Against the background of recent developments in neuroscience, the paper shows how, for Hegel, the theoretical, practical and evaluative functions of the mind are grounded in something like a natural normativity, based on the interaction of the body's inner world with the outer world. These forms of organic homeostasis are the basis for further kinds and levels of norms, and deviations from these norms, which result in mental pathologies, provide insights into the complexity of spirit.

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 aims to develop a Lacanian approach to bioethics. Point of departure is the fact that both psychoanalysis and bioethics are practices of language, combining diagnostics with therapy. Subsequently, I will point out how Lacanian linguistics may help us to elucidate the dynamics of both psychoanalytical and bioethical discourse, using the movie One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone as key examples. Next, I will explain the ‘topology’ of the bioethical landscape with the help of Lacan’s (...) three dimensions: the imaginary, the symbolical and the real. This will culminate in an assessment of the dynamics of bioethical discourse with the help of Lacan’s theorem of the four discourses. Bioethics, I will argue, is not a homogeneous discourse. Rather, four modalities of bioethical discourse can be distinguished, all of them displaying specific weaknesses and strengths, opportunities and threats. This will be elucidated with the help of two case studies, namely the debates on human reproductive technologies and on the use of animals as biomedical research models. (shrink)

The genomics “revolution” is spreading. Originating in the molecular life sciences, it initially affected a number of biomedical research fields such as cancer genomics and clinical genetics. Now, however, a new “wave” of genomic bioinformation is transforming a widening array of disciplines, including those that address the social, historical and cultural dimensions of human life. Increasingly, bioinformation is affecting “human sciences” such as psychiatry, psychology, brain research, behavioural research (“behavioural genomics”), but also anthropology and archaeology (“bioarchaeology”). Thus, bioinformatics is having (...) an impact on how we define and understand ourselves, how identities are formed and constituted, and, finally, on how we (on the basis of these redefined identities) assess and address some of the more concrete societal issues involved in genomics governance in various settings. This article explores how genomics and bioinformation, by influencing research agendas in the human sciences and the humanities, are affecting our self-image, our identity, the way we see ourselves. The impact of bioinformation on self-understanding will be assessed on three levels: (1) the collective level (the impact of comparative genomics on our understanding of human beings as a species), (2) the individual level (the impact of behavioural genomics on our understanding of ourselves as individuals), and (3) the genealogical level (the impact of population genomics on our understanding of human history, notably early human history). This threefold impact will be assessed from two seemingly incompatible philosophical perspectives, namely a “humanistic” perspective (represented in this article by Francis Fukuyama) and a “post-humanistic” one (represented by Peter Sloterdijk). On the basis of this analysis it will be concluded that, rather than focussing on human “enhancement” by adding or deleting genes, genome-oriented practices of the Self will focus on using genomics information in the context of identity-formation. Genomic bioinformation will increasingly be built into our self-images and used in order to tailor and adapt our practices of Self to our “personalised” genome. We will keep working on ourselves, no doubt, not by modifying our genomes, but rather by fine-tuning our behaviour. What we are experiencing is a bioinformatisation of the life-world. Genomics-based technologies will increasingly pervade our daily lives, our autobiographies and narratives, as well as our anthropologies, rather than our genomes as such. (shrink)

El problema de la exclusión social –situación de quienes encuentran cerrado el acceso a los bienes y servicios que permiten un básico desarrollo de la personalidad– constituye un desafío para la legitimidad del sistema social y las normas penales. Principalmente porque ello supone que en una misma sociedad hay individuos con estatus de persona –ciudadanos “normales”, incluidos– y otros que, por estar privados de los derechos asociados al estatus, están total o parcialmente excluidos del mismo. De cara a evitar su (...) instrumentalización penal se propone, en los delitos más conectados con la noción de ciudadanía que con la de dignidad, la atenuación o exclusión de la pena por disminución de la exigibilidad. Si el delito no se explica sólo por déficit de motivación del sujeto, sino también por un déficit de socialización imputable al propio sistema social, lo que tiene lugar es una especie de corresponsabilidad. (shrink)

