En el contexto político global contemporáneo, las diversas luchas sociales se están alienando entre sí hasta elpunto de que la ilusión del capitalismo como único sistema socioeconómico posible está difuminando todos los horizontesdel cambio social. En este artículo, trataremos de redefinir las causas comunes de las luchas sociales, demostrando su interseccionalidad e interdependencia. Para ello, nos ocuparemos de una serie de conceptos de la filosofía de Marx. En la introducción, examinaremos la noción de valor, afirmando que la teoría del valor (...) de Marx no es simplemente una teoría laboral del valor, sino que más bien refleja la estructura paralela de la producción y la circulación, cristalizada en la forma de valor última del dinero. Una vez obtenidas estas ideas preliminares, volveremos al fenómeno del trabajo en el capitalismo, para reinterpretar, en la primera sección del artículo, la distinción marxiana entre trabajo productivo e improductivo. A partir de ahí, se darán los primeros ejemplos concretos de la interseccionalidad de las luchas sociales contra la abstracción del capital: a saber, mostrar que las luchas de género y las raciales tienen ciertas causas comunes, enraizadas en la hegemonía gramsciana. En la segunda sección, examinaremos la distinción que Marx establece entre la subsunción formal y la real. Esta última, afirmaremos, es decisiva para entender cómo el capital estructura la cuasi-totalidad de nuestras relaciones sociales. Tras una interpretación de la película Toni Erdmann de Maren Ade, propondremos algunos medios posibles de lucha interseccional contra la subsunción real, que encontrarán su respaldo teórico en el concepto de universales subversivos. Las observaciones finales abordarán la lógica nuclear de la distribución y la acumulación del capital, un síntoma que pervive a lo largo de la historia preservado e impulsado por la omnipresencia de la ideología, y subrayarán de nuevo implícitamente la importancia de la lucha común en el descongelamiento de la emergencia de un nuevo sujeto revolucionario. (shrink)

The paper attempts to construct a theoretical account of what melancholy—in a psychoanalytical and cultural sense—may mean for jurisprudence. It argues that the map of relations and displacements between the object and the subject that is associated with melancholy in different psychoanalytical approaches can be fruitfully adopted for understanding of normativity. Based on a thorough re-reading of Freud’s Trauer und Melancholie, it suggests that there is an irremovable component of melancholy contained in the primordial act of separation of normativity from (...) non-normative reality. This interpretation is confronted with Kelsen’s Theory of Pure Law in order to analyse in which respect the momentum of self-sufficiency within normativity entails structures of melancholy. Kelsen’s concept of ‘effectiveness’ is proposed as a key link which explains how melancholic withdrawal allows the law to interact with reality. Then the paper discusses Agamben’s theory of applicability and of the state of exception to demonstrate the law’s melancholic trap. Finally, the paper draws on Lacanian and post-Lacanian approaches to melancholy in order to investigate how melancholic momentum is inherent in the very structure of the law’s validity. (shrink)

Research on social entrepreneurship has taken an increasing interest in issues pertaining to ideology. In contrast to existing research which tends to couch ‘ideology’ in pejorative terms, this paper conceives ideology as a key mechanism for rendering social entrepreneurship an object with which people can identify. Specifically, drawing on qualitative research of arguably one of the most prolific social entrepreneurship intermediaries, the global Impact Hub network, we investigate how social entrepreneurship is narrated as an ‘ideal subject,’ which signals toward others (...) what it takes to lead a meaningful life. Taking its theoretical cues from the theory of justification advanced by Boltanski, Chiapello and Thévenaut, and from recent affect-based theorizing on ideology, our findings indicate that becoming a social entrepreneur is considered not so much a matter of struggle, hardship, and perseverance but rather of ‘having fun.’ We caution that the promise of enjoyment which pervades portrayals of the social entrepreneur might cultivate a passive attitude of empty ‘pleasure’ which effectively deprives social entrepreneurship of its more radical possibilities. The paper concludes by discussing the broader implications this hedonistic rendition of social entrepreneurship has and suggests a re-politicization of social entrepreneurship through a confronting with what Slavoj Žižek calls the ‘impossible.’. (shrink)

Even though Slavoj Žižek has written many words about music without really saying much about it, his work nevertheless contains much that for the philosophically minded musicologist, or for the musically minded philosopher, can stimulate thinking. For the author of this article, for example, some of the ideas presented in Žižek’s 2006 The Parallax View have stimulated thinking about the possibilities of taking a comparable approach—that is, a metaphorically ‘parallax’ approach that involves considering an object of attention alternately from more (...) than one perspective—not just to music but to sounds in general. Along with summarizing Žižek’s views on music per se, “Focused Listening: The Aesthetics of Parallax” explores various ways in which persons in the presence of a single ‘sound object’ might listen to, and thus perceive and hear, that sonic phenomenon. (shrink)

