Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 2 Seiten: 192-215.

This paper has two aims, as an exposition of Jürgen Habermas's response to the work of Michel Foucault, and to engage in and assess this debate between two influential contemporary schools of Continental philosophy. Habermas locates Foucault's project in the history of several attempts at a totalizing critique of reason, attempts which are trapped in a performative self?contradiction. Habermas also argues that Foucault is still caught up in the conceptual straitjacket of the philosophy of the subject which his theory was (...) meant to overcome. He shows that Foucault's central notion of power is used in two different and ultimately irreconcilable ways ? as a transcendental as well as an empirical concept. Much of Habermas's critique is justified and could, indeed, be extended to Foucault's anti?realist relativism, but Habermas's own defence of rationalism is not without difficulties of its own. Thus his notion of knowledge?guiding interests commits him to a form of anti?realism and a transcendental concept of instrumental power which is almost as problematic in its consequences as the anti?realism of Foucault. (shrink)

By applying classical and contemporary insights of the phenomenological tradition to key findings within the literature on stereotype threat, this paper considers the embodied effects of everyday exposure to racism and makes a contribution to the growing field of applied phenomenology. In what follows, the paper asks how a phenomenological perspective can both contribute to and enrich discussions of ST in psychology. In answering these questions, the paper uses evidence from social psychology as well as first personal testimonies from members (...) of marginalized groups to argue that subjectively experienced racial oppression is embodied and thus has effects on selfhood that are harmful. More specifically, it makes the case that what are most often considered to be temporary or context-based consequences of ST are in fact more wide reaching and harmful than assumed in that the harms that result from suffering ST become a part of one’s identity, and thus a background lens through which one experiences the world. (shrink)

RESUMEN El mundo moderno creó un régimen temporal de horarios, presiones, exigencias de efectividad, rendimientos, etc., que somete a los individuos a procesos de alienación, pero esa lógica temporal no ha sido suficientemente politizada ni se ha llegado a ver qué pasa con nuestra experiencia de tiempo. La lógica temporal de la modernidad parece natural. El propósito de este artículo es volver sobre la realidad del tiempo. Aquí nos apoyamos en un primer momento en el proyecto crítico de Hartmut Rosa (...) y lo conectamos con una consideración del tiempo que debemos buscar en otros autores, presuntamente ajenos a la teoría crítica, a saber, Heidegger y Gadamer. ABSTRACT The modern world created a temporal regime of schedules, pressures, demands of efficiency, performances, etc., that submits individuals to processes of alienation, but that temporal logic has not been politicized neither has it been seen what happens with our experience of the time. The logic of time in modernity seems natural. The purpose of this article is to return to the reality of the time. Here we support in a first moment in the critical project of Hartmut Rosa and we connect it with a consideration of the time that we must look for in other authors, supposedly foreign to the critical theory, namely Heidegger and Gadamer. (shrink)

This contribution is a critical and constructive engage ment with discourse ethics. First, it clarifies why discourse ethics has difficulties with the grounding and application of moral norms. Second, it turns to a positive appropriation of the formal and proce dural aspects of discourse ethics. The goal is the elaboration of an ethics that is able to incorporate the material aspects of goods and the formal dimension of ethical validity and consensuability. Every morality is the formal application of some substantive (...) good. Every ethical perspective demands its evaluation in terms of its uni versability. In order to achieve this mediation, it is suggested that we must incorporate not only the historical dimension of moral systems, but also the role of critical consciousness and the negativity embod ied by those who are victims of the existing consensus. The essay con cludes with six points that need to be considered when formulating a material ethics that is universalizable and, most importantly, that can address the massive poverty and dehumanization of those excluded from the present community of communication. Key Words: application • consensual • corporeality • discourse ethics • formal • grounding • intersubjective • Kantian • liberation • ethics • material • phronesis • procedural • validity. (shrink)

This article considers whether there exists today a movement of similar strength to the synthetic 'new theoretical movement' of the mid-1980s. The author argues that one main trend in sociological theory today is the notion of creativity and efforts to understand it conceptually. The contemporary growth of contingency, it is claimed, is closely related to this creative perspective. After examining Parsons's notion of 'double contingency', the article suggests that neither rationality nor normativity alone is able to dampen recognition of the (...) vicissitudes attached to both personal destinies and social evolution. The author analyses the axis of structure and action, theories of history and evolution, together with the relationship between modernity and reflexivity, in order to substantiate the claim that creativity constitutes a trend today. This trend is then related to another, the cognitive approach, and the author proposes some ideas to bring them closer. Finally, a hypothesis to explain the current stress on creativity is suggested. (shrink)

