La idea de progreso es una de las nociones más influyentes, pero también más polémicas, del mundo moderno. Ello se debe en buena medida al carácter ideológico que subyace a su empleo en diferentes contextos. En este artículo se examinan cuatro paradojas que ha generado la aplicación de la idea de progreso, cuyos efectos negativos se hacen sentir cada vez con más fuerza hoy en día. Se muestra también cómo esta idea, pese al creciente descrédito que la rodea, continúa ejerciendo (...) una poderosa influencia en la vida contemporánea. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for an historical understanding of the relationship between ideology and utopia/utopianism that positions the latter as a specifically modern compensation for the loss of the cosmologically grounded, unitary ideology supplied by the late medieval Christian Church. This claim relies upon but revises Fredric Jameson’s early theorization of the collaboration between ideology and utopia/utopianism, which emphasizes that utopian elements allow ideology to offer subjects a ‘compensatory exchange’ for their complicity. Developing my central argument requires considering the (...) current viability of the ‘secularization thesis’, which classically associated modernization with secularization but which has undergone heavy criticism and revision by social scientists over the past half-century. These theoretical discussions, finally, are couched within a critical appraisal of the status of utopianism in contemporary politics. (shrink)

Myth, Utopia, and Political Action Starting from the premise that some form of "reality transcendence", i.e. the ability to imagine a different reality and reach out for the (un)thinkable, is necessary for political action, the aim of this paper is to analyse the concepts of myth and utopia elaborated by Georges Sorel and Karl Mannheim and to examine their possible contributions to a theory of political action and social change. By comparing the role the authors assign to rationality and irrationality (...) in human affairs, methodological and conceptual differences between Sorel's and Mannheim's approaches to the political are illustrated. It turns out that due to its immunity to critique Sorel's concept of the social myth is highly problematic. Mannheim's concept of utopia, on the other hand, culminates in a technocratic understanding of the political. Though both approaches emphasise the collective dimension of political action, they ultimately exhibit elitist understandings of the political. (shrink)

How should we define the feasible set? Even when individuals agree on facts and values, as traditionally construed, different views on feasibility may suffice to produce very different policy conclusions. Focusing on the difficulties in the feasibility concept may help us resolve some policy disagreements, or at least identify the sources of those disagreements. Feasibility is most plausibly a matter of degree rather than of kind. Normative economic reasoning therefore faces a fuzzy social budget constraint. Iterative reasoning about feasibility and (...) desirability may help us overcome these problems. (shrink)

It is commonly claimed that rule consequentialism (utilitarianism) collapses into act consequentialism, because sometimes there are benefits from breaking the rules. I suggest this argument is less powerful than has been believed. The argument requires a commitment to a very particular (usually implicit) account of feasibility and constraints. It requires the presupposition that thinking of rules as the relevant constraint is incorrect. Supposedly we should look at a smaller unit of choice—the single act—as the relevant choice variable. But once we (...) see feasibility as a matter of degree, there is no obvious cut-off point for how broadly we should think about the constraints on our choices. Treating “a bundle of choices” as a relevant free variable is no less defensible than treating “a single act” as the relevant free variable. Rule utilitarianism, rule consequentialism, and other rules-based approaches are stronger than their current reputation. (shrink)

El discurso sobre la biología sintética, altamente visionario y marcado por el enfoque de ‘investigación e innovación responsable’ puede interpretarse como un terreno para confrontar perspectivas sobre el futuro de nuestras sociedades en su conjunto. En un momento en el que, con el final de la confrontación de sistemas entre capitalismo y socialismo, los debates sociales amplios sobre cuestiones políticas y socioeconómicas fundamentales se han vuelto infrecuentes, los discursos sobre las ciencias naturales y la tecnología parecen poder ayudar a tematizar (...) estas cuestiones de manera indirecta. Esta función del discurso sobre la biología sintética puede clarificarse mediante una contextualización histórica del mismo, en la que se analizan aproximaciones anteriores sobre la relevancia social de la biología y sus aplicaciones tecnológicas. (shrink)