Since the 1990’s, the debate concerning the ethical, legal and societal aspects of ‘neuro-enhancement’ has evolved into a massive discourse, both in the public realm and in the academic arena. This ethical debate, however, tends to repeat the same sets of arguments over and over again. Normative disagreements between transhumanists and bioconservatives on invasive or radical brain stimulators, and uncertainties regarding the use and effectivity of nootropic pharmaceuticals dominate the field. Building on the results of an extensive European project on (...) responsible research and innovation in neuro-enhancement, we observe and encourage that the debate is now entering a new and, as we will argue, more realistic and societally relevant stage. This new stage concerns those technologies that enter the market as ostensibly harmless contrivances that consumers may use for self-care or entertainment. We use the examples and arguments of participants in NERRI debates to describe three case studies of such purportedly innocent ‘toys’. Based upon this empirical material, we argue that these ‘soft’ enhancement gadgets are situated somewhere in the boundary zone between the internal and the external, between the intimate and the intrusive, between the familiar and the unfamiliar, between the friendly and the scary and, in Foucauldian terms, between technologies of the self and technologies of control. Therefore, we describe their physiognomy with the help of a term borrowed from Jacques Lacan, namely as “extimate” technologies. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that transnational as well as national political demands and expectations on the educational field are contributing to produce four ideological-based educational leadership discourses in the literature. In order to conceptualize these discourses, we turn to the work of Schmidt and Zizek. On that basis we identify four dominant educational leadership discourses: a personhood-based discourse, a profession-based discourse, a standard-based discourse, and a resource-based discourse. These discourses have—as we will show—various consequences for the way we think (...) and talk about education and educational leadership in our age. Using examples that stem from a project about educational leadership in Danish upper secondary school, we will illustrate how educational leaders’ beings and doings are ‘regulated’ by these discourses, which place them in a tension field where different and conflicting fantasies seem to be played out. Then, we will discuss how these fantasies can be challenged and how we can think and speak more intellectually about education and educational leadership. By using the term intellectual we are referring to educational leaders’ ability as human beings to critically reflect on their contemporary doings and beings within and beyond the existing social order. Hopefully this can help them to establish new ways for discussing not only what educational leadership is and should be about, but also what it could be about. (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 chapter discusses Quentin Meillassoux's recent interpretation and critique of Heidegger's philosophical position, which he describes as "strong correlationism." It emphasizes the fact that Meillassoux situates Heidegger in the post-Kantian tradition of transcendental idealism that he defines in terms of a focus on the correlation between being and thinking. It is argued that Meillassoux's "speculative" attempt to overcome the Kantian philosophical framework in the name of absolute contingency should be understood as a further development and dialectical overcoming of its ultimate (...) contemporary form, the Heideggerian philosophy of finitude. (shrink)

¿Cómo es posible encontrar una constante en una obra que tiene en la ruptura su principal argumento? Una primera línea se puede percibir en el trabajo de Žižek sobre una política del goce cuya trayectoria circula desde el deseo a la pulsión. Desde una investigación muy orientada en el problema del sujeto, en el carácter sintomático del mismo, Žižek se ha desplazado hacia un análisis de la relación entre el objeto a y la pulsión en el marco del capitalismo actual. (...) En conexión con esta problemática se encuentra una segunda línea que tiene como punto central el trabajo crítico sobre las relaciones entre economía y política; frente al desafío que supone hoy en día la circulación espontánea del capital y el abandono del ámbito económico por parte de la teoría política. Por un lado nos encontramos con los dos sentidos del término escatología, el económico y el teológico-político, que convergen en la noción de exceso, sea de la pulsión o sea del objeto a. Al mismo tiempo, Žižek considera que no es posible traducir la atención sobre el exceso capitalista y su propia revolución inmanente en términos de dominación política.Ambas secuencias se encuentran, en definitiva, íntimamente vinculadas en la crítica de la economía política del discurso que Žižek lleva a cabo. La introducción del término paralaje puede servir como alternativa para entender la oscilación permanente que se produce en su obra entre síntoma y escatología. Una opción para leer a Žižek en función de sus incesantes desplazamientos, comenzando por el más fundamental: la paralaje entre lectura y escritura. (shrink)

