A particularly important, pressing, philosophical question concerns whether Confederate monuments ought to be removed. More precisely, one may wonder whether a certain group, viz. the relevant government officials and members of the public who together can remove the Confederate monuments, are morally obligated to (of their own volition) remove them. Unfortunately, academic philosophers have largely ignored this question. This paper aims to help rectify this oversight by moral philosophers. In it, I argue that people have a (...) moral obligation to remove most, if not all, public Confederate monuments because of the unavoidable harm they inflict on undeserving persons. In the first section, I provide some relevant historical context. In the second section, I make my unique harm-based argument for the removal of Confederate monuments. In the third section, I consider and rebut five objections. (shrink)

This is my reply essay (1000 words) to Travis Timmerman's "A Case for Removing Confederate Monuments" in Bob Fisher's _Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues That Divide Us_ volume (2020). In it, I explain why I think the mere harm from the racial offense a monument may cause does not justify removing it.

This is a short reply to Dan Demetriou's "Ashes of Our Fathers: Racist Monuments and the Tribal Right." Both are included in Oxford University Press's Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues That Divide Us.

In this chapter we focus on the debate over publicly-maintained racist monuments as it manifests in the mid-2010s Anglosphere, primarily in the US (chiefly regarding the over 700 monuments devoted to the Confederacy), but to some degree also in Britain and Commonwealth countries, especially South Africa (chiefly regarding monuments devoted to figures and events associated with colonialism and apartheid). After pointing to some representative examples of racist monuments, we discuss ways a monument can be thought racist, (...) and neutrally categorize removalist and preservationist arguments heard in the monument debate. We suggest that both extremist and moderate removalist goals are likely to be self-defeating, and that when concerns of civic sustainability are put on moral par with those of fairness and justice, something like a Mandela-era preservationist policy is best: one which removes the most offensive of the minor racist monuments, but which focuses on closing the monumentary gap between peoples and reframing existing racist monuments. (shrink)

[Updated 2/23/21: complete chapter scan] In this chapter I sketch a rightist approach to monumentary policy in a diverse polity beleaguered by old ethnic grievances. I begin by noting the importance of tribalism, memorialization, and social trust. I then suggest a policy which 1) gradually narrows the gap between peoples in the heritage landscape, 2) conserves all but the most offensive of the least beloved racist monuments, 3) avoids recrimination (i.e., “keeps it positive”) and eschews ideological commentary in new (...) monuments or revisions to old ones, 4) as much as politically feasible, recognizes only the offense of willing tribemates, and 5) responds to aesthetic and other “irrational” offenses more than to “objective” historical or philosophical critiques. (shrink)

This essay questions three widespread assumptions in monument debates it terms “moralism,” “universalism,” and “interpretive dominance.” Roughly: moralism assumes that memorials should be only to good people or good causes; universalism holds that memorials should represent or be “for” the whole polity or its (real or supposed) corporate values; interpretive dominance maintains that, when faced with monuments with reasonable qualifying and disqualifying interpretations, policy should respond to the disqualifying one(s). These assumptions do not settle the debates between removalists and (...) preservationists, but they do make the removalist position easier to defend. Various counterexamples to these assumptions, real and imagined, motivate competing positions I term “sentimentalism,” “particularism,” and “interpretive independence.”. (shrink)

In recent years, a new generation of activists has reinvigorated debate over the public commemorative landscape. While this debate is in no way limited to statues, it frequently crystallizes around public representations of historical figures who expressed support for the oppression of certain groups or contributed to their past or present oppression. In this paper, I consider what should be done about such representations. A number of philosophers have articulated arguments for modifying or removing public monuments. Joanna Burch-Brown (2017) (...) grounds her argument for removal in what I call the “honorific” function of such representations—the ways in which they express and tend to cultivate admiration for their subjects. In the first two sections of the paper, I develop a novel argument for modifying these representations based on this insight. I argue that leaving such representations unmodified in the public space tends to undermine the dignity of members of oppressed groups as well as their assurance that society and government are committed to their rights and constitutional entitlements. In the paper’s third section, I develop a “balancing test” for determining whether the relevant moral and pragmatic considerations favor making a particular representation inaccessible to the public, or recontextualizing it for public consumption. Unlike some of the existing philosophical treatments of honorific representations that focus on particular monuments, this balancing test is designed for general application to any honorific representation that satisfies the presumptive case for modification. To conclude, I offer some reasons why weak forms of recontextualization that do not involve altering institutional context may often be an insufficient remedy for the problems I describe. (shrink)

Many people presume that you can permissibly support the good features of a symbol, person, activity, or work of art while simultaneously denouncing its bad features. This chapter refines and assesses this commonsense (but undertheorized) moral justification for supporting problematic people, projects, and political symbols, and proposes an analogue of the Doctrine of Double Effect called the Doctrine of Double Endorsement (DDN). DDN proposes that when certain conditions are met, it is morally permissible to directly endorse some object in virtue (...) of its positive properties while standing against its negative properties, even though it would be morally impermissible to directly endorse those negative properties themselves. These conditions include separability (the good and bad features must not be inextricably linked), proportionality (the positive value of the good features must be significantly greater than the negative value of the bad features), and constrained choice (there must not be other things that the agent could endorse instead that share the same positive features but are not saddled with the negative ones). The chapter applies these constraints to a number of practical issues, including (among others) voting for morally troubling candidates, supporting Confederate monuments, and consuming sexist art. (shrink)

