“Remember your humanity. Forget the rest”. (Bertrand Russell in Russell-Einstein Manifesto) In a nutshell, this review is not trying to propagate rocket science or eureka moment that scientifically finds the cure for all the ills of economic inequality like penicillin does for infections. This review is a basic but effective exploration into the true nature of social realities. This review holistically elaborates how economic inequality is leading to increasing polarization in our societies. Two important drivers of increasing inequality are highlighted (...) here as finance and technology and their contributions to higher polarization is detailed. A case study of polarization is followed along with the conclusion. (shrink)

Given how much importance there is of economics and finance in our lives as humans (materialist side is foremost as per Marx), it should be given more importance by Philosophy and Sociology. This brief report is meant to highlight few research paradigms available in Philosophy and Sociology to give its proper social context and provide deep underlying of Risk, Insurance and Finance.

This paper provides an account of Kierkegaard’s central criticism of the Danish Hegelians. Contrary to recent scholarship, it is argued that this criticism has a substantive theoretical basis and is not merely personal or ad hominem in nature. In particular, Kierkegaard is seen as criticizing the Hegelians for endorsing an unacceptable form of intellectual elitism, one that gives them pride of place in the realm of religion by dint of their philosophical knowledge. A problem arises, however, because this criticism (...) threatens to apply to Kierkegaard himself. It is shown that Kierkegaard manages to escape this problem by virtue of the humorous aspect of his work. (shrink)

Contribution to a Symposium on Joseph Margolis.

The purpose of the paper is to examine trade boycott of Arab countries of Danish goods and role of WTO.

The controversy that accompanied the publication and reprinting of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed as part of a 2005 editorial in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has been widely interpreted as yet another illustration of an ineliminable tension between multiculturalism and liberalism. Such an interpretation would have us believe that what is at issue in defending the cartoons is our commitment to civil liberties as a mainstay of liberal democracy. But is this really what is at issue? A closer examination (...) suggests that what is actually being defended in this case is not civil liberty but civil privilege. In particular, what is at issue is the privilege to exclude and define Muslims. (shrink)

This study rethinks the critical reception of Hegelianism in nineteenth-century France, arguing that this reception orbits around "pantheism" as the central political-theological threat. It is Hegel’s alleged pantheism that French authors often take to be the root cause of the other dangers that become associated with Hegelianism over the course of the century, ranging from the defence of the status quo to radical socialism to pangermanism. Moreover, the widespread fixation on the term "pantheism" as the enemy of all (...) that is true, and as the term that defines the age, is symptomatic of the perception of the nineteenth century by its contemporaries as a period of crisis and turmoil, in which heretical energies are let loose that threaten to unground all authority and all transcendence. More speculatively, I suggest in the conclusion that it is the same energies that the term "communism" comes to capture, too. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the determinants of women’s representation on boards of directors based on a panel of all privately owned or listed Danish firms with at least 50 employees observed during the period 1998–2010. We focus on the directors who are not elected by the employees and test three hypotheses on female board representation that we denote the female-led hypothesis, the tokenism hypothesis, and the pipeline hypothesis, respectively. We find evidence rejecting the female-led hypothesis. Firms with a female chairperson (...) on the board of directors tend to have significantly fewer other non-employee-elected female board members. We also find clear evidence of a tokenism behavior in Danish companies. The likelihood of enlarging the share of non-employee-elected female board members is significantly smaller if one, two, or more women have sat on the board of directors. Finally, the pipeline hypothesis is partly confirmed. The relation between the female pipeline of potentially qualified directors and female directors is weaker than the similar relation for males. Our findings offer insights to policy makers interested in promoting gender diversity within boardrooms. Our empirical evidence suggests that an important way to increase the female proportion of non-employee-elected board members is that more women reach top executive positions. (shrink)

The article is focused on Honneth’s teleology of history, presented as a historical process of gradual realization of an immanent normative ‘telos’, and not only as a form of axiological evaluation...

With the coronavirus pandemic and the Omicron variant once again forcing countries into lockdown, this essay seeks to outline a Foucauldian critique of various legal measures taken by the Danish government to cope with COVID-19 during the first year and a half of the pandemic. The essay takes a critical look at the extra-legal measures employed by the Danish government, as the Danish politicians attempted to halt the spread of the, now almost forgotten, Cluster 5 COVID-19 variant. (...) This situation will serve as a critical point from where to start using Foucault’s writings on life and biopolitics in order to expose various legally problematic governmental decisions that became visible during the handling of COVID-19 in general and the Cluster 5 mutation in particular. Reframing the pandemic within Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, this essay concludes that the state of exception has led to an increase in biopolitical logic, where some lives have come to matter more than others. As a critical counterpoint to this logic, the conclusion suggests that the notion of biocommunism could provide a suitable reconfiguration of communism. A reconfiguration that could mitigate some of the issues related to biopolitics is uncovered earlier in the essay. (shrink)

In 2009, a law was passed in the Danish parliament, according to which judges cannot wear religious symbols in courts of law. First, I trace the development of this legislation from resistance to Muslim religious practices on the nationalist right to ideas in mainstream Danish politics about secularism and state neutrality – a process I refer to as ‘liberalization’. Second, I consider the plausibility of such liberal justifications for restrictions on religious symbols in the public sphere and, in (...) particular, for the ban on the wearing of religious symbols by judges. I argue that such justifications are flawed and so are not plausible corollaries of anti-Islamic justifications originating on the nationalist right. (shrink)