The paper is a contribution to current debates about conspiracy theories within philosophy and cultural studies. Wittgenstein’s understanding of language is invoked to analyse the epistemological effects of designating particular questions and explanations as a ‘conspiracy theory’. It is demonstrated how such a designation relegates these questions and explanations beyond the realm of meaningful discourse. In addition, Agamben’s concept of sovereignty is applied to explore the political effects of using the concept of conspiracy theory. The exceptional epistemological status assigned to (...) alleged conspiracy theories within our prevalent paradigms of knowledge and truth is compared to the exceptional legal status assigned to individuals accused of terrorism under the War on Terror. The paper concludes by discussing the relation between conspiracy theory and ‘the paranoid style’ in contemporary politics. (shrink)

In a society where the ideology of shareholder value maximization prevails, how do evaluators make appraisal and bonus decisions when corporate social responsibility measures and financial measures in the balanced scorecard point in different directions? To explore this question, we conducted two studies to develop and test a conceptual framework. Participants were asked to evaluate the performance of two managers, using a case we wrote about a commercial bank. We found that evaluators are more willing to drop CSR performance measures (...) than financial measures from the evaluations; perceived CSR relevance is influenced by where evaluators stand in regard to CSR and also by where evaluators believe shareholders stand ; and there is a financial bias in appraisal and bonus decisions when CSR measures are used in the BSC, consistent with SVM ideology. We conclude by discussing the implications of the influence of SVM ideology on the use of CSR measures in terms of business research, practice, and education. (shrink)

This article addresses the problematic perspectives of drone culture. In critiquing focus on the drone’s apparent ‘autonomy’, it argues that such devices function as part of a socio-technical network. They are relational parts of human–machine interaction that, in our changing geopolitical realities, have a powerful influence on politics, reputation and warfare. Drawing on Žižek’s conception of parallax, the article stresses the importance of culture and perception in forming the role of the drone in widening power asymmetries. It examines how perceptions (...) of autonomy are evoked by drones, to claim that this misperception is a smokescreen that obscures the relational socio-technical realities of the drone. The article therefore argues that a more critical culture of the drone emerges by shifting the focus and perception from autonomy to anonymity. This allows us to engage more fully with the distributed agency and decision-making that define how drones are developed and deployed. Rather than focusing on the drone as a singular, fetishised, technical object, a relational approach to the drone assemblage is proposed that highlights the competing human interests that define and resist drones in global politics and culture. (shrink)

This article is based on interviews with former Australian immigration detainees conducted by the author. The interviews explored the experience and understanding of resistance while in detention. The article calls into question Agamben’s twin conclusions that nothing short of a complete re-founding of ontology is required to liberate humanity from biopower and that this refoundation will spring from bare life. Contrary to Agamben’s depiction, the camp proves to be a place of determined and often successful defence of a relation of (...) politics and life based not on the camp and biopower, but on solidarity and freedom. Detainees in Australian immigration detention, like prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps, refused to abandon their politics. Rather than seeking to transform bare life, they rejected it and made their own decision on life and politics. (shrink)

I suggest in this article that there are several aspects of the Lacanian Real that so-called Lacanian literature has not adequately addressed, or barely did so. In this pursuit, I present a deconstructing reading of a number of Lacanian texts. My deconstructive reading suggests that three key features characterize the literature on the Real. First, there always is resistance that is involved in thinking about, and in experiencing the effects of, the Real. Second, the Real is most characteristically thought of (...) in negative terms. Third, the Real is more or less thought of as a limit that cannot be transgressed. A deconstruction of these features leads to two arguments. First, I propose that the deployment of the Real as khôra within a discourse is an originary performativity which speaks of retroactively positing of a have-always-been-there Real. Second, I argue that the Real is the impossible–possible event which is at the heart of ‘saying the Real’. The deconstruction thus leads to a reconfiguration of the Real as a ‘ saying the Real (as khôra)’ qua event (in the sense of Derrida) in the discourse. (shrink)

This article treats post-Holocaust humanitarianism as a secular version of St Paul’s ‘Jewish Question’: why are there still Jews now that the particularities of Jewish history have universal meaning? It considers Paul’s Judaeo-Christianity, a distinctively Christian embrace of Jewish survival, as the prototype of today’s secular project of conversion to human rights, and asks what it means within this project for Jews to regard themselves as the only Jews. The article concludes by defining an Islamic alternative to the imperial reach (...) of today’s human rights discourse, based on the recent publication of 1981 lectures by the late N. O. Brown, who presented Islam as an alternative to the Pauline synthesis of Athens-Jerusalem that would renew, rather than supersede, the prophetic tradition of Jewish monotheism. Following Brown, the article presents Muhammad as the anti-Paul, and considers the key differences between their respective political theologies on issues such as fidelity, cruelty and particularly the urgency of justice. Islam’s insistence that there is no ‘time between’ the end of evil and the beginning of justice shows the limitations of today’s human rights discourse as a religion of permanent transition that denies urgency to justice itself. The ‘Jewish Question’ that Paul formulated for Christians in a Roman world order thus illuminates issues posed by the Holocaust and Israel for professed humanitarians today. (shrink)

