dissertation as the indispensable characteristic of Virtual Reality. The understanding of immersion arrived at here will be used to fashion a synchronous theory of art particularly informed by encounters and concepts of immersion into virtuality. To sufficiently address this subject in a scholarly fashion, I have researched, found and accumulated aesthetic and philosophic examples of immersive tendencies, as found within the histories of art and philosophy, which subsequently contributed towards the articulation of what I have come to call immersive consciousness. As a result of formulating such an immersive consciousness, a good deal of the basis for the questioning of the Western ontological tradition has been found in the Western tradition itself when we look with new eyes and ask new uncertain questions. Moreover, this immersive consciousness will be used to propose some abstract questions encircling today's electronic-based culture. Through the structuring of the argument within the thesis - and overtly within the conclusion - I have articulated a non-teleological creative strategy which provides the basis for an unconstraining integration of noologies (ways of semblancing the thinking process). This strategy provides a means of exemplifying - and for honoring - various methods of thinking. This structuring strategy is consistent with the 'hacker ethic' as defined by Steven Levy, as a demand that access to computers - and anything which might teach us something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. To follow this strategy, this dissertation has set out to understand how topical conceptions of virtual immersion connect to pre-existing systems of thought as revealed in art as they have extended out of antecedent ontological self-understandings, historical human self-understandings which have evidenced themselves in the elaboration of technological objectives. To do this I have forged a certain rhizomatic paternity/maternity for Virtual Reality within this dissertation by joining choice immersive examples of simulacra technology into mental connections with the relevant examples culled from the histories of art, architecture, information-technology, sex, myth, space, consciousness and philosophy. (shrink)

Ce qu'on peut appeler lathéorie du discoursbouleverse les fondements épistémologiques et les perspectives méthodologiques de la recherche dans d'importants secteurs des sciences humaines et sociales. L'ethnologie, la psychanalyse et, bien entendu, les sciences de la littérature deviennent le champ d'application d'un système conceptuel opératoire que sous-tend la notion de « texte », et d'un modèle d'analyse axé sur le problème de la découverte des « lois de construction » du texte. L'intérêt particulier que présentent les thèses de M. Foucault réside (...) dans le fait qu'elles envisagent la possibilité d'élargir à l'Histoire le champ d'application de cette théorie.. (shrink)

Selectionist evolutionary theory has often been faulted for not making novel predictions that are surprising, risky, and correct. I argue that it in fact exhibits the theoretical virtue of predictive capacity in addition to two other virtues: explanatory unification and model fitting. Two case studies show the predictive capacity of selectionist evolutionary theory: parallel evolutionary change in E. coli, and the origin of eukaryotic cells through endosymbiosis.

This article examines how the critical tradition initiated by Nietzsche and pursued through poststructuralism might be compatible with what is currently being described as postcritique. It does so by looking at the example of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The first section gives some indications about the state of the methodology currently known as critical discourse analysis and introduces what a ‘postcritical’ reaction could look like. The second section focuses on a concrete example and presents the main critical literature about the (...) student well-being discourse, showing that it generally limits itself to a debunking attitude. The third section explores how the affirmative and creative dimension of critique, its ‘postcritical’ dimension, has been and could be put forward to contribute to what could be called a postcritical discourse analysis methodology. (shrink)

Wem wird geglaubt und wem nicht? Wessen Wissen wird weitergegeben und wessen nicht? Wer hat eine Stimme und wer nicht? Theorien der epistemischen Ungerechtigkeit befassen sich mit dem breiten Feld der ungerechten oder unfairen Behandlung, die mit Fragen des Wissens, Verstehens und Kommunizierens zusammenhängen, wie z.B. die Möglichkeit, vom Wissen oder von kommunikativen Praktiken ausgeschlossen zu werden oder zum Schweigen gebracht zu werden, aber auch Kontexte, in denen die Bedeutungen mancher systematisch verzerrt oder falsch gehört und falsch dargestellt werden, in (...) denen manchen misstraut wird oder es an epistemischer Handlungsfähigkeit mangelt. In diesem Buch wird eine Übersicht über die breite Debatte epistemischer Ungerechtigkeit, epistemischer Unterdrückung und epistemischer Gewalt gegeben, in dem unterschiedliche Theorien, die sich auf der Schnittstelle von Gerechtigkeitstheorie und epistemischen Fragen befinden, systematisch und kritisch diskutiert sowie theoretische Vorgänger dieser Theorien beleuchtet werden. (shrink)

