In this paper I propose to study the different combinations between temporality and the idea of totality in the beginning of Classical German Philosophy. In order to do that I will analyze the image of liberation in the philosophical and practical articulation of a new mythology in the manuscript “The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism”, and the outlines of a theory of the Spirit in the documents written by Hegel in the first part of his Jena stage, more specifically, (...) in the fragments of the period 1803/04. For this purpose I will take as specific objects the figures of an “eternal unity” [die ewige Einheit] to come and of an “absolute becoming” [das absolute Werden] of Spirit. The hypothesis I intend to develop holds that the confrontation of these two images can lead to duplicated consequences: on the one hand, this comparison would make it possible to relativize the binary readings that oppose as terms of a simple contradiction both conceptual lineages, Idealism and Romanticism. On the other hand it would express an insurmountable tension between two ways of thinking about the relationship between time and totality. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate how Heidegger's statement, "Language is the House of Being," claims to represent the essence of all Western European philosophy, namely, as an outline of the unity of indirect identities - being, form and name. The author raises a number of questions in his research. Can we identify "beginning" and "consequence" by exploring the phenomenon of language? Is there anything in the language between beginning and effect? What is a language? And why does (...) Heidegger call language home? Is it possible to identify philosophically what makes language possible regardless of cultural contexts and historical eras? Does the question "What is language?" at the same time lead us to the question "What is a person?" and then "What does it mean to be?" The article focuses on the connection of Heidegger's philosophy with Plato's philosophy, and therefore on the constancy of fundamental philosophical problems, which finds different ways of expression (mythological, metaphysical, phenomenological...). The second part of the article is devoted to the actual analysis of the concept of "house of being" through the comprehension of the speech (communicative) dimension of one's being. The author also explores the concept of Heidegger's philosophy of openness, distance, speech: existence is Dasein's relation to being, that is, to one's own making; speech (Rede) as a mode of openness (Dasein) is an existential phenomenon; language (Sprache) is an implementation of self-projecting (entwerfen) speech (Rede) into the "world". Given that a language contains a plurality of certain elements and relationships, the essential unity of the language should be sought at the discontinuity. The gap means openness and freedom of speech. That is, the existential condition of the possibility of language, called in the early Heidegger openness, in his later work appears as a gap, but here and there it is the essential language, which is at the same time the essence of man. (shrink)

Moral particularists and generalists alike have struggled over how to incorporate the role of moral salience in ethical reasoning. In this paper, I point to neglected resources in Kant to account for the role of moral salience in maxim formation: Kant's theory of reflective judgment. Kant tasks reflective judgment with picking out salient empirical particulars for formation into maxims, associating it with purposiveness, or intentional activity (action on ends). The unexpected resources in Kantian reflective judgment suggest the possibility of a (...) particularist universalism, where recalcitrant particulars directly inform, and in some cases revise, moral principles. Such an account improves on particularist accounts of moral salience and moral perception: rather than deriving moral sensitivity solely from an agent's upbringing or cultural resources, the reflective dimension is situated alongside the universalist dimension of moral principles typically identified with Kantian ethics, allowing for a critical approach both to moral universals and to the reception of moral particulars. (shrink)

This study argues that the early philosophy of Semyon Liudvigovich Frank (1877–1950) exhibits significant intellectual correlations with nineteenth century German Idealist philosophy. The idealists in question are Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1796–1879), G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831) and F.W.J. Schelling (1775–1854). It will be suggested that the critical tension of Frank’s early philosophy is precisely a tension between his Hegelian and Schellingian tendencies. The paper will first introduce Frank’s theory of a “personal absolute”, exploring its surprising parallels with the religious philosophy of I. (...) H. Fichte. The analysis then addresses the self-dispersal of Hegel’s absolute, before finally turning to Schelling’s immediate intuition of subject-object identity. (shrink)

Jürgen Habermas’s opus magnum, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, synthesises his impressive work of the last half century. His thesis is that the modern project of the normativity of “rational freedom” can be reconstructed as a learning process of the conflictual dialogue between reason and faith, philosophy and religion in the West. Furthermore, under conditions of a world society, cross-cultural communication across lifeworlds, based on such normative principles, is possible. I argue that Habermas’s argument recapitulates a claim first made in (...) The Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel, who presented the normativity of modernity through a narrative unfolding between two epistemological standpoints, namely, that of consciousness and “we.” Just like Hegel, in order to defend the idea of a Lernprozess, Habermas too must presuppose a unified subject called “we;” furthermore the development of such subjectivity unfolds in a homogeneous temporal process that is then assumed to be the same for all mankind. I call this a form of “historicism,” and juxtapose recent historical writing that presents the narrative of modernity and the emergence of world-society as a much more diverse and fractured process than Hegel’s and Habermas’s methodology. “Die Einbeziehung der Anderen,” I argue, must involve including the voices of those others who do not experience the normative of modernity as a process like the one unfolding between faith and reason in the West. Nevertheless, I conclude that this plea for a more complex narrative that “provincialises Europe,” is not a rejection of the normative legacy of modern rationality and freedom that are based on the ideals of fallibilism, refutability and revisability through a rational community of inquirers. (shrink)