‘Heritage’ is a concept that often carries significant normative weight in moral and political argument. In this article, I present and critique a prevalent conception according to which heritage must have a positive valence. I argue that this view of heritage leads to two moral problems: Disowning Injustice and Embracing Injustice. In response, I argue for an alternative conception of heritage that promises superior moral and political consequences. In particular, this alternative jettisons the traditional focus on heritage as a primarily (...) positive relationship to the past, and thus offers resources for coming to terms with histories of injustice. (shrink)

The recent explosion of philosophical papers on Confederate and Colonialist statues centers on a central question: When, if ever, is it permissible to admire a person? This paper contends it’s not just Confederates and slavers whose reputations are on the line, but also pacifists like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Daisy Bates whose commitments to pacifism meant they were unwilling to save others using defensive violence, including others they talked into endangering themselves for the sake of racial equality. Other (...) things being equal, that’s gravely immoral if pacifism is false, and we shouldn’t admire people guilty of grave immorality. So, it appears that we shouldn’t admire Bates or King, which is counterintuitive. To solve this problem, I explore several possibilities: that only selective traits of Bates and King are admirable, that Bates and King are admirable despite their grave immorality, and that Bates and King are admirable by virtue of their integrity. However, each of these proposals fails: the first because it inadequately captures our moral phenomenology (we admire people, not just their traits), the second because it ignores the extent to which gravely immoral commitments are constitutive of a person’s moral character, and the third because we ought not to admire people for acting on their immoral beliefs. The paper concludes, first, that either pacifists like Bates and King aren’t admirable or they are, and the latter presupposes the truth of pacifism. Second, I borrow from Vanessa Carbonell’s ratcheting-up argument from moral sainthood to argue that pacifists like Bates and King provide epistemic defeaters to the objection that pacifism is unreasonably costly. Thus, not only are pacifists admirable only if they’re right—they are right. (shrink)

Art can be addressed, not just to individuals, but to groups. Art can even be part of how groups think to themselves – how they keep a grip on their values over time. I focus on monuments as a case study. Monuments, I claim, can function as a commitment to a group value, for the sake of long-term action guidance. Art can function here where charters and mission statements cannot, precisely because of art’s powers to capture subtlety and (...) emotion. In particular, art can serve as the vessel for group emotions, by making emotional content sufficiently public so as to be the object of a group commitment. Art enables groups to guide themselves with values too subtle to be codified. (shrink)

While much has been said about what ought to be done about the statues and monuments of racist, colonial, and oppressive figures, a significantly undertheorised aspect of the debate is the aesthetics of commemorations. I believe that this philosophical oversight is rather unfortunate. I contend that taking the aesthetic value of commemorations seriously can help us a) better understand how and the extent to which objectionable commemorations are objectionable, b) properly formulate responses to aesthetic defences of objectionable commemorations, and (...) c) help us explore aesthetic solutions—for example, artistic interventions as counterspeech—to objectionable commemorations. Here, I propose that the aesthetic value of objectionable commemorations can amplify the force of the objectionable messages conveyed, and the moral disvalue of objectionable commemorations can hinder our appreciation of their aesthetic value. These two considerations shall help us answer the practical question of what to do about objectionable commemorations of apparently good aesthetic value. Both, I shall argue, give us further reason to remove, replace, recontextualise, or even vandalise objectionable commemorations. Sometimes we need to save the art from its own immorality to best respect its aesthetic value. (shrink)

The self-worth of political communities is often understood to be an expression of their position in a hierarchy of power; if so, then the desire for self-worth is a source of competition and conflict in international relations. In early modern German natural law theories, one finds the alternative view, according to which duties of esteem toward political communities should reflect the degree to which they fulfill the functions of civil government. The present article offers a case study, examining the views (...) concerning confederation rights and the resulting duties of esteem in diplomatic relations developed by Christoph Besold (1577–1638). Besold defends the view that confederations including dependent communities—such as the Hanseatic League—could fulfill a stabilizing political function. He also uses sixteenth-century conceptions concerning the acquisition of sovereignty rights through prescription of immemorial time. Both strands of argument lead to the conclusion that the envoys of dependent communities can have the right to be recognized as ambassadors, with all the duties of esteem that follow from this recognition. (shrink)

When does art history begin? Art historiographers typically point to the Renaissance (Vasari) or, alternatively, to Hellenism (Pliny the Elder). But such origin stories become increasingly disconnected from contemporary disciplinary practices, especially as the latter try to rise to the challenge of conducting art history in a more diversified and global way. This essay provides an alternative account of art history’s origin, one that does not try to alleviate the sense of disconnect, but rather develops a global, non-Eurocentric account. The (...) account focuses less on genealogy and more on what necessitates something like an art-historical awareness or attention in the first place. Relying on examples from ancient Mesopotamia, it argues that art-historical thought can be identified whenever and wherever material objects are attended to or produced for their potential to manifest visibly and over time their meaning. (shrink)

There are many things that can be done to educate young people about controversial topics - including historical monuments - in schools. At the same time, however, we argue that there is little warrant for optimism concerning the educational potential of classroom instruction given the interpretative frame of the state-approved history curriculum; the onerous institutional constraints under which school teachers must labour; the unusual constellation of talents history teachers must possess; the frequent absence of marginalized voices in these conversations; (...) and finally, the not unlikely indifference - if not outright hostility - expressed by far too many members of the dominant group. For these reasons, we think it best to expand the scope of educational possibilities one is willing to consider. (shrink)