Schmitt insists that the sovereign decision is unavoidable, that even an anarchist is caught in the trap of sovereignty when he tries to ‘decide against decision’. This article begins to think about a critical legal vocabulary that might suspend the necessity of the will to constitute, while emphasising the creativity of the constituent moment. The terms inoperativity, dis-enclosure and dissensus are developed and deployed in order to think about certain aspects of the Tunisian revolution. In particular, the article focuses upon (...) the refusal of the state of the situation, the subtraction of loyalty and the insistence of a form of life beyond Ben Ali’s sovereign order. (shrink)

The debate around labour power, and particularly regarding its status as the ‘most peculiar’ of commodities, has been widely revisited in contemporary Marxist thought and critical theory. This concept, which has often resurfaced in works by Negri, Spivak, Virno and numerous other contemporary thinkers, has a long prehistory in the work of Marx and subsequent Marxist theorists, perhaps most importantly in the work of Uno Kōzō, arguably the most influential and widely known Marxist thinker in modern Japan. Uno’s work, and (...) particularly his major theoretical works of the 1950s, developed an entirelogicalanalysis of the peculiar position of the labour-power commodity within capital’s drive, noting that this site marks the place wherein capital’slogical interiorand itshistorical exteriorinterpenetrate each other, generating a volatile force of excess at the core of capital’s supposedly smooth and pure circuit-process. By developing around this point an extensive theoretical discussion of its dynamics ofimpossibilityorirrationality, centred on a term –muri– that he raises to the level of a concept, Uno formulates a series of original theses in methodology, on the concept of population, and particularly around the figures of thelogicaland thehistoricalin the critical analysis of capitalism. Focusing in particular on this ‘impossibility’ ormurithat is nevertheless constantly ‘passing through’ the capital-relation, this essay investigates the entire range of Uno’s analysis, revealing not only a crucial thread of theoretical inquiry that remains contemporary for us today, but also another set of possibilities linking the critique of political economy to the renewal of revolutionary politics. (shrink)

Alain Badiou’s theoretical work maintains an ambiguous relation to Marx’s critique of political economy. In seemingly refusing the Marxian analytical strategy of displacement and referral across the fields of politics and economy, Badiou is frequently seen to be lacking a rigorous theoretical grasp of capitalism itself. In turn, this is often seen as a consequence of his understanding of political subjectivity. But the origins of this ‘lack’ of analysis of the social relation called ‘capital’ in his work can also be (...) investigated by means of a detour into the economic writings of theUnion des communistes de France marxiste-léniniste, the political organisation in which Badiou played a leading rôle throughout the 1970s in particular. By excavating this theoretical work of the 1970s, we can identify more precisely the historical and political reasons behind Badiou’s ambiguous relation to Marx and specifically to Marx’s systematic grasp of the logic of capital. This excavation will consequently lead us to a reflection on the limits and openings in Badiou’s thought for the Marxian critique of political economy. (shrink)

This essay responds to the machine question in the affirmative, arguing that artifacts, like robots, AI, and other autonomous systems, can no longer be legitimately excluded from moral consideration. The demonstration of this thesis proceeds in four parts or movements. The first and second parts approach the subject by investigating the two constitutive components of the ethical relationship—moral agency and patiency. In the process, they each demonstrate failure. This occurs not because the machine is somehow unable to achieve what is (...) considered necessary and sufficient to be a moral agent or patient but because the characterization of agency and patiency already fail to accommodate others. The third and fourth parts respond to this problem by considering two recent alternatives—the all-encompassing ontocentric approach of Luciano Floridi’s information ethics and Emmanuel Levinas’s eccentric ethics of otherness. Both alternatives, despite considerable promise to reconfigure the scope of moral thinking by addressing previously excluded others, like the machine, also fail but for other reasons. Consequently, the essay concludes not by accommodating the alterity of the machine to the requirements of moral philosophy but by questioning the systemic limitations of moral reasoning, requiring not just an extension of rights to machines, but a thorough examination of the way moral standing has been configured in the first place. (shrink)

