Political theorists have recently sought to replace the liberal, contractual theory of the firm with a political view that models the authority relation of employee to firm, and its appropriate regulation, on that of subject to state. This view is liable to serious difficulties, however, given existing discontinuities between corporate and civil authority as to their coerciveness, entry and exit conditions, scope, legal standing, and efficiency constraints. I here inspect these, and argue that, albeit in (...) some cases significant, such discontinuities fail to undermine the firm/state analogy, either because they are not significant enough to do so or because the particular trait on which they hinge is not decisive for how authority, in the state and in the firm, should be regulated to be legitimate. A pro tanto requirement exists, I thus argue, that corporate authority be held to regulatory norms comparable to those legitimate states abide by, including civil liberties, rule-of-law constraints, and accountability to subjects. (shrink)

Jensen and Meckling’s 1976 definition of the firm as a legal fiction which serves as a nexus for contracts between individuals sits well with the Coasean narrative on the firm while at the same time being at odds with it. Available interviews with Jensen shed little light on the origins and meaning of this unusual definition. The paper shows how the definition captured, and was a response to, the American socio-political context of the early and mid-1970s, and (...) traces how Jensen and Meckling employed it once they themselves got immersed in the public debate about corporate responsibility and regulation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It also considers Jensen and Meckling’s place in the literature on the economics of corporate law developed mostly in the 1980s. (shrink)

Debates around the state-firm analogy as a route to justifying workplace democracy tend towards a static view of both state and firm, and position workplace democracy as the objective. We contend, however, that states and firms are connected to one another in ways that should alter the terms of the debate, and that the achievement of workplace democracy raises a new set of political issues about the demos in the democratic firm and ‘worker migration’ at the (...) boundaries of the firm. Our argument thus contains two key steps: First, drawing on an empirical case study of a worker-owned firm, we enrich the state-firm analogy by developing a more dynamic view of both, focussing on the creation of workplace democracies; worker movement in and out of them; the dynamic meanings of ‘citizenship’ within them; and the status of the unemployed in a world of democratic workplaces. We then argue that in moving to a more sociological view of the state, the things we were comparing begin to show their real-world connections to one another. By going beyond the idealised view of states that has distorted the state-firm analogy debates, we arrive at a more robust view of how widespread workplace democracy might reconfigure basic political relationships in society. (shrink)

Despite growing interest in workplace democracy, the question whether nonworker stakeholders, like suppliers and local communities, warrant inclusion in the governance of democratic companies, as workers do, has been largely neglected. We inspect this question by leaning on the boundary problem in democratic theory. We first argue that the question of who warrants inclusion in democratic workplaces is best addressed by examining why workplace democracy is warranted in the first place, and offer a twofold normative benchmark—addressing objectionable corporate power (...) and upholding efficiency—to assess the principles of democratic inclusion on offer. Against this benchmark, we next argue that the All-Affected Principle is unfit due to its over- and underinclusive extensional results, and that the All-Subjected Principle, whose variants we examine alongside their extensional results, holds more promise when coupled with independent considerations of justice or a constrained variant of the All-Affected Principle. These combinations need not entirely preclude, but speak against, nonworker stakeholder inclusion. (shrink)

Shirking, the act of avoiding the demands of one’s job, is generally seen as unethical. Drawing on empirical evidence from the sociology of work, I develop a normative conception of shirking as a form of worker resistance against illegitimate managerial power. In doing so, I present a new approach to the political theory of the firm, which is more adversarial and agent-centered than available alternatives. It is more adversarial as it recognizes the political value of counterproductive (...) and disruptive behavior in capitalist firms. It is more agent-centered because it theorizes the firm from the perspective of workers, asking what pro tanto reasons they have to shirk. I show that shirking under the structural domination of capitalism has diagnostic, agential, and epistemic values. The paper contributes to the wider methodological ambition to tailor political theorizing to the positionality of social actors by shifting attention from the institutional design of the firm to the methods of worker resistance. (shrink)

The firm is a real entity and not an imaginary, fictitious or linguistic entity. This implies that the firm as a whole exhibits a sufficient degree of unity or cohesiveness and is durable and persistent through time. The firm is essentially composed of a particular combination of constituents that are bound together by something that acts as an ontological glue, and is therefore non-reducible to other more basic entities, i.e., to its parts or its members. From our (...) perspective, the firm is not simply an aggregate or a collection. It is a real integrated entity and a dynamic causal system. Institutional and organizational aspects enter the picture. These assertions stand in sharp contrast with mainstream theories of the firm whose proponents are more preoccupied with questions of contractual provisions, vertical integration or opportunism than the general and more fundamental questions related to what firms really are. (shrink)