The historical and literary Monuments of Central Asia are the repositories of civilization, culture and aesthetic tastes of their creators and their milieu over millennia. Though some existed in manuscript, a large portion survived dozens of centuries as part of the oral tradition. After printing press licenses were wrestled by the Central Asians from the Russian government during the 19th century, many were collected by the Central Asians and others, and published. The Monuments have proved to be durable. (...) Primarily works of Central Asian thought, they belong also to civilization at large, representing the endeavors of human activity. (shrink)

I propose that removed statues be placed in a monument graveyard. This would transfigure a monument, whose purpose is to honour a person or evoke a “glorious past,” into a memorial, whose purpose is to help us grieve. Thus, we dethrone the man who committed violent racists acts, like Edward Colson, and place the statue’s corpse in a graveyard. This repurposing will give old monuments new meanings more in line with our contemporary values.

The objective of the paper is the methodological presentation of the basic principles towards a critical interdisciplinary approach for studying the history of monuments restoration, valid for different cultures. The proposed integrated framework offers the possibility to study and document monuments restoration in various spatial levels e.g. global, continental, international, national, regional, and local. The conceptual and methodological aspects are based on the following fundamental pillars a) the development of science and technology, including relevant history of education, b) (...) the evolution of the restoration philosophy, c) the incorporation of the above in restoration projects at a lower level, d) the infiltration of the above in restoration interventions at the lowest level. The author expects that the above successive and/or parallel levels of scientific branches can contribute effectively to the analysis, synthesis and comparative assessment of the aspects and criteria that influenced monuments restoration timeline. The challenge for the researcher of the monuments restoration history is the adjustment of the whole process to his own –under research- level in such a way as to take advantage of all theinterdisciplinary inputs creating, thus, inventive links and stimulating new information and knowledge. The above are briefly tested in the case study of Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece. Such an inductive approach will enable all disciplines to devote their finest efforts towards understanding, documenting and studying monuments restoration history and, thus, support effectively a sustainable future for the world’s cultural heritagel audience. (shrink)

Latin American religious political thought includes colonial Spanish and Portuguese ideologies that preceded independence but have survived into the post-independence era, authoritarian ideologies supportive of military governments in the twentieth century, and progressive liberation theologies. In this article, I present a distinct tradition: a version of classical liberal thought. This tradition is skeptical of big government, opposed to caste systems, supportive of a high degree of federalism, uneasy with militarism, and supportive of democratic institutions while affirming religious social norms. This (...) ideology was developed in northeastern Brazil in the early nineteenth century by a Carmelite activist named Frei Caneca (Brother Mug), who published a newspaper titled the Typhis Pernambucano (Tiphys of the State of Pernambuco). (shrink)

Tainted political symbols ought to be confronted, removed, or at least recontextualized. Despite the best efforts to achieve this, however, official actions on tainted symbols often fail to take place. In such cases, I argue that political vandalism—the unauthorized defacement, destruction, or removal of political symbols—may be morally permissible or even obligatory. This is when, and insofar as, political vandalism serves as fitting counter-speech that undermines the authority of tainted symbols in ways that match their publicity, refuses to let them (...) speak in our name, and challenges the derogatory messages expressed through a mechanism I call derogatory pedestalling: the glorification or honoring of certain individuals or ideologies that can only make sense when members of a targeted group are taken to be inferior. (shrink)

The Antiquities Act gives the president the power to designate “objects of historic or scientific interest” as “national monuments.” Presidents have used this power expansively, protecting massive tracts of federal land, often by claiming that very large things, such as the Grand Canyon or even entire landscapes, are “objects” in the requisite sense. There is legal debate over such uses of the Act, with critics arguing that they depart from the original intent and meaning of the legislation. What has (...) been less discussed, however, is whether the Act allows presidents to protect just the object of interest (whatever it turns out to be), or whether it allows presidents to protect a substantial amount of land around objects of interest. I draw from language in the Antiquities Act and existing case law to argue the latter. Due to the nature of “historic and scientific interest,” protecting an object with such interest often requires protecting certain features of the broader landscape. This holds regardless of what counts as an “object of interest.” As a result, it offers a way to argue on certain critics’ own grounds for more expansive designations: even granting a narrow, originalist conception of what qualifies as an “object,” large designations can be justified. (shrink)

L’article vise à retracer les relations entre les pratiques de l’architecture et les pratiques de l’archéologie, en accordant une importance particulière au rôle joué par les antiquités grecques dans la formation intellectuelle des archéologues et architectes du xixe siècle, d’une part, et à la signification du voyage en Grèce, d’autre part. L’article vise à répondre à la question de la spécificité du voyage en Grèce et de sa relation avec l’idée du « Grand tour » et du « retour en (...) Arcadie » des architectes et peintres. En parallèle, l’article explore les modalités par lesquelles les architectes-pensionnaires de la Villa Médicis à Rome s’approprièrent les découvertes archéologiques concernant les antiquités grecques, et l’impact des échanges des architectes-pensionnaires de la Villa Médicis à Rome avec les membres de l’École française d’Athènes sur leurs vues restaurées de monuments antiques grecs. Une attention particulière est accordée à l’analyse de l’osmose entre architecture et archéologie. La seconde moitié du xixe siècle constitue un moment où les échanges et la collaboration entre archéologues et architectes acquièrent une place dominante, et Athènes est l’endroit par excellence où la rencontre entre ces deux domaines porte ses fruits. Durant toute cette période, les collaborations entre archéologues et architectes travaillant sur des monuments antiques, à Athènes ou ailleurs en Grèce, deviennent très importantes. Ces collaborations ont fourni les fondations pour des ouvrages d’une importance majeure pour leurs deux champs respectifs, mais aussi pour l’histoire de l’art en général. (shrink)