La formación docente es indispensable para responder a los requerimientos de la compleja sociedad actual. De su conocimiento, iniciativa, praxis y creatividad depende el éxito o el fracaso del sujeto que aprende. Al modificar el rol del docente se transforma la actitud de los estudiantes. ¿Cómo entender la formación filosófica transdisciplinar? Este texto responde a este y otros cuestionamientos: ¿cuáles son los planteamientos pedagógicos afines a la era digital? ¿en qué medida las TIC se encuentran al servicio de una filosofía (...) educativa transdisciplinar?, ¿cómo se explica ese enfoque en la formación del docente?, ¿cuál es la función de la formación en la innovación educativa?, ¿cómo formar para la ciudadanía mundial?, ¿cuáles son las contribuciones de las nuevas ciencias para la formación educativa? El crecimiento exponencial de la ciencia y de la tecnología nos obliga a pensar en procesos formativos innovadores. En tal sentido, resulta imprescindible el estudio de estas problemáticas. (shrink)

This introduction to the special issue ‘Foucault Before the Collège de France’ surveys Foucault’s work in the first part of his career. While there is a familiar chronology to the books he published in the 1960s – from History of Madness to The Archaeology of Knowledge – the story can be developed in relation to his articles, his translations, his early publications and manuscripts, and his teaching. Looking at the programme of posthumous publication of many of his courses and unfinished (...) manuscripts, this introduction discusses key themes, and introduces the papers of the special issue which analyse these texts in detail. It concludes with some general thoughts about what these hitherto neglected or hidden sources tell us about the work of Foucault. Although it adds some cautions about their use, we believe the texts and lectures analysed in this issue and others from the period before the Collège de France add valuable insights into our understanding of Foucault’s intellectual development, his interests and plans, and his enduring influence on a variety of fields in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

The article introduces the concept of the logonomic sign as an elaboration on Hodge and Kress’s promising yet under-examined ideas about logonomic systems. Logonomic signs are defined as socially devised signs that constrain multimodal semiosis by restricting who is able to produce what signs under what circumstances. Based on the Peircean categories, the functioning of logonomic signs is modeled as a three-phase process of logonomic understanding, logonomic actualization, and logonomic reproduction. Based on Kull’s theory of evolution of semiotic systems, logonomic (...) signs are theorized as mechanisms of retention and standardization of semiotic Habits. The mechanism of reproduction of logonomic signs is modeled as a sign in which past logonomic semioses function as Objects by being iconically represented by similar current logonomic semioses functioning as Representamens, and in which future logonomic semioses are produced as Interpretants. The methodological potential of the proposed concept is discussed in the context of the integrative transdisciplinary capacity of semiotics in social research. (shrink)