This paper investigates Hegel’s thesis that we are, in our practical relation to the world, inherently committed to certain aspects of idealistic metaphysics. For Hegel, our practical attitude is fundamentally at odds with a naïve realism that would take the world to consist ultimately of self-contained, self-sufficient individuals whose relations to one another are fundamentally external to their identities. Hegel contends that our practical attitude is premised upon an overcoming of this mutual externality, and especially the externality which is supposed (...) to hold between individual agent and world. It is shown that his argument hinges on conceiving of external things as inadequately individuated, as compared to living agents, and that it is precisely this ontological deficiency that conditions and motivates our action. Hegel’s discussions of morality and property ownership are appealed to in order to illustrate how we might better understand the nature and practical role of this purported deficiency. (shrink)

This article aims to study the practical validity and political operativity that the Commune-form of organization continues to have among us, today. We will focus on two current and untimely self-emancipatory movements: ‘Zapatism’ and the M.A.R.E.Z., and ‘Democratic Confederalism’ and the cantons. These are two collective movements that, according to the activists involved —and here we will be guided by the texts and materials produced from both movements— deliberately update and renew the ‘Commune’ as a form or mode of organization (...) liberatory and egalitarian, depatriarchal and descolonial type, breaking out as a ‘third way’ in the midst of our patriarchal state and capitalist societies, traversed by all kinds of vertical, dissymmetric, hierarchical, andromorphic and phallocratic divisions. We will begin by defining the most fundamental characteristics of the novelty implied by the Paris Commune in the 19th Century. Then, we will see the problem of the ‘commune’ as becoming-minority, proposing that the commune-form produces a differential human subjectivation with respect to state subjectivation. Next, we will study the problem of ‘double combat’, showing how the women’s struggle was the greatest vector of self-emancipatory flight. And finally, we will study the an-organic consistency of the Commune-form of organization, and we will list its differential features. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo intenta reflexionar acerca de los límites de la Filosofía de la Historia en el pensamiento de Hegel. Con este propósito, el esfuerzo se concentra en la interpretación de una cierta experiencia de lo histórico que nos presenta Hegel en su "Introducción a la Filosofía de La Historia". La exposición que hace el autor exhibe ciertos elementos que están vinculados al tratamiento filosófico Del asunto. Por otra parte, se muestra que la misma justificación de la Filosofía de la (...) Historia aparece bosquejada en este pasaje. Por último se introduce la discusión acerca de algunos aspectos problemáticos en el planteamiento hegeliano tomando en cuenta los resultados de esta interpretación. (shrink)

The connection between fear, law and the state is a topic that is given particular attention in times of social insecurity. Some approximations are explored here under the notion of fear constitutions. We are equal in fear of one another, which is why fear can be understood as a condition of modern constitutions. However, the social contract does not lead to freedom from fear, but rather fear shifts; the legal subjects remain subjects of fear, in relation to one another, but (...) in particular towards that multiple artificial person which the state comes to embody as it takes on a life of its own. The degree of fear varies with the degree of unpredictability and indeterminacy of executive action. State measures against terrorism or against the pandemic are often an unpredictable response to an unknown danger and are therefore at the same time both an expression of fear and its trigger. It would be helpful if there was a clear distinction between sensible and unreasonable, functional and dysfunctional forms of fear. Freud tried to provide criteria with his concept of neurotic fear, a concept that has been taken up in political and legal philosophy. However, the concept is obscure and cannot be used without normative specifications. (shrink)

Examines Hegel’s unique understanding and assessment of capitalism as an economic, social, and cultural phenomenon.