In hindsight, it is not surprising that the exegesis of Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi developed into one of the most substantial parts of the Latin commentary tradition. To make a long story short, in its customary capacity as the art of arts and the science of sciences, medieval logic was primarily concerned with discerning the true from the false in arguments as they occur in natural, ordinary speech as opposed to the more formalised parlance later logicians will resort to. It makes (...) perfect sense, then, that medieval logicians paid special attention to everything that threatens sound reasoning and that prevents us from speaking the truth. Indeed, they were second to none and better than most at exposing and elucidating arguments’ flaws and shortcomings. After all, as John Buridan – faithful to a long and illustrious tradition – aptly put it, «rooting out errors» is logic’s first order of business. As early as the 1140s, Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi provided the most fertile ground for such keen interest in fallacies; which, in turn, explains etc. This much is uncontroversial or, at any rate, can withstand any amount of scrutiny we care to throw at it. Courtesy – first and foremost – of Sten Ebbesen, whose long-standing interest in medieval writings on bad arguments has turned the Byzantine and Latin aftermath of Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi into well-charted territory, by all standards. The Anonymus Cantabrigiensis has played no small part in shaping this picture. As a matter of fact, time and again over the last forty years or so, quotes and insights from the anonymous work have kept showing up in Ebbesen’s editions and studies: since he first discovered the commentary in the late 1970s and brought it to the general attention, Ebbesen has routinely drawn on the Anonymus as an early witness of the circulation of Aristotelian logical works and related texts, as a convenient illustration of major trends and distinctive features of the Latin literature on fallacies, and as a sensible interpreter in his own right. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that the publication of cartoons caricaturing Islam by Jyllands- Posten is problematic for a number of reasons. First, within liberal political theory itself, there are reasonable arguments that the depictions (at least two) perpetuate prejudice and verge on hate speech. Second, such depictions weaken the social conditions that make possible a thriving democracy (i.e., participation) by marginalizing the already marginalized. Moreover, the caricatures perpetuate an Orientalist discourse about the nature of Islam and the non-West, and (...) hinder global intercultural dialogue and understanding between nations. (shrink)

In 1931, Evgeny Pashukanis, the distinguished Soviet jurist, author of “The General Theory of Law and Marxism”, following an invitation to celebrate the centenary of Hegel’s death, published an assay entitled “Hegel, the State and Law” (Гегель. Государство и право) aimed to demistify, through a brief retrospective of Hegelian’s philosophy, its specific use, something achieved through the bourgeois ideology which, at some point in history, abandoned Kantism and its followers to embrace Neo-Hegelianism as a philosophy of domination and social (...) control. In this unpublished text, Pashukanis reflects, from a Marxist and Leninist point of view, on the ability to use Hegel as a bourgeois defense tool, when a particular society, specifically the one from the 1920s to the 1930s, began to be affected by the fear of communism and by the crises that endanger its very survival. From this angle, the capitalist interest - following Pashukanisian interpretation of Hegel - will only develop in the terms of a scientific elimination of all those subversive potentials that the economic crisis is destined to produce, thus reformulating the notions of State and Law which, in between obedience, discipline and defense of the homeland, come to assert the official recognition of the inexorably crushed proletariat in a condition in which all relations of production and social reproduction are transferred to the realm of exploitation, as its definitive subsumption to capital. (shrink)

The Danish word 'incognito' means to appear in disguise, or to act under an unfamiliar, assumed name (or title) in order to avoid identification. As a concept, incognito occurs in several of Kierkegaard’s works, but only becomes a subject of reflection in two: the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments by Johannes Climacus and Practice in Christianity by Anti-Climacus. Both pseudonyms develop the concept from their own perspective and must be understood on their own terms. Johannes Climacus treats incognito (...) as a category of existence, defining it as a comic contradiction that creates a disguise in order to hide and protect the inwardness of the existing individual. However, Anti-Climacus treats incognito as a category of communication. He defines it as “a sign of contradiction” that creates a disguise in order to activate and disclose the inwardness of a listener or reader. (shrink)

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) conceived of himself as the Socrates of nineteenth century Copenhagen. Having devoted the bulk of his first major work, *The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates*, to the problem of the historical Socrates, Kierkegaard maintained at the end of his life that it is to Socrates that we must turn if we are to understand his own philosophical undertaking: "The only analogy I have before me is Socrates; my task is a (...) Socratic task." The overall aim of my dissertation is to examine and critically assess this claim, and ultimately to argue that the Socratic nature of Kierkegaard's endeavor finds its fullest expression in the activity and writings of one of his best-known literary creations, Johannes Climacus, the pseudonymous author of *Philosophical Fragments* and *Concluding Unscientific Postscript*. The first part of my dissertation addresses Kierkegaard's own status as a Socratic figure. I examine Kierkegaard's claim that his refusal to call himself a Christian--in a context where it was the social norm to do so--is methodologically analogous to Socrates' stance of ignorance. I also consider how the use of a pseudonymous manner of writing allows Kierkegaard to employ a Socratic method. In the second part of my dissertation I focus on Kierkegaard's pseudonym Johannes Climacus and his claim that his contemporaries suffer from a peculiar kind of ethical and religious forgetfulness. I argue that Climacus adopts two Socratic stances in order to address this condition. In *Philosophical Fragments* he adopts the stance of someone who has intentionally "forgotten" the phenomenon of Christianity, whereas in the *Postscript* he adopts the stance of someone who openly declares that he is not a Christian. In the process, he develops a conception of philosophy that places a premium on self-restraint and an individual's ability to employ the first personal "I." As Climacus emerges as Kierkegaard's Socratic pseudonym par excellence, we obtain two significant results: a deeper understanding of Kierkegaard's conception of Socrates and Socratic method, and a compelling conception of philosophy rooted in Greek antiquity. (shrink)

Translated into Danish by Henrik Jøker Bjerre.