تنتمي هذه الدراسة إلى حقل أنثروبولوجيا الفن عامةً وأنثروبولوجيا العمل الفني بشكل خاص، ونتوخى من خلالها تقديم قراءة جديدة لإشكالية المرأة وموقعها داخل النسيج السوسيو-ثقافي في المجتمع المغربي؛ والحال أن صفة "الجِدَّة" في الدراسة تتمثل أساسا في الاشتغال على المرأة المغربية لا كموضوع له وجود في الواقع الاجتماعي، إنما سَنَدْرُسُها كموضوع فني وجمالي، تماماً كما تَحْضُرُ في مِخْيَال الفنانين المغاربة والأجانب على السواء. وقد اعتمدنا لأجل ذلك المنهج "البيبليوغرافي التحليلي"، إذ سنقوم باستقراء مختلف الأدبيات الأنثروبولوجية حول موضوع "المرأة في الفنون"، (...) وذلك وفقاً لأدوات تحليلية من قبيل " التفييء " و"التتبع الكرونولوجي" للكتابات. في الختام، ينتهي بحثنا إلى خلاصة مفادها أن مضامين الأعمال الفنية تَعْكِسُ حضورا مزدوجا للهوية الأنثوية المغربية، بين تقليد فني كلاسيكي يُصَوِّرُهَا كشيء جميل يغوي الرجال ويفتنهم، وتيار آخر طليعي يقوده فنانون مناضلون، يحاولون في أعمالهم المعاصرة نقد الهيمنة الذكورية ومظاهر تشييء المرأة، خصوصا عندما يتعلق الأمر بمجال السينما المغربية. (shrink)

The 1948 constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. It was a bold and revolutionary health idea to gain international consensus in a period characterized by fervent anti-communism. This article explores the genealogy of the health definition and demonstrates how it was possible to expand the scope of health, redefine it as ‘well-being’, and overcome ideological resistance to progressive and (...) international health approaches. The first part of the article demonstrates how the health definition was composed through a trajectory of draft ideas from scholars in the history of medicine, as well as political actors working to promote national health insurance. The definition was authored by League of Nations veteran Raymond Gautier, but secretly drew heavily on medical historian Henry E. Sigerist’s controversial book Socialized Medicine in the Soviet Union (1937). The second part analyses how it was possible to resist the ideological pushback against the WHO and secure US ratification. The WHO’s progressive constitution was not simply a deviation from dominant health ideas, but a direct outcome of the entrenched health conflict. The genealogy is based on original archival material from international organizations and US government archives. The article contributes to understandings of the political controversies surrounding the WHO and to scholarship on understandings of health. It also illustrates how influential health ideas cross the boundaries between politics and health sciences, as well as the boundaries between domestic health policy and global health. (shrink)

In a series of essays, conferences, and lectures over the period 1959–73, Michel Foucault directly engaged the writings of Nietzsche. This article demonstrates the five different modalities of Foucault's use of Nietzsche’s writings: namely, critical, epistemological, linguistic, alethurgic, and political. Each of these modalities is tied to a particular intellectual turning point in Foucault’s philosophical investigations and can be located chronologically in five important texts from that period.

The way we experience, investigate and interact with reality changes drastically in the course of history. Do such changes occur gradually, or can we pinpoint radical turns, besides periods of relative stability? Building on Oswald Spengler, we zoom in on three styles in particular, namely Apollonian, Magian and Faustian thinking, guided by grounding ideas which can be summarised as follows: “Act in accordance with nature”, “Prepare yourself for the imminent dawn and “Existence equals will to power”. Finally, we reach the (...) present. How to characterise the new era we entered round the year 2000? (shrink)

De moderne filosofie lijdt aan muziekvergetelheid. Opvallend is echter dat filosofen, wanneer ze toch aandacht schenken aan muziek, hun aandacht bij voorkeur op één bepaald genre richten, namelijk de opera. Filosofen zoals Søren Kierkegaard en Friedrich Nietzsche lieten hun gedachten over Don Giovanni, Parsifal en Carmen gaan, terwijl omgekeerd de filosofie van Arthur Schopenhauer de opera heeft beïnvloed via Wagner. Diens werk lijkt zich op het snijpunt van het grensverkeer tussen moderne filosofie en moderne muziek te bevinden. Het was zijn (...) ambitie de menselijke existentie en de menselijke geschiedenis in één panoramisch oeuvre te vatten, vanaf het primordiale begin tot en met de dramatische finale die ophanden leek: een catastrofale apotheose die een geheel nieuwe toekomst mogelijk zou maken. Dat is althans de verhaallijn van zijn meesterwerk Der Ring des Nibelungen. Aan het slot van Götterdämmerung lijkt zich een algehele verwoesting te hebben voltrokken: ‘Everything is destroyed and there is an enigmatic kind of hovering over the scene of destruction’ (Badiou 2010, p. 106), een ambivalente stemming van hoop en destructie zette Wagner op muziek. Voor Wagner is dan ook een hoofdrol in deze studie weggelegd: voor zijn muziektheoretische geschriften (waarin hij over een ‘muziek van de toekomst’ filosofeerde), maar meer nog voor de muzikale totaalkunstwerken die hij daadwerkelijk componeerde. (shrink)