Despite widespread recognition of an emergent politics of data in our midst, we strikingly lack a political theory of data. We readily acknowledge the presence of data across our political lives, but we often do not know how to conceptualize the politics of all those data points—the forms of power they constitute and the kinds of political subjects they implicate. Recent work in numerous academic disciplines is evidence of the first steps toward a political (...) class='Hi'>theory of data. This article maps some limits of this emergent literature with an eye to enriching its theoretical range. The literature on data politics, both within political theory and elsewhere, has thus far focused almost exclusively on the algorithm. This article locates a further dimension of data politics in the work of formatting technology or, more simply, formats. Formats are simultaneously conceptual and technical in the ways they define what can even count as data, and by extension who can count as data and how they can count. A focus on formats is of theoretical value because it provides a bridge between work on the conceptual contours of categories and the technology-centric literature on algorithms that tends to ignore the more conceptual dimensions of data technology. The political insight enabled by format theory is shown in the context of an extended interrogation of the politics of racialized redlining. (shrink)

In this essay, “The Principle of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory: Its Rise and Fall,” Pauline Kleingeld notes that Kant’s Principle of Autonomy, which played a central role in both the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, disappeared by the time of the Metaphysics of Morals. She argues that its disappearance is due to significant changes in Kant’s political philosophy. The Principle of Autonomy states that one ought to act as if one (...) were giving universal laws through one’s maxims. The criterion of just legislation that Kant accepted in the mid-1780s does not require any actual consent on the part of the citizens—genuine universality is sufficient for a law to be just. Hence, at that time, Kant could indeed explicate the criterion governing the moral permissibility of one’s maxims by drawing an analogy with the criterion governing the justice of political laws. In the Metaphysics of Morals and in other works in the 1790s, however, he added the further condition that laws must be given with the consent of the citizens. With this further condition, the moral criterion was no longer fully analogous to the criterion for political laws being just. Accordingly, Kleingeld argues, Kant dropped the Principle of Autonomy, which was firmly based on that analogy. (shrink)

Commentators of the judicial decisions of Justice Holmes have often situated the decisions inside the doctrines of freedom of expression and the rules and tests approach to legal analysis. This Paper situates his judgments in the context of a political theory. Drawing from his articles, lectures and correspondence, the Paper highlights Holmes’ reaction to the idealism and rationalism of the intellectual current before him. His view of human nature, conditioned by his war experience, is elaborated. The Paper especially (...) examines his theory of political struggle with the process-oriented view that the dominant social groups invariably become the political elite. The Paper then connects his theory of human nature to his legal doctrines, the role of the judiciary, the nature of the state, and a legal right. (shrink)

This chapter defends an overarching ideal of liberal democracy—government for and by the people, where each is considered free and equal—and shows how different conceptions of this ideal lead to different visions of the nonprofit sector. The argument reflects a more fundamental point: that claims about the proper shape and scope of civil society, and certainly the dimensions of nonprofit organizations, are structured by larger political ideals. We cannot understand competing visions of the nonprofit sector without seeing it in (...) relation to the political and social order in which it is supposed to rest. (shrink)

This essay critically examines one of the dominant tendencies in recent theoretical discussions of anarchism, postanarchism, and argues that this tradition fails to engage sufficiently with anarchism’s history. Through an examination of late 19th-century anarchist political thought—as represented by one of its foremost exponents, Peter Kropotkin—we demonstrate the extent to which postanarchism has tended to oversimplify and misrepresent the historical tradition of anarchism. The article concludes by arguing that all political-theoretical discussions of anarchism going forward should begin with (...) a fresh appraisal of the actual content of anarchist political thought, based on a rigorous analysis of its political, social, and cultural history. (shrink)

If a political theory of ownership is to be acceptable, it must rationally prescribe one system or model of ownership as opposed to others. Such a prescription would be rational only if strong normative arguments could be mounted to show it more desirable than its competitors. Thus, the prefatory work for such a theory would consist in the construction of viable models of ownership from which a sound choice could be made. This project would, however, be successful (...) only if originating from coherent, evaluatively neutral analyses of the concept of ownership and other related ideas. The point of this essay is to do this prefatory work. (shrink)

Suppose justice depends on some very unlikely good behavior. In that case the true (or correct, or best) theory of justice might have no practical value. But then, what good would it be? I consider analogies with science and mathematics in order to test various ways of tying their the value of intellectual work to practice, though I argue that these fail. If their value, or that of some political theory, is not practical then what is good (...) about them? As for political theory, I consider the question of what would even count as an answer to this question, and I conclude with the tentative proposal that it is valuable to come to understand something that is, itself, important. (shrink)

In the 1990s , a debate raged across the whole postsocialist world as well as in Western development agencies such as the World Bank about the best approach to the transition from various forms of socialism or communism to a market economy and political democracy. One of the most hotly contested topics was the question of the workplace being organized based on workplace democracy (e.g., various forms of worker ownership) or based on the conventional employer-employee relationship. Well before 1989, (...) many of the socialist countries had started experimenting with various forms of "self-management" operating in more of a market setting, Yugoslavia being the most developed example. Thus one "path to the market" would have been to push those experiments all the way to some Western form of employee ownership or worker cooperatives operating in a full market environment. Alternatively, all these decentralizing experiments could be condemned as "vestiges of communism" to be eradicated by renationalizing all the decentralized firms and then privatizing by some alternative means. (shrink)

