The post-colonial has often functioned as a code word for a form of French post-theory. In more recent efforts to reconstruct linkages between metropolitan Marxism and counter-colonialism, the post-colonial refers to an open-ended research field for investigating the present weight of colonial histories. But even in these reformulations, post-colonial research presents formidable challenges to Euro-American urban Marxism. In this context, this paper redirects Henri Lefebvre’s work to analyse post-colonial situations. It traces in particular the notion of ‘colonisation’ as it develops (...) from his critique of everyday life to his work on the state. We argue that Lefebvre’s notion of ‘colonisation’ presents a promising opening to understanding the ‘colonial’ aspects of urbanisation today. Still, for this promise to be realised, Lefebvre’s notion must be refracted through dialectical-humanist counter-colonial traditions. (shrink)

Η ιστορία και η φιλοσοφία της επιστήμης χαρακτηρίζονται τόσο από λόγο όσο και από αντίλογο: στη θέση ότι υπάρχουν διαχρονικά κριτήρια/αξίες που διέπουν την επιστημονική δραστηριότητα, αντιπαρατίθεται η αντίθετη θέση, η οποία υποστηρίζει τη συγχρονική, τοπική και υποκειμενική έκφανση αυτών των κριτηρίων. Στην ορθολογικότητα της επιστημονικής σκέψης που δικαιώνει τη συνεχή διεύρυνση της εξηγηματικής ισχύος της επιστήμης, την επιστημονική εξέλιξη δηλαδή, αντιπαρατίθεται το μη ορθολογικό και ενδεχομενικό στοιχείο που υποστηρίζει την ασυνέχεια της επιστημονικής εξέλιξης.

Zusammenfassung: Der Beitrag nimmt eine politiktheoretisch-dispositivanalytische Perspektive ein. Er zeigt auf, inwiefern im mediterranen Grenzraum Europas nicht nur Mechanismen wirksam werden, die Migrant*innen verandern, sondern sie töten. Die letale VerAnderung vollzieht sich im europäischen Grenzregime innerhalb eines militärisch-humanitären Komplexes, in dem über Vergeschlechtlichung und Rassifizierung Migrant*innen mit spezifischen Affekten verkoppelt und dadurch de-/humanisiert werden. Durch diese Regierung der Anderen sollen regressive Migrationspolitik und ein repressives Grenzregime plausibilisiert werden. Der Heterogenität des Grenzregimes Rechnung tragend diskutiert der Beitrag die diskursive Produktion des (...) Anderen, dessen affektiv-performative Stabilisierung sowie die materiell-technologische Kultur der Grenze. Damit lehnt sich der Beitrag an die Arbeiten Foucaults zu Diskurs, Wahrheitsproduktion und Gouvernementalität an, fokussiert jedoch auf Theorien, die Foucaults Konzepte affekt- und geschlechtertheoretisch bzw. postkolonial reiterieren: Sara Ahmeds Konzept der affektiven Ökonomie, Judith Butlers Theorie der Betrauerbarkeit und Achille Mbembes Begriff der Vergrenzung. Dadurch werden die trauer- und nekropolitischen Aspekte des europäischen Grenzregimes nicht nur über politiktheoretische Perspektivierungen reflektiert, sondern durch einen rassismus- und geschlechterkritischen Blick ernst genommen. (shrink)

A common objection to a pragmatist perspective on scientific expertise is that, while there is a well-known pragmatist theory of inquiry, which was formulated first by Peirce, then refined by Dewey and others, this theory cannot provide a clear-cut account of scientific expertise. In this paper, after addressing this objection in the second section, I claim that, on the contrary, pragmatism offers robust tools to think scientific expertise. In Sections 3 to 7, I present five important insights that one can (...) derive from a pragmatist epistemology when responding to contemporary problems posed by expertise: about science and scientific expertise in a legal context (sections 3 and 4), about collective expertise (sections 5 and 6), and even about expertise on ignorance (section 7). (shrink)

The following is a critical reconstruction of the collaboration between Bauer and Marx between 1839 and 1842. The turbulences in the period in question reveal themselves in Marx’s thought as well as in his relationship with Bruno Bauer. Correspondingly, Marx’s detours, false paths, dead ends and abandoned work are therefore made the focus of this study. The ambivalent initial relations between the two of them, which both made their collaboration possible and hindered it, clearly go back further than 1841, when (...) Bauer was not yet an atheist and was still a proponent of church doctrine. This was the Bruno Bauer that Marx had come to know in the Doctor’s Club. We then meet Bauer the atheist at the end of 1839 or perhaps the beginning of 1840, as he was planning a comprehensive attack on orthodox theology and wanted Marx to fight on his side. This attack continued in Bauer’s Trumpet and in Hegel’s Doctrine. (shrink)