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)

All understanding is dependent on interpretation. The hermeneutic tradition reflects the possibilities and problems associated with this. The analytical-hermeneutic method presented here draws partly on this tradition. It attempts to rationalise and objectify the process of interpretation. The analytical aspect of the method has the purpose of logically and rationally aligning and verifying the understanding of meaning (“Sinn-Verstehen”) of the hermeneutical part. After interpretation, when the question of truth is tobe posed to the text, it is relevant once more. An (...) indispensable basis for the successful application of the method, however, is the interpreter’s willingness to engage with the text without reservation and not to make himself or herself the criterion of interpretation. Seen in this light, understanding is a form of self-transcendence – a transgression of the ego, which transforms itself in the understanding of the other and the examination of its own thinking. (shrink)

The main objective of this work is to achieve an understanding of Husserl's phenomenology as philosophical foundation for theology. It sustains, in the first place, that theology and philosophy do more than converge. It deepens, in second place, in the connection between phenomenology and theology, as well as in the Husserlian conception of God as entelechy and ἐνέργεια. This study concludes with a reflection, in third place, on the possibility of elaborating a theology from the phenomenological inspiration. The thesis that (...) is defended is that phenomenology means for theology, literally, an authentic Herausforderung, that is to say, a provocation that from outside interpellates a discourse, the theological one, that many judged already exhausted and at risk of extinction. In the conclusions are detailed the main contributions that the phenomenology makes to theology. El principal objetivo de este trabajo es lograr una comprensión de la la fenomenología de Husserl como fundamento filosófico para la teología. Sostiene, en primer lugar, la idea de que la teología y la filosofía hacen algo más que converger. Profundiza, en segundo lugar, en la conexión entre fenomenología y teología, así como en la concepción husserliana de Dios como entelequia y ἐνέργεια. Este estudio concluye con una reflexión, en tercer lugar, sobre la posibilidad de elaborar una teología de inspiración fenomenológica. La tesis que se defiende es que la fenomenología supone para la teología, literalmente, una auténtica Herausforderung, es decir, una provocación que desde fuera interpela a un discurso, el teológico, que muchos juzgaban ya agotado y en riesgo de extinción. En las conclusiones se detallan las principales aportaciones que la fenomenología hace a la teología. (shrink)

In the climate ethics debate, scholars largely agree that individuals should promote institutions that ensure the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper aims to establish that there are individual duties beyond compliance with and promotion of institutions. Duties of individuals to reduce their emissions are often objected to by arguing that an individual’s emissions do not make a morally relevant difference. We challenge this argument from inconsequentialism in two ways. We first show why the argument also seems to undermine (...) the case for duties to promote institutions that the arguments’ proponents endorse. Second, we argue that individuals ought to cut emissions if they exceed their fair share of emissions entitlements and, by emitting, contribute to climate-related harm. In response to inconsequentialism, we specify the notion of ‘contribution’ via the so-called NESS theory, according to which an act is causally relevant for and contributes to an outcome if it is a Necessary Element of a Set of conditions that is Sufficient for the outcome. After refuting two objections to our approach, we conclude by discussing how to deal with possible conflicts between duties to promote institutions and to reduce one’s emissions. (shrink)

Cloning research caught a great deal of attention when Dolly the sheep was born (§4). While some fear surrounded the attainment (§§14-15), Wilmutʼs research itself has grown well, providing a less vicious manner to gain ES cells (§12). In this article, we review the progress of cloning research along with the concern of medical circles about its application to reproductive cloning, that is to say, making replicas of human beings (§§16-21). Note that all the content is ascribed to the author (...) alone, not to Musashino University. (shrink)