My goal in this essay is to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Hegel’s theory of right for contemporary emancipatory politics. Specifically, my contention is that Hegel’s Philosophy of Right can and should be read as defending the possibility of principled, decisive side-taking in political struggles. By revisiting Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, I seek to demonstrate four interconnected theses: that the will’s freedom is both a) the fundamental principle upon which genuinely political change can be grounded, and b) essentially external to, (...) or subtractable from, any and all social alignments; but is nonetheless c) necessarily actualized in specifically political institutions, and finally d) only truly actualized through emancipatory reforms of such institutions. In combination, these four theses demonstrate that politics is the principled, decisive and emancipatory reform of existent political institutions through historically determined political movements. Having established these basic theses, I will examine how the philosophy and politics of ‘prescriptive reform’ operates in practice. (shrink)

Намагаючись говорити про феномен «русского міра», ми відразу змушені констатувати, що «дійсність» цього феномену, може бути розташована на різних рівнях (чи в різних доменах) і в просторі різноманітних обмінів, а відповідні репрезентація, опис та аналіз можуть буди виконані в різних дисциплінарних рамках і в різних дискурсах. На таке можуть претендувати психологія, але також і психіатрія – індивідуальна і соціальна; історія, всесвітня, регіональна і повсякденна, різних періодів і різних методологій; культурологія, соціальна теорія, теорія цивілізацій і теорія ідеології; економіка, політекономія і метаекономіка, (...) політичні і геополітичні студії; природознавство, гуманітарія і постгуманізм – в класичних, некласичних і постсучасних зразках. Втім, ця «дійсність» може давати себе не тільки описуваною і аналізованою, але також, бути поставленою і розіграною у різноманітних жанрах – від квазірелігійного екстазу до «верховної цінності», від нетверезого маячного белькоту до пропагандистського перформансу... Сьогодні лунають голоси, що наша сучасність маркує і навіть ідентифікує себе закінченням філософії, кінцем філософії, що сьогоденним способом існування самої філософії є її відмова й ухил від свого покликання, призначення, праці і долі. Тут складається тонка симптоматика: чи не можна бачити «русскій мір» символом сказаної неспроможності філософії, ба більше – і просто-сіро своєрідною _формою кінця філософії_, іншим ім’ям цього кінця, запереченням-філософії-у-собі-самому, що є, схоже, кардинальною умовою також і його існування? Враження таке, що «русскій мір» наче б то створений спеціально для того, щоб констатувати, ба більше – реалізувати кінець філософії. І ще більше. Важко сказати, що тут є ефект / симптом чого? Схоже, у співвизначенні «русского міра» і відмови філософії від філософування, як саме онтологічної умови присутності філософії сьогодні, має місце якийсь «апріористичний перфект». Але тим само, сама наявність «русского міра» в світі видає певну амбівалентність щодо філософії. Разом з фактичною легітимацією неспроможності філософії, ця наявність обертається викликом для філософського мислення. Вона ніби щиглик терапевта, що виводить філософію з-під гіпнозу всіх «лінгвістичних поворотів» і постмодерних «симулякрів і симуляцій». Ця наявність провокує філософування, провокує, наполягає і унеобхіднює витримати питання: «як це можливо, як це стало можливим?». Отже, питання «русского міра» є питанням філософії, питанням саме філософським. Ми намагаємося це показати. Втім, в цьому контексті нам доводиться запитувати: Що є, що значить і що передбачає «філософське питання»? Це ми також проблематизуємо в даній статті. З цього погляду в розгляд входить тема «культури». Саме в модусі «російської культури». Але, також, питання культури як такої, _всієї культури_. Розгляд теми «русского міра» як питання філософського, ставить під питання «російську культуру». І, за великим рахунком – _культуру_ взагалі. (shrink)

What do Social Networking Sites (SNS) ‘do to us’: are they a damning threat or an emancipating force? Recent publications on the impact of “Web 2.0” proclaim very opposite evaluative positions. With the aim of finding a middle ground, this paper develops a pragmatist approach to SNS based on the work of Richard Rorty. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, we analyze SNS as conversational practices. Second, we outline, in the form of an imaginary conversation between Rorty and Heidegger, (...) a positive and negative ‘conversational’ view on SNS. Third, we deploy a reflection, again using Rortian notions, on that evaluation, starting from the concept of ‘self-reflectivity.’ Finally, the relations between these three steps are more detailedly investigated. By way of the sketched technique, we can interrelate the two opposing sides of the recent debates—hope and threat—and judge SNS in all their ambiguity. (shrink)

Designing education policy, curriculum and competences which promote and nourish the values and/or morals believed to underpin democratic culture is both contentious and something which has...