This article begins by asking whether boundaries can be assigned to discourse analysis. It suggests making a distinction between `discourse linguistics' and `discourse analysis', which has a specific viewpoint on discourse. It propounds next to open to research the field of `self-constituting discourses', thus bringing together those discourses that legitimate the whole discursive production, such as philosophical, scientific or religious discourses. Lastly the article emphasizes some characteristics of such discourses and presents concepts that are useful in analysing them - particularly (...) `scenography', `linguistic code', and `ethos', and offers illustrative examples. (shrink)

This article focuses on the development of argumentation studies in France and their complex relations with discourse analysis. First, the meanings of the basic word `argument' in French and in American English are discussed and contrasted. Second, a brief historical section summarizes the complex history of rhetorical argumentation in France up until the late 1980s and the Perelmanian revival. Third, Grize `natural logic' and Anscombre and Ducrot `argumentation within language' are briefly discussed from the discourse analysis point of view. These (...) programmes have restored argumentation study to favour in France, where it is currently the research paradigm most referred to in recent work. The fourth section examines the present situation in France which is characterized by a strong new interest in argumentation in all disciplines; this is fuelling a tendency towards the use of argumentation theories — classical or modern — for practical, short-term analysis purposes. Fifth, a proposal is made for a better integration of argumentation studies in discourse analysis, based on the conception of argumentation as opposite points of view, either in face-to-face disputes or in written arguments, sometimes lasting for several centuries. This article is based on the premise that research into the history of rhetoric and argumentation, as well as in specific discourse analytic trends that emerged in France during the 1970s, has some permanent value in that a better understanding of an academic discipline's historical development can be a good introduction to its current problems. (shrink)

This article works out the main characteristics of `practice theory', a type of social theory which has been sketched by such authors as Bourdieu, Giddens, Taylor, late Foucault and others. Practice theory is presented as a conceptual alternative to other forms of social and cultural theory, above all to culturalist mentalism, textualism and intersubjectivism. The article shows how practice theory and the three other cultural-theoretical vocabularies differ in their localization of the social and in their conceptualization of the body, mind, (...) things, knowledge, discourse, structure/process and the agent. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo es explicar la relación entre las nociones de discurso y acción en un marco pragmático trascendental. El trabajo comienza con una presentación de la primera noción y de la idea de pretensión de validez. Luego son examinadas algunas objeciones a la justificación última de la ética, formulada por Apel. La conclusión es que es posible una respuesta a esas objeciones mediante la diferenciación entre dos niveles de la relación entre discurso y acción: un nivel fáctico (...) y uno trascendental. The aim of this paper is to explain the relation between the notions of discourse and action in a transcendental-pragmatic frame. The paper begins with a presentation of the first notion and the idea of validity claim. After that, some objections to Apel's ultimate justifications of ethic are examined. The conclusion is that an answer to these objections is possible throw the difference between two levels of the relation between discourse and action: a real level and a transcendental one. (shrink)