Purpose. The paper considers the fear of social alienation of love. It is within the limits of psychoanalytic epistemology, the analysis of which will be presented in the article, the tendencies to monotony and universal solutions with an emphasis on ensuring the objectivity of the problem of gender alienation, to be more exact, the fear of love, which causes the gender process, are viewed most reliably. In view of the above the purpose of the paper is to investigate the conceptual (...) contradictions associated with the reconstruction of basic measurements of the fear of alienation of love within different ideological approaches; to reveal the most significant contradictions that manifest themselves in the differences between secular and religious frames; to determine a philosophical and fundamental foundation for the types of fear: metaphysical, transcendental and social, which to some extent have influenced the development of a gender tradition. The paper investigates the fear of alienation of love, not as an instinct or psychological experience, or as a social factor, but as a correlation between the functional types of fear and the peculiarities of social and cultural processes, and it acts as a dependence of the European societies on the various functional forms of fear of love that influence the processes of social transformations. Theoretical basis. The authors determine that in the gender approach the subject, who is cognized, has specific desires and interests. The process of cognation is local, contextual, in which physiologically and spiritually the fear of alienation of love is closely linked to the conditions of existence of people, with the arrangement of social and individual life. In modern civilization, true love with some exceptions, is fleeting. It is now hindered by the burdens of life, and ideological settings, which go only from the "I", and not from the common "I and You", contributing to frustration and alienation. Originality. The emphasis is placed on the fact that the fear of alienation of love, as a way of identifying the essential characteristics of "I", acts as an existential, which concentrates on the sense-life range of problems. The range of problem in a single topic is in the "point I", surrounded by gender boundaries, it contains as a condition for its manifestation the personality distancing – free or forced consolidation and assertion of the autonomy of the individual. Alienation of love as an existential admits in the register of the intimate, intentional for self-perception, internal state to organize and identify with the "authentic I". Conclusions. The article establishes that gender identity under the conditions of modern socio-psychological crisis is associated with forming a special "picture of fear, anxiety, loneliness" as a part of that internal and external world, generated by alienation from society. The fear of alienated love acts as the essential existential of human being, which is a necessary existential condition of the existential tension that occurs as an antipode and a characteristic of courage, asceticism, and the "beginning of wisdom". The considered phenomenon of the fear of alienation of love is interpreted as the result of the ontological and gender alienation of a person who has lost a sense of security and plunged into a continuous interindividual rivalry. (shrink)

This paper analyses the technoscientific objective of building a synthetic cell from a Jungian perspective. After decades of fragmentation and specialisation, the synthetic cell symbolises a turn towards restored wholeness, both at the object pole and at the subject pole. From a Jungian perspective, it is no coincidence that visual representations of synthetic cells often reflect an archetypal, mandala-like structure. As a symbol of restored unity, the synthetic cell mandala compensates for technoscientific fragmentation via active imagination, providing a visual aid (...) for the technoscientific turn towards reintegration. Although the biotechnological desire to reconstruct life in vitro has been compared to alchemy before, a Jungian analysis allows us to make this comparison more specific and precise. The problem of archetypal images, however, is that alluring prospects of reintegration may underestimate and obfuscate the deficiencies and tensions at work in the current situation. As a projection of a future wholeness, it fosters optimism, but may also function as a misleading façade, covering up collisions and complexities. This can be averted by the conscious employment of the mandala as a symbolic scaffold fostering processes of individuation and working through. (shrink)

Consideration of the work of Sade in relation to Adorno usually refers to the much-discussed chapter from Dialektik der Aufklärung. But Adorno made a number of other remarks across his career that suggest a very different reading. I will discuss the three most significant of these remarks and show how they develop an approach to the libidinal aspect of aesthetic experience that challenges our understanding of the relation of thought and language. In doing so, Sade’s works indicate an extraordinary liberation (...) of the dialectic of natural-history through a mimesis of desire, which is made apparent in what Sade’s texts literally present; in their contingency and also their facticity. (shrink)

Hegel afirma que la perspectiva del “alma bella” es sostenida por seguidores de Fichte que confunden el Yo absoluto con el yo psicofísico. Estos pensadores y literatos son reconocidos como miembros del Romanticismo alemán. Curiosamente, Hegel no menciona la obra de Jean Paul Richter entre estos casos. Jean Paul sostiene la identificación entre el Yo absoluto fichteano y la conciencia individual. Además, el autor de Hesperus define a los personajes principales de su novela como “almas bellas” y les atribuye cualidades (...) similares a las expuestas por Hegel en la concepción de su figura del Espíritu. El objetivo del presente artículo es demostrar la coincidencia entre la noción hegeliana de “alma bella” y la representación de la subjetividad expuesta por Jean Paul Richter en Hesperus. (shrink)

This paper is a revised version of the essay that won the Zapffe Prize in 2017. -/- In «The Last Messiah» and On the tragic, Peter Wessel Zapffe suggests that humankind should cease to reproduce, as the meaning of life cannot be found and human life at its best is tragic. The theory has been criticized for assuming that the meaning of life must be explained by an external cause and implicitly asks for an infinite causal chain. In this paper, (...) I argue that it is possible to escape this critique by adding a new element to the definition of the tragic: namely, the insight that the tragic cannot come into existence if the subject does not demonstrate its greatness. Precisely because a human, on Zapffe’s understanding, must prove its brilliance if tragedy is to arise, I argue that the tragic cannot be devoid of meaning. In contrast, the individual seems to be provided with a tragic meaning of life, rather than being deprived of it. Furthermore, the new definition of the tragic affects Zapffe’s antinatalism, because a tragic meaning of life does not necessitate that humankind should cease to reproduce. Yet, the definition does not suggest that humans should reproduce either. Instead, it confronts us with the following question: Should one bring new life into the world, when the meaning of life only can be found in the tragic? (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)