The dream of achieving artificial intelligence and, in particular, artificial consciousness, is reflected in mythologies and popular culture as utopia and dystopia. This article discusses its conceptual possibility. It first relates the desire to realise strong AI to a self-perception of humanity as opposed to nature, metaphorically represented as gods or God. The realisation of strong AI is perceived as an ultimate victory on nature or God because it represents the crown of creation or evolution: conscious intelligence. The paper proceeds (...) to summarise two debates relevant to AI: one educational and one technological. The technological debate, almost invariably presupposing a materialist framework, is related to the mind–body problem of philosophy; the educational one to understanding the concept of intelligence. By proposing a definition of intelligence linked to an idealist conception of reality, postulating mind as participation in Absolute Mind, I attempt a convergence of these debates, rejecting the possibility of strong AI. (shrink)

This paper revisits a book I published 20 years ago. Labour’s Utopias – Bolshevism, Fabianism, Social Democracy (Routledge, 1992) began from the proposition that utopia was a ubiquitous figure in Western political and social thinking. On the Left the common sense has often been that reform and revolution are but different proposed roads to the same utopian end. Labour’s Utopias shows that this is not the case: Bolshevism, Fabianism and social democracy actually embody different ends. Revisiting the text 20 years (...) later, my sense is that its most interesting and significant weakness lies not in its diagnosis of utopia, but in its failure to differentiate significantly between labour and its intellectual representatives. I hint at the issue of ‘social’ or ‘socialist ventriloquism’, but fail to follow it through. The issue of representation, or claims to representation, remains under-illuminated, as does the possibility that there are significant differences between working-class and middle-class utopias. (shrink)

It is a matter of tacit consensus that rationalist adeptness in urban planning traces its foundations to the philosophy of the Renaissance thinker and mathematician René Descartes. This study suggests, in turn, that the planned urban environment of the Renaissance may have also led Descartes, and his intellectual peers, to tenets that became the foundations of modern philosophy and science. The geometric street pattern of the late middle ages and the Renaissance, the planned townscapes, street views and the formal garden (...) design, appeared as parables for the perfection of the universe and the supremacy of critical reason. It is within this urban metaphor that Descartes's philosophical narrative betrays perceptual and conceptual impact from the contrast between convoluted medieval townscapes and the emerging harmonious street patterns where defined vistas and predictable clarity of street views were paramount. The geometrically delineated street views of the Renaissance new town became the spark that lit the philosopher's sagacity in reflecting upon the concept of "clear and distinct ideas." Past suggestions that Descartes was led to his philosophical breakthroughs through his discovery of co-ordinate geometry reinforce further the stance that Renaissance planning predisposed rationalist thought. (shrink)

What is the difference between the earthly paradise, the Golden Age and the ideal city? This question is most important for whoever is interested in the various ways human societies have had for imagining an ideal state of perfection or social harmony. If we are not to confuse such different systems of representation as mythical thought, millenarianism and Utopia, it is absolutely necessary that we do not reduce the descriptions of an earthly paradise and a Golden Age to simple precursors (...) of the ideal city of the Utopians. It is especially important not to call “Utopian” every representation of the ideal society, Utopia being only one— and the most, recent—of its modalities. The Utopian dream Translated by Jeanne Ferguson takes up and at the same time alters the paradisiacal and millenarian imagination: it would be difficult to believe that the passage of primitive societies to great urban civilizations, then to modern society occurred without major repercussions on the vision of these societies, that the ideal state of social perfection did not vary from one to the other. (shrink)

La idea de progreso es una de las nociones más influyentes, pero también más polémicas, del mundo moderno. Ello se debe en buena medida al carácter ideológico que subyace a su empleo en diferentes contextos. En este artículo se examinan cuatro paradojas que ha generado la aplicación de la idea de progreso, cuyos efectos negativos se hacen sentir cada vez con más fuerza hoy en día. Se muestra también cómo esta idea, pese al creciente descrédito que la rodea, continúa ejerciendo (...) una poderosa influencia en la vida contemporánea. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis essay argues that a prime source of contemporary technological pessimism is the loss of place that accompanied the conquest of space through the construction of large technological systems of transportation and communication. This loss may involve physical destruction, or it may involve the more subtle withdrawal of economic, political, and cultural meaning and power from localities in favor of these far-flung systems.The argument proceeds in five stages. First, key terms are defined, notably “environmental damage” and “technological system.” Second, (...) the origins of the modern ideology of circulation are traced in the development of a capitalist world-economy, and in the historical theories of Enlightenmentphilosophes(with special attention to Turgot and Condorcet). Third, possible relations between that ideology and nineteenth-century systems-building are briefly sketched. Fourth, the ambiguous political character of these systems — at once liberating and constraining — is noted. Finally, the cultural challenge of overcoming spatial alienation is described with reference to some late nineteenth-century writers who sought to trace new pathways both spatially and linguistically. (shrink)

