Tragedy and Citizenship provides a wide-ranging exploration of attitudes toward tragedy and their implications for politics. Derek W. M. Barker reads the history of political thought as a contest between the tragic view of politics that accepts conflict and uncertainty, and an optimistic perspective that sees conflict as self-dissolving. Drawing on Aristotle's political thought, alongside a novel reading of the Antigone that centers on Haemon, its most neglected character, Barker provides contemporary democratic theory with a theory of tragedy. He sees (...) Hegel's philosophy of reconciliation as a critical turning point that results in the elimination of citizenship. By linking Hegel's failure to address the tragic dimensions of politics to Richard Rorty, John Rawls, and Judith Butler, Barkeroffers a major reassessment of contemporary political theory and a fresh perspective on the most urgent challenges facing democratic politics. Derek W. M. Barker is a program officer at the Kettering Foundation. (shrink)

Dans cet article, j’aborde la question de la notion d’ontologie chez Charles Taylor. Je constate, dans un premier temps, l’abandon par Taylor du point de vue anthropocentrique, ainsi que l’adoption d’une perspective non-anthropocentrique. Je remets ensuite en question l’interprétation de Stephen White, en insistant sur le fait qu’elle ne parvient pas à mettre en valeur l’inspiration métaphysique de la pensée de Taylor. J’estime, en conclusion, que Taylor s’appuie fondamentalement sur un mode d’argumentation métaphysique qui est sous-estimé lorsqu’on le présente comme (...) un «ontologiste “faible”». (shrink)

This paper investigates the idea of rum as an ontology of life. More specifically, it explores the rum as metaphor in the context of Africana existential ontology. Here it is argued that rum drinking can serve as the basis for understanding and conceptualizing certain basic structures of human existence in the Caribbean mode of existence. In pursuing these tasks, ontology is not construed as the study of the kinds of entities that exist; rather, ontology is given an existential twist in (...) the sense of focusing on patterns of human existence, as well as practices that are indicative of human creative agency. (shrink)

This dissertation is, first, an examination of the coherence and consistency of Michel Foucault’s work with respect to its development and an examination of his ethos, a product of conscious self-construction. Second, this work is an exploration of ethical techniques. The goal of the dissertation is to discover an ethos that takes into account the best contemporary critical attitudes and techniques of ethical selfconstruction. The first chapter begins with a discussion of the development of Foucault’s archaeological method. Discussion of some (...) problems with structuralism, his genealogical method, and finally his movement towards an ethical program follows. The method for the dissertation will be exploratory and critical. The second chapter develops a line of thinking about the development of freedom in Kant and Foucault. Power relations are a persistent context in which selfconstruction takes place. Resistance to power relations marks the beginning of freedom, which requires testing and moving beyond the limits of socially constructed selves. The Quakers display a model of structured resistance to enclosing authorities. John Woolman provides an example of ethical self-construction. The third chapter explores Foucault’s ethical project by examining ancient Greco-Roman and Christian technologies of the self, and relates those projects to ethical self-construction through writing. This exploration shows continuity in the product of writing from Ancient through modern writers. The fourth chapter develops a postmodern ethos through an examination of weak ontology. James Rachels’ ethical programme is a model for a postmodern technology of the self. The resulting technique offered provides a vulnerability to facticity while retaining the best ethical principles and critical reasoning. This is illustrated in Miroslav Volf’s The End of Memory. Foucault’s ethos is a clear precursor to modern technologies of the self that take the exploration of knowledge with humility into account. (shrink)