This paper investigates the compatibility of Hegel’s analyses of the mechanization of work in industrial society with Hegel’s notion of freedom as rational self-determination. Work as such is for Hegel a crucial moment on the way to a more complete realization of human freedom, but, as I maintain with Adorno, the technological developments of the last two centuries raise the question of whether the nature of work itself has changed since the industrial revolution. In his Jena lectures, Hegel recognized significant (...) problems that the mechanization of work poses for human freedom that—on my assessment—his later, mature thought does not sufficiently address. One finds, however, a more comprehensive depiction of the same worries that Hegel mentioned in his Jena lectures in Adorno’s critique of the dominant forms of labor in contemporary society and his understanding of technological rationality, which according to Adorno, dominates the contemporary world. I suggest, furthermore, that juxtaposing Hegel’s and Adorno’s thoughts on technology and the mechanization of work reveals Adorno’s philosophy of technology to be an extension, rather than a critique, of the spirit of Hegel’s own philosophical project as immanent critique of the necessary entailments of any given concept. (shrink)

Patriotism is not commonly associated with freedom. Even less so when Hegel is evoked. By reading Hegel’s concept of patriotism through the lens of revolutionary France, I present a notion of patriotism that is tied to the realization of freedom. This paper demonstrates what happens when Hegel’s philosophy of law is re-read through the political philosophy of the French Revolution itself. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and its lectures are marked by tensions. The legacy it leaves traces it leaves behind can (...) be re-appropriated to explore the inconclusive hints left by the philosopher. The idea of patriotism is one of them, simply defined as an intersubjective link between the concrete individual and the state or as particular and general interests coinciding. This paper expands this analysis by introducing two elements: Hegel’s discussion on the character of the law and how it comes to be law; and the revolutionary phenomenon itself. The revolutionaries’ views on patriotism and its functions within a revolutionary moment can help us transform the mere traces left by Hegel into a wider vision that incorporates and promotes freedom. (shrink)

Ethik und Seelsorge sind Bereiche, in denen menschliches Sein und Handeln reflektierend begleitet wird, um Orientierung, Unterstützung oder Trost zu geben. Bei Berufen, in denen Menschen auf eine gewaltverstrickte Lebenswelt treffen, ihrerseits staatlich legitimiert Gewalt ausüben und selbst von Gewalt betroffen sind, tauchen dabei besondere Widersprüche und Sinnfragen auf. Diese Herausforderungen in den Blick zu nehmen und an der Schnittstelle von Philosophie und praktischer Theologie zu erörtern, so wie es der Münsteraner Theologe Werner Schiewek richtungsweisend vorgezeichnet hat, ist das Ziel (...) des vorliegenden Bandes. (shrink)

El presente artículo constituye una reflexión sobre el concepto de sociedad civil, centrado en el debate sobre la idoneidad de integrar los mercados en dicha concepción. Se presenta un total de once tesis, siguiendo el esquema literario, que no político, de las tesis de Marx sobre Feuerbach, con el propósito de fomentar discusiones originales entre losdetractores y defensores de la sociedad civil. A lo largo de estas once tesis se explora el papel que históricamente se le ha atribuido al mercado (...) en la sociedad civil, y se analizanlos motivos por los cuales las visiones actuales de la sociedad civil se basan por lo general en concepciones puristas que excluyen al mercado de dicha esfera. A partir de ahí se argumenta contra estas visiones de sociedad civil que se consideran erróneas por motivos tanto conceptuales como por errores de carácter estratégico. Finalmente, se defiende la necesidad de interpretar el mundo de un nuevo modo y formular nuevas propuestas de cómo los mercados pueden hoy en día ser re-incrustados en la sociedad civil con tal de fomentar la libertad y la igualdad entendidos en términos complejos.This article reflects on the concept of civil society with a focus on the debate over the appropriateness of incorporating markets into its conceptualisation. Eleven theses are presented following the literary, not political, style of Marx’s theses on Feuerbach, aimed to trigger original discussions between the critics and defenders of civil society. Through these eleven theses, the article explores the role historically attributed to the market in civil society, and analyses the reasons why current visions of civil society are generally based on purist conceptions that exclude the market from this sphere. From this point, arguments are made against these visions of civil society, considered to be mistaken for both conceptual motives and strategic-type errors. Finally, the paper defends the need to find a new way of interpreting the world and to formulate new proposals about how markets can be re-embedded in civil society so as to promote the freedom and equality understood in complex terms. (shrink)

_Critical essays on Hegel's views concerning the relationship between religion and politics._.