Many have argued that certain statues or monuments are objectionable, and thus ought to be removed. Even if their arguments are compelling, a major obstacle is the apparent historical value of those commemorations. Preservation in some form seems to be the best way to respect the value of commemorations as connections to the past or opportunities to learn important historical lessons. Against this, I argue that we have exaggerated the historical value of objectionable commemorations. Sometimes commemorations connect to biased (...) or distorted versions of history, if not mere myths. We can also learn historical lessons through what I call repudiatory honouring: the honouring of certain victims or resistors that can only make sense if the oppressor(s) or target(s) of resistance are deemed unjust, where no part of the original objectionable commemorations is preserved. This type of commemorative practice can even help to overcome some of the obstacles objectionable commemorations pose against properly connecting to the past. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 8, Page 1174-1196, October 2022. Most politically minded Kurds agree that their people need liberty. Moreover, they agree they need liberation from the domination they suffer from the four states that divide them: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. What is less certain is the precise nature of this liberty. A key debate that characterizes Kurdish political discourse is over whether the liberty they seek requires the existence of an independent Kurdish nation-state. Abdullah Öcalan, (...) the jailed intellectual leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, has argued that Kurdish liberty can only be achieved through liberation from the nation-state model itself. Instead of founding an independent Kurdistan, Öcalan proposes regional autonomy for the Kurds through a strictly egalitarian and directly democratic confederalism reminiscent of Murray Bookchin’s anarchist-inspired libertarian municipalism. We argue, in response to Öcalan’s approach, that employing an anarchist rejection of the state is largely mistaken. We diagnose certain historical and conceptual problems with the anarchist understanding of the state and develop the admission made in passing by certain anarchists, including Öcalan, that anarchist liberty could only be achieved after a long period of statist existence. Mostly counter to the anarchist model of non-domination, we propose a republican model of liberty and liberation, also as non-domination, that necessitates the formation of an independent state, at least in this historical period, for Kurds and hence any dominated people to count as truly free. We conclude by attempting to combine certain elements of the anarchist and republican conceptions and offer a synthetic communitarian view that could serve as a better foundation for Kurdish aspirations for liberty. (shrink)

Arthur Danto asserts that Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington really embodies the beauty of his meaning. For him, the Memorial’s “internal beauty” is felt and read because she is built as a text by the rhetoric of enthymeme, as a syllogism based on some tacit knowledges and highly probables communplaces. However, the relationship to the Kant’s pulchritudo adhaerens and philosophy of architecture is not an easy one : Danto rejects as unreadable the self-referent formalism of Greenberg’s Modernism and (...) the environmental non-monumentality of Richard Serra’s Minimalism, but the agency of the Memorial’s shared internal beauty is haunted by an unquestioned spectral logic. Actually, the image embodiment in this work can always exceed the rhetoric of reconnaissance supported by the syllogistic rhetoric and disturb the identity framework of the nord-american community. The beholders’ reflecting shape on the Memorial can become, finally, an unreadable and pathetic index, or be perceived as a figural imprint, ephemeral and troubling ; these disembodied pictures can achieve a medial incarnation – e.g. a Verkörperung – of the underworld. (shrink)

The popularity of logos derived from the Tennessee flag can be explained by its obvious and relevant symbolism, but also by the phenomenon of pragmatic unity through which the Tennessee flag evokes the Confederate flag, as well as by the phenomenon of visual synecdoche, which allows observers to associate the three-star element with the entire flag and its associated meanings.

The aim of the study is to develop theoretic and methodological recommendations and practical activities for the positive social, managerial, organizational and economic development of historical and cultural tourist destinations. In theoretical terms: the role of historical and cultural tourist destination in the development of the region has been established; the historical and cultural tourist destinations have been identified; the author’s classification of historical and cultural tourist destinations has been developed basing tourist visiting activeness; the author’s methodological approach to the (...) diagnosis and creating tools for development of historical and cultural tourist destinations, comprehensively taking into account resource and factor components, has been presented. In practical terms: variations of the activities aimed at the positive development of historical and cultural tourist destinations have been proposed; the description of measures aimed at the creation of a historical and cultural complex on the example of the designed historical and cultural complex “Stara Samar” has been given. The results of the study are applicable for a wide range of historical and cultural tourist attractions: territories, landscapes and elements of landscapes, historical settlements, parks, film studios, historical and cultural heritage sites, history and culture monuments, burial sites, places of worship, sites of social cultural infrastructure. The author’s recommendations provide obtaining commercial results and ensuring a social and cultural effect for businessmen, managers, local communities in the management of existing or in the creation of new historical and cultural tourist destinations. (shrink)