Many multinational corporations develop business operations in Europe. The current research attempts to fill the gap on how corporations can increase their political influence in this geography by exploring the joint effect of corporate political activity(CPA) and social responsibility (CSR) on political embeddedness and financial performance. Based on institutional theory and on a sample of autochthonous (European Union [EU]) and allochthonous (non-EU) firms with declared EU lobbying (from 2008to 2019) we conducted two studies. Based on a (...) multi-level model, Study 1 finds strong and robust evidence that boardroom gender diversity and EU lobbyists inter-actively increase EU political embeddedness. Complementarily, Study 2, which relies on general linear Modeling, suggests that allochthonous corporations are more profit-able when they display high-level political embeddedness and lobbying expenditures, combined with adoption of United Nations (UN) guidelines. Overall, findings show that lobbying in Europe pays off, especially when corporations strive to be aligned with EU ethical values and aspirations. Hiring lobbyists to be based in Brussels and promoting gender equality help establish EU political connections. Subsequently, findings highlight the role that EU political embeddedness, lobbying expenditures, and UN guidelines play in leveraging financial performance, especially across non-EU corporations. Regarding EU corporations, results show that a firm-level investment on CPA-CSR is particularly important. Overall, findings from this research support corporations that are growing businesses in Europe. KEYWORDScorporate political activity, corporate social responsibility, lobbying, return on assets (ROA),United Nations (UN_. (shrink)

There are numerous interpretations of Plato's theory of justice as it relates to the ideal state, deeply intertwined with his political philosophy. This complexity makes understanding his interlocking ideas challenging, as he seeks to construct a theory of the ideal state. Plato's philosophy of justice, particularly in its political dimension, emphasizes integration as a fundamental factor in grasping his theory. This paper aims to elucidate the original concept of justice in Plato's state by delving into (...) the roots of the Republic, analyzing its historical context. Plato's predictions reflect values and truths connected to politics and philosophy, emphasizing integration as essential to understanding his theory of justice, which lies at the core of his philosophy. This essay compares the relationship between the functions and class structure of the state. Plato classifies human nature into three components: reason, courage, and appetite, which correspond to three major classes in the state. The ruling class, educated in philosophy, governs the state. The military class, characterized by courage and strength, defends the state, while the professional class manages the everyday affairs of governance. Plato's theory posits functional specialization across all classes as fundamental to his ideal state. In essence, while Plato's imagined city may lack historical existence, it holds significant relevance in the realm of speculative human thought. Keywords: Justice. State. Function. Class. Rulers. Guardians. Producers. (shrink)

Brecht’s Life of Galileo provides elements for elaborating what I call “a theory of the encounter of practices”. The concept of the encounter pushes back against teleological theories that predestine modern science to operate as an instrument of domination. I argue that Life of Galileo stages the missed encounters in modernity between science, politics, and art at the same time as it foregrounds the emancipatory power of science. I trace the encounter of practices from the play’s opening scenes – (...) highlighting what I call Galileo’s “double life”. Then, I turn to the most important scene of the play, Scene 10, in which political and artistic practices repurpose Galileo’s novel inventions for their emancipatory desires. In the virtual potentialities of this encounter, that is, despite the missed encounter between Galileo and “the people”, Brecht’s Life of Galileo continues to be fruitful for theorizing the emancipatory power of science. (shrink)

This volume discusses the ideas of six leading thinkers of the French Enlightenment: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Holbach, and Condorcet. A general introduction surveys the political theories of the Enlightenment, setting them in the context of the political realities of 18th-century France. The first book of its kind on the subject, Philosophers and Pamphleteers brings a welcome, new perspective to the study of French political thought during a fascinating historical era.

In 1947, the U.S. Secretary of State, George C. Marshall announced that the USA would provide development aid to help the recovery and reconstruction of the economies of Europe, which was widely known as the ‘Marshall Plan’. In Italy, this plan generated a resurgence of modern industrialization and remodeled Italian Industry based on American models of production. As the result of these transnational transfers, the systemic approach known as Fordism largely succeeded and allowed some Italian firms such as Fiat to (...) flourish. During this period, Detroit and Turin, homes to the most powerful automobile corporations of the twentieth century, became intertwined in a web of common features such as industrial concentration, mass flows of immigrations, uneven urban sprawl, radical iconography and inner-city decay, which characterized Fordism in both cities. In the crucial decades of the postwar expansion of the automobile industries, both cities were hubs of labor battles and social movements. However, after the radical decline in their industries as previous auto cities, they experienced the radical shift toward post-Fordist urbanization and production of political urbanism. This research responds to the recent interest for a comparative (re)turn in urban studies by suggesting the conceptual theoretical baseline for the proposed comparative framework in post-Fordist cities. In better words, it develops a “theory” on the challenges of comparative urbanism in post-Fordist cities. (shrink)