When it comes to social criticism of the economy, Critical Theory has thus far failed to discover specific immanent norms in that sphere of activity. In response, we propose that what is needed is to double down on the idealism of Critical Theory by taking seriously the sophisticated structure of agency developed in Hegel’s own account of freedom as self-determination. When we do so, we will see that the anti-metaphysical gestures of recent Critical Theory work in opposition to its attempts (...) to develop immanent critique. In this paper we first briefly reconsider Axel Honneth’s project as it concerns economic institutions and then respond by returning to the problem of freedom and articulating a view according to which the problem of individual self-determination and the problem of social production are the same problem seen from different angles. Then we present briefly Hegel’s own social theory from this perspective before moving on to trace the outlines of such a critical theory of contemporary capitalism. (shrink)

This is a “metacritical” engagement from a Confucian perspective with the legacy of Kantian ethics. The first and longest part of this essay deals with the European West and Kant, especially the categorical imperative. The second part hearkens back to East Asian antiquity, especially Ancient China, as it briefly explores Kongzi’s Golden Rule and Mengzi’s compassion.

O estabelecimento de um paralelismo entre razão teórica e razão prática permite explicitar o âmbito de cada uma delas. A restrição do uso da razão assegura, por um lado, o caminho seguro da ciência e mostra, por outro lado, que há um uso prático da razão - a moral, isto é, que ela pode determinar imediatamente à vontade.

Can one speak philosophically of a justified limitation of freedom? Hegel’s logically founded definition of free will and his understanding of right and duty can contribute to a clarification of the concept of freedom. Important is a precise differentiation between freedom and caprice (Willkür) – the latter being a necessary but one-sided element of the free will. In caprice, the will is not yet in the form of reason. Rational rights and duties are not a restriction of freedom. Insofar as (...) individual rights can collide (e. g. in emergency situations), there can be a temporary and proportionate restriction of certain rights in favour of higher rights, such as the right to life. Dictatorships are instances of capricious rule which restrict freedom; the rationally designed state, by contrast, restricts only caprice. What is tobe defined are the duties and the rights of the state and the duties and the rights of the citizens. (shrink)

Resumo: O problema da perversão da comunidade social pela propriedade privada se tornara, para Marx, com o estudo dos socialistas utópicos e especialmente de Proudhon, bastante claro: não sendo um desenvolvimento necessário, e sim casual, a propriedade privada - e a cisão entre interesse particular e interesse geral dela proveniente - poderia ser subsumida. O presente artigo visa a demonstrar como, na busca de um republicanismo de tom rousseauniano e crítico ao liberalismo burguês, Karl Marx flertou com a crítica dos (...) comunistas à propriedade privada. Para tanto, perpassa cinco artigos redigidos para a Gazeta Renana - o artigo de defesa contra o kantiano Hermes, a polêmica com o socialista Moses Hess, a resposta à Gazeta de Augsburg, o artigo de crítica às resoluções da VI Assembleia da Província do Reno e o artigo “Sobre a lei do roubo de lenha” - e, ainda, a crítica de Proudhon à propriedade privada.: Through his study of the utopian socialists, and especially of Proudhon, the problem of the perversion of the social community by private property became quite clear to Marx: if private property - and the split between private interest and general interest originating from it - it is not a necessary development, but an incidental one, it can be subsumed. This article aims to demonstrate how, in search of a Rousseauian republicanism and a critique of bourgeois liberalism, Karl Marx flirted with the communists’ critique of private property. We discuss Proudhon’s critique of private property and five articles Mark wrote for the Rheinische Zeitung: the article against the Kantian Hermes, the controversy with the socialist Moses Hess, the reply to the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, the critique of the resolutions of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly, and the “Debates on the Law on the Thefts of Wood”. (shrink)