Since the stone age humankind has created masterworks which possess a mysterious quality of solidity and grandeur or monumentality. A Paleolithic Venus and a still life by Cezanne both share this monumentality. Michelangelo likened monumentality to sculptural relief, Braque called monumentality 'space', and Hans Hoffman, himself one of the masters, called monumentality 'pictorial depth.' The masters agreed on the import of monumentality, but none of them left a clear explanation of it. In 1943 Earl Loran published his classic book on (...) Cezanne's pictorial structure but, as I demonstrate, his explanation was misleading. This book provide a clear explanation, as did an earlier book by Robert Casper. This book also traces some history of monumentality with reproductions. It also explains how some painters achieved monumentality and how a student can attempt it. Pictorial space is created in the tension between pairs of opposing planes. Opposing planes pull against each other, each containing the other, paradoxically, within the flat surface of the canvas. Sculpture also can be 'plastic': opposing masses pull against each other, each containing the other and creating tension in the space which lies between them. Painting has other aspects like subject matter, expression, style and technique but pictorial space does not depend on these. Monumentality moves us profoundly and apparently has done so since the Paleolith. Using patients' vignettes, I show that there are profound parallels between the structure of a monumental work of art and the structure of an evolving personality. In Winnicott's words, such a personality has 'depth ... an interior space to put beliefs in ... an inside ... a space where things can be held ... the capacity to accept paradox [to contain opposites] ... room and strength ... and originality and the acceptance of tradition as the basis for invention'. A monumental painting also meets this description. I argue that monumental art provides a visual portrait of an evolving personality just as myth, as Freud and Jung both showed, provides a narrative portrait of an evolving personality. An evolving personality is perhaps humankind's most important creation; an underlying purpose of both myth and art is to help us achieve it. I demonstrate in this book that monumental art represented the evolving personality since at least 35,000 BC. Thus to understand monumentality is to better understand the personality and its history. (shrink)

The monumental Encyclopedia of Religion (16 volumes), whose editor-in-chief was Mircea Eliade and which appeared in 1987, did not enjoy a welcome as expected, criticisms soon coming from researchers in several scientific fields. These criticisms related to the method used and the deep imprint that Eliade had on the work. The opinions echoed earlier criticisms of Eliade and his research method with reference to the field of History of Religions. If in the middle of the last century Eliade was considered (...) one of the greatest historians of religions, with the passage of time his authority in the field decreased. The same can be seen in the influence that the Eliadian work had, including the Encyclopedia of Religion. (shrink)

Statues, monuments, cenotaphs and markers litter the landscape of Plato’s Phaedrus. By drawing together these numerous references and examining the economy of these silent symbols, we can gain an insight into Plato’s project, especially as it relates to questions of narrative, speech and writing. While the examination of the myth of Theuth is familiar to scholars of both Plato and Derrida, what is often overlooked is the way in which writing and speech are represented in the text by (...) class='Hi'>monuments, which speak through silence, and more often than not memorialize those who can no longer speak, or whose speech is, like themselves, rendered dead in writing. Like the pharmakon of writing itself, statuary operates within the economy of signs, an economy of reminding, which within the system of metaphysics leads not to the transcendent realm of ideas but ties us to the realm of opinion. However, by examining the role of myth and its relation to statuary in the Phaedrus, a new interpretation emerges, which allows for myth and the silent voices of the dead as a way to initiation. (shrink)

An outstanding group of leaders left evidence that a richer and more sustainable democracy could be achieved with American independence and democratic principles integrated into a new republican form of government. They were moved by principles that are the very spirit of democracy. These principles are needed to enhance democracy and improve well-being. Using the constructivist tradition of grounded theory and Aristotle’s conception of abstraction, the article proposes a theory of the first principles of democracy based on substantive data: the (...) Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. Knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security are the first principles of democracy and are regarded as the bedrock of democracy and a government framework for the people. This theory contributed to a formal model of democratic social change. It also contributes a conceptual framework that supports Solum’s semantic originalism, a theory of constitutional interpretation. The principles of democracy can revitalize democracy and provide new possibilities by protecting education as an innate human right, abolishing capital punishment, criminalizing private prisons on the stock market, and reevaluating the proportionality of prison sentences. (shrink)

Existing social disparities in the United States are inconsistent with the promise of democracy; therefore, there was a need for critical conceptualization of the first principles that undergird American democracy and the genesis of democratic social change in America. This constructivist grounded theory study aimed to construct a grounded theory that provides an understanding of the process of American democratic social change as it emerged from the nation’s founding documents. A post hoc polytheoretical framework including Foucault’s, Bourdieu’s, and Marx and (...) Engels’s theories of power was used to understand power dynamics. The research question focused on understanding the process of democratic social change in America. The sample comprised the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution. The documents were retrieved from the National Archives and Library of Congress. The data analysis plan incorporated successive comparison, situational and dramaturgical analysis, deconstruction, and perspective taking as strategies. The result was the construction of a democratic social change process theory preceded by five grounded theories: (a) first principles of democracy, (b) first principles of democracy conceptual framework, (c) socio-ethical principles of democracy, (d) demoralizing process, and (e) either-or approach to democracy. Positive social change implications include applying a democratic social change process to future social change endeavors across domains and levels of analysis, a normative framework for a republican form of government, and a tool to analyze and minimize the latent consequences of social justice policies. (shrink)