Activism is defined in this paper as involving local instigations of new series of elements intersecting the actual, generating new collective enunciations, experimentations and investigations, which erode good and common sense and cause structures to swing away from their sedimented identities. By appealing to Spinozism, the paper describes the microphysics of the activist encounter with stable structures and the ways in which activism imposes new regimes of succession of ideas and affective variations in the power of action. Rather than understanding (...) activism as supporting or leading social struggles, the definition of activism pursued here conceives it as an open-ended process and stresses the role of investigation in relation to practices within the social situations to which activism addresses itself. (shrink)

An important area of business ethics research focuses on how otherwise normal and law-abiding individuals can engage in acts of corruption. Key in this literature is the concept of rationalization. This is where individuals attempt to justify past and future corrupt deeds to themselves and others. In this article, we argue that rationalization often entails a process of overcompensation whereby the justification forwarded is excessive in relation to the actual act. Such over-rationalization provides an impetus for further and more serious (...) acts of illegality. Using a number of high profile cases, it is argued that this dynamic gap between the act and excessive rationalization can explain why corruption often escalates in severity and scope in the organization. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article approaches the problem of post-truth and the opposition between philosophical dialectics and sophistic rhetoric. The antagonism is addressed through a reading of Žižek's depiction of the ongoing discussion between Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin, the “new version of the ancient dialogue between Plato and the sophists,” as stained by sexual difference, and the dialectics between Parmenides and Gorgias. The article argues that only through acknowledging the inescapable failure of these sides to ever establish a complete totality are (...) we capable of overcoming the antagonism that resides at their core, thus making a dialectical sophistics, on the basis of Žižek's thought, possible. Thus, only by taking the path through post-truth can we attempt to reach the disavowed core of truth that haunts every failed system. (shrink)

This essay argues that important critical and political perspective can be gained on Deleuze's famous essay, ‘Bartleby; or, The Formula’ by viewing it as an attempt to move beyond the Sartrean framework of ‘bad faith’. The argument comprises four sections. In section one, I contextualise Deleuze's essay in terms of contrasting readings of Bartleby, from a prior account by Georges Perec, to contemporary accounts indebted to Deleuze, from Hardt and Negri's Empire to Gisèle Berkman's recent L'Effet Bartleby. The argument of (...) this section is that a problematically reductive image of Bartleby has emerged in the wake of Deleuze's essay, but that this can be challenged in favour of a more nuanced and politically significant reading by contextualising the essay as an attempt to overcome bad faith. In section two, I develop this by drawing out the nature and relevance of the threat posed by bad faith through a focus on Sartrean, Deleuzian and Badioucan critiques of Bartleby, before arguing, in section three, that attention to the concept of a ‘logic of presuppositions’ developed in Deleuze's essay shows how bad faith can be overcome. These sections all build towards the fourth and longest section, which draws out the wider political significance of what it means to overcome bad faith. To do so, I pay attention to how logics of presupposition function in Bartleby's story, and consider Deleuze's essay in relation to his work on ‘control societies’ and ‘collective assemblages of enunciation’. (shrink)

Simon Critchley's Infinitely Demanding makes a timely contribution to contemporary debates in ethics and political philosophy. For all its originality, however, one can raise critical questions concerning Critchley's account of the forms of resistance possible within liberal democratic polities. In this article I question the adequacy of Critchley's ethically based neo-anarchism as a response to neo-liberalism, critically analysing the role of ideology in his account of the motivational deficit afflicting capitalist liberal democracies.

In an ironically Žižekian manner, this paper argues that Simon Critchley and Slavoj Žižek's apparent political disagreement (ludic reformist versus strident revolutionary) conceal a common set of preconditions and presuppositions. These presuppositions can be summed by the slogan “the forgetting of political philosophy”, which more specifically means the forgetting of the difference between philosophy and political life, and the reflective need to find mediations between the two. Critchley's turn to humour honours the notion that politics is about the realm of (...) appearances, while Žižek's frank avowal of the “diabolical evil” of the subject of the death drive makes patently clear the dangers posed by a “politics of Truth”.
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Current critical pedagogical scholarship has theorized the epistemological and social intersection between globalization and educational technology according to two distinct positions. For some, this intersection offers new liberatory knowledges and opportunities that can subvert social homogenization and economic disparity. For others, this relationship is just another phase of neoimperialism that should be politically and ideologically resisted. In contrast, we argue that the intersection between globalization and educational technologies is rather a manifestation of larger economic and logical forces, and that resistance (...) to such circumstances can neither be purely ideological or social. Instead, we contend that such a theoretical and pedagogical foreclosure dialectically actualizes conditions for real change—particularly when it complicates educational research technologies and their impact on epistemological multiplicity. (shrink)

