El trabajo y las relaciones laborales, centrales en la obra de Aristóteles, Adam Smith o Karl Marx, han vuelto a ocupar un lugar destacado en la filosofía reciente, con contribuciones relevantes en tres áreas. La primera es la naturaleza del trabajo: ¿qué rasgos debe tener una actividad para que sea trabajo y qué categoría ocupan actividades como los cuidados, las labores comunitarias o la generación de datos personales? La segunda es el valor del trabajo: ¿qué bienes, y bajo qué condiciones, (...) puede proveer el trabajo y qué relaciones objetables, como la explotación o la alienación, puede implicar (quizá hasta el punto, como algunos sostienen, de que una economía automatizada y sin trabajo sería preferible)? La tercera es la organización del trabajo: ¿qué principios deben gobernar la distribución y organización del trabajo, así como la respuesta a la desigualdad salarial, los abusos gerenciales o la dualización del mercado de trabajo? Esta entrada introduce las principales contribuciones, en especial desde la filosofía analítica, a estas tres áreas. -/- . (shrink)

What and how should individuals resist in political situations? While this question, or versions of it, recurs regularly within Western political philosophy, answers to it have often relied on dyads founded upon dogmatically held ideals. In particular, there is a strain of idealist political philosophy, inaugurated by Plato and finding contemporary expression in the work of Alain Badiou, that employs dyads (such as the distinction between truth and doxa or the privilege of thought over sense) that tend to reduce the (...) complexities of practices of resistance to concepts of commitment. Although these dyads have been challenged by, amongst others, poststructuralist theorists, this has often been at the cost of losing their structuralist heritage. This thesis develops an ontology proper to structuralism that engenders non-idealist and non-dogmatic, yet ethical, practices of resistance against commitment orientated accounts of resistance and the return of classical ontological dyads. The thesis begins with an examination of the extent to which a dogmatic use of idealism grounds the work of a prominent contemporary theorist, Alain Badiou. In developing his neo-Maoist metapolitics, Badiou follows both Platonic ontology and the Marxist tradition of dialectics by claiming that political practice can only be carried out in truth by paying fidelity to an event that ruptures the presented order of things. Chapter one opens with an exploration of Badiou's mathematic meta-ontology to draw out its three foundational dyads (truth/doxa; sense/intelligibility; is/is not). It is argued that although Badiou makes important criticisms of the preponderant trends of political philosophy, he is unable to support his own account of politics due to his dogmatic reliance on idealist principles. Chapter two begins by developing two accounts: first, of the relations between Badiou's work and that of his former teacher Louis Althusser and, secondly, the relations between Althusser's thought and that of Gilles Deleuze, in particular his reading of David Hume. Discussion centres around the importance of the role that time plays within the works of all three authors, particularly in regard to the idea of the void. The chapter concludes with the argument that Hume's temporal idea of human nature is the key to a symptomatic reading of Althusser that accounts for the persistence of ideas in the latter's social theory. In chapter three, Deleuze's reading of Hume's idea of relations is developed to take into account Bergson's theory of time. Read in contrast to Quentin Meillassoux's speculative realism, the chapter argues that Deleuze's account of temporal relations informs Althusser's social theory to create the ontological grounds for non-dogmatic and non-idealist practices of resistance. These practices are developed in chapter four with an unlikely turn to John Stuart Mill's idea of genius, the metaphysical property of the individual that signifies the discovery of new truth. The chapter begins with an argument that there is an under-developed account of ethics in Deleuze's work. Distinguishing the idea of genius from both Mill's moral philosophy, as well as from utilitarian thought more generally, the idea of genius is sutured onto Deleuze's ontological account of individuation. Read alongside Althusser's social theory, which accounts for the non-idealist conceptualisation of situations, this suture creates an ethically oriented structuralist ontology. The thesis concludes with the argument that the idea of genius is the ethical imperative that motivates practices of resistance. When individuals are understood as embodied within situations, practices of resistance are conceptualised not against other components of a situation, but contra them, taking them into account in order to amplify, multiply and transform the individual's potential within a situation. (shrink)

According to ‘global institutionalism,’ individuals who do not share a state have duties of justice to one another, and this is explained, in part, by the institutional connections that obtain between them. In this chapter, I defend this view against two challenges. First, I consider challenges raised by ‘non-institutionalists,’ who deny that facts about global institutional interaction bear on the nature of duties of justice that arise between particular individuals. Second, I address challenges posed by ‘domestic institutionalists,’ who accept the (...) claim that facts about institutional interaction bear upon the scope of justice but deny that the right sort of interaction necessary to ground duties of justice is found in the global domain. (shrink)