Few scholars have explored the founding documents to identify the deliberate social change strategy that led to America's independence and a new form of government that was of, by, and for the people. This study aimed to apply a post-hoc polytheoretical framework of power to the findings of a democratic social change study to understand the dynamics of power between Great Britain and the American colonists. The original study employed the constructivist grounded theory tradition to explore democracy in the Declaration (...) of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. This produced two frameworks of power strategies, one empowering and the other demoralizing: principles of democracy and anti-democratic tenets. To gain a holistic perspective of the interplay of power, a polytheoretical framework of power consisting of theories of power proposed by Marx and Engels, Bourdieu, and Foucault was employed to discuss the findings. The findings suggested that democratic social change interacts with structural forces, culture, and power strategy selection. This could provide an alternative lens through which to explore whether people of color in America were used instrumentally to sustain democracy. (shrink)

We apply a familiar distinction from philosophy of language to a class of material artifacts that are sometimes said to “speak”: statues. By distinguishing how statues speak at the locutionary level versus at the illocutionary level, or what they say versus what they do, we obtain the resource for addressing two topics. First, we can explain what makes statues distinct from street art. Second, we can explain why it is mistaken to criticize—or to defend—the continuing presence of statues based only (...) on what they represent. Both explanations are driven by the same core idea: the significance of statues arises primarily from what they do, and not what they say. (shrink)

The self-worth of political communities is often understood to be an expression of their position in a hierarchy of power; if so, then the desire for self-worth is a source of competition and conflict in international relations. In early modern German natural law theories, one finds the alternative view, according to which duties of esteem toward political communities should reflect the degree to which they fulfill the functions of civil government. The present article offers a case study, examining the views (...) concerning confederation rights and the resulting duties of esteem in diplomatic relations developed by Christoph Besold (1577–1638). Besold defends the view that confederations including dependent communities—such as the Hanseatic League—could fulfill a stabilizing political function. He also uses sixteenth-century conceptions concerning the acquisition of sovereignty rights through prescription of immemorial time. Both strands of argument lead to the conclusion that the envoys of dependent communities can have the right to be recognized as ambassadors, with all the duties of esteem that follow from this recognition. (shrink)

In his monumental work Das Gastmahl des Platon (1869) the artist Anselm Feuerbach depicted the scene in Plato’s Symposium in which a drunken Alcibiades, accompanied by a band of revelers, enters the dining chamber of the house of the poet Agathon. We have reason to attribute three aims to the artist: (1) to recreate a famous scene from ancient Greek literature, making extensive use of recent archaeological discoveries in southern Italy; (2) through the depiction of a senate and dignified Agathon, (...) to convey a sense of the nobility of the ancient Greeks; and (3) to express in visual terms the contrast of reason with desire. As he set out to accomplish these objectives Feuerbach displayed considerable indifference to the details in Plato’s depiction. Thus, what Das Gastmahl offers us is less Plato’s symposium and more Feuerbach’s symposium, a visually striking but in several respects unfaithful recreation of the Platonic original. -/- . (shrink)

IT CAN BE ARGUED that there is no objective measurement of the influence of an individual’s thought upon collective social movements, especially in the case of direct democratic social movements for human emancipation from authority. This is certainly the case with Murray Bookchin, a revolutionary thinker who renounced Marxism to re-imagine anarchism and renounced anarchism to form his own political proposition of communalism and democratic confederalism. While it is impossible to measure the influence of Bookchin’s thought and action on the (...) current social-historical global timescape, it is also impossible to ignore it, visible as it is in the revolutionary democratic institution of Kurdish Rojava, and within contemporary ecological and social movements. When I embarked on an inquiry into the importance of Bookchin for Greek social movements, I understood that it was a task never to be completed. Τhe libertarian, anarchist editor Michalis Protopsaltis used to say, “It’s not the naked truth coming out of the well, it is just my opinion.”. (shrink)

In recent years, campaigns across the globe have called for the removal of objects symbolic of white supremacy. This paper examines the ethics of altering or removing such objects. Do these strategies sanitize history, destroy heritage and suppress freedom of speech? Or are they important steps towards justice? Does removing monuments and renaming schools reflect a lack of parity and unfairly erase local identities? Or can it sometimes be morally required, as an expression of respect for the memories of (...) people who endured past injustices; a recognition of this history's ongoing legacies; and a repudiation of unjust social hierarchies? (shrink)