Summary In 1915 the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin describes in his famous work on figure-ground perception, the phenomenon that when you look attentively at a picture, a second, virtual ego arises, breaking away from the viewer-ego to wander around in the picture along the contours of the depicted. In 1982, German Gestalt psychologist Edwin Rausch expanded this observation of the emergence of a second phenomenal ego to the conclusion that not only does a second phenomenal ego emerge, but with (...) it a second phenomenal total field, ie a second phenomenal world with its own phenomenal ego and an own phenomenal environment of this ego. Several years ago, I proposed a multi-field-approach in psychotherapy building on this research. This approach involves three levels: First, the level of phenomenological observation and psychological analysis of the conditions that determine the formation of such a second total field (and even further total fields), regardless of whether this occurs spontaneously or intentionally or as a result of external influences. Second, the level of explanation of various psychic processes, which in the field of psychotherapy have been explained so far mainly on the basis of depth psychology, and the conceptualization of the therapeutic situation and therapeutic processes from a Gestalt psychological perspective. Third, finally, the level of practical application of such insights on the development of appropriate procedures and interventions that can promote or defer the emergence of such second or multiple fields in psychotherapy. The present article introduces the multi-field approach, especially at the first level, and refers to research and discussion on mind wandering, imagining, daydreaming and dissociation. (shrink)

Willard V. Quine’s 1951 article, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (Two Dogmas) was taken to be revolutionary because it rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction and the thesis that empirical statements are confirmed individually rather than holistically. The present chapter, however, argues that the overcoming of modern philosophy already included the overcoming of these theses by Hegelians, pragmatists and two critics of Hegelianism and pragmatism, Grace and Theodore de Laguna. From this perspective, Two Dogmas offers a Hegelian epistemology that was already superseded (...) in 1910. The perspective is largely based on the de Lagunas’ 1910 book Dogmatism and Evolution: Studies in Modern Philosophy. The de Lagunas’ book also helps to make clear that the real revolution Two Dogmas participated in was the marginalisation of their work and that of other speculative philosophers. Grace de Laguna surely recognised much of this when she stood opposite Quine as he first presented Two Dogmas. (shrink)

György Lukács’s Marxist phase is usually associated with his passage from neo-Kantianism to Hegelianism. Nonetheless, Nietzschean influences have been covertly present in Lukács’s philosophical development, particularly in his uncompromising distaste for the bourgeois society and the mediocrity of its quotidian values. A closer glance at Lukács’s corpus discloses that the influence of Nietzsche has been eclipsed by the Hegelian turn in his thought. Lukács hardly ever mentions the weight of Nietzsche on his early thinking, an influence that makes cameo (...) appearances throughout his lifetime writings. During the period of his adherence to a Stalinist approach to communism, his new subjectivity seems to be re-constituted through a disavowal of his earlier romantic anti-capitalism. Implicit in Lukács’s attack on Nietzsche in the Destruction of Reason (1952) is an acerbic reaction to the mute presence of the latter in his earlier thought. Apart from his ignorance of the unreliability of the collection of the Will to Power edited by Peter Gast and Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, his battle against the anti-proletariat Nietzsche in the Destruction is waged on a metaphysical, non-historical plain. Lukács’s pre-Marxist works (Soul and Form, On Poverty of Spirit, and The Theory of the Novel) in a sense betray the instance of a writer who writes most of someone where he omits his name. Thus perceived, Lukács’s early corpus lends itself to a symptomatic reading. -/- This essay seeks to extract the Nietzschean undercurrents of Lukács’s work through a reflection on the romantic anti-capitalist tendencies that the young Lukács shared with Nietzsche. For although it may appear that Nietzsche lacked a clear politics, his criticism of the bourgeois ethos as a structure based on debt/guilt [Schuld], and his critique of modern value-system and nihilism paved the way for the emergence of Lukács’s theory of reification. Nietzsche’s category of 'transvaluation of values’ suggests a total transfiguration of reality, a radical rupture with the ordinary state of things, and as such carries within itself a revolutionary promise. Drawing a distinction between political romanticism and romantic politics, I argue that romantic anti-capitalism contains a potential for the latter. The essay further traces the link between Lukács’s ‘romantic politics’ and the persistence of a thought of the tragic (a ‘tragic vision’) in his texts that, despite its temporary decline during his realist period, is undismissable in different constellations of his thought. (shrink)

I argue that the familiar picture of the rise of analytic philosophy through the early work of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell is incomplete and to some degree erroneous. Archival evidence suggests that a considerable influence on Moore, especially evident in his 1899 paper ‘The nature of judgment,’ comes from the literature in nineteenth-century empirical psychology rather than nineteenth-century neo-Hegelianism, as is widely believed. I argue that the conceptual influences of Moore’s paper are more likely to have had (...) their source in the work of two of Moore’s teachers, G. F. Stout and James Ward. What may be called an anti-psychologism about psychology characterizes the work of these and other psychologists of the period. I argue that the anti-psychologism that is the main aim of Moore’s early theory of judgment is an adaptation of this notion, which is significantly dissimilar from the notion defended by Bradley, traditionally thought to have been a key influence on Moore.Keywords: G. E. Moore; Bertrand Russell; Propositions; Anti-psychologism; Early analytic philosophy; G. F. Stout. (shrink)

Russell’s rejection in 1898 of the doctrine of internal relations — the view that all relations are grounded in the intrinsic properties of the terms related — was a decisive part of his break with Hegelianism and opened the way for his turn to analytic philosophy. Before rejecting it, Russell had given the doctrine little thought, though it played an essential role in the most intractable of the problems facing his attempt to construct a Hegelian dialectic of the sciences. (...) I argue that it was Russell’s early reading of Leibniz, in preparation for his lectures on Leibniz given at Cambridge in 1899, that most probably alerted him to the role the doctrine was playing in his own philosophy. Leibniz defended a similar doctrine and extricated it from difficulties like those faced by Russell by means of devices that were not open to Russell. Russell would have come across these views of Leibniz in writings by Leibniz that he read in the summer of 1898, just before he rejected the doctrine of internal relations. (shrink)