We are in an era of uncertainty over whose rules will govern global economic integration. With the growing market share of Chinese firms and the power of the Chinese state it is unclear if Western firms will continue to dominate transnational governance. Exploring these dynamics through a study of contract rules in the global cotton trade, this article conceptualizes commodity chain governance as a contested process of institution-building. To this end, the global commodity chain/global value chain framework must be revised (...) to better account for the broader institutional context of commodity chain governance, institutional variation across space, and strategic action in the construction of legitimate governance arrangements. I provide a more dynamic model of GCC governance that stresses how strategic action, existing institutions, and dominant discourses intersect as firms and states compete for institutional power within a commodity chain. This advances our understandings of how commodity chain governance emerges and changes over time. (shrink)

The first generation of the Jewish emancipation in the 19th century made a considerable contribution to European culture and science. Quite a few of these newly emancipated Jews became prominent leaders in the rising socialist movement. One of these was Moses Hess, the “father of German socialism” and a hailed proto-Zionist. In 1862 Hess published his most famous book, Rome and Jerusalem, which in our century has become a Zionist classic. Contrary to his earlier opinions Hess now gave expression to (...) his opposition to Jewish assimilation and proposed a rebirth of the Jewish nation. The Jewish national question, Hess claimed, could only be solved by creating a socialist Jewish state in Palestine. The nationalistic riots in socialist countries today show that Hess was right when he stressed the importance of nationalities. The bankruptcy of Marxist socialism, so widely admitted today, will perhaps raise interest in the humanistic socialism of Moses Hess. (shrink)

Bell-type inequalities are proven using oversimplified probabilistic models and/or counterfactual definiteness (CFD). If setting-dependent variables describing measuring instruments are correctly introduced, none of these inequalities may be proven. In spite of this, a belief in a mysterious quantum nonlocality is not fading. Computer simulations of Bell tests allow people to study the different ways in which the experimental data might have been created. They also allow for the generation of various counterfactual experiments’ outcomes, such as repeated or simultaneous measurements performed (...) in different settings on the same “photon-pair”, and so forth. They allow for the reinforcing or relaxing of CFD compliance and/or for studying the impact of various “photon identification procedures”, mimicking those used in real experiments. Data samples consistent with quantum predictions may be generated by using a specific setting-dependent identification procedure. It reflects the active role of instruments during the measurement process. Each of the setting-dependent data samples are consistent with specific setting-dependent probabilistic models which may not be deduced using non-contextual local realistic or stochastic hidden variables. In this paper, we will be discussing the results of these simulations. Since the data samples are generated in a locally causal way, these simulations provide additional strong arguments for closing the door on quantum nonlocality. (shrink)

El artículo aborda los conceptos de multiculturalidad, interculturalidad y educación intercultural, como perspectivas teóricas que permiten explicar la dinámica intercultural de la acción educativa y como desafío epistemológico de los conocimientos indígenas en la escolarización. Para ello se realiza un análisis de los elementos teóricos que sustentan estos conceptos; se problematiza la dificultad epistemológica de la educación intercultural, considerando el contexto en que se lleva a cabo, y en consecuencia, se plantea que la dinámica de estos conceptos permite la posibilidad (...) de considerar la interculturalidad tanto para la formación como para la problematización de situaciones interculturales que están en proceso de investigación. This article addresses the concepts of multiculturalism, interculturalism and intercultural education as theoretical perspectives to explain the intercultural dynamic of educational activities, and as epistemological challenges to indigenous knowledge in the school context. To examine these concepts we analyze the theoretical foundations which underlie them. We then formulate the epistemological problem of intercultural education, considering the context in which it takes place. Consequently, we argue that it is the dynamic of these concepts which makes it possible to consider interculturalism both in education and in the formulation of the questions posed by the intercultural situations under investigation. (shrink)

In scholarship on the history of philosophy, it is widely assumed that Charles Fourier was a utopian socialist who could not have exerted a significant influence on the development of Karl Marx's thought. Indeed, both Marx and Engels seem to have advanced this view. In contrast, I argue that in 1844 when Marx was developing his anthropology and social critique, he relied upon Fourier's thought to supply a key assumption. After establishing this connection, I explain why Marx's tacit reliance on (...) Fourier creates a problematic undercurrent in his thought. (shrink)

Timothy Morton argues that we have entered a new era of aesthetics, an ecological one. In this period, a new phase of art, unpredicted, and unpredictable, by Hegel, comes about. This phase of art is the Asymmetric Phase.

“I myself was forced to call myself a molecular biologist because when inquiring clergymen asked me what I did, I got tired of explaining that I was a mixture of crystallographer, biophysicist, biochemist, and geneticist.” Thus explained Francis Crick, who with James Watson discovered in 1953 the double helical structure of DNA, the genetic material..