Natural language plays a fundamental role in cognition and communication, but in the modern information society, language is increasingly used as a data transmission technology. The study of the problem of language power over thinking is a significant contribution to understanding the nature of language and its relationship with thinking. This article presents an analysis of the peculiarities of M. Foucault’s views on the problem of relationship between language and thinking. The author applies the elements of Foucault’s archaeological approach and (...) studies his concepts in connection with the ideas of other French thinkers. During the analysis, the author formulates her vision of the concepts of power and discourse. The first part of the article considers the understanding of natural language as a complex open sign system that interacts with the outside world and constantly accumulates elements of culture and creativity, from the point of view of philosophy and structural linguistics. The understanding of the division of language into separate discourses is explained. The presentation of the original methodology of Foucault’s language research explains what makes it possible to reveal the peculiarities of the historical development of discourse in the social aspect. Further, Foucault’s views on the role of language in obtaining knowledge and the formation of thinking are reflected, as well as an understanding of the relations of power that the philosopher notices in mental and speech activity of individuals. There follows J. Baudrillard’s criticism of Foucouldian concept of power and the process of language development in society. In conclusion, the author summarizes the analyzed views on power, development of language and thinking as well as Foucault’s understanding of language. (shrink)

This papers assesses the possibility of an empiricism without dogmas. It advances an argument against Quine's conceptions regarding philosophy of language and tries to expand the Davidsonian semantics and epistemic program.

This paper raises a slightly uncomfortable question: are some delusional subjects responsible for their delusions? This question is uncomfortable because we typically think that the answer is pretty clearly just ‘no’. However, we also accept that self-deception is paradigmatically intentional behavior for which the self-deceiver is prima facie blameworthy. Thus, if there is overlap between self-deception and delusion, this will put pressure on our initial answer. This paper argues that there is indeed such overlap by offering a novel philosophical account (...) of self-deception. The account offered is independently plausible and avoids the main problems that plague other views. It also yields the result that some delusional subjects are self-deceived. The conclusion is not, however, that those subjects are blameworthy. Rather, a distinction is made between blameworthiness and ‘attributability’. States or actions can be significantly attributable to a subject—in the sense that they are expressions of their wills—without it being the case that the subject is blameworthy, if the subject has an appropriate excuse. Understanding delusions within this framework of responsibility and excuses not only illuminates the ways in which the processes of delusional belief formation and maintenance are continuous with ‘ordinary’ processes of belief formation and maintenance, it also provides a way of understanding the innocence of the delusional subject that does not involve the denial of agency. (shrink)

The constructions of ‘religion’ in general language are seldom themselves in the focus of empirical research. Aiming to retrieve the inherent knowledge that lies within these constructions, this article suggests a term-based textual analysis to focus on the linguistic use of ‘religion’. This method invites us to question the unity of texts through an analysis of textual semantics. It offers the chance to ask about the formation of the concept. The article initially shows how this approach differs from comparative and (...) policy-oriented studies by differentiating between criticism and critique. It then develops the idea of a term-based textual analysis. Using examples from the policy field of foreign aid, the text illustrates how much inherent knowledge there is in the usage of ‘religion’ in political communication and calls for a general reconsideration of the way ‘religion’ is approached in empirical research. (shrink)

ABSTRACT‘Green’ concerns about nature, the environment or the climate have traditionally been juxtaposed with concerns about economic growth or job creation. Recently, however, a new type of conflict has appeared, in which different green concerns, for instance regarding mitigation of climate change and protection of landscape qualities, seem to collide. These environmental conflicts have so far received little scholarly attention. This article addresses the issue by a study of national and in particular local news media discussion on the construction of (...) wind turbines in Denmark, bringing together research traditions from environmental communication, discourse analysis, and place studies. Analytically, the study employs the notion of topos as the key meaning unit, referring to the premises upon which an argument is based. In addition to the empirical findings, the study points to methodological potential of the concept of topos to integrate qualitative and quantitative approaches within a discourse studie... (shrink)

The attempt of this paper is to build a discussion between Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Lacan about their theories of the subject. Our lecture of Agamben’s theory of subjectivity is determined by the thesis that the birth of subjectivity depends on the structure of the exception and that this implies that « shame » is the subject’s elementary structure. After exposing this thesis about the agambenian subjectivity, we will show how some of its aspects can be related to the subject (...) of unconscious as it has been theorized by Lacan. This comparison will allow us to look, in the thought of Agamben and Lacan, for another way to elaborate the emergence of the subjectivity. Finally, we will assess the connections of the lacanian and the agambenian alternatives with the linguistic of Ferdinand de Saussure. (shrink)