Der Beitrag will dazu ermutigen, für die Entwicklung einer Ethik der Polizei starker als bislang auch Einsichten aus der Geschichte der Philosophie miteinzubeziehen. In einem ersten Schritt soll plausibel werden, dass die Polizei durch ihre Arbeit an den Grenzen und Grenzsituationen unseres Lebens eine ursprüngliche Nähe und Offenheit zur Philosophie hat (Kap.1). Deren unverzichtbare Verwiesenheit auf die Geschichte („Weisheit der Alten“) (Kap.2) wird – einem Hinweis Werner Schieweks folgend – auf dem Hintergrund der politischen Philosophie für die Ethik der Polizei (...) und ihrer Ausbildung schrittweise entfaltet (Kap.3): Persönliche Letztverantwortung des Menschen, ein sozialer und solidarischer Begriff von Freiheit, die schlechterdings zentrale Bedeutung vor allem der „musisch-literarischen“, gewaltreduzierenden Ausbildung der künftigen „Wächter“, ihre Vorbereitung auf die Maßlosigkeit des Menschen oder die Kultivierung ihrer Affekte etwa in einer Atmosphäre des „Schönen“ sind mögliche Aspekte, an die eine Ethik der Polizei vielleicht bei Platon anknüpfen kann. Das gilt vor allem für ein Verständnis der polizeilichen Kardinaltugend: der Tapferkeit. Als feste Überzeugung über das, was für den Staat gefährlich ist, zeichnet sich die Tapferkeit durch eine besondere Furcht aus: Durch die Furcht der Wächter vor sich selbst und ihrer eigenen Ambivalenz. Die Einübung in diese Furcht kann im Rahmen der Ausbildung u.a. in einer Auseinandersetzung mit der radikalen Moralkritik bestehen, wie sie Platon anhand unterschiedlicher sophistischer Positionen diskutiert. Abschließend gibt der Beitrag noch einen Ausblick auf weitere Perspektiven für die Polizeiethik, die sich aus der Geschichte der Philosophie ergeben: Zum einen im Anschluss an Kant die mögliche Relevanz von Hoffnung für moralisches Handeln auch in der Polizei; zum anderen die Möglichkeit einer philosophischen „Therapie“ von starken Emotionen wie etwa Angst oder Zorn. (shrink)

This paper tries to explain against the backdrop of the history of German criminal theory why and in which way the fault elements are seen differently in Germany and in Anglo-American countries. It shows how Feuerbach’s psychological model of guilt convinced Feuerbach’s German contemporaries in the 19th century that the suppression of the actual will to violate a criminal prohibition must be the reason for punishment. For such deterrence theory, direct intention is the central criterion of imputation. There is no (...) room for extensions like indirect intention. The resulting gap was filled by representatives of the will theory who created dolus eventualis as a criterion of imputation. The paper then concentrates on the gradual change which dolus eventualis has undergone due to the development of a ‘normative’ concept of guilt, i.e. a perception of guilt as a failure to live up to certain expected standards. It is outlined how the normative concept of guilt has facilitated Welzel’s decision to transplant dolus from the guilt level to the level of definitional elements. Transferring dolus to the definitional level led to a further change from a primarily voluntative to a cognitive content of the notion. It became appropriate to view dolus eventualis as acceptance of the prohibited state of affairs. For reasons of clarification the terms dolus eventualis and recklessness are compared in an annex to the paper. (shrink)

The critical reception of racist, sexist and anti-Jewish dimensions in the works of canonical authors has moved to the center of philosophical discourse. Many of those who engage in the history of philosophy have defended the established canon and advocated for critical readings. I want to show that the current discourse on Hegel’s treatment of religion misreads his position as “modern”, because it does not take the works of his Jewish contemporaries into account. In my own reading of the Grundlinien, (...) I will show that Hegel’s concept of the division of Church and state does not remain neutral when it comes to religious affiliation but has a clear anti-Jewish bias (I). This serves to show that one can neither adequately identify nor address identity-based discrimination in the works of majoritarian thinkers without an equal commitment to diversifying the canon to include positions of marginalised authorship (II). (shrink)