The various ways whereby spatial conditions afford to monumentalize culture and to appropriate geographically demarcated places in terms of individual and collective meaning structures has been amply documented in urban cultural studies. However, considerably less attention has been paid to how cultural identity is produced against the background of musical temporality. By way of a phenomenological inquiry into the staged spectacle of James Corden’s (the host of CBS Network’s Late Late Show) Carpool Karaoke, this paper addresses the issues of directly (...) lived experience and authenticity as facets of cultural identity. By critically discussing the assumptions of self-presence and auto-affectivity while singing and listening to one’s sung voice against the background of pre-recorded songs, the notion of directly lived musical experience is put to the test. Furthermore, by examining the dramaturgical scaffolding of Carpool Karaoke, the analysis points to wider implications for post-modern cultural studies in terms of an identified ironic reversal of modernist universal criteria of legitimacy in favor of a celebration of postmodern being-with inauthentically. The analysis of the selected Carpool Karaoke corpus utilizes a resourceful blend of phenomenological method, semiotics and interpretive videography while challenging embedded orthodoxies in the extant literature. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that the corresponding rise of postmodernism and the triumph of neo-liberalism are not only not accidental, the triumph of neo-liberalism has been facilitated by postmodernism. Postmodernism has been primarily directed not against mainstream modernism, the modernism of Hobbes, Smith, Darwin and social Darwinism, but against the radical modernist quest for justice and emancipation with its roots in German thought. The Social Democratic State, the principles of which were articulated by Hegel, is construed as a (...) partial triumph of this radical modernism, realizing a higher level of reciprocal recognition and overcoming much of the brutality of the Liberal State. Postmodernism is shown to be a manifestation of the decadence of the Social Democratic State, characterized by the disintegration of cognitive and ethical developments which have been the condition for people to form communities based on reciprocal recognition. In this regard it parallels the decadence which took place in ancient Rome, for similar reasons: both the Roman Empire and the Social Democratic State reduced people to passive recipients of the benefits of their societies. The implications of this are twofold. If Social Democracy is to be revived, it will require a struggle for ‘strong’ democracy; that is, for a major role for participatory democracy. On the other hand if people opt for the creation of confederations of genuinely democratic communities to replace the State, this will not be achieved by postmodern decadence but through the developments of cognitive forms and communities through which the recognition of people as free agents is instititionalized. (shrink)

The aesthetic tradition has identified as paradigmatically sublime such objects as imposing mountains and intense storms, as well as monumental art. But the tradition also acknowledges less paradigmatic cases, including sometimes mathematical structures or abstract concepts. In this paper, we argue that there is also a case for considering phenomenal consciousness – the experiential quality of subjective awareness – as a sublime phenomenon. One appreciates this, we argue, when one is struck by (fitting) awe upon contemplating (a) the perplexing existence (...) of something like phenomenal consciousness in an otherwise completely material universe and (b) the role of consciousness in injecting meaning and value in an otherwise brutally factual reality. (shrink)

À l’origine de la philosophie comme des sciences, il y a, selon Aristote, « l’étonnement de ce que les choses sont ce qu’elles sont ». Nul doute qu’Aristote aurait trouvé en Suisse maints sujets d’étonnement. Qu’est-ce qu’une vache ? Qu’est-ce qu’une montagne ? Qu’est-ce que le Röstigraben ? Qu’est-ce qu’une fondue ? Qu’est-ce qu’un trou dans l’emmental ? Qu’est-ce que l’argent ? Qu’est-ce qu’une banque ? Qu’est-ce qu’une confédération ? Qu’est-ce qu’une horloge ? Qui est Roger Federer ? Qu’est-ce qu’est (...) Anton Marty ? Qu’est-ce que le plaisir de manger du chocolat ? -/- Chaque chapitre de cet ouvrage a été écrit par un spécialiste de renommée internationale et défend une solution claire à l’une de ces questions. Le tout constitue une introduction à la fois accessible et plaisante à un domaine de recherche philosophique aujourd’hui en effervescence : la métaphysique. (shrink)

En esta obra monumental de Jesper Lützen sobre la mecánica de Heinrich Hertz encontramos una magnífica exposición de la vida y obra de este insigne físico germano. Un interesante relato de las influencias intelectuales que modelaron su pensamiento científico, culmina con un exhaustivo análisis de la reformulación de la mecánica clásica que Hertz planteó poco antes de su prematuro fallecimiento.

Corey W. Dyck presents a new account of Kant's criticism of the rational investigation of the soul in his monumental Critique of Pure Reason, in light of its eighteenth-century German context. When characterizing the rational psychology that is Kant's target in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason chapter of the Critique commentators typically only refer to an approach to, and an account of, the soul found principally in the thought of Descartes and Leibniz. But Dyck argues that to do so is (...) to overlook the distinctive rational psychology developed by Christian Wolff, which emphasized the empirical foundation of any rational cognition of the soul, and which was widely influential among eighteenth-century German philosophers, including Kant. In this book, Dyck reveals how the received conception of the aim and results of Kant's Paralogisms must be revised in light of a proper understanding of the rational psychology that is the most proximate target of Kant's attack. In particular, he contends that Kant's criticism hinges upon exposing the illusory basis of the rational psychologist's claims inasmuch as he falls prey to the appearance of the soul as being given in inner experience. Moreover, Dyck demonstrates that significant light can be shed on Kant's discussion of the soul's substantiality, simplicity, personality, and existence by considering the Paralogisms in this historical context.Readership: Scholars and advanced students in history of philosophy, especially those working on Kant. (shrink)

In het spoor van de moord op George Floyd door een politieagent in Minneapolis, vinden er wereldwijd ‘Black Lives Matter’ protesten plaats. De beeldenstorm in ons land sluit hierbij aan. Acties van fanatici, of hebben ze een punt dat we liever niet onder ogen zien? Beelden van dubieuze nationale helden horen in museum thuis, niet op straat.