Hegel's influence on post-Hegelian philosophy is as profound as it is ambiguous. Modern philosophy is philosophy after Hegel. Taking leave of Hegel's system appears to be a common feature of modern and post-modern thought. One could even argue that giving up Hegel's claim of totality defines philosophy after Hegel. Modern and post-modern philosophies are philosophies of finitude: Hegel's philosophy cannot be repeated. However, its status as a negative backdrop for modern and post-modern thought already shows its pervasive influence. Precisely in (...) its criticism of Hegel, modern thought is bound up with his thinking. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: The general aim of this paper is to question the idea that hermeneutic and critical social sciences have to be conceived as specific embodiments of the scientific enterprise. This idea is rather implicit in Habermas’s work, but has its grounds in his thesis about the argumentative unity of all sciences, upheld for the first time in 1973. Such a point of view turns out to be untenable for two reasons. First, the indiscriminating inclusion of the hermeneutic and critical social (...) sciences in scientific enterprise raises problems of consistency with regard to the systematic guidelines of The Theory of Communicative Action. Moreover, the thesis of argumentative unity of the sciences itself is incompatible with Habermas’s methodological conception of the role of Verstehen in the social sciences developed in section 1.4 of the book. Finally, the author argues that this conception calls for another understanding of the status and role of the hermeneutic and critical disciplines, which is outlined in some detail. (shrink)

Philosophy becomes speculative when it raises questions about the ultimate nature of being and thought. What does it mean to be? What does it mean to think? How are being and thought related? What does it mean to ask these questions? These questions have occupied a central place in philosophy throughout history, but have led a shadow existence in twentieth-century thought, which has cut the tie between reason and these fundamental questions, leaving the questions in the twilight, and reason instrumentalised. (...) A.N. Whitehead (1861-1947), one of the founders of analytic philosophy and co-author (with Bertrand Russell) of Principia Mathematica, is one of the few contemporary thinkers to have developed an explicit speculative philosophy. Unsurprisingly, his philosophy has played a marginal role in academic debates. In this study, the methodological foundation of Whitehead’s speculative thought is reconstructed. On the basis of a systematic and historical examination of the nature of the question of being, Whiteheads ontology of the event as the passage into novelty emerges in its full scope, allowing the reader to understand why and to what extent Whitehead has walked a different path than other contemporary thinkers. His philosophy contains a conception of reason that is not alien to newness and creativity while being more than procedural or pragmatic, and a mode of understanding existence that brings out the acuteness of freedom, value and legitimacy, as well as the unity of things, of thought and nature. In order to show what is really happening in this philosophy, the received interpretation of Whitehead’s ontology is radically dismantled. The central thought, that to be means to happen, is explained in a process of reiteration and gradual clarification, examining traditional philosophical problems in metaphysics and epistemology (on topics like: nature and matter, knowledge, categorical structure, freedom and necessity, truth and meaning, modality) from its perspective. What emerges is a philosophy in which the temporality of being, when taken seriously, changes the status of familiar problems and dualisms and offers possibilities for thought, which previously did not exist. Whitehead “hears” the classical questions of philosophy in a new way. Beyond the trenches of twentieth-century philosophy, Whitehead’s speculative thinking contains many elements that will be of value to those studying the foundations of thought today and looking for new directions. In a time when the dualism of nature and man is maintained cynically in our economies and dismantled, but only in a biologistic fashion and therefore only seemingly, as a cover-up, in science and philosophy, Whitehead’s new and creative way of hearing, and answering, old questions about ultimate concerns, when understood properly, is more up to date than ever before. (shrink)

Prespevek izhaja iz Habermasove teorije argumentacije, ki vidi v argumentaciji uresničevanje emancipatoričnih potencialov komunikacijskega uma, kolikor je njen smoter racionalno motiviran konsenz, medsebojno pripoznavanje individuov. V nasprotju s tem Habermasovim nevprašljivim povezovanjem argumentacije in racionalnosti prispevek pokaže, da je argumentacija, ki meri na konsenz, vse prej ena temeljnih oblik ideološke interpelacije, in to prav v tisti meri, v kateri udeleženci argumentacije konstitutivno spregledujejo, da do konsenza pripelje nezavedna raba to-posov, se pravi, nezavednih principov sklepanja iz argumentov na sklep.

Prispevek skuša izpeljati predpostavko, da sodi Habermas med tiste teoretike družbenega, ki poudarjajo »konstitutivno naravo razlike«. To predpostavko dokazuje na podlagi dveh temeljnih Habermasovih argumentov. Prvič, njegovo večkratno opozarjanje, da se v procesu racionalizacije kulturne moderne nikakor ne izgubijo vse vsebinske konotacije, razširi v argument, da brezvsebinskega, proceduralnega komunikativnega uma ne smemo razumeti kot nekaj zgolj formalnega. Ravno z njim vznikne namreč neki paradoksni vsebinski moment, ki je sicer produkt uma, a ga kljub temu ne moremo več posredovati z njim. (...) In drugič, iz Habermasovega poudarjanja ambivalentnega značaja subjektivnosti kot principa moderne, sklepa prispevek, da subjekt ni drugega kot nemožnost lastne reprezentacije, prazno mesto v simbolni reprodukciji sveta življenja. V zadnjem koraku skuša nato določiti, v kakšni meri ta koncept subjekta ustreza novim družbenim gibanjem. (shrink)