Early in the Logic of Essence, the second main part of Hegelian Logic, Hegel identifies a logical structure, seeming (Schein), with “the phenomenon of scepticism.” The present paper has two aims: first, to flesh this identification out by describing the argument that leads up to it; and, second, to argue that it is mistaken. I will proceed as follows. Section 1 deciphers the opening statement of the Logic of Essence, “the truth of being is essence,” by specifying the meaning of (...) each of its composing terms. The discussion opens the way for deliberation on the meaning of the notion of seeming, since seeming proves to be what remains of being in the structure of essence. This is done in section 2. It is also shown therein that seeming takes two logical forms, dualistic seeming and monistic seeming. Section 3 argues that Hegel identifies scepticism only with dualistic seeming, and that the scepticism he has in mind is what one may call “subjective scepticism,” namely a scepticism grounded in the subject of cognition. The section concludes that Hegel, judged by his own standards, is mistaken in this identification. Finally, section 4 considers Robert Pippin’s objection to the above conclusion and offers a rejoinder. (shrink)

Finding truth is an art that was learned and unlearned. Truth can only be found by looking for independent confirmation of our beliefs, by reality. This methodology is difficult to apply in personal- and social settings, because power and politics turn 'seeking independent confirmation' into 'avoiding dependent rejection'. A completely different social order is implied and the one keeps running the other into the ground like a tectonic plate. Philosophical Modernism showed us how dualism works, before Post-Modernism challenged it, regressing (...) to monism. (shrink)

a This is an outline of a coherence theory of law. Its basic ideas are: reasonable support and weighing of reasons. All the rest is commentary.a (TM) These words at the beginning of the preface of this book perfectly indicate what On Law and Reason is about. It is a theory about the nature of the law which emphasises the role of reason in the law and which refuses to limit the role of reason to the application of deductive logic. (...) In 1989, when the first edition of On Law and Reason appeared, this book was ground breaking for several reasons. It provided a rationalistic theory of the law in the language of analytic philosophy and based on a thorough understanding of the results, including technical ones, of analytic philosophy. That was not an obvious combination at the time of the booka (TM)s first appearance and still is not. The result is an analytical rigor that is usually associated with positivist theories of the law, combined with a philosophical position that is not natural law in a strict sense, but which shares with it the emphasis on the role of reason in determining what the law is. If only for this rare combination, On Law and Reason still deserves careful study. On Law and Reason also foreshadowed and influenced a development in the field of Legal Logic that would take place in the nineties of the 20th century, namely the development of non-monotonic (a defeasiblea (TM)) logics for the analysis of legal reasoning. In the new Introduction to this second edition, this aspect is explored in some more detail. (shrink)

Taking people’s longevity as a measure of good life, humankind can proudly say that the average person is living a much longer life than ever before. The AIDS epidemic has however for the first time in decades stalled and in some cases even reverted this trend in a number of countries. Climate change is increasingly becoming a major challenge for food security and we can anticipate that hunger caused by crop damages will become much more common. -/- Since many of (...) the challenges humanity faced in the past were overcome by inventive solutions coming from the life sciences, we are compelled to reconsider how we incentivize science and technology development so that those in need can benefit more broadly from scientific research. There is a huge portion of the world population that is in urgent need for medicines to combat diseases that are currently neglected by the scientific community and could immensely benefit from agricultural research that specifically targets their environmental conditions. At the same time efforts have to be made to make the fruits of current and future research more widely accessible. These changes would have to be backed by a range of moral arguments to attract people with diverging notions of global justice. This article explores the main ethical theories used to demand a greater share in the benefits from scientific progress for the poor. Since life sciences bring about a number of special concerns, a short list of conflictive issues is also offered. (shrink)

How can we explain the intentional nature of an expert’s actions, performed without immediate and conscious control, relying instead on automatic cognitive processes? How can we account for the differences and similarities with a novice’s performance of the same actions? Can a naturalist explanation of intentional expert action be in line with a philosophical concept of intentional action? Answering these and related questions in a positive sense, this dissertation develops a three-step argument. Part I considers different methods of explanations in (...) cognitive neuroscience (Bennett & Hacker’s philosophical, conceptual analysis; Marr’s three levels of explanation; Neural Correlates of Consciousness research; mechanistic explanation), defending ‘mechanistic explanation’ as a method that provides the necessary tools for integrating interdisciplinary insights into human action. Furthermore, a dynamic, explanatory mechanism allows the assessment of the impact of learning and development on expert action in a valuable way that other methods don’t. Part II continues by scrutinizing several cognitive neuroscientific theories of learning and development (neuroconstructivism; dual-processing theories; simulation theory; extended mind/cognition hypothesis), arguing for the complex interactions between different types of processing and different action representations involved in expert action performances. Moreover, according to our discussion of a particular ‘simulation theory’ these interactions can be influenced in several ways with the use of language, allowing an agent to configure a specific action representation for performance at a later stage. The results of Parts I and II are then applied in Part III to a parallel discussion of philosophical analyses of intentional action (discussing i.a. Frankfurt, Bratman, Pacherie and Ricoeur) and cognitive neuroscientific insights in it. Both approaches are found to converge in emphasizing the importance for an expert to develop stable patterns of actions that comply maximally not only with his intentions, but also with his motor expertise and with situational conditions. Consequently, his actions – automatic, or not – rely on this ‘sculpted space of actions’. (shrink)