_Purpose._ The study aims to understand artificial intelligence as a socio-cultural phenomenon and its impact on education, where the spiritual sphere of humanity, moral norms, values, and human cognitive abilities are preserved, transferred as well as reproduced. A new discourse on the interaction of artificial and authentic human intelligence becomes inevitable, which has led to a situation of uncertainty. Changes in the socio-cultural environment under the influence of artificial intelligence increase potential threats to the educational space, which stimulates to find (...) the ways to eliminate them. _Theoretical basis._ Various approaches of classical and postmodern philosophical heritage were taken as a theoretical basis for the research. _The originality_ of the study is in the interpretation of artificial intelligence as a modern form of alienation of essential human characteristics in the socio-cultural context of information technology. The expansion of artificial intelligence raises awareness of the existential threat to the basic socio-cultural, moral and ethical principles of humanism. It is proved that various forms of alienation in the current existing socio-cultural space are typical of our reality, which changes the system of values, moral principles, and social organization of the community. _Conclusions._ In conclusion, it is proved that AI is a natural stage of scientific and technological progress, which reflects its secondary, derivative nature from human (authentic) intelligence. Human intelligence will always have advantages over AI due to its ability to create, communicate socially and culturally, and be emotional. The dilemma of the counterbalance between human and artificial intelligence is perceived mainly at the emotional level of people. The millennial understanding of the primacy of the creator over his creation can traditionally overcome this contradiction. The universality of human thinking is an undeniable advantage of human intelligence and a guarantee of its, i.e. our, priority. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag wird die Bedeutung von Kants Begriff des ethischen Gemeinwesens für die Frage des Kosmopolitanismus herausgearbeitet. Kosmopolitanismus ist für Kant zunächst eine Konsequenz der Rechtslehre: Der Rechtszustand kann nur als globaler peremtorisch wirklich sein. Diese Einsicht kollidiert jedoch mit der Voraussetzung souveräner bürgerlicher Staaten, so dass der politische oder juridische globale Rechtszustand die moralische Forderung des Kosmopolitanismus nicht erfüllt. Es lässt sich zeigen, dass diese Kollision in der antagonistischen Form der modernen Gesellschaft gründet, deren politische Instrumente die Staaten (...) sind. Im Unterschied zu den rechtsphilosophischen Schriften konstruiert Kant in der Religionsschrift ein weltbürgerliches ethisches Gemeinwesen, das von der Idee einer moralisch organisierten Gesellschaft ausgeht. Dieses Modell wird im Rahmen der Religionsphilosophie entwickelt. Darüber hinaus weisen Überlegungen Kants zur Pädagogik: Die Überwindung gesellschaftlich bedingter Partikularität und Konkurrenz kann als Bildungsaufgabe formuliert werden. (shrink)

This article seeks to address current debates comparing polls and opinion mining as empirically based figuration models of public opinion in the light of in-depth intellectual debates on the role and nature of public opinion that began after the French Revolution and the controversy over public opinion spurred by the invention of polls. Issues of historical quantification and re-conceptualisation of public opinion are addressed in four parts. The first summarises the history of the rise and fall of the concept of (...) public opinion. The second re-examines the key controversies in the debates on the theoretical, empirical and social implications and consequences of the invention of polling. The third part scrutinises the datafication of public opinion that started with polling industry and continues in the age of big data and data mining. The final section discusses the controversial potentials of opinion-mining technology and suggests ways in which social scientists could critically respond to the big data and opinion-mining challenges in order to reintegrate the ideas of publicness, the public and public sphere into public opinion research. (shrink)

ABSTRACT English-language commentary on the role of the French Revolution in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit tends to equate the so-called “fury of destruction” (Furie des Verschwindens) with the violent dialectic of rival factions’ rush for power. Here it is argued that “Absolute Freedom and Terror” ought instead to be read in the light of a “fury of disappearance”, namely in terms of the extinction of dissenting citizens’ legal personhood. This is achieved by recourse to civil death, a criminal sentence that (...) declares the individual, who is very much alive, legally dead. While there are some actual and quite painful consequences for recipients of such a sentence, civil death is effective mainly on the philosophical and constitutional planes, where it maintains the illusion of a unanimous general will, fleetingly securing the state from failure. A focus on personhood and civil death also taps into the larger Hegelian dialectic of legalism and tradition, and into the various shapes community life takes therein, beginning with Greek Ethical Life, and ending in Absolute Freedom and Terror. (shrink)