In the perspective of the philosophical archaeology proposed, here, the arkhé towards which archaeology regresses must not be understood in any way as an element that can be situated in chronology ; it is, rather, a force that operates in history—much in the same way in which Indoeuropean words express a system of connections among historically accessible languages, in which the child in psychoanalysis expresses an active force in the psychic life of the adult, in which the big bang, which (...) is supposed to have originated the universe, continues to send towards us its fossil radiation. But the arkhé is not a datum or a substance. It is much rather a field of bipolar historical currents within the tension of anthropogenesis and history, between point of emergence and becoming, between arch-past and present. And as such—that is to say, to the extent to which it is something that it is necessarily supposed to have factually happened, and which yet cannot be hypostatized in any chronologically identifiable event—it is solely capable of guaranteeing the intelligibility of historical phenomena, of ‘saving’ them archaeologically within a future perfect, yet not grasping its origin, but rather its history, at once finite and untotalizable. (shrink)

I make a contribution to the sociology of epistemologies by examining the neuroscience literature on love from 2000 to 2016. I find that researchers make consequential assumptions concerning the production or generation of love, its temporality, its individual character, and appropriate control conditions. Next, I consider how to account for these assumptions’ being common in the literature. More generally, I’m interested in the ways in which epistemic communities construe, conceive of, and publicly represent and work with their objects of inquiry—and (...) what’s thereby assumed about them and about the world. I argue that these implicit or explicit assumptions are a distinct type of explanandum, whose distinctiveness sociology hasn’t adequately appreciated and taken advantage of. I think it should and I hope it will. (shrink)

There has been the recurrent suspicion that community, harmony, cohesion, and similar relational goods as understood in the African ethical tradition threaten to occlude difference. Often, it has been Western defenders of liberty who have raised the concern that these characteristically sub-Saharan values fail to account adequately for individuality, although some contemporary African thinkers have expressed the same concern. In this chapter, I provide a certain understanding of the sub-Saharan value of communal relationship and demonstrate that it entails a substantial (...) allowance for difference. I aim to show that African thinkers need not appeal to, say, characteristically Euro-American values of authenticity or autonomy to make sense of why individuals should not be pressured to conform to a group’s norms regarding sex and gender. A key illustration involves homosexuality. (shrink)

Cet article propose trois graphies pour distinguer trois sens assez différents au sein de ce que l’on fait confusément relever des « médias » en français. Ce faisant, il propose, à la suite de Marshall McLuhan, de considérer la cause formelle comme une catégorie centrale pour comprendre les dynamiques médiatiques. Cela le conduit à situer son approche aux confins de l’archéologie et de l’écologie des media.

Intersemiotic translation (IT) was defined by Roman Jakobson (The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London, p. 114, 2000) as “transmutation of signs”—“an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Despite its theoretical relevance, and in spite of the frequency in which it is practiced, the phenomenon remains virtually unexplored in terms of conceptual modeling, especially from a semiotic perspective. Our approach is based on two premises: (i) IT is fundamentally a semiotic operation process (semiosis) and (ii) (...) IT is a deeply iconic-dependent process. We exemplify our approach by means of literature to dance IT and we explore some implications for the development of a general model of IT. (shrink)

Plato’s theory of virtue in the Laws could be striking for someone who is more familiar with Aristotle’s ethics for conceptual complementarity between the two positions (contrary emotions, the ordering element of reason, virtue as a mean which lies between two forms of vice, typically linked to excessive actions, etc.). Plato’s theory, however, still differs from that of Aristotle in two crutial points. First, the source of emotional dynamism is, according to Plato, supraindividual as far as the psyche is a (...) cosmological principle. Only if it comes to be formed and ordered, it separates from the universal cosmic context and make up the emotional nature of an individual soul. But the soul is not, and this is the second point of difference, ordered by some external element (training or education, organized by a rational agent). Plato counts on a pre-arranged order of emotions at a particular ontological topos of the individual soul into which reason eventually descends. Emotions, on their part, seem to include a nexus between formable and forming that is chronologically and methodocally prior to that between the biological substratum and its rational organization, as assumed by Aristotle. (shrink)