Aesthetic autonomy has been given a variety of interpretations, which in many cases involve a number of claims. Key among them are: (i) art eludes conventional conceptual frameworks and their inherent incompatibility with invention and creativity; and (ii) art can communicate aspects of experience too fine‐grained for discursive language. To accommodate such claims one can adopt either a convention‐based account or a natural‐kind account. A natural‐kind theory can explain the first but requires some special scaffolding in order to support the (...) second, while a convention‐based account accommodates the second but is incompatible with the first. Theodor W. Adorno attempts to incorporate both claims within his aesthetic theory, but arguably in his aesthetic theory each is cancelled out by the other. Art’s independence of entrenched conceptual frameworks needs to be made compatible with its communicative role. Jürgen Habermas, in contrast, provides a solution by way of his theory of language. I draw upon the art practice of the contemporary Icelandic‐Danish artist Olafur Eliasson in order to demonstrate this. (shrink)

Review of Etienne Balibar's On Universals with an eye towards Balibar's Hegelianism and work on translation.

This article tries to make sense of the concept of repetition in Søren Kierkegaard’s works. According to Kierkegaard repetition is a temporal movement of existence. What is repetition and what is its meaning for human existence? In answering this question the Danish philosopher depicts repetition by comparing three different approaches to life. Throughout the article I try to develop a coherent argument on ‘the new philosophical category’by analysing the three types of repetition and their corresponding human prototypes. I consider (...) repetition a key concept in summarizing Kierkegaard’s theory of existence, where existence pictures the becoming of the human-self that follows several stages. Constantin Constantius’s repetition is an unsuccessful attempt, an aesthetic expression of human-life. The young lover’s repetition is spiritual, albeit not yet authentic, religious, but more poetic, even if he regains his self. Only Job’s repetition is an authentic movement of existence, an expression of a spiritual trial and of genuine faith. (shrink)

This paper describes the Danish legal framework for district cooling as an example of a model which so far has had limited success. A number of suggestions are analysed and discussed.

Oliver Marchart constructs an elaborate ontologization of the political that builds on theories developed by the Essex School while relying on Heideggerianism and Hegelianism. This original thought is a powerful and convincing attempt to think the ontology of the political without lapsing into a celebration of essentialist grounding or complete groundlessness, which are equally metaphysical and mutually supporting positions. Tensions arise within Marchart’s own thought when the notion of instrumentality appears to be inscribed solely on the side of politics (...) or the ontic. I suggest that a theory of practical judgment that is inchoate in Marchart’s own position can resolve the tensions toward constructing a genuinely materialist ontology. (shrink)

This paper will analyze the evolution and the key aspects of René Girard’s critique of the Hegelian “struggle for recognition” and the master-slave dialectic. Through a discussion of Girard’s views on Identity, Difference, Violence, Desire and Negativity, the study will aim to highlight the philosophical uniqueness of the mimetic theory in respect to French Hegelianism and postHegelianism.

Job burnout, organizational commitment, and work environment continue to be important areas of research to be studied in the realm of company employment and employee retention. Job burnout is the state of physical and emotional exhaustion and perceiving one’s profession as dull or overwhelming. Meanwhile, organizational commitment refers to the company’s attitude towards the organization and their employees, encompassing loyalty, moral responsibility, and their willingness to work. And lastly, work environment provides opportunities for employees to establish connections, develop skills, and (...) maximize their full potential in performing tasks. For the current study, researchers utilized descriptive-correlational research design to investigate the influence of Work Environment towards the job burnout and organizational commitment of BPO agents in selected companies in Bulacan, Philippines. Hence, Danish Psychosocial Work Environment Questionnaire (DPQ), Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS), and the Three-Dimensional Model of Organizational Commitment Scale (ACS, NCS, CCS) were employed to properly assess the study's objectives. Multiple Linear Regression Analysis was performed to analyze the collected data. Based on the analysis, findings show that work environment has no significant influence on the job burnout and organizational commitment of BPO Agents. Furthermore, the results of this study were thoroughly evaluated, leading to an in-depth discussion. Based on the findings, recommendations were made to benefit the stakeholders of the study and contributeto the existing body of knowledge. (shrink)

Although the economic thought of Marshall and Pigou was united by ethical positions broadly considered utilitarian, differences in their intellectual milieu led to degrees of difference between their respective philosophical visions. This change in milieu includes the influence of the little understood period of transition from the early idealist period in Great Britain, which provided the context to Marshall’s intellectual formation, and the late British Idealist period, which provided the context to Pigou’s intellectual formation. During this latter period, the pervading (...) Hegelianism and influences of naturalism arising from the ideas of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer were challenged by Hermann Lotze, a key transitional thinker influencing the Neo-Kantian movement, who recognised significant limits of naturalism, on the one hand, and the metaphysical tenor of absolute idealism, on the other, and attempted to provide a balance between the two. The goal of this paper is to make the provisional case for the argument that Pigou’s views on ethics were not only directly influenced by utilitarian thinkers like Mill and Sidgwick, but they were also indirectly influenced by Hermann Lotze, via the influence of the Neo- Kantian movement on late British idealism. To that end, Pigou’s essays in The Trouble with Theism (1908), including his sympathetic consideration of the ethics of Friedrich Nietzsche, reflect the influence of Lotze indirectly through the impact at Cambridge of: James Ward’s critique of associationist psychology, and consideration of the limits of naturalism including the critique of evolutionary ethics; Bertrand Russell’s rejection of neo-Hegelianism and, together with Alfred North Whitehead, the development of Logicism; and G.E. Moore’s critique of utilitarian ethics on the basis of the naturalistic fallacy and the development of his own intuitionist system of ethics. (shrink)