Danes, v procesu razkroja marksizma in oblikovanja »post-marksizma«, imamo opraviti s tremi prevladujočimi pojmovanji subjekta, od katerih vsako hkrati implicira določeno etično držo: Habermasov subjekt jezikovne refleksije, zavezan idealu brezprisilne komunikacije; »post-strukturalistični« pluralizem subjektnih pozicij, ki pri Foucaultu implicira etiko invencije, samoizgradnje jaza; Althusserjev subjekt kot učinek imaginarnega sprevida, ki implicira etiko subjektivne destitucije. Lacanova psihoanalitična teorija pa vsebuje četrto paradigmo, nezvedljivo na prve tri: že pred procesom subjektivacije oziroma interpelacije je subjekt navzoč kot praznina, ne-možnost simbolne strukture, kot korelat (...) realnemu jedru, ki se upira simbolizaciji. Temu ustreza etika realnega, etika, ki vztraja na razmiku med travmo realnega in poskusi njene simbolizad je. Delo Laclaua in Mouffove Hegemonija in socialistična strategija je prvi poskus, razdelati teorijo družbenega, ki bi ustrezala lacanovskemu polju: družba je nemožna totalnost, zgrajena okoli travmatičnega jedra. Kritičen pretres pojma antagonizma nam pokaže, da je subjekt, ki ustreza Laclau/Mouffovi teoriji družbenega, prav lacanovski sujet barré. (shrink)

semantic minimalism and moderte contextualism.

En el marco de un nuevo descubrimiento de la fenomenología, este trabajo ofrece diferentes argumentos para superar la clásica interpretación de Husserl considerándolo un representante prototípico del solipsismo. En primer lugar, se refuta la interpretación mentalista de Dreyfus de la fenomenología husserliana, mostrando que su programa filosófico va más allá de la tradicional dicotomía entre internalismo y externalismo; en segundo lugar, se señalan algunas de las principales contribuciones realizadas por la fenomenología de Husserl al campo de las ciencias cognitivas y (...) a la filosofía analítica de las mentes, destacando la importancia concedida a las síntesis pasivas en la llamada fenomenología genética. In the frame of a new discovery of phenomenology, the present essay offers different arguments to overcome the classical interpretation ofHusserl considering him a prototypical solipsist. First we refute Dreyfus' mentalistic misunderstanding of Husserlian phenomenology, and show that his philosophical program is beyond the traditional dichotomy between internalism and externalism. Second, it is our aim to point out some of the fundamental contributions made by Husserl's phenomenology to the cognitive sciences and analytical philosophy of mind, especially highlighting the importance attributed to passive synthesis in his genetic phenomenology. (shrink)

This article address the criticisms usually used against some representatives of the Frankfurt School to adhere to an imperialist meta-narrative. Through a discussion of the theories of some of them, we seek to establish a distinction between normativity and genealogy to approach the treatment of the fundamental questions of a critical point of view and to focus on the problems concerning the eurocentrism of the School. Likewise, some basic guidelines are presented for an assessment of the contributions of Modernity as (...) historical development from a Hegelian Marxist and Latin American point of view. (shrink)

This article focuses on five flaws of Christian Fuchs’ approach of Web 2.0 economy. Here, Fuchs’ views on immaterial production, productivity of labor, commodification of users’ data, underestimation of financial aspects of digital economy, and the violation of Marx’s laws of value production, rate of exploitation, fall tendency of profit rate, and overproduction crisis are put into question. This article defends the thesis Fuchs fails to apply Marxian political economy to the contemporary phenomena of Web 2.0 economy. It is possible (...) to avoid Fuchs’ errors, and another approach is possible to remake Marxism relevant for an analysis of the new media economy. (shrink)

The depths of the sea, their obscure inhabitants and their mysteries have always been a rich source of myths and metaphors for authors and philosophers. Fables about giant squids and monstrous octopuses run through the history of literature and culture. The vampire squid is only a small phylogenetic relic, but it provides a useful model for Flusser's hybrid philosophical fiction Vampyroteuthis Infernalis. Flusser slips metaphorically into the creature’s gelatinous skin in order to speculate on the paradigms of postmodern life, measuring (...) the abyss from the inside and producing a very peculiar, experimental form of thinking and writing. In the present era of virtual reality and computer simulations, we experience fiction as the only reality. According to Vaihinger's definition, fiction is a useful construct that is precisely not real, but enables human beings to create and manipulate their environments. His philosophy of “as if” is perhaps the fullest expression of fictionalism and shows its ambivalent potential. (shrink)

The concept “immaterial labor” is one of the most hotly debated topics in contemporary social theory. In his 2007 work The Concept of Labor: Marx and His Critics, Sean Sayers offered an extensive response to several critical redefinitions of labor (Habermas, Benton, Arendt) and immaterial labor (Lazzarato, Hardt and Negri). Sayers returned to the subject in his more recent book, Marx and Alienation: Essays on Hegelian Themes.1 As one of the few accounts that contests the contemporary Marx critics with regard (...) to fundamental concepts such as labor and immaterial labor, his contribution should be taken seriously. (shrink)