Starting from the ‘Dewey Lectures’, Rawls presents his conception of justice within a contextualist framework, as an elaboration of the basic ideas embedded in the political culture of liberal-democratic societies. But how are these basic ideas to be justified? In this article, I reconstruct and criticize Rawls’s strategy to answer this question. I explore an alternative strategy, consisting of a genealogical argument of a pragmatic kind – the kind of argument provided by authors like Bernard Williams, Edward Craig and (...) Miranda Fricker. I outline this genealogical argument drawing on Rawls’s reconstruction of the origins of liberalism. Then, I clarify the conditions under which this kind of argument maintains vindicatory power. I claim that the argument satisfies these conditions and that pragmatic genealogy can thus partially vindicate the basic ideas of liberal-democratic societies. (shrink)

The post-Marxist stance against class politics unearths significant political demands often neglected by Marxism. However, in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s approach, this step forward is followed by two steps back. They deny that class struggle against capitalist exploitation has any political significance for the masses or any essential link with the socialist-democratic project. But they do so at the cost of misrepresenting Marxian theory and underestimating the global phenomenon of labour exploitation. This faux pas is due (...) to two misconceptions at the core of the Laclau-Mouffean critique: an ambiguity in the use they make of the economic concept of surplus, and an incorrect identification of working-class and productive workers. With Laclau and Mouffe, I share the firm conviction in the necessity of a post-Marxian theory. Nevertheless, post-Marxism will be just as robust as our Marxist bedrocks. (shrink)

This research note argues that political theorists of refuge ought to consider the experiences of refugees after they have received asylum in the Global North. Currently, much of the literature concerning the duties of states towards refugees implicitly adopts a blanket approach, rather than considering how varied identities may affect the remedies available to displaced people. Given the prevalence of racism, xenophobia, and homophobia in the Global North, and the growing norm of dissident persecution in foreign territory, protection is (...) not guaranteed after either territorial or legal admission. This research note considers the case of LGBTQ refugees in order to demonstrate the analytical potential of more inclusive and diverse normative approaches. Taking the origin and extension of harm seriously requires a conceptualization of sanctuary after asylum that accurately reflects the experiences of the displaced. In doing so, questions arise regarding the nature and efficacy of territorial asylum. (shrink)

Is there more to the recent surge in political realism than just a debate on how best to continue doing what political theorists are already doing? I use two recent books, by Michael Freeden and Matt Sleat, as a testing ground for realism’s claims about its import on the discipline. I argue that both book take realism beyond the Methodenstreit, though each in a different direction: Freeden’s takes us in the realm of meta-metatheory, Sleat’s is a genuine exercise (...) in grounding liberal normative theory in a non-moralistic way. I conclude with wider methodological observations. I argue that unlike communitarianism (the previous contender for the discipline’s renewal), realism has the potential to open new vistas, though their novelty is to a large extent relative to the last forty years or so: realism is best thought of as a return to a more traditional way of doing political philosophy. (shrink)

The first part of this book contains a selection of Leszek Nowak’s (1943-2009) works on non-Marxian historical materialism, which are published here in English for the first time. In these papers, Nowak constructs a dynamic model of religious community, reconstructs historiosophical assumptions of liberalism and considers the methodological status of prognosis of totalitarization of capitalist society. In the second part of the book, new contributions to non-Marxian historical materialism are presented. Their authors analyze mechanisms of the oligarchization of liberal democracy, (...) the democratization of real socialism, and the development of early modern Ottoman and post-war Chinese societies. The volume will be of interest to graduate and undergraduate students, as well as specialists who deal with the development of capitalist society, philosophy of history, the philosophy of social sciences and the political philosophy of liberalism. (shrink)

This article gives a critical account of Agamben's contention that the camp is the paradigm of 'bio-politics' in the west. It analyses the deficiencies of this paradigm by means of comparison with other approaches to juridical topics and political theory (e.g., the treatments of the topics of force and state power in liberalism and Foucault). First, I ask about the features Agamben ascribes to the camp space and in what respects they support his contention that the camp has (...) general significance. Second, I question the reasons he gives for his view that the camp situation discloses the general tendencies of legal codes and practices in the West. In particular, I ask whether, as Agamben contends, his approach allows tendencies in the West that would otherwise be obscure to be identifiable, or whether his approach is too speculative to be useful as political theory. (shrink)

Recent developments in our globalized world are beginning the scholarly world to answer the question pertaining to the relationship between Islam—a “faith”—and politics and governance. In order to understand the Islamic worldview from the perspective of Ibn Khaldun, with whom many modern Islamists would agree with, a comparison is made with early progenitors of liberalism and the social contract, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. By understanding the fundamental differences between the theorists, and how Ibn Khaldun’s is completely separate from the (...) western tradition, it becomes easier to understand exactly why Islamic models of governance are at direct odds with the west. The main difference between the two models of governance is the use of a fundamental criteria determining right from wrong, as opposed to Hobbes’ and Locke’s theories being based purely on assumption that the validity of their respective arguments is based upon the theory’s acceptance among the people. In other words, western political theorists lack the consistency and justification for their theories, at least from the Islamist point of view. (shrink)