There have been many (and good) analyses of the Spanish left-populist party Podemos (2014-16) in terms of ideology, politics and class. However, this chapter focuses on an almost completely neglected dimension of its rise and fall: temporality. Firmly based on Nietzsche’s distinction in the Second Untimely Meditation between three “species of history” –the antiquarian, the critic and the monumental–, and moving on to Heidegger’s reinterpretation, which sees it as corresponding to the three “ecstatic times” –past, present and future–, the following (...) chapter applies this framework of analysis to the realm of politics by creating three different characters which may explain its relationship with time: the nostalgic (past), the opportunist (present) and the utopian (future). Through a detailed analysis of Podemos as a case study, the following chapter proposes that its internal conflict between the followers of Pablo Iglesias, Íñigo Errejón and the Anticapitalist Left cannot be only explained by recourse to the traditional categories of ideology, politics and class, but also more fundamentally as a dispute over time itself, in which the pablistas represented the primacy of the past (nostalgia), the errejonistas, the present (opportunity), and the anticapitalistas, the future (utopia). Since these three characters are equally one-sided if taken separately, this chapter ends with an attempt at a reconciliation of the three ecstatic times in a political reformulation of being-as-a-whole-within-time-ness. (shrink)

Once again the decision and court opinion are an element within the general understanding of law at least in the common law countries. A lawyerly way has implications in shaping the pattern of public administration, but in differing extent of public attraction or normative impact. -/- First, while the Constitution of United States had brought a popular democracy and Constitution-based structure of government, the Ancient Regime had been overhauled in new land. The “nobility” as a basis of government was dispelled, (...) and people arose as a main class or pillar of nation. As we take a precept of chaotic years from the Articles of Confederation thorough the Constitution, the earlier ambition was mixed between the diplomatic unity and one strong national government. This context implicates much over the centuries and can also be illustrated with a residue of classic and present practice of international politics. The characteristics as temporal for the years would more properly be sensible with the kinds of description, for example, “atmosphere of war, interstate comity or discredit, chaos from the heterogeneous regional power and social incongruence nationally.” A threat from the mainland Europe had been constant at considerable period of time upon the independence. For the nation, it is more urgent to make it clear who will decide the will of nation, how to effectively consolidate the function of government, or how to manage the least of nation with the subjects than active interaction with the people, although the people are one distinct element of new Constitution and ideologically pronounced in the preamble of Constitution. This generally led to recognition that the role of Constitution and Supreme Court were minimal in terms of public policy making and that their policy contained in the opinion often is sheer of internal issues among the public power other than those of people. The kind of Kantian ambition for the universal justice on liberty and equality, hence, should wait for more prosperous time afterwards that people tend to be conscious of their basic rights or public good from the arbitrary rule of majority, given our concocted recognition from the kind of public policy ideals from Bentham, “the greatest happiness of greatest number,” and “revolutionary spirit on people.” It perhaps would not be irrelevant, in understanding of the impact of judicial rulings on public policy, that the US is other than unitary system of government. Oftentimes the kind of rulings on criminalization of adultery or right to privacy would surprise the people, but the kind of oxymoron or public debate, as likely persistent over the decades and diverse reaction, would normally not be present in the jurisdictions of unitary system. The people of such jurisdictions would be more than receptive, and be readily marshaled to adapt with the public guidelines elucidated by the court ruling. We also chat on the multiculturalism in the society and workplace. Given the judicial activism, the Supreme Court justices might be clairvoyant, who would be equipped with goodwill, wisdom and almighty intelligence to assuage an untreatable scope of interests and state specificities. Foreign lawyers would find such ample source of laws in surprise, who might envy a wide coverage of judicial interests. They perhaps would take the US context as the kind of insightful classroom and learn the lessons from their case laws. (shrink)

Philosophical interest in state power has tended to focus on the state’s coercive powers rather than its expressive powers. I consider an underexplored aspect of the state’s expressive capacity: its capacity to use symbols (such as monuments, memorials, and street names) to promote political ends. In particular, I argue that the liberal state’s deployment of symbols to promote its members’ commitment to liberal ideals is in need of special justification. This is because the state’s exercise of its capacity to (...) use symbols may be in tension with respecting individual autonomy, particularly in cases in which the symbols exert influence without engaging citizens’ rational capacities. But despite the fact that the state’s deployment of symbols may circumvent citizens’ rational capacities, I argue that it may nonetheless be permissible when surrounded by certain liberal institutions and brought about via democratic procedures. (shrink)

Most believe that it is worse for a person to die than to continue to exist with a good life. At the same time, many believe that it is not worse for a merely possible person never to exist than to exist with a good life. I argue that if the underlying properties that make us the sort of thing we essentially are can come in small degrees, then to maintain this commonly-held pair of beliefs we will have to embrace (...) an implausible sort of evaluative hypersensitivity to slight nonevaluative differences. Avoidance of such hypersensitivity pressures us to accept that it can be worse for merely possible people never to exist. If this conclusion is correct, then the standard basis for giving no or less priority to merely possible persons would disappear (i.e., that things cannot be better or worse for them). Though defenders of Person-Affecting Views and their opponents may still disagree in theory, they could arrive at the same answers to many monumentally important practical questions. (shrink)

While anthropogenic species extinctions can be considered morally problematic for a range of reasons, they can also be described as a problem of interspecies justice. That is the focus of this paper in which we argue that human-caused species extinctions can be integrated within a non-anthropocentric account of reparative justice that is significantly similar to how reparation is understood within political theory at large. An account such as this faces a series of difficulties, such as how to make right past (...) injustices against victims that do not exist any longer and which belonged to species now extinct. For that purpose, we offer an argument in favour of symbolic forms of reparation in the form of, amongst other things, the preservation and restoration of habitat to materially repair the interspecies justice relationship; as well as monuments and education to honour the nonhuman dead. (shrink)