This paper traces the ancestry of a familiar historiographical narrative, according to which early modern philosophy was marked by the development of empiricism, rationalism, and their synthesis by Immanuel Kant. It is often claimed that this narrative became standard in the nineteenth century, due to the influence of Thomas Reid, Kant and his disciples, or German Hegelians and British Idealists. The paper argues that the narrative became standard only at the turn of the twentieth century. This was not due to (...) the influence of Reid, German Hegelians, or British Idealists as they did not endorse the narrative, although Thomas Hill Green may have facilitated its uptake. The narrative is based on Kant’s historiographical sketches, as corrected and integrated by Karl Leonhard Reinhold. It was first fleshed out into full-fledged histories by two Kantians, Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann and Johann Gottlieb Buhle. Numerous historians, several of whom were not Kantians, spread it in the English-speaking world. They include Kuno Fischer, Friedrich Ueberweg, Richard Falckenberg, and Wilhelm Windelband. However, the wide availability of their works did not suffice to make the narrative standard because, until the 1890s, the Hegelian account was at least as popular as theirs. Among the factors that allowed the narrative to become standard are its aptness to be adopted by philosophers of the most diverse persuasions, its simplicity and suitability for teaching. (shrink)

Until very recently the received wisdom on Russell’s moral philosophy was that it is uninspired and derivative, from Moore in its first phase and from Hume and the emotivists in its second. In my view this is a consensus of error. In the latter part of this essay I contend: 1) that Russell’s ‘work in moral philosophy’ had at least three, and (depending how you look at it) up to six ‘main phases’; 2) that in some of those phases, it (...) was not derivative, but on the contrary, highly original; 3) that Russell was a pioneer of two of the chief forms of ethical anti-realism that have dominated debate in this century, emotivism and the error theory (so that if the theory of Human Society was derived from emotivism, it was derived from a family of theories that Russell himself helped to create); 4) that the revolt against Hegelianism, which led to the birth of Analytic Philosophy, had an ethical dimension to it; and 5) that Russell played an important part in the debates that led up to Moore’s Principia Ethica, so that the view form which his own opinions were derived is one that he helped to develop. -/- I also argue that Russell himself pioneered a rather puritanical conception of philosophy which tended to extrude his own writings on politics and practical ethics as not really philosophical. Since this conception has been largely abandoned, it is time to let them back into the fold. I argue that this views of practical affairs are often backed by interesting philosophical arguments, illustrating this thesis with a reconstruction and critique of Russell’s Hobbesian argument for world government. (shrink)

The following is a critical reconstruction of the collaboration between Bauer and Marx between 1839 and 1842. The turbulences in the period in question reveal themselves in Marx’s thought as well as in his relationship with Bruno Bauer. Correspondingly, Marx’s detours, false paths, dead ends and abandoned work are therefore made the focus of this study. The ambivalent initial relations between the two of them, which both made their collaboration possible and hindered it, clearly go back further than 1841, when (...) Bauer was not yet an atheist and was still a proponent of church doctrine. This was the Bruno Bauer that Marx had come to know in the Doctor’s Club. We then meet Bauer the atheist at the end of 1839 or perhaps the beginning of 1840, as he was planning a comprehensive attack on orthodox theology and wanted Marx to fight on his side. This attack continued in Bauer’s Trumpet and in Hegel’s Doctrine. (shrink)

On analogy with testimony, I define a notion of a scientific theory’s lacking or having candor, in a testing situation, according to whether the theory under test is probabilistically relevant to the processes in the test procedures, and thereby to the reliability of test outcomes. I argue that this property identifies what is distinctive about those theories that Karl Popper denounced as exhibiting “reinforced dogmatism” through their self-protective behavior (e.g., psychoanalysis, Hegelianism, Marxism). I explore whether lack of candor interferes (...) with the testing of theories, and conclude that (1) our default attitude toward theories that lack candor in a given test should be suspicion, but (2) the circumstance that a theory lacks candor in a testing situation does not preclude obtaining independent evidence for the auxiliary assumptions to which the theory is probabilistically relevant, and thereby eliminating the problem that lack of candor creates. Thus, Popper was right to think that lack of candor is a bad thing, but wrong to conclude that candor is a criterion of the scientificity of a theory. Seeing this requires recognition of some differences between intuitive relevance and probabilistic relevance, and proper appreciation of the notion of screening off and of the fact that probabilistic relevance is not transitive. (shrink)

Quadruple Helix Collaborations (QHCs) is a cooperation model in which industry, government, academia, and the public interact to innovate. This paper analyses the impact of a training intervention to provide specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes to deal with barriers commonly found in the progress of QHCs. We designed, implemented, and evaluated three training programs in Austrian, Colombian, Danish, and Spanish institutions. We analysed trainees’ (n = 66) and trainers’ (n = 9) perceptions to identify the competencies acquired with the (...) intervention and the approach’s limitations. We used online questionnaires (35 trainees; 9 trainers), semi-structured interviews (10 trainees), and a focus group (6 trainers). Trainees answered positively regarding their self-perception about the impact of the course and highlighted the acquisition of inspiration for their practice (score 4.1 out of 5.0) and knowledge (3.7). In contrast, they perceived that a deeper interaction with other participants (2.7) was challenging. After the courses, 74% of respondents indicated that they know more about how QHCs work in practice, and 86% about collaboration or engagement methods. Moreover, participants plan to be more sensitive towards setting common goals (71%) and power imbalances (63%). Trainers’ perceptions align with those expressed by participants, except that they considered that the interaction amongst participants during the course was higher. Qualitative analysis of interviews with participants and the focus group with trainers provides more detail about the strengths and weaknesses of the intervention. Our study shows that the collaborative design and implementation of training impact the participant’s learning competencies, with potential implications in their medium- to long-term practice. (shrink)