Paulo Freire’s contribution to pedagogical discourses is commonly encapsulated behind the notions of the “banking method” and “culture of silence” which connotes classroom practices that subjects the learner into domesticating pedagogical methods and contents. In Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, this phenomenon is not only restricted to classroom dynamics, but in fact, reflective of domination in the public sphere. In this work, therefore, I will discuss the political angle of Freire’s critical pedagogy founded in his analysis of domination and (...) anti -dialogical praxis. -/- Hence, this work will expose the way in which Freire translates the power dynamics of anti-dialogical culture and politics into an alienating classroom environment. In this light, this paper also aims to provide a conceptual grammar in analyzing the contemporary direction of pedagogical practices. Though the aim of this work is simply exposing Freire’s theory of domination, on the one hand, its theoretical underpinning could guide and direct modern pedagogues in cultivating the learner’s critical consciousness. On the other hand, I believe the discourse of critical pedagogy holds a comprehensive approach to domination which will provide a formidable theoretical framework in the pursuit of political consciousness – realizing Freire’s conscienticized learner. (shrink)

Digital innovations are rapidly changing the contemporary workplace. Big Tech companies marketing algorithmic management increasingly decide on the Future of Work. Political responses, however, often focus on managing the impact of these technologies on workers. They leave the question of how these technologies are designed or how workers can determine their own futures unanswered. This approach risks surrendering the Future of Work debate to techno-determinist imaginaries aligned with corporate interests. Using Cornelius Castoriadis’ early writings on worker struggles in French (...) Tayloristic factories and his later oeuvre on conflictual social imaginaries, I propose an agonistic approach to the Future of Work. Not merely companies implementing workplace technologies, but also workers themselves possess agency in determining the Future of Work. Workers’ frequent contestations against machinic surveillance and technologically mediated coordination of the labour process disclose an alternative Future of Work in which technologies are used to enhance worker autonomy rather than bureaucratic control. Worker struggles at Amazon Mechanical Turk illustrate this agonistic dynamic: Amazon mobilizes algorithmic management to fragment and control a workforce of globally dispersed remote workers, but the latter form online social communities and create counter-technologies to reappropriate control over the labour process. (shrink)

Many liberal egalitarians argue that workers today are subjected to the authority of their bosses and that justice demands that the employment relationship be reformed. But why? What is unjust is not subjection to authority as such but subjection without adequate justification. In this article, I argue that the justificatory demand raised by subjection to workplace authority has not been well understood, primarily because the nature of the subjection itself has been misunderstood. According to the standard view, workplace subjection consists (...) in the fact that managers issue orders backed by sanctions. I challenge this view by reconstructing the libertarian-economic theory of the firm, which construes managerial authority simply as a division of labor. I propose an alternative account, according to which workplace subjection consists in living under a society-wide arrangement that compels most workers to work under a boss. My argument reorients theorizing about justice at work from a narrow focus on corporate governance towards a broader theory of a just social system, incorporating the role of the state, class, the power of investors, and the social purpose of labor. (shrink)

Workplace democracy is often defined, and has recently been defended, as a form of intra-firm governance in which workers have control rights over management with no ownership requirement on their part. Using the normative tools of republican political theory, the paper examines bargaining power disparities and moral hazard problems resulting from the allocation of control rights and ownership to different groups within democratic firms, with a particular reference to the European codetermination system. With various qualifications related to (...) potentially mitigating factors, such as workforce and shareholder composition or risk aversion and reallocation, the paper contends that forms of workplace democracy in which workers control and own the firm, such as cooperativism, are preferable to other forms, such as codetermination, in which ownership and control rights are formally separated. (shrink)

In his political treatise, Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al-fadhila, Abu Nasr Alfarabi, the medieval Muslim philosopher, proposes a theory of virtuous city which, according to prominent scholars, is modeled on Plato’s utopia of the Republic. No doubt that Alfarabi was well-versed in the philosophy of Plato and the basic framework of his theory of city is platonic. However, his theory of city is not an exact reproduction of the Republic’s theory and, despite glaring similarities, the (...) two theories do differ in many aspects. In both, Alfarabi’s Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al-fadhila and Plato’s Republic, the theory of virtuous city is accompanied by a theory of the soul. Since the theory of soul plays a foundational role in both theories of the virtuous city, the present article intends to provide an explanation for the differences between the two theories of the city in terms of the differences between the two theories of the soul. (shrink)

In 2001 the Indonesian government agreed to the introduction in the Indonesian Papua of regional, consociational elements of power-sharing, despite the fact that the dominant model of this system in Indonesia is centripetalism. The so-called special autonomy for the Indonesian Papua has never been fully implemented, however. The article seeks to test the thesis that the Indonesian authorities' institution of consociational arrangements for Papua, and their subsequent failure to fully implement those arrangements, were, in fact, tactical moves serving to reduce (...) the threat arising from growing pro-independence aspirations among the Papuans and to firmly attach Papuan territory to Indonesia. This article has been published in "Hemispheres" 2016, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 5-20. (shrink)