In this article, it is argued that existing democracies might establish popular rule even if Joseph Schumpeter’s notoriously unflattering picture of ordinary citizens is accurate. Some degree of popular rule is in principle compatible with apathetic, ignorant and suggestible citizens, contrary to what Schumpeter and others have maintained. The people may have control over policy, and their control may constitute popular rule, even if citizens lack definite policy opinions and even if their opinions result in part from elites’ efforts to (...) manipulate these opinions. Thus, even a purely descriptive, ‘realist’ account of democracy of the kind that Schumpeter professed to offer may need to concede that there is no democracy without some degree of popular rule. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the injustices perpetrated against Indigenous people in Canada within the explicit framework of democratic theory. I examine the ability of Deweyan democracy as a purported problem-solving mechanism to deal with this problem of widespread social injustice. Deweyan democracy is distinctively epistemic, and depends upon diversity and inclusion in order to function effectively as a social and political mechanism for problem-solving. I argue that the inclusion within Deweyan democracy is insufficiently theorized to provide justice-based solutions to social problems, (...) is overly instrumental, and can actually create injustice. Finally, I suggest that while contemporary Deweyans have applied Deweyan democracy in ways that do not provide sufficient solutions for social and political problems, there may yet be resources in Deweyan democratic theory to be explored, specifically with regard to reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people within a democratic society. (shrink)