It is a commonplace among certain recent philosophers that there is no such thing as the essence of anything. Nietzsche, for example, asserts that things have no essence of their own, because they are nothing but ceaselessly changing ways of acting on, and reacting to, other things. Wittgenstein, famously, rejects the idea that there is an essence to language and thought – at least if we mean by that some a priori logical structure underlying our everyday utterances. Finally, Richard Rorty (...) urges that we ‘abandon … the notion of “essence” altogether’, along with ‘the notion that man's essence is to be a knower of essences’. (shrink)

Limitless is a movie (released in 2011) as well as a novel (published in 2001) about a tormented author who (plagued by a writer’s block) becomes an early user of an experimental designer drug. The wonder drug makes him highly productive overnight and even allows him to make a fortune on the stock market. At the height of his career, however, the detrimental side-effects become increasingly noticeable. In this article, Limitless is analysed from two perspectives. First of all, building on (...) the views of the French novelist Emile Zola, the novel is seen as the report of a closely monitored experiment. Subsequently, building on the phenomenology of Ludwig Binswanger, I will show how the cognitive enhancement drug not only boosts the protagonist’s information processing capacities, but also modifies his experience of space and time, his sense of spatiality, his way of being-in-the-world. On the basis of these (complementary) analyses I will indicate how genres of the imagination (such as movies and novels) may play a significant role in assessing the societal implications of emerging technological developments such as neuro-enhancement, especially during the preparatory or anticipatory stage. (shrink)

Moral judgements are based on automatic processes. Moral judgements are based on reason. In this paper, I argue that both of these claims are true, and show how they can be reconciled. Neither the automaticity of moral judgement nor the post hoc nature of conscious moral reasoning pose a threat to rationalist models of moral cognition. The relation moral reasoning bears to our moral judgements is not primarily mediated by episodes of conscious reasoning, but by the acquisition, formation and maintenance (...) ? in short: education ? of our moral intuitions. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of consciousness and personal identity in eighteenth-century philosophy. Locke introduces the concept of persons as subjects of consciousness who also simultaneously recognize themselves as such subjects. Hume, however, argues that minds are nothing but bundles of perceptions, lacking intrinsic unity at a time or across time. Yet Hume thinks our emotional responses to one another mean that persons in everyday life are defined by their virtues, vices, bodily qualities, property, riches, and the like. Rousseau also (...) takes persons to be fundamentally determined by our socially-mediated emotional responses to one another, though unlike Hume or Locke, he has little interest in placing this account of persons alongside a larger discussion of the human mind and its operations. Developing this idea further, Kant argues that our moral commitments require that we must take ourselves to be free. The fundamental equality that Rousseau sought in the political order is, for Kant, a requirement that reason puts on all of us. (shrink)

In this article I intend to show the strict relation between the notions of “second nature” and “recognition”. To do so I begin with a problem (circularity) proper to the theory of Hegelian and post- Hegelian Anerkennung. The solution strategy I propose is signifi cant also in terms of bringing into focus the problems connected with a notion of “space of reasons” that stems from the Hegelian concept of “Spirit”. I thus broach the notion of “second nature” as a bridgeconcept (...) that can play a key role both for a renewal of the theory of Anerkennung and for a rethinking of the “space of reasons” within the debate between Robert Brandom and John McDowell. Against this background I illustrate the novelties introduced by the dialectical conception of the relation between fi rst and second nature developed by Hegel and the contribution this idea can make to a revisited theory of recognition as a phenomenon articulated on two levels. I then return to the question of the space of reasons to show the contribution the renewed conception of recognition as second nature makes to the definition of its intrinsic sociality as something that is not in principle opposed to a sense of naturalness. (shrink)