This article deals with the relationship between the thought of Michel Foucault and that of Axel Honneth, arguing in favour of the former against the latter. I begin by considering Honneth’s early engagement in The Critique of Power with Foucault’s thought. I rebut Honneth’s criticisms of Foucault here as a misreading, one which prevents Honneth from coming to grips with Foucault’s position and hence the challenge that it poses to Honneth’s project. I then move on to offer a Foucauldian critique (...) of Honneth’s own position, arguing for a Foucauldian alternative to Critical Theory. (shrink)

This essay charts several key points of contact between Nietzsche and the hermeneutical tradition. It begins by arguing that the familiar claim that Nietzsche offers a hermeneutics of suspicion is potentially misleading. Seeking a more accurate representation of Nietzsche’s views, the essay argues that Nietzsche’s interpretive stance has several key features: he rejects immediate givens, endorses holism and perspectivism, and sees conscious experience as structured by concepts and language. Methodologically, Nietzsche inaugurates a genealogical approach to studying objects of philosophical concern, (...) and offers a series of thoughts and arguments on perspectives and the ways in which they might be assessed. After explaining these points, the essay reviews the way in which Nietzsche takes religious, moral, and philosophical systems as aspiring to provide an interpretation of existence that renders it meaningful. The closing section briefly discusses the Nietzschean approach to interpretation that is adopted by Foucault. (shrink)

This paper defends Michel Foucault’s notion of archaeology of knowledge against the influential and putatively devastating criticism by Dreyfus and Rabinow that Foucault’s archaeological project is based on an incoherent conception of the rules of the discursive practices it purports to study. I argue first that Foucault’s considered view of these rules as simultaneously implicit and historically efficacious corresponds to a general requirement for the normative structure of a discursive practice. Then I argue that Foucault is entitled to that view (...) despite the charges to the contrary by Dreyfus and Rabinow. I also explain in detail how the argument by Dreyfus and Rabinow arises from a misunderstanding of Foucault’s archaeological project as transcendental inquiry, while archaeology of knowledge is, in fact, a diagnostic project. The result is a novel understanding of the notion of archaeology of knowledge that enables a reassessment of Foucault’s philosophical work in connection with current debates regarding the relationship between reflection and practice in the structure of thought. (shrink)

To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic implications of CSR for corporations and less on an evaluation of CSR from a wider political, economic and social perspective. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by critically engaging with marketing campaigns of so‐called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (...) (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough's approach, we unfold a three‐step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers' tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands. Theoretically, we base our analysis on McCracken's model of the cultural meaning of consumer goods, which, we argue, offers a critical perspective of the recent emergence of CSR and business ethics initiatives. We discuss how these marketing campaigns can be framed as historical struggles associated with neo‐liberal ideology and hegemony. Our analysis demonstrates how such CSR strategies are part of a general process of the reproduction of capitalist modes of accumulation and legitimation through the usage of cultural categories. (shrink)

This article focuses on Michel Foucault’s concepts of authorship and power. Jacques Derrida has often been accused of being more of a literary author than a philosopher or political theorist. Richard Rorty complains that Derrida’s views on politics are not pragmatic enough; he sees Derrida’s later work, including his political work, more as a “private self-fashioning” than concrete political thinking aimed at devising short-term solutions to problems here and now. Employing Foucault’s work around authorship and the origins of power, I (...) show that Derrida is indeed fashioning himself. This self-fashioning is not merely private or fanciful. Rather, I argue that Derrida can be read as employing what Foucault would call “technologies of the self” to not only show the play of possibility and impossibility at work in all politics and thought, but also to use his savoir to create two important and potentially constructive power structures. First, there is the power of deconstruction itself as a “militant critique” that calls for a forceful and irreducible justice. Second, there is the power of Derrida himself, understood as leaving behind a legacy of himself as the “originator” of deconstruction and as a public intellectual. (shrink)