The concept of self has preeminently been asserted (in its many versions) as a core component of anti-reductionist, antinaturalistic philosophical positions, from Descartes to Husserl and beyond, with the exception of some hybrid or intermediate positions which declare rather glibly that, since we are biological entities which fully belong to the natural world, and we are conscious of ourselves as 'selves', therefore the self belongs to the natural world (this is characteristic e.g. of embodied phenomenology and enactivism). Nevertheless, from Cudworth (...) and More’s attacks on materialism all the way through twentieth-century argument against naturalism, the gulf between selfhood and the world of Nature appears unbridgeable. In contrast, my goal in this paper is to show that early modern materialism could yield a theory of the self according to which (1) the self belongs to the world of external relations (Spinoza), such that no one fact, including supposedly private facts, is only accessible to a single person; (2) the self can be reconstructed as a sense of “organic unity” which could be a condition for biological individuality (a central text here is Diderot’s 1769 Rêve de D’Alembert); yet this should not lead us to espouse a Romantic concept of organism as foundational or even ineffable subjectivity (a dimension present in Leibniz and made explicit in German idealism); (3) what we call 'self' might simply be a dynamic process of interpretive activity undertaken by the brain. This materialist theory of the self should not neglect the nature of experience, but it should also not have to take at face value the recurring invocations of a better, deeper “first-person perspective” or “first-person science.”. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that one approach to normative political theory, namely contextualism, can benefit from a specific kind of historical inquiry, namely genealogy, because the latter provides a solution to a deep-seated problem for the former. This problem consists in a lack of critical distance and originates from the justificatory role that contextualist approaches attribute to contextual facts. I compare two approaches to genealogical reconstruction, namely the historiographical method pioneered by Foucault and the hybrid method of (...) pragmatic genealogy as practiced by Bernard Williams, arguing that they both ensure an increase in critical distance while preserving contextualism’s distinctiveness. I also show, however, that only the latter provides normative action-guidance and can thus assist the contextualist theorist in the crucial task of discerning how far certain contextual facts deserve their justificatory role. I prove this point by showing how a pragmatic genealogy of the practice of punishment can inform the contextualist’s reflection about the role this practice should play in a transitional scenario, i.e. in the set of circumstances societies go through in the aftermath of large-scale violence and human rights violations. (shrink)

In the last third of the 20th century, the Bielefeld School of social history, headed by Hans- Ulrich Wehler and Jürgen Kocka, rose to prominence. It had contrasting concerns: the focus on structures and processes of development sidelined intentional action and coexisted with a political rewriting of the past that indicted the interests and decisions of dominant elites in Germany from 1870 to 1933. History was viewed, oddly enough, as retrospective politics. This article analyses the main aporiae implied by (...) both the School’s programme and its scholarly output. How did a structuralist historiography contrive backward-looking political denunciations? Is our time entitled to judge and accuse the past? Notwithstanding the weight of structures and processes, were there real alternatives for the historical agents? Did systemic causality grant elbowroom to intentional action? What chances were then missed and why? Overall, the surmise that there were always choices clashes with received narratives of inevitability. (shrink)

This article draws on Bernard Stiegler and Gilbert Simondon’s work to further interrogate the psychic, social, and political problems raised by the development of Artificial Intelligence. Stiegler’s political philosophy of time-consciousness reveals three concomitants urgencies: human memory is conditioned by industrial supplements that are increasingly disruptive, capitalism has produced an entropic condition where life on earth is threaten by toxic systems, the deployment of technologies of spirits has striped individuals of their psychic and collective individuation. I read media (...) theory along with Simondon’s philosophy to elucidate the question of mediation in today’s reticulated AI-driven society. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has made relevant questions regarding the limits and the justifications of sovereign power as nation states utilize high degrees of power over populations in their strategies of countering the virus. In our article, we analyze a particularly important facet of the strategy of sovereignty in managing the affects caused by a pandemic, which we term the ontology of war. We analyze the way in which war plays a significant role in the political ontology of our societies, (...) through its aiming to produce a unified political subject and an external enemy. Taking our theoretical cue from Butler’s thinking on frames of recognizability we extend her theory through augmenting it with affect theory to argue for how the frame of recognizability produced by the ontology of war fails to guide our understanding of the pandemic as a political problem, a failure that we analyze through looking at the affective register. We argue that the main affect that the nation state tries to manage, in relation to the pandemic, through the ontology of war is anxiety. We show that the nation state tries to alleviate anxiety by framing it through the ontology war, this leads to the appearance of a potentially racist and nationalist affective climate where the “enemy” is no longer felt to be the virus, but members of other nations as well as minorities. We argue that the pandemic reveals both the political ontology of war central to the foundation of our political communities, and how this ontology is used by the nation state to manage feelings of anxiety and insecurity. Ultimately, as we will discuss at the end of this article, this leads to failure. (shrink)