One could define a “tragic” viewpoint in many ways, but its core is the claim that things in this world do not always work out for the best. Probably the greatest tragic figure in the Zhuangzi is the defiant praying mantis, who waves her arms to fend off the oncoming chariot. This praying mantis is surely a symbol of Confucius, who was said in the Lun Yu to know that what he does is impossible but to do it anyway. In (...) the Zhuangzi, such characters are fools, not heroes. While the view of life in the Zhuangzi is certainly not an optimistic trust that virtue is rewarded, it is just as surely not a tragic text. It tends rather toward comedy or play. This paper will examine the Zhuangzi in relationship to the tragic. The underlying claim is that the Zhuangzi’s rejection of the optimism of an anthropocentric universe is more radical than tragedy and helps reveal how a tragic viewpoint remains under the sway of an anthropocentric European tradition. Ultimately, pessimism and optimism both assume the validity of human categories, but this is precisely what is attacked in the Zhuangzi. Ironically, it is precisely the unique flexibility of human beings that allows us not just to recognize the insignificance of our goals and values in the world (seeing our situation as tragic) but to accept and take up that insignificance (seeing it rather as comic). The paper concludes with some reflections on why Zhuangzi’s position is both attractive and disturbing. (shrink)

Antigone fascinates G. W. F. Hegel and Luce Irigaray, both of whom turn to her in their explorations and articulations of ethics. Hegel and Irigaray make these re-turns to Antigone through the double and related lenses of nature and sexual difference. This essay investigates these figures of Antigone and the accompanying ethical accounts of nature and sexual difference as a way of examining Irigaray's complex relation to and creative uses of Hegel's thought.

Abstract: Hegel's theory of tragedy is often considered to be primarily a theory of the objective powers involved in tragic conflicts—for Hegel, these are paradigmatically competing ethical notions—and of the rationality which underlies and drives such conflicts. Such a view follows naturally from a close reading of Hegel's discussion of classical Greek tragedy in his Lectures on Aesthetics. However, this view gives rise to the question of whether Hegel's theory of tragedy can account for the significance of tragic experience, in (...) particular the experience of tragic suffering; it has been argued repeatedly that it cannot. In contrast, I want to suggest in this paper that a theory of tragic experience can be derived from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. This Hegelian theory of tragic experience, I argue, should be understood as complementing rather than challenging Hegel's theory of objective tragic conflict. (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)

There are several strategies for exposing the defects of established moral discourse, one of which is critical argumentation. However, under certain specific historical circumstances, the apparent self-evidence of established moral discourse has gained such dominance, such a capacity of resistance or incorporation, such an ability to conceal its basic vulnerability that its validity simply seems beyond contestation. Notwithstanding the moral subject’s basic discontent, he or she remains unable to challenge the dominant discourse effectively by means of critical argument. Or, to (...) borrow a phrase from Michel Foucault, individuals find themselves faced with a certain rationality, a moral regime that dominates moral discourse to such an extent that they cannot offer any resistance without raising the suspicion of being unreasonable. They (that is, we) find ourselves confronted with a discourse quite unable to recognize its own deficiencies. Although we are forced to accept its basic claims, our chronic discontent nevertheless persists. That is, although we are forced to participate in this discourse, we remain basically ambivalent, and our attitude towards established morality contains both a Yes and a No. Then, all of a sudden, the basic vulnerability of the dominant regime dawns on us or is revealed to us – and this is the experience of laughter. (shrink)

The present essay aims to throw light on the study of dialectical thinking from a cultural-historical perspective. Different forms of dialectic are articulated as ideal types, including the Greek dialectic, the Hegelian dialectic, the contemporary German negative dialectic, the Chinese dialectic, and the Indian negative dialectic. These influential cultural products in the history of the East and the West, articulated as ideal types, serve as constellations that could facilitate further empirical studies on dialectical thinking. An understanding of the complexity of (...) these constellations reveals the pitfalls of investigating dialectical thinking without an appropriate conceptualization of the research target. With the ideal types of dialectic as "figure," and Vygotsky's thesis of the cultural-historical origin of higher psychological processes as "ground," we explore possibilities for further lines of inquiry on dialectical thinking. Adhering to the Scribnerian multilevel scheme that reconstructs Vygotsky's thesis, and returning to the core ideas of Vygotsky himself, we discover new, meaningful questions about the study of dialectical thinking. In the research area of "culture and cognition," consideration of a cultural-historical perspective appears to be both necessary and promising. (shrink)

: Reading Hegel's 1827 Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion alongside his Phenomenology of Spirit, I argue that his vision for becoming a self-conscious subject—or seeing (oneself as) "spirit"—requires taking responsibility for the insight that every act of reason expresses an experience of sexual difference. It entails working to bring into being communities whose conceptions of gender and the absolute realize this idea.