Comparative modeling is necessary for semiotic inquiry. To better theorize such pursuits, a reflexive turn is in order: comparative modeling needs comparative modeling. In search of experientially grounded analogies better suited for understanding, validating, scrutinizing, and accounting for the situation of the semiotic inquirer, this paper applies insights from Peircean process semiotics and Göran Sonesson’s extended theory of cultural semiotics toward two ends: one theoretical, the other applied. First, I undertake a critical review of recent scholarly and creative works that (...) attempt to adapt concepts of “parallax” as a source domain for comparative modeling activities. I do this in order to continue laying groundwork for a more complex, systematic theory of reflexive semiotic modeling in human inquiry, building on my earlier work. Second, I explore a specific case study of comparative intercultural modeling: namely, nationalist ethnic classification strategies in China and Vietnam. While many researchers have considered the onomastic and geopolitical dimensions of state-sanctioned ethnic categorization programs in these two countries, little has been done to unpack the powerful visual and narratological strategies employed by both; and little has been done to compare the intercultural categories these strategies serve to legitimize. The Vietnamese classification program is clearly modeled on its Chinese counterpart historically, but important categorical mismatches emerge between the two that indicate the presence of hidden diversity. Comparing the two systems also leads to a number of discoveries with implications for further developing the theory of cultural semiotics. Ultimately, the function or purpose of parallax modeling is shown to both comprehend and point beyond nascent intercultural and intracultural models toward more complex blends, by holding all such relations in a comparative frame, not as irreconcilable positions but as a more developed composite sign indicating the presence of yet more deeply buried dynamic objects to be searched out through further collateral experience. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 28, Issue 3, Page 350-367, September 2021.

Human enhancement technologies raise serious ethical questions about health practices no longer content simply to treat disease, but which now also propose to “optimize” human beings’ physical, cognitive and psychological abilities. These technologies call for a reassessment of our relationship to health, the human body and the body's organic, identity and social functions. In nursing, such considerations are in their infancy. In this paper, we argue for the relevance of critical phenomenology as a way to better understand the ethical issues (...) related to human enhancement technologies (HET). In so doing, we seek to problematize HET and assess their influence on the future development of nursing science and practice. It is difficult to anticipate the concrete effects of HET, we suggest, because these practices reconfigure the meaning of normativity and disorient our conventional ethical landscape. In this context, we argue that the later work of Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault invites a critical perspective into how techno‐scientific discourses modify our relationship to care, to health and to our own social and corporeal identities. Despite the traditional philosophical opposition between phenomenology and critical theory, we maintain that a hybrid critical phenomenological approach opens new ways to assess the integration of technology and practice. Our analysis understands HET as a process of “hybridization” between technological objects and human subjects. Critical phenomenology thus effectively questions anthropocentric definitions of technology, challenges the dichotomy between curative treatment and enhancement and, finally, prompts valuable reflection on the implications of HET for nursing theory and practice. (shrink)

In 1997 the FDA published a set of regulations for the pharmaceutical industry intended to establish controls over the use of computer technology. To briefly re-call this moment in history, the Electronic Records; Electronic Signature regulation, 21CFR11 or Part 11, was introduced to provide criteria whereby electronic records would be considered ‘equivalent’ to paper records. The underlying motivation was a concern that technology could potentially invalidate the truth claim of an utterance by ‘scrambling’ the context of the utterance and by (...) potentially falsifying the name and the date. But this regulation was based on a premise, which I will argue, was founded on a metaphysical blind spot derived both from an underestimation of the difficulties inherent in the reconstitution of events, on the one hand, as well as an overestimation of the nefarious impact of technology, on the other. As a consequence, it is no surprise that the Part 11 narrative fell prey to an onto-theology of the worse kind, and as a consequence never uncovered the true essence of technology. (shrink)

That the issue of racism is a pressing social concern which requires serious and detailed attention is, for ethnomethodology, not a first principle from which its own inquiry is launched but rather a matter to be considered in light of how mundane actors (both professional and lay) treat that very topic. This paper explores how the assumption of an ontological distinction between social structure and individual agency is integral to the intelligibility of racism as formulated in scholarly accounts. In particular, (...) I explore how recent scholarly treatments of racism pose as problematic the diverse formulations of racial identity assembled through the deployment of various measures, and then seek to adjudicate upon the resulting inconsistency with an analytic heuristic that assumes an underlying or foundational source for the various expressions it seeks to resolve. Further, I explore examples of analytic work that makes use of first-person accounts of racially significant episodes and experiences as a means to document the formulation of the events and actions those accounts describe in terms that warrant a reading informed by the assumption of the structure-agency distinction. I relate the corroborative work that takes place in the research relationships between students and teachers with ethnomethodology’s own project to explore how the efficaciousness of analytic readings of racism entail the pervasive assumption of the structure-agency distinction in order to be rendered them with the sense they have for the various participants involved. (shrink)

This article aims at showing that in spite of Michel Foucault’s violent rejection of phenomenology, this discipline never ceased to bear a crucial significance for his archaeological and genealogical analyses, in that it can be construed as a symptom indicating the most serious challenge that the contemporary philosophy has to meet: thinking together Experience and Knowledge. The author intends to prove, by resorting to the Marxian concept of ‘objectively necessary appearance’, that Foucault’s main opposition to phenomenology stems from his original (...) conception of the theory as a sort of experiment made by the philosopher on himself and on his own historical a priori. (shrink)

This article is an argument for furthering the understanding, role and scope of critical theology in reflection on the act, content and implications of theological thought through appropriation of...