In recent literature, it has been suggested that Lange’s social and political philosophy is separate from his neo-Kantian program. Prima facie, this interpretation makes sense given that Lange argues for an account of social norms that builds on Darwin and Smith rather than on Kant. Still, this paper argues that elements of psychophysiological transcendentalism can be found in Lange’s social and political philosophy. A detailed examination of the second edition of the History of Materialism, Schiller’s Poems, and the second edition (...) of The Worker’s Question reveals that Lange sought to develop a systematic foundation of psychophysiological transcendentalism that is presupposed in his social and political philosophy. This allows for a more detailed understanding of Lange’s practical philosophy and assures him a position in the tradition of neo-Kantian socialism. (shrink)

The discovery of a letter in the Niels Bohr archives written by Bohr to a Danish schoolteacher in which he reveals his early knowledge of the Daodejing led the present author on a search to unveil the influence of the philosophy of Yin-Yang on Bohr's famed complementarity principle in Western physics. This paper recounts interviews with his son, Hans, who recalls Bohr reading a translated copy of Laozi, as well as Hanna Rosental, close friend and associate who also confirms (...) the influence of ancient Chinese philosophy on this major figure in Western physics. As with Bohr’s dual perspective approach to the wave-particle, in which describing matter as either wave or particle is not considered inherently contradictory, this article likewise argues that Eastern and Western perspectives about philosophy, reality and life in general need not antagonize one another as is the case in Hegelian dialecticism. Through developing a globally accessible, harmonized system of Eastern and Western thought, this article suggests that individuals can more easily overcome limitations arising from cultural singularity in conventional philosophical approaches and, in turn, achieve a greater degree of social harmony and depth of philosophical understanding, all in the same stroke. (shrink)

Extended and distributed cognition theories argue that human cognitive systems sometimes include non-biological objects. On these views, the physical supervenience base of cognitive systems is thus not the biological brain or even the embodied organism, but an organism-plus-artifacts. In this paper, we provide a novel account of the implications of these views for learning, education, and assessment. We start by conceptualising how we learn to assemble extended cognitive systems by internalising cultural norms and practices. Having a better grip on how (...) extended cognitive systems are assembled, we focus on the question: If our cognition extends, how should we educate and assess such extended cognitive systems? We suggest various ways to minimize possible negative effects of extending one’s cognition and to efficiently find and organise (online) information by adopting a virtue epistemology approach. Educational and assessment implications are foregrounded, particularly in the case of Danish students’ use of the Internet during exams. (shrink)

Photomechanical reprint of papers & review articles from 1974 to 1992 mostly in German, some in Swedish or Danish: AUFSÄTZE ‘Beiträge zu den Beziehungen zwischen Gustav Radbruch & Georg Lukács’ [1979] / ‘Die Entwicklung des rechtstheoretischen Denkens in der Ungarischen Räterepublik’ [1969] / ‘Die Kodifikation & ihr Verfall in der Entwicklungsgeschichte der bürgerlichen Demokratie’ [1978] / ‘Rationalitet och rättens objektifiering’ [1975] / ‘Utopi og Kodifikation’ [1976] / ‘Historisches Wesen & aktuelle Bedeutung der Kodifikation’ [1977] / ‘Rechtssetzung als Objektivationsprozesses’ [1979] (...) / ‘Die ministerielle Begründung in rechtsphilosophischer Sicht’ [1977] / ‘Moderne Staatlichkeit & modernes formales Recht’ [1982] / ‘Leibniz & die Frage der rechtlichen Systembildung’ [1973] / ‘Der Systemcharacter des Rechts’ [1979] / ‘Die grundlegende Gesellschaftlichkeit der Rechtsanwendung’ [1978] / ‘Über die Rechtsanwendung (Ontologische Überlegungen)’ [1986] / ‘Recht & Rechtsverwirklichung (»Juristischer Weltbild«, Subsumption & Manipulation)’ [1979] / ‘Hans Kelsens Rechtsanwendungslehre (Entwicklung, Mehrdeutigkeiten, offene Probleme, Perspektiven)’ [1986] / ‘Geltung des Rechts – Wirksamkeit des Rechts’ [1978] / ‘Heterogeneität & Geltung des Rechts’ [1979] / ‘Hans Kelsens’ Reine Rechtslehre – gestern, heute, morgen’ [1988] / ‘Für die Selbständigkeit der Rechtspolitik’ [1985] / ‘Die Gewaltenteilung (Ideologie & Utopie im politischen Denken)’ [1984] / ‘Rechtskultur – Denkkultur’ [1988] // ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEN / REZENSIONEN [by & on the author]. (shrink)

This chapter deals with German philosophy from Leibniz to Fichte, which formed an important part of Kierkegaard's intellectual background. In this period German philosophy came to dominate Danish philosophy. However, Kierkegaard's attitude toward his German predecessors is generally ambivalent, involving both critique and admiration. Although Kierkegaard was fluent in German and very familiar with classic German philosophy, his use of this philosophy is somewhat eclectic and assimilated to his own ends. Kierkegaard uses his German predecessors to develop a distinction (...) between the spheres of existence and thought and to reinforce what he took to be genuine Christian faith. (shrink)