At the end of 1671 and start of 1672, while in the service of the Archbishop and Elector of Mainz, Leibniz composed his Egypt Plan, which sought to persuade Louis XIV to invade Egypt. Scholars have generally supposed that Leibniz’s rationale for devising the plan was to divert Louis from his intended war with Holland. Little attention has been paid to the religious benefits that Leibniz identified in the plan, and those who do acknowledge them are often quick to downplay (...) them. This tendency to downplay or even dismiss the religious benefits Leibniz claimed of the Egypt Plan is undermotivated and stems from a very superficial reading of the documents that together comprise it. In this paper I argue that we should take seriously Leibniz’s claim that a French invasion of Egypt would bring religious benefits, and that he saw them as important and intrinsically desirable inasmuch as he came to believe that the execution of the plan would lead to the flowering of co-operation and brotherhood among Christians in a show of inter-denominational koinonia, that is, fellowship with other Christians in the participation of shared goals. (shrink)

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth glancing at, for it leaves out the country at which humanity is always landing.Oscar WildeThe further ahead one looks, the more the vision of the distant future resembles the golden age of the mythical past.John CohenBeing condemned (or chosen?) to be “the missing link” on its way to perfectibility (or redemption?) - half animal/half human - we always need in some way or another the transcendence of a (...) Utopian Vision. It therefore comes as no surprise that most of the essays in this issue, reflecting a vision of the world today, are openly or covertly concerned with Utopian expectations. Hence, it might be worthwhile to trace the origins and reflect in flashbacks - following the pioneering technique of the French film-maker Alain Resnais - a story of the Utopian Vision. (shrink)

The modern tendency to treat all Greek Golden Age textuality as apolitical and escapist has contributed to the ongoing neglect of the first Western educational text, Hesiod's Works and days. Most commentators have missed the interplay of utopian and dystopian images in Hesiodic poetry for lack of the appropriate conceptual framework. Once the escapist prejudice is overcome, the Hesiodic text appears as the first extant Occidental coupling of political utopianism with emancipatory ethico-political education. Once freed of its dated metaphysical-theological resonances, (...) Hesiodic utopianism is compatible with a renewed political and ethical education for cosmopolitanism and justice because the embarrassingly detailed and teleological element of temporal modern utopias and the equally embarrassing rigid architecture of spatial utopias are absent. There is no strict utopian prediction and the message for change is articulated for the whole of humanity. (shrink)

This paper seeks to discover if urban planning has any 'internal values' which might help guide its practitioners and provide standards with which to judge their works, thereby providing for some disciplinary autonomy. After arguing that such values can best be discovered through an examination of the history of utopian urban planning, I examine one period in that history, the early Renaissance and, in particular, the work of Leon Battista Alberti. Against Susan Lang's thesis that Alberti's work was guided by (...) the fundamental value of beauty, I argue that Alberti was centrally concerned to design cities that would help their citizens develop civic virtue. Against Françoise Choay's thesis that Alberti was not a utopian, I argue that Alberti was a procedural utopian interested in advancing certain political goals. This analysis suggests that urban planning has an internal value structure which includes some specific political values. (shrink)

(2000). Scientific utopianism in Francis bacon and H.G. wells: From Salomon's house to the open conspiracy. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 3, The Philosophy of Utopia, pp. 172-188.

The western utopia has both classical and Judaeo-Christian roots. From the Greeks came the form of the ideal city, based on reason, from Jews and Christians the idea of deliverance through a messiah and the culmination of history in the millennium. The Greek conception placed utopia in an ideal space, the Christian conception in an ideal time. The modern utopia, dating from Thomas More's Utopia (1516), drew upon both these traditions but added something distinctive of its own. Following More, the (...) modern utopia has developed as a literary form whose closest relative is the novel. This, I argue, is its great strength. Unlike the abstract utopias of social and political philosophy, such as Marxism or anarchism, the `concrete utopia' of writers such as Edward Bellamy, William Morris and H. G. Wells paints `pleasing pictures of daily life' which both impel us to desire the good society and give us the tools by which to assess it. It is in this respect that utopia - and its mirror-image, the anti-utopia - developed as a distinct literary genre, separating it from other forms of picturing the ideal society in both east and west. (shrink)

In his foundational text The Twenty Years’ Crisis: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, E. H. Carr juxtaposes utopian and realist approaches to world politics. This dicho...