Abordaremos a crítica marxiana à noção hegeliana de "ser" , mostrando que a historicidade e a objetividade, em verdade, são determinações desta . Deste modo, intentamos mostrar que analogias entre a lógica hegeliana e a teoria marxiana podem eclipsar aspectos centrais à abordagem materialista proposta pelo autor de "O capital". Apontando a inversão hegeliana entre sujeito e predicado, Marx trata da apreensão do real que, muito embora seja traçada em diálogo com a dialética hegeliana, é também sua antítese direta . (...) We will deal with the Marxian criticism to the Hegelian notion of "being". It will be shown that historicity and objectivity are determinations of this category . So, the analogy between the Hegelian logic and the Marxian theory may, sometimes, hide essential aspects of the materialist comprehension of history. Here, we intend to prove that, by questioning the treatment dispensed to the matter of being by Hegel, Marx criticizes the Hegelian inversion between subject and predicate in a way that, although dialoguing with Hegel, his conception is the exact opposite at the same time. (shrink)

O artigo visa discutir formas de pensar o conceito de liberdade para além de sua submissão às figuras da autonomia. O objetivo é avaliar a necessidade e pertinência de pensarmos, em nosso contexto sócio-histórico, a liberdade como heteronomia sem servidão. Conceito este que nasce da crítica à elevação do paradigma do auto-pertencimento a condição de via única para a definição da liberdade.

It is not evident in what sense philosophy relates to its own time and present. From the history of philosophical thought, several models have been suggested, ranging from a strong reliance on tradition to the wholesale rejection of the present and demand for a ‘philosophy of the future,’ from the suspicion that philosophy is nothing but one ideology among others to the demand that philosophy should engage in the struggles and conflicts of its time in order to prepare for a (...) better future. The essay presents an assessment and problematization of these approaches and argues for a point of view that starts from philosophy’s precarious, ambivalent and contingent relation to its time and contemporaneity. Neither wholly independent of nor entirely subjected to its own time, philosophy can inhabit a shifting position from which critique and resistance are possible even if not ultimately guaranteed. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag entfaltet eine grundsätzliche Kritik an konsequenzialistischen Ethiken. Unsere Kritik zielt auf den Nachweis, dass konsequenzialistische Ansätze einer methodischen Anforderung bei der Begründung eines Moralprinzips nicht gerecht werden, weil sie einen Begriff des Guten voraussetzen, ohne auf seinen epistemischen Status zu reflektieren. Es gelingt ihnen daher nicht, einen Begriff des Guten zu entwickeln, der gleichermaßen sowohl die Erkenntnis einer logischen Notwendigkeit als auch einer praktischen Relevanz zum Ausdruck bringen kann. Aus methodischen Gründen muss daher unklar bleiben, warum das, was (...) als „gut“ gesetzt und erkannt wird, auch realisiert werden muss.Wir gehen in vier Schritten vor: In einem ersten Schritt greifen wir mit dem Ziel der Verschärfung des Problems mit dem so genannten deontologischen Paradox eine der größten Herausforderungen für deontologische Ethiken auf. Wir wollen aber zeigen, dass dieses Paradox überhaupt nur formuliert werden kann, wenn bereits von einem Prinzip des Guten ausgegangen wird, ohne es in ein Verhältnis zur praktischen Vernunft des Handelnden zu setzen. Dazu rekonstruieren wir in einem zweiten Schritt Mills Beweis für das Nützlichkeitsprinzip des Utilitarismus, weil sich daran das methodische Problem einer Erkenntnis des Guten besonders gut herausarbeiten lässt. Im dritten Schritt entwickeln wir unter Rückgriff auf methodologische Überlegungen Kants aus der Kritik der praktischen Vernunft ein Argument, das zeigen soll, dass in keiner moralphilosophischen Argumentation ein Begriff des Guten einfach vorausgesetzt werden kann, ohne logisch primär die durch das Prädikat „gut“ erkannte praktische Notwendigkeit in ein Verhältnis zum Handelnden zu setzen. Das, was überhaupt als gut erkannt werden kann, ist daher durch reflexive Urteile über den Modus des praktischen Erkennens zu bestimmen. Mit diesem Ergebnis wird in einem vierten Schritt das deontologische Paradox aufgelöst. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 3, Page 597-607, September 2021.