In his lucid and helpful reply, Chris Drain (2021) clarifies some of his views and aims and offers pertinent criticisms of my own. Drain refocuses my forays into Pittsburgh Hegelianism onto Vygotsky’s own thought. He rightly notes that Brandom’s account of deontic scorekeeping tells us nothing about phylogenesis. Sellars too has little to say about the origins of language and social practice and I would endorse the projects of those who turn to Tomasello to fill such gaps (Koons 2018). (...) However, I still do not think Drain has got Vygotsky’s Hegel right. I do not think one can substitute “Hegelian” for “Janetian”, and I hope to show why this matters. -/- Drain also objects to my characterization of Tomasello as Cartesian. There is of course a long line of philosophers from Deleuze to Dennett charging all those who fall across their path with covert Cartesianism. I will not besmirch this venerable custom here. In my reply I contrast the Hegelian-Marxist approach to language of Vygotsky with the Cartesian approach of Tomasello. I conclude by suggesting some active research programmes which overcome this Cartesiansim while following the trajectories of Vygotsky’s own project. (shrink)

From Buñuel and Dali’s Un Chien Andalou to recent works by Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, the cinematic destruction of the eye has become iconic due to its striking effect upon film spectators’ visceral experiences as well as its ability to influence their symbolic or fetishistic desires. By exploiting the natural discomfort and disgust produced by these types of images and then situating them within an aesthetic and psychoanalytic framework, Refn and other filmmakers provide a visual showcase for a (...) unique type of cinematic violence, one which demands that viewers reappraise the value of their own eyes as well as the values which reflect social attitudes towards law enforcement, crime, and justice. (shrink)

Max Jammer claimed that, "There can be no doubt that the Danish precursor of modern existentialism and neo-orthodox theology, Soren Kierkegaard, through his influence on Bohr, affected also the course of modern physics to some extent." Despite Jammer's failure to supply sufficient evidence for this claim, I argue that it is not completely off base. In particular, I argue that Kierkegaard and Bohr belong to a common philosophical tradition, and I begin to investigate some of the themes that characterize (...) this tradition. (shrink)

Art often is the subject of philosophy; it is more rare that a work of art becomes philosophy, pursued by means other than language. In its cinematic way, Son of Saul, a Hungarian film by László Nemes about the Holocaust, engages with the same set of problems that the nineteenth century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote about.

This paper provides a theoretical discussion with point of departure in the case of Denmark of some of the theoretical issues concerning the relation liberal states may have to religion in general and religious minorities in particular. Liberal political philosophy has long taken for granted that liberal states have to be religiously neutral. The paper asks what a liberal state is with respect to religion and religious minorities if it is not a strictly religiously neutral state with full separation of (...) church and state and of religion and politics. To illuminate this question, the paper investigates a particular case of an arguably reasonably liberal state, namely the Danish state, which is used as a particular illustration of the more general phenomenon of “moderately secular” states, and considers how one might understand its relations to religion. The paper then considers the applicability to this case of three theoretical concepts drawn from liberal political philosophy, namely neutrality, toleration and recognition, while simultaneously using the case to suggest ways in which standard understandings of these concepts may be problematic and have to be refined. (shrink)

Deleuze said that he detested Hegelianism and dialectics: this paper claims that Deleuze is contra Hegel because he has and proposes a different philosophical system. Thus, I suggest that if we want to understand the reason of such a “disgust,” we need to focus the philosophical question that moves the entire Deleuzian system (§ 1). Then, I explain that if the ground-question of Hegel’s philosophy is “how is it possible that things are surpassed, that they go on?”, the Deleuzian (...) one is “how is it that there is always something new, that things come out?” (§ 2). Finally, I discuss how desire can be considered as a key-example for seeing how the perspectives of the two thinkers diverge (§ 3). (shrink)

Soren Kierkegaard was a profound and prolific writer in the Danish “golden age” of intellectual and artistic activity. His work crosses the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, literary criticism, devotional literature and fiction. Kierkegaard brought this potent mixture of discourses to bear as social critique and for the purpose of renewing Christian faith within Christendom. At the same time he made many original conceptual contributions to each of the disciplines he employed. He is known as the “father of existentialism”, (...) but at least as important are his critiques of his peer Hegel and of the German romantics, his contributions to the development of modernism, his literary experimentation, his vivid re-presentation of biblical figures to bring out their modern relevance, his invention of key concepts which have been explored and redeployed by thinkers ever since, his interventions in contemporary Danish church politics, and his fervent attempts to analyse and revitalise Christian faith. Kierkegaard is regarded by modern contemporaries as somewhat of an intellectual ‘time bomb’, although writing in the early 19th century, Kierkegaards ideas did not explode upon the western intellectual world until the 20th century. Both the contemporary philosophical and theological scenes have been profoundly influenced by this explosion, and chances are that in coming generations writers will still draw insight on some of Kierkegaards unique ideas. His philosophy on religious belief took centuries of philosophical discourse concerning the existence of God and took the discussion in a completely new direction. Up until the writing of Kierkegaard religious philosophy was centered around attempts to ‘prove’ Gods existence via means of a logically consistent, well reasoned argument ala Aquinas’ Five Ways, Anselm etc. To vindicate religious belief, one would traditionally offer some form of structured argument in favour of deity that appealed to reason e.g First Cause, Ontological argument etc, a field which is now known as apologetics-the intellectual defense of religious belief. For Kierkegaard however, reason and faith are a false dichotomy- rational argument and human reason are somewhat irrelevant to religious belief,and this plays a central role in his philosophical doctrine which is an attempt to vindicate Christian faith through his thesis that ‘truth is subjectivity’(Schaeffer, 1982). Firstly, what will be discussed here is a critical evaluation of Kierkegaards philosophy of religious belief as expounded in his works Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Secondly, a look at some responses and criticisms of Kierkegaards religious views- as he was a notoriously ambiguous and vague writer, he wrote the majority of his famous works pseudonymously, his work has been frequently scrutinised. Finally, concluding with an analysis of his philosophy and if we can consider his work a complete vindication of religious belief. (shrink)