Turing made strong statements about the future of machines in society. This article asks how they can be interpreted to advance our understanding of Turing’s philosophy. His irony has been largely caricatured or minimized by historians, philosophers, scientists, and others. Turing is often portrayed as an irresponsible scientist, or associated with childlike manners and polite humor. While these representations of Turing have been widely disseminated, another image suggested by one of his contemporaries, that of a nonconformist, utopian, and radically progressive (...) thinker reminiscent of the English Romantic poet Percy B. Shelley, has remained largely underexplored. Following this image, I will reconstruct the argument underlying what Turing called (but denied being guilty of) his “Promethean irreverence” (1947–1951) as a utopian satire directed against chauvinists of all kinds, especially intellectuals who might sacrifice independent thought to maintain their power. These, Turing hoped, would eventually be rivaled and surpassed by intelligent machines and transformed into ordinary people, as work once considered “intellectual” would be transformed into non-intellectual, “mechanical” work. I study Turing’s irony in its historical context and follow the internal logic of his arguments to their limit. I suggest that Turing genuinely believed that the possibilities of the machines he envisioned were not utopian dreams, and yet he conceived them from a utopian frame of mind, aspiring to a different society. His ever-learning child machines, whose intelligence would grow out of their own individual experiences, would help distribute power. (shrink)

Este artigo refere-se ao conhecido episódio da famosa novela "Gargantua", de Rabelais, e a sua intenção é mostrar que naquelas singulares sociedade e arquitectura se apresentam ou prefigu­ram, em larga medida, as questões que mais tarde foram exploradas no pensamento utópico oci­dental sobre o tema de "Antiutopia". Em particular, há a intenção de mostrar as relações entre as "Sociedades Ideais" e as "Arquitecturas Ideais"... Como se mutuamente se implicassem. – E, claro, os hilariantes equívocos relacionados com tal...

The early decades of the twentieth century were marked by widespread optimism about biology and its ability to improve the world. A major catalyst for this enthusiasm was new theories about inheritance and evolution. In Britain and the USA particularly, an astonishingly diverse variety of writers took up the task of interpreting these new biological ideas, using a wide range of genres to help their fellow citizens make sense of biology's promise. From these miscellaneous writings a new and distinctive kind (...) of utopianism emerged – the biotopia. Biotopias offered the dream of a perfect, post-natural world, or the nightmare of violated nature, but above all they conveyed a sense that biology was – for the first time – offering humanity unprecedented control over life. Biotopias often visualized the world as a garden perfected for human use, but this vision was tinged with gendered violence, as it became clear that realizing it entailed dispossessing, or even killing, ‘Mother Nature’. Biotopian themes are apparent in journalism, scientific reports and even textbooks, and these non-fiction sources shared many characteristics with intentionally prophetic or utopian fictions. Biotopian themes can be traced back and forth across the porous boundaries between popular and elite writing, showing how biology came to function as public culture. This analysis reveals not only how the historical significance of science is invariably determined outside the scientific world, but also that the ways in which biology was debated during this period continue to characterize today's debates over new biological breakthroughs. (shrink)

In Thomas More’s Utopia, the character of Raphael Hythloday bestows upon the islanders of Utopia a library of Greek authors that includes Herodotus (alongside more traditional political thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides). Herodotus’ inclusion on the Utopian reading list invites the question of whether his Histories is in any sense a work in utopian political theory. Although Herodotus is sometimes excluded from the canon of the Histories of political thought because of his lack of interest in political constitutions, (...) I argue: That Herodotus (like More) should be categorized as a political thinker because of his focus on political and social customs rather than constitutional arrangements. That Herodotus (similar to More) uses the otherness of political and social customs in distant societies as an opportunity to theorize and evaluate political institutions. And that Herodotus (like More) is a utopian political thinker in his evaluation of superlatively good political institutions and his embrace of incremental political reform. (shrink)