Problem setting. Latin America and the Caribbean traditionally referred to as a large and ambiguous region in an out-side territorial scientific environment. A whole stratum of problems of identities, peculiarities of self-awareness, civilization affiliations of messianic ’appointments ’ in the history of the region and the world, the development of ways of cultural and historical development corresponding to them, the affirmation of the tendencies of state formation is in a scientific researcher focus. Among the many aspects that conceptualize the demandfor (...) research in the region and its implementation, we would like to highlight the following: 1) Latin America and the Caribbean are, to some extent, «a territory of historically significant validation of modern trends» in their speculative lengthening, the field ofdeveloping new ones political and economic novations, including regarding various projections of the correlation of socio-political practices, institutional design and legal technologies, derived from the understanding of nature and the purpose of law. 2) The region ’provides ’ a wide range of heterogeneous materials for analytical work, both concatenate-linear in nature, and combining poly-meaningful multidimensionality, multifaceted coexistence of values generated by contemporary media, the glare of meanings, signs, intentions of conscious transformations, random «breakthroughs» of network travel followers. In the discovery literature thatfollows only the analysis of statistical indicators, it is often noted that Latin America and the Caribbean is a region of polarization. 3) Considering the full amount of opportunities and perspectives available, Latin America in general, in some associative formulation, is clearly «boxing at levels below its weight and its impact on international canvases», that is, there are some reasons for internal and external character that significantly reduce the region’s role in the world, affecting accents of processes of political, legal and economic worsen the work «for the common good», underestimate «the bar of tasks and results» do not meet the expectations of the significance of the region. Recent research and publications analysis. The paper uses an interdisciplinary approach involving the research of representatives of various sciences. Concerning the approach to certain aspects of the constitutional process in the countries of Latin America and the Carribien was used the researches of Ukrainian authors Yu. M. Todyka, V. P. Kolisnyk, Yu. G. Barabash, M. P. Orzikh, T. M. Slinko, A. G. Kushnirenko, pertaining to in relation to consideration ofpeculiarities ofdevelopment andfunctioning of the model of the presidential state was launched analytical andfunctionality materials I. V. Protsiuk. On the conceptualization within the political science tradition in connection with the problems of the political regimes, their development in the conditions of conflict of the present, in the face of threats and challenges of a multifaceted nature are included the materials of methodological and theoretical importance M. P. Trebin, I. O. Polishchuk, D. Denisenko, G. M. Kutz, O. A. Fisun, M. A. Polovyi and, in the context of regional- geopolitical dimensions, V. Yu. Karasev. Among the foreign authors on the subject area of the study, we note the conceptual vision of the combination ofeconomic cycles and political and legal processes of the present Daniela Campello, the development of the author of the theory of «path dependence effect» by J. Mahoney and researchers of modifications of the development of neo-patrimonialism in Latin America and Karsten Bachle. Focused on the trends and innovations of the constitutional process in the countries of the region are the scientific orientations of Rogelio Nu'nez and P. I. Kostogryzov. A broad analytical and research base on the transformation of political regimes in Latina America and the Caribbean and the peculiarities ofpolitical processes in individual countries are provided by the works of B. Geddes, G. O’Donnell, L. Diamond, D. Ziblatta, S. Levitsky, Z. V. Ivanovsky, T. A. Vorotnikova, P. P. Yakovlev, D. V. Morozov, and others. Paper objective. The purpose of this work is to find out the broad contexts of the relationship between economic and political and legal processes in Latin America and the Carribien countries with attention to the peculiarities of the rule of law formation. The tasks are to analyze a set of approaches to finding the causes of the difficulties of socio-political and institutional-legal development in the region with the involvement of interdisciplinary scientific experience and to identify some essential features of meaning- forming and socio-constructing phenomena in the contextual contours. Paper main body. One of the options for designating the specificity of the current state of affairs is framed in the concept of the so-called «curse of volatility» - the dependence of local, mainly commodity and export-oriented with low internal economy savings from cycles, fluctuations of the world economy. This dependence is a definite structural factor and has been forming for a long time. Also, macroeconomic indicators within the framework of a certain political economy methodology in the projection for the sum ofpolitical and legal events allow us to see the spread of ideology, whether left or right, the rise of populism, the tendency for further democratization of the way of life or vice versa from democracy, the relative calm of the political process or the turbulence ofpolitical events are, after all, tied to basic economic indicators, and often more or less relevant to us and corresponding to figures about the level of safety of life. The trajectory of development was laid down by some decisions at a time of critical juncture when privatization created the basis of the local economy as a structural part of the world capitalist system with its dynamics of development that facilitated the formatting and reproduction of the reactive sequences caused by different types of liberal reforms. Conclusions of the research. The particular attention in Latin America and the Caribbean countries on the expectations and responsibilities of building the future is focused on the development of Constitutional law as a leading sphere in the system of national law. Hence the numerous constitutional changes in the countries of the region, the constitutional reforms of different grades, which are intensively continued today. The lifestyle liberalization, resolving key property issues, attempts at democratization in Latin America and the Carribien countries took place in different ways, but after the foundations ofpublic law that were borrowed in outline in the USA. Between enshrined key provisions in the Constitutions and the coexistence of essentially diverse mass consciousnesses and aspirations on different ’floors’ of the society, has raised multi-dimensional discord, that is emerging from the institutionalization of the liberal-democratic model of the state, generated in the context of understanding freedom as a key concept. Therefore the aspect ofan all-public agreement on coexistence rules does not appear to be fully realized, which gives rise to a search for a constitutional character. The focus remains on the relationship between multiple interests and ideas about the common good, by means of the formation of the general will in the structure and practice of constitutional-democratic regimes. It is inextricably linked to the transformation of the concepts of representation and citizenship. Democratic legitimation is correlated with ideas about the rule of the masses, the will of the majority in the living creation of the norms of life, and with the accompanying active and continuous participation in the political process of large groups, sectors of the population. The constitutional creativity of the countries of the region shows the element of an assertion of messianism, the designation of the special role of the country, its leader, ideology, the Constitution in the processes of historical implementation at the level of regional or the world. This moment of national pride for the country and its contribution to the cultural and civilizational space of history is realized in experimental projects of various expressions. (shrink)

This article is a response to Peter Dahlgren’s review of The discursive-material knot: Cyprus in conflict and community media participation. Dahlgren’s engagement with the DMK book consisted of four questions, with an invitation to respond to them. These questions were not so much critiques, but more like invitations to clarify, and – more importantly – to expand into a few territories that were insufficiently addressed in the DMK book. This article starts with explaining the platform structure of the DMK book (...) and the strategy that was used to write it. This then allows to focus on the first platform, explaining the basics of the DMK, the supporting role of the structure/agency dimension, and the difference between the concepts of ideology and discourse. This is also a good opportunity to think through the opportunities for discourse critique. In the next part, the issues related to high theory, ontology and metaphysics are addressed. The last part returns to the DMK book’s case study and the interdependence of the different platforms, arguing that empirical research can also feed into non-essentialist ontological reflections, while these reflections also provide support for the research itself. (shrink)