As the title of the article suggests, “The Burqa Ban”: Legal Precursors for Denmark, American Experiences and Experiments, and Philosophical and Critical Examinations, the authors embark on a factually investigative as well as a reflective response. More precisely, they use The 2018 Danish “Burqa Ban”: Joining a European Trend and Sending a National Message (published as a concurrent but separate article in this issue of INTERNATIONAL STUDIES JOURNAL) as a platform for further analysis and discussion of different perspectives. These (...) include case-law at the international level while focusing attention on recent rulings and judicial reasoning by the ECtHR and the ECJ; critical thought-experiments in religion, morality, human rights, and the democratic public space; a contextualized account of burqa-wearing interventions by federal and state governments and, moreover, various courts in the United States; and philosophical commentary and, in some instances, criticism of the Danish and/or European (French, etc.) approach. The different contributions have different aims. The section on case-law at the international level reports on those central judgments that, in effect, helped to pave the path for the Kingdom of Denmark’s burqa ban. Concerning the concurring judges at the ECtHR, the opinions served to uphold a preexisting ban and to grant a wide margin of appreciation to the national authorities, thereby limiting the Court’s own review. -/- As regards to the ECJ, the legality of company rules that contain a policy of neutrality for the workplace was examined, with a similar outcome. The authors who discuss religion, morality, human rights and the democratic public space are endeavoring to, respectively, appeal to ethics as a testing stone for law and to both challenge and address several forms of “expressivist worry” in connection with face veils. In doing so, the authors ask a number of thought-provoking questions that hopefully will inspire public policymakers to careful analysis. While the section that is devoted to American perspectives highlights a comprehensive survey of political and legal responses to, in particular, full-face veils like the burqa, the relevant author also incorporates public perceptions and, in the course of examining these, draws a parallel to “the fate” of the hoodie. The constitutionality of burqa-wearing in America, so it also appears, is partially an open question, but differentiating between religious, political, or personal reasons is a de jure premise. Given that the Danish legislators who drafted law L 219 to ban burqa-wearing in public places rely on a reference to political Islam, they relegate religious and personal reasons to the private domain, thereby also adopting secularism as a premise. This is explored in the last author response of the article, more precisely, in an account of the underlying materialism that, in turn, is applied to Muslim women. If policymakers and legislators engaged in Thinking Things Through exercises, they could, as a minimum, avoid law-making strategies that are not in the spirit of the theory they themselves invoke, albeit tacitly. While the aim of, as it were, arresting culturally self-contradicting legislators is unique for the section in question, all the authors who contribute to the joint research project have one end-goal in common, namely to inform about important perspectives while at the same time opening up for parameters for (more) fruitful, constructive and (if need be) critical debate in the future. With this in mind, four recommendations are presented by the research director for the project. Legally, politically, socially and culturally, conflict-resolution should not translate the relationship between rulers and the ruled into a separation ideology, an instance of controllers versus the controlled. All things being equal, that is the objective limit for a democratic society. (shrink)

In a very literarily complicated setting, Frater Taciturnus sets a remark about Hamlet not being a Christian tragedy. After unpeeling that literary setting and noting that Taciturnus' remark aims more at Jacob Börne than at Shakespeare, the paper shows how Frater Taciturnus' remark calls into question the religious project of a certain danish author. For, Taciturnus' primary concern is to show that religious drama is not possible, or at least "ought not be." This general law applies to Hamlet as (...) well, and if Shakespeare was attempting a religious drama he a) shouldn't have because such a thing is essentially undramatizable, and b) failed because he did not begin (which would be possible) by showing the hero's religious presuppositions. Frater Taciturnus himself has given considerable thought to the extent and the manner in which the religious can be represented; in fact the letter to the reader is his proof of how perfectly his own narrative, "Guilty/Not Guilty," was constructed with precisely these problems in mind. The play is not the thing that Taciturnus is really interested in, nor is he interested in the playwright's intentions, he considers that the play's the thing that catches out Börne's misunderstanding of the religious, and it is this field—in particular, that area where the religious life and literary art intersect, that is the brother's interest and forte. But if Taciturnus is correct in his criticism of Börne, it should be impossible for S. Kierkegaard to produce a religious authorship as well. (shrink)

THE VATICAN MANUSCRIPT OF SPINOZA’S ETHICA S u m m a r y The article focuses on Spinoza’s manuscript found in The Vatican Apostolic Library and published by L. Spruit and P. Totaro in the book The Vatican Manuscript of Spinoza’s Ethica (2011). The identification of the text became possible as the result of their arduous research in which the name of a Danish scientist N. Stensen, the author of several letters usually published in the collections of Spinoza’s letters, (...) played a crucial part. The manuscript Vat. Lat. 12 838 is the only known editorial copy of Spinoza’s manuscripts and its origins are dated as early as 1675, i.e. before the publication of Opera posthuma. The comparison of its contents with the Ethics, published in 1677, points to many differences, most of which are typical mistakes, occurring probably either in Spinoza’s manuscript, or in the editorial copy, or else made by the typesetter and not expunged during the editorial proofreading. However, the editors emphasize the importance of some substantive differences of the text for the interpretation of Spinoza’s Ethics. The history of the manuscript and the circumstance it found its way to the library of The Holy Office and thence to the Vatican Apostolic Library enabled the editors to put forward some hypotheses concerning the circulation of Spinoza’s manuscripts in the period when the censure was issued against him after the publication of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. (shrink)