The absolute immutability of God, as it was expounded by many ancient and medieval thinkers such as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, contends that God has no real relation with the world, but only a relation of reason. This view lingered until contemporary scholars like the process thinkers such as Alfred North Whitehead and his disciple, Charles Hartshorne, argued that God has a dipolar meaning that God influences the world and that the world also influences him. While protecting God's intrinsic (...) Being, some contemporary thinkers like Clarke, Grant, and others also tried to formulate his real relationship with the world. But the problem remains on how to posit this real relation with the world without insinuating two natures in God. I wish to state in this paper that God has real relation with his creatures which is rooted in what I call “creational relation" that was made manifest at creation and continues after it. (shrink)

There are two dominant contradictory approaches towards understanding the nature of language: one, the epistemological approach; two, the ontological approach. The epistemological approach understands language as a mere tool and denies the close relationship between a word and the actual thing for which that word stands. The ontological approach, on the other hand, understands language as the disclosure of world experience and professes a close relationship between a word and the thing it signifies. However, this approach opposes the epistemological approach (...) towards the understanding of language. In this article, we propose that Hegel, in his Phenomenology of Spirit, depicts an interesting relationship between language and spirit which points towards the consistency between the two contradictory approaches towards the nature of language. For Hegel, language not only plays a role in spirit’s pursuit of self-knowledge which signifies the epistemological approach, but also in spirit’s existence which signifies the ontological approach. Thus, in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, the epistemological approach and the ontological approach towards the nature of language coexist. In this article, by turning to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and through an analysis of the relationship between language and spirit, we not only attempt to seek some resolution to the epistemology-ontology contradiction, but we also reveal the homogeneity of language and spirit, which we take as the true nature of language in Hegel’s philosophy. (shrink)

In January 2001 I received a letter from Jacques Derrida. The letter was a response to an article I had written about the concept of disinterest. What I did not know at the time was that he was in the midst of his seminar on the death penalty, which includes his most sustained interrogation of disinterest and interest. This essay examines the history of disinterest as a death penalty. Derrida challenges the possibility of such a history, arguing both for the (...) madness of disinterest and the tenacity of another kind of interest. The essay also addresses Derrida’s letter and the problem of taking an interest in the interests of the other, of the right to interest, not least in Derrida’s own interests. (shrink)

This study reviews research about the recognition of one’s own face and discusses scientific techniques to investigate differences in brain activation when looking at familiar faces compared to unfamiliar ones. Our analysis highlights how people do not possess a perception of their own face that corresponds precisely to reality, and how the awareness of one’s face can also be modulated by means of the enfacement illusion. This illusion allows one to maintain a sense of self at the expense of a (...) precise discrimination of self-face. The internal dynamics of different brain processes, associated with the construction of bodily identity and the sense of self and capable of integrating signals from different sensory channels, particularly visual and tactile, create a mirror-mask effect. According to this effect, the self-face reflected by a mirror becomes a mask for the self, which has the features of the subject’s face, but nonetheless does not correspond perfectly to its characteristics. This poses interesting questions about the nature and construction of one’s self, as self-face reflections allow the mind to mediate between analogue and virtual reality, between past and future events, between memories and plans of action and, most importantly, between beliefs about our identities. (shrink)

In which sense can human beings be conceived as social animals? To elucidate this question, the present paper distinguishes the logical sociality of all living beings from the material sociality of social animals and the political sociality of self-conscious social animals. The self-conscious political sociality that characterises the human genus-being requires a complex interplay of first and second person through which alone we can participate in our form of life and determine its content. The human form of life thus constituted (...) is characterised by a particularly open, and at the same time precarious, membership which involves specific forms of vulnerability and power. Against this background, forms of objective spirit are necessary which grant us a generalized recognition and relieve us from the contingency of each particular second-personal recognition, without abandoning the openness of the sociality of the human form of life. This double requirement has led to paradoxical institutions in modern society which strive to protect and ensure the sociality of the human form of life precisely by naturalising and individualising our access to it. (shrink)

In Seminar XVII, entitled The reverse side of psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan presents his famous theorem of the four discourses. In this rereading I propose to demonstrate that Lacan’s theorem entails a transferable dialectical method for studying processes of knowledge production, enabling contemporary scholars to develop a diagnostic of the present, notably scholars interested in issues such as the vicissitudes of knowledge production under capitalism, the crisis of the university and the proliferation of electronic gadgets. In short, I will argue that (...) Lacan’s theorem of the four discourses entails a dialectical diagnostic of technoscientific knowledge during late capitalism. First, the four discourses will be briefly outlined, emphasising the extent to which they entail, albeit in an ambivalent manner, a return or detour to the logic of Hegel. Subsequently, each discourse will be presented in more detail, emphasising how they allow us to come to terms with the current status of technoscientific knowledge. Special attention will be given to the political backdrop of the seminar: the crisis of the university. Finally, I will discuss the historical dimension, outlining both the predecessor of the four discourses and their current predicament under neoliberal/capitalist conditions. (shrink)