Political theory as a discipline has long been skeptical of computational methods. In this paper, I argue that it is time for theory to make a perspectival shift on these methods. Specifically, we should consider integrating recently developed generative large language models like GPT-4 as tools to support our creative work as theorists. Ultimately, I suggest that political theorists should embrace this technology as a method of supporting our capacity for creativity—but that we should do so (...) in a way that is mindful of the content and value of theorizing, the technical constraints of the models, and the ethical questions that the technology raises. (shrink)

International human rights law is profoundly oxymoronic. Certain well-known international treaties claim a universal character for human rights, but international tribunals often interpret and enforce these either narrowly or, if widely, they rely upon sovereign states to enforce the rights against themselves. International lawyers and diplomats have usually tried to resolve the apparent contradiction by pressing for more general rules in the form of treaties, legal doctrines, and institutional procedures. Despite such efforts, aliens remain who are neither legal nor illegal (...) and who thereby slip through a discourse that claims universality. I ask, why does international legal discourse claim a universality of human rights enforceable by impartial, politically neutral tribunals when it also recognises that a state may refuse to recognise some groups as “persons”? I turn to the works of Bernhard Waldenfels for an explanation. To that end, I briefly outline two examples of state-centered human rights treaties. I then reconstruct Waldenfels’ explanation as to how a territorial sense of space needs an alien exterior to the space. The territorial structure assumes time is frozen as of the date of the foundation of the structure. The body of the alien is taken as a biological body. The personality, motives, and actions of the alien are the consequence of the imagination of people inside the territorial boundary. The dominant international legal discourse reinforces and institutionalises such a territorial sense of space and frozen time because the territorial state is considered the primary legal subject of international law. I also retrieve, however, an experiential but concealed sense of space and time. To retrieve this sense of space and time requires that lawyers see the world through the twilight of legality heretofore ignored as pre-legal. (shrink)

If we consider Kitāb al-Milla as the foundation for Al-Farabi's other civil and political thoughts, we are not making an exaggerated claim. Abu Nasr Al-Farabi presents the philosophy of his civil and political theory through this treatise, embedding his ideas within it. Upon reflecting on the content of this work, it can be clearly divided into two parts. In the first part, Al-Farabi discusses issues that serve as the foundation for the second part, which is the science (...) of civics. In the second part, which is the focus of this study, he addresses matters that constitute the philosophy of civics. A close examination of the second section of Kitāb al-Milla reveals that Al-Farabi speaks of two enumerations: one concerning happiness and the other concerning politics. In general, these two elements make up the issues of the science of civics. (shrink)

Disagreement is a pervasive feature of human discourse and a crucial force in shaping our social reality. From mundane squabbles about matters of taste to high-stakes disputes about law and public policy, the way we express and navigate disagreement plays a central role in both our personal and political lives. Legal discourse, in particular, is rife with disagreement - it is the very bread and butter of courtroom argument and legal scholarship alike. Consider a debate between two legal philosophers, (...) Ronald and Herbert, about the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. Ronald asserts: ‘It is the law that capital punishment is prohibited’. In response, Herbert states: ‘It is not the law that capital punishment is prohibited’. We intuitively think Ronald and Herbert are disagreeing, which reveals in the fact that they are licensed to use ex¬pressions like no (it isn’t) and nuh-uh when responding to their opponent’s claim. But despite the ubiquity and significance of legal disagreement, its precise nature remains elusive. This chapter discusses what exactly is going on when two people disagree about what the law requires, and how can hybrid theory may answer this question. (shrink)

Notwithstanding International Economic Law’s (IEL’s) inevitable distributional effects, IEL scholarship has had limited engagement with theoretical work on global distributive justice and fairness. In part this reflects the failure of global justice theorists to derive principles that can be readily applied to the concrete problems of IEL. This article bridges this gap, drawing on existing coercion-based accounts of global justice in political theory to propose a novel account of global distributive justice that both resolves problems within the existing (...) theoretical literature and can be directly applied to both explain and critique concrete issues in IEL, including in particular WTO law. By complementing existing coercion-based accounts with a more nuanced typology of international coercion, it distinguishes two morally salient classes of economically relevant measures: External Trade Measures (ETMs), which pursue their goals specifically through the regulation of international economic activity; and Domestic Economic Measures (DEMs), which do not. The distinctive intentional relationship between ETMs and the outsiders they affect means such measures require more stringent justification, in terms of global equality or other goals those outsiders themselves share; whereas DEMs can be justified under the principle of self-determination. Non-Product Related Production Processes and Methods (NPRPPMs) provide a case study to show how this framework can illuminate recurring problems in IEL. (shrink)