The concepts of good governance and also good administration have increased in popularity over recent years. They have found a convincing conceptual niche on a European and global level. This is also visible in scholarly activity; from the early 1990s on, there has been a wave of good governance talk and consequently, research and criticism. In this article the concepts of good governance and good administration are discussed from a discursive standpoint. The main claim is that the concepts are over-inclusive (...) and can signify a plethora of meanings. Consequently, the mechanisms of this indeterminacy are studied; the criteria according to which good governance and administration are defined vary. This is exemplified in the contexts of the EU and the Council of Europe. Accordingly, different “good-nesses” can contradict each other. It is suggested that the different discourses or vocabularies of good governance and good administration form closed systems of meaning which identify only claims which adhere to their own rationality. Furthermore, these different meanings enable different forms of exercising societal power. The approach is inspired by systems theoretical reading of discourses. (shrink)

In this article, we are arguing for a possibility of a new elemental politics as based on breath and fire and gesturing beyond the modes and principles of ontology of violence, power struggles and war in philosophy and political philosophy. We first discuss the task of today’s political philosophy as a need to enkindle the humanity towards a new alliance in creativity and belonging. We propose a new, elemental approach, based on the revitalization of air/breath and fire and present Luce (...) Irigaray’s thought as a key intervention of this kind within the contemporary political thought. The second part brings an analysis of texts by Ernst Jünger and Alain Badiou on soldiers and war as examples of an unfortunate philosophical adventure. The third part is our proposal for another genealogy of human beings as breathers and igniters within the new peaceful and mindful culture of democracy, providing us with a possibility of a new ethico-political order, as based on the elemental constellations of silence, breath and fire. Finally, the idea of a quiet democracy is established, as a place of inner horizontal calm being gathered and cultivated in us by fire, and as a place for beings of this Earth to breathe and to share the air within a new elemental-spiritual conspiracy of love. Towards the conclusion, this essay also is a hommage to Luce Irigaray’s approaches to ancient Indian religious and philosophical thinking. (shrink)

This paper examines Alain Badiou’s critical engagement with religion. It is argued that there are two central points at which religion enters the scene of Badiou’s philosophy. First, in his critique, the ‘motif of finitude’ Badiou repeatedly refers to religion, claiming that ‘the obsession with finitude is a remnant of the tyranny of the sacred’. Second, Badiou stages his attempt to regenerate philosophy against the proclamation of its end as a confrontation with the religion, through philosophy’s detachment from the poetization (...) of philosophy and its reattachment to mathematics. By examining these two points, the paper aims to encircle Badiou’s notion of religion and thus clarify the role it plays in his philosophical system. This paper suggests that his notion of religion is a by-product of his polemics and therefore needs to be ‘extracted’ from his writings. Hence, the ‘critique of religion’ present in Badiou’s work is not straightforward and explicit critique. Another central aspect of Badiou’s critique of religion is related to his effort to separate the concept of truth from the category of meaning, which he understands as the emblem of religion. The paper sheds light on this matter and its setting in Jacques Lacan’s considerations on religion. (shrink)

In this essay I bring together Lacan, Žižek, Deleuze and Guattari as mediators and intercessors for one another. The tensions that exist between them still continue to reverberate throughout the academic community. The intent is to query their pedagogies in what they are trying to ‘do’ within the context of capitalism in particular. I have called their pedagogies anomalous in keeping with their thrust of becoming other in their own particular ways through what I take to be three pedagogical conceptual (...) personae: saint, jester and nomad. I try to show how Deleuze and Guattari managed to supplant and perhaps overcome Lacan's own pedagogical project to have psychoanalysis as a way out from capitalism, which has been continued today by Žižek. I do this by showing how Lacan's mathemes, used in his four discourses, can be understood as having been deterritorialised by Deleuze and Guattari to present us with a counter-actualised pedagogy that challenges psychoanalysis as presented by both Lacan and Žižek. Nevertheless, reconciliations between the thought of Deleuze, Guattari and Lacan are possible. The reader will also find that particular door open, yet not fully explored here. (shrink)