ABSTRACT This article discusses recent scholarly endeavours to rethink form and principles of Rousseau's political theory. Michael Sonenscher's Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Division of Labour, the Politics of the Imagination and the Concept of Federal Government is in the limelight of the analysis. Following a brief introduction into the general debate on Rousseau's political thought, the article reconstructs Sonenscher's argument that Rousseau was essentially a theorist of a federal government system. While Sonenscher achieves what earlier interpretations have failed to accomplish, that (...) is, to give Rousseau's state a form, the discussion underscores that he leaves open the question how this federal government system is supposed to function. The article concludes that Rousseau's fragmentary ideas on constitutional government can provide an answer to this question, as they shed light on the framework that allowed him to combine will (the sovereign people) and force (the government) in the political organization of a democratic state. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the main contribution of Hegel's philosophy of right to the contemporary political debate is that it opens a window on the idea that liberalism and individual freedom are incompatible. My main thesis is that the liberal conception of the State and law, structured from a nonrelational account of singularity, ends up denying the individual freedom that it claims to defend. I begin by reconstructing the Hegelian concept of freedom from its most general lines, showing (...) that being free consists in wanting to become someone and not so much in wanting to do something. After showing that the purpose of becoming someone can only be fulfilled in a social medium, I focus on Hegel's critique of the liberal state (as expounded in the section on “civil society”). I argue that civil society structurally impedes individuals from realizing their purpose of becoming someone: the economical interactions of civil society give rise to impersonal and inscrutable mechanisms, which take the social conditions of people's individuation beyond their control. Finally, I claim that (rational) individual freedom consists in being able to thematize and democratically control the very social conditions of individuation through the State and law. (shrink)

The article exposes diverse historical-philosophical meanings of the concepts of praxis and practice. Using the works of Aristotle, I. Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, K. Marx, H. Lotze, and H. Arendt, the author demonstrates the main ways of distinguishing between these two notions. The article clarifies meanings of praxis and prudence in Aristotle’s philosophy. The crucial transformation of the sense of practice in classical German philosophy, its further neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian interpretations are also considered. The author reveals a range of categorical forms (...) of comprehending the practical and traces the basic directions of the development of definitions of praxis and practice, indicating the historical-philosophical contexts of their evolution. The article compares the conceptions of the acting subject developed by I. Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, K. Marx, and H. Lotze. Special attention is given to the explication of H. Lotze’s practical philosophy in building and distributing the conception of active life. Marxist and Lotzean approaches to praxis are compared, and their role in the formation of its current interpretations is revealed. These interpretations are problematized, taking into account the partly reconstructed initial meanings of praxis in Aristotle’s philosophy. The author justifies the relevance of H. Lotze’s legacy in Russian philosophy, examining the categories of social action and active life, the acting subject and society. The article demonstrates prospects for their reconsideration in social philosophy by approaching H. Lotze’s practical philosophy. The conclusion highlights consequences of the replacement of the Aristotelian definition of praxis with the Lotzean version, the possibility and necessity of reproducing the initial sense of praxis as different from practice in diverse historical-philosophical interpretations. (shrink)

Postmodernism is considered as the historical stage of the transition of contemporary society from mature industrial capitalism to the qualitatively new technological and social production order. The real transformations of contemporary society’s factors have been brought into the correlation with the production changes that determine transition from Modern Age machine technologies to nanotechnologies. Existence of Postmodern society is presented as the borderland of historical ages, that is, as the period of the fading away of the Modern Age social forms and (...) of the becoming of social activity’s new forms that are specific for the new age of the development of society and of the worldwide socionatural entity. The author analyzes theoretical and worldview potential of Postmodern philosophy and its inability to represent further postindustrial society evolution tendencies. Possible scenarios of Рostmodern society evolution are considered in the context of contemporary concepts on the changes in the human role in nature and society as well as in the context of the trends of socionatural Universe development. The paper reveals technical, technological and social presuppositions of the transition from the nature-historical stage of society development to the true historical stage of human development. (shrink)