With the desperate usurpation of global spaces under the everexpanding capitalist mode of production, the political struggle still necessitates an emancipatory class politics as aimed by Marx and Engels. This paper will be a synthesis of Marxist geographer David Harvey’s theory of capitalist production of space and MarxEngels’ notion of freedom, and their notion of emancipatory class politics. According to David Harvey, its survival as a system is through its widescale control on the production of spaces. I will (...) first expose the theory of the Marxist geographer David Harvey on how capitalism produces a space through his theory of the capitalist production of space. This necessary strategy of capitalism to own and extend to spaces is essential to its nature to increase capital and profit. According to him, capitalism always needs to expand territories to create new sources of labor, wealth, and new markets. This necessitates obtaining profits to sustain capital accumulation amidst its problem of crises. The spatial ontology of capital will be the springboard showing a possible construction of the type of freedom or emancipation that is necessary in forwarding a class politics of spatiality. In effect, emancipating the place is tied with the classical notion of the liberation of the proletariat. I conceptualize the concept of place as a signifier of the spaces that humanity produces—may it be their home, their work, or geometries of modern life—but have been put under the dictates and design of capital. Thus, I will go back to the classical notion of emancipatory politics of Marx and Engels. This synthesis combines the possibility of emancipatory class politics based on the ontology of the present capitalist production of space. (shrink)

This volume contains the proceedings of the Mediterranean Conference on Neutrosophic Theory (MeCoNeT 2024), held at the Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti of the University of Messina on September 24-25, 2024. The event was organized by the MIFT Department (Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, and Earth Sciences) of the University of Messina, marking the first international congress on neutrosophic theories outside the Americas. This milestone has firmly established the Mediterranean region as a key hub for research in the rapidly growing field (...) of neutrosophic theory. The MeCoNeT 2024 conference drew over 100 participants from more than 15 countries, with more than 50 scientific contributions selected through a rigorous peer review process. The hybrid format of the event—featuring in-person sessions at the historical Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti and online parallel sessions—allowed for broad international participation. The conference thus offered an ideal platform for sharing interdisciplinary research and addressing contemporary challenges in mathematics and beyond. (shrink)

This chapter discusses how phenomenologies of pregnancy challenge traditional philosophical accounts of a subject that is seen as autonomous, rational, genderless, unified, and independent from other subjects. Pregnancy defies simple incorporation into such universal accounts since the pregnant woman and her unborn child are incapable of being subsumed into traditional theories of the subject. Phenomenological descriptions of the experience of pregnancy lead one to question if philosophy needs to reject the subject altogether as central, or rather to revise traditional descriptions (...) of the subject. The chapter examines both options and argues for the later. The exploration of pregnancy in feminist theory upholds the value of working from the subject’s lived experience, but indicates that it is possible without viewing the subject as a disembodied universal agent. Finally, it discusses how phenomenologies of pregnancy are attuned to discussing difference thereby aiding philosophies that take into account the political, historical, and cultural conditioning that shape experience and theory. (shrink)

The political theory of migration has largely occurred within a paradigm of methodological nationalism and this has led to the neglect of morally salient agents and causes. This article draws on research from the social sciences on the transnationalism, globalization and migration systems theory to show how methodological nationalist assumptions have affected the views of political theorists on membership, culture and distributive justice. In particular, it is contended that methodological nationalism has prevented political theorists of (...) migration from addressing the roles of non-state agents and of transnational economic, social and political structures. These agents and structures contribute to the asymmetrical distribution of goods and opportunities and thus have important implications for debates about migration and distributive justice. (shrink)

Lipsey and Lancaster's "general theory of second best" is widely thought to have significant implications for applied theorizing about the institutions and policies that most effectively implement abstract normative principles. It is also widely thought to have little significance for theorizing about which abstract normative principles we ought to implement. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show how the second-best theorem can be extended to myriad domains beyond applied normative theorizing, and in particular to more abstract theorizing about the (...) normative principles we should aim to implement. I start by separating the mathematical model used to prove the second-best theorem from its familiar economic interpretation. I then develop an alternative normative-theoretic interpretation of the model, which yields a novel second best theorem for idealistic normative theory. My method for developing this interpretation provides a template for developing additional interpretations that can extend the reach of the second-best theorem beyond normative theoretical domains. I also show how, within any domain, the implications of the second-best theorem are more specific than is typically thought. I conclude with some brief remarks on the value of mathematical models for conceptual exploration. (shrink)

Postfoundational political theory has been criticized for being incapable of establishing a normative basis for politics. This is because postfoundationalism's conception of the “political” as a radical contingency disproves the existence of an objective ground that would make it possible to evaluate political movements from a neutral position. In this article, I counter this critique by distinguishing between Chantal Mouffe's political theory and other postfoundational theories based on their respective normative implications. This is done (...) by explicating how Mouffe's way of conceptualizing the political implies a conservative political disposition. In order to accomplish this, I develop an understanding of the conservative political disposition, which refers to the normative idea that police power is necessary for producing and upholding a social order. Through an analysis of Carl Schmitt's theory, I elaborate that the conservative disposition is an attempt to justify the depoliticization of social relations. On the basis of this idea that some political theories have normative implications that are in line with the conservative disposition, I examine postfoundationalism. My argument is that while Mouffe's theory does imply the idea that police power is necessary, this is not the case with other postfoundational theories. On the contrary, other postfoundational democratic theories categorically deny that a form of power, namely police power, would be necessary. (shrink)