Both Ricoeur and Foucault, apparently independently of each other, dedicated much effort to provide an account of truth that goes far beyond the truth of sentences, propositions, or judgments. While well aware of the speech act theory and pragmatics, they want to go beyond a formalism of rules of speech or arguments and integrate the attitude of the one who speaks in the very notion of truth. They see truth not merely as a property of statements, but as an existential (...) process in such a way that the truth of statements is linked to the historically situated speaker. Truth as a property of statements is related to truth as an event. However, both reject any form of historicism or relativism. I examine Ricoeur's notion of attestation and Foucault's notion of parrhesia, showing how both notions represent a kind of “poetics of truth”, which combines the existential position of the speaker and the historical circumstances of utterance. I show the extent to which both poetics of truth are political and ethical and how successful each poetics is: Ricoeur believes that he can maintain a claim to universality whereas Foucault abandons such a claim and instead subscribes to a radical singularity of the event of speech in a mode of truth that is, as he says, “polemic”. (shrink)

Reading the Communist Manifesto against the contemporary background of massive unemployment, the author argues that Marx's theory of work is no longer adequate to tackle the problem of `workers without work' and suggests that it has to be reformulated in such a way that its normative intuitions and its critical impulses can be maintained. In the first part, he presents a philosophical critique of Marxism that is inspired by Jürgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt. In the second part, he presents a (...) sociological critique of Marxism and argues that the theory of the alienation of work implies a justification of work and the work society. Finally, in the last part, the author presents an ideological critique of Marxism that is inspired by Marcel Mauss' sociology of the gift. Criticising the contractualist assumptions of workfare solutions, he proposes a package solution for a radical decommodification of the labour market by means of a disjunction of income and work. (shrink)

Foucault repeatedly argued that his work on techniques of the self were not a denial of his previous work on 18th- and 19th-century Europe, but a different way to make our present intelligible. Although Foucault explicitly associated modern techniques of the self with the Christian model, he never considered Christian techniques of the self in a comprehensive manner. The recent publication of his last two lectures at the Collège de France in 1983 and 1984 seems to fill this gap. Christian (...) techniques of the self are characterized by an ascetic of obedience, and are considered as antithetical to ethical, parrhesiastic techniques of the self. Foucault’s detailed analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus and Euripides’ Ion in these lectures also provides valuable insights into the rationality that presides over the modern techniques of the self, and the logic that animates the Christian politics of obedience. (shrink)

In this paper Foucault’s thought on monstrosity is explored. Monsters appear whenever and wherever knowledge/power assemblages emerge. That which eludes the latter, and which threatens to subvert them, is the monstrous. Foucault distinguished the production, throughout history, of juridical-natural monsters, moral monsters, and political monsters. In this paper it is argued that Foucault must have sensed that monstrosity eludes all notions of identity and difference, and therefore also the notion that places it ‘outside’. It is the space of emergence itself, (...) i.e. the location where sheer potentiality becomes the possible of and in the event. All monstrosity is therefore deeply, and inevitably, political. It is the promise of unsettling subversion. (shrink)

Evo-Devo exhibits a plurality of scientific “cultures” of practice and theory. When are the cultures acting—individually or collectively—in ways that actually move research forward, empirically, theoretically, and ethically? When do they become imperialistic, in the sense of excluding and subordinating other cultures? This chapter identifies six cultures – three /styles/ (mathematical modeling, mechanism, and history) and three /paradigms/ (adaptationism, structuralism, and cladism). The key assumptions standing behind, under, or within each of these cultures are explored. Characterizing the internal structure of (...) the cultures is necessary for understanding how they collaborate or compete, and how they are fragmented or integrated, in the rich interdisciplinary /trading zone/ (Galison 1997) of Evo-Devo. Evo-Devo is an important example of how science can progress through a radical plurality of perspectives and cultures. (shrink)