The sources of Kant’s term Gesinnung and a review of the problems of its translation into English were presented in the first part of this article; the second part examines the novel features that Kant brings to the interpretation of this concept in the critical period. In the Critique of Practical Reason these include the questions of manifestation of Gesinnung in the world, apprehended through the senses, the method of establishing and the culture of truly moral Gesinnung, as well as (...) the problem of the immutability of Gesinnung in the progress towards the good. The new theses that appear in Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason are Gesinnung as the internal subjective principle of maxims, on virtue as evidence of the presence of Gesinnung, on act as a manifestation of Gesinnung, on the unintelligibility of Gesinnung in its noumenal, suprasensible character, on the innateness of Gesinnung in the sense that it exists not in time, but in the form of its acceptance by free expression of the will, on the singleness of Gesinnung and its indivisibility into periods, on revolution in Gesinnung as distinct from empirical reform, on the creation of the new human being as distinct from the ancient one as a result of the revolution of Gesinnung, on the link between the revolution in Gesinnung and “conversion” or second birth. After discussing the problem of distinguishing the terms Gesinnung and Denkungsart in translation as well as a review of all the existing variants of translating Kant’s concept of Gesinnung into Russian, the author comes to the conclusion that the uniform variant umonastroenie is best suited for Russian translations of Kant’s works. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

One can work for another person, probably for all the others in an ethical way, and not for money. This is the main idea pursued in this article. When it comes to labour, we are inclined to deal with Marx. But even Marx apparently did not notice this ethical side of labour, because his focus was mainly on the creation of value, which was common among thinkers at that time, such as Locke and Smith. In contrast, Hegel consistently tackled the (...) same issue from another angle: ethics. In terms of this, he went so far as to say the dignity of humans should be located in labour. We shed light on this very aspect of Hegel’s philosophy by reference to Alexandre Kojève’s famous commentary, Introduction à la lecture de Hegel. (shrink)

La interpretación de la tragedia griega en el pensamiento político de Hegel servirá para pensar las nuevas oposiciones que surgen tras la incorporación de la burguesía como elemento social, la que rompe con el modelo político desarrollado por los teóricos políticos modernos. Asumiendo esta necesidad de la época, lo que se pretende mostrar es, primero, la incorporación de la diferencia política al interior de la polis, realizado por el universo griego ; para luego mostrar la necesidad de esta diferencia para (...) superar las oposiciones que se presentan al interior de la comunidad política, con fin a señalar la importancia que tienen tales elementos en lo que será la exposición de la eticidad en la Filosofía política madura de Hegel. (shrink)

Eine der frühesten Schriften des jungen Karl Marx — die Dissertationsschrift „Differenz der demokritischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie“ — legt wichtige Fundamente für das gesamte Marx’sche Denken. In der Dissertationsschrift versucht Marx anhand des Vergleichs der antiken Naturphilosophien Demokrits und Epikurs grundlegende Erkenntnisse der theoretischen und praktischen Philosophie in einem komplexen, von Hegel inspirierten ontologischen System zu verbinden. Aus dieser kritischen Synthese antiker Naturphilosophien entsteht so eine auf Hegelschen Begriffen basierende, aber gleichzeitig reformierte Idee der Praxis. Auf diesen Grundlagen sowie mit (...) Hilfe des über die Kritik an Epikur und Hegel gewonnenen Begriffs der Entfremdung entwickelt Marx den dialektischen Materialismus der Naturphilosophie. Dem inhaltlichen Aufbau der Dissertationsschrift folgend wird in dem Aufsatz die Marx’sche Naturphilosophie diskutiert. Dabei werden die wichtigsten Begriffe des Marx‘schen Denkens, wie etwa Materialismus, Dialektik, Entfremdung oder Einheit von Theorie und Praxis in der Dissertationsschrift von Karl Marx ausgearbeitet. (shrink)

When Susan Sontag addresses the problem of pornography and relates it to Hegel, she is not merely describing a path in European philosophy aimed to construct a new language, but she is also committing this aim to the importance of re-reading culture. The fashion in which pornography describes reality is meaningful when we are trying to approach Hegel in his aim to construct a post-religious language that finally will make ready-to-hand life as life. Politics, and society, being two essential elements (...) to understand reality, become singularly interesting when analyzed through the gaze of Sontag in combination of Hegel’s philosophy. The conservative morals that reign over what we understand as pornography, and the cultural moment of Europe since the most progressive moments of the 19 th century, describe a fatalist landscape for the future of society and politics. Yet, the learnings from Hegel remain meaningful. In this paper I examine how a post-religious philosophy, aimed long ago by Hegel’s contribution to philosophy, can serve to the understanding of a post-pornographic society: a society that is able to learn from the contributions of Frankfurt’s school with regards to an efficient cultural tissue, and defeat the old religious morals that are inserted in the backbone of politics and philosophy still today. (shrink)