This paper critiques of the privileging of seriousness in modern scholarship and particularly in the humanities, on account of its purported neutrality and objectivity, the resulting foreclosing of all other emotions and insights, and the potentially subversive and enriching potential of laughter, as discussed in Karl Marx’s dichotomy of laughter and seriousness.

In this essay, I will outline a novel strategy for using constitutivist ideas from Kantian metaethics to critique social practices and institutions. In doing so, I do not mean to defend this model of critique as the only viable form of social and political critique, even within a Kantian framework – nor, indeed, as always the most appropriate. But I hope to show that it provides us with a form of critique that allows us to (i) develop a robust critique (...) of many social practices (ii) on both epistemic and practical grounds, while nonetheless (iii) beginning from a perspective that is, in some sense, internal – or better, immanent – to the practice in question. Thus, if we are looking for a form of social critique that is neither purely epistemic nor merely external – which, in other words, allows us to critique social practices on something like their own terms as practically irrational – this method should be attractive for philosophers with Kantian (or post-Kantian) sympathies. At the heart of this conception of critique lies in the idea that social practices may be thought of as attempts at (some form of) collective practical understanding. As I will explain more below, this way of thinking about the rationality of social practices may be seen as the product of applying a general (post-Kantian) model of rationality, which I have developed elsewhere, to the rationality of social collectives or practices. (shrink)

This article focuses on five flaws of Christian Fuchs’ approach of Web 2.0 economy. Here, Fuchs’ views on immaterial production, productivity of labor, commodification of users’ data, underestimation of financial aspects of digital economy, and the violation of Marx’s laws of value production, rate of exploitation, fall tendency of profit rate, and overproduction crisis are put into question. This article defends the thesis Fuchs fails to apply Marxian political economy to the contemporary phenomena of Web 2.0 economy. It is (...) possible to avoid Fuchs’ errors, and another approach is possible to remake Marxism relevant for an analysis of the new media economy. (shrink)

This doctoral thesis was prepared in 1975-77 at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, under the supervision of Prof. Raymond ARON. It was submitted in 1977 in fulfilment of the requirements for a Ph.D. degree in Social Sciences (Doctorat de 3e cycle en sciences sociales). The oral examination (soutenance de thèse) was held in January 1978, with the examination committee consisting of Prof. Aron, Bartoli, Boudon and Brochier. This 250 page unpublished dissertation was the first study ever written (...) in French on Karl Marx's Grundrisse - a 1857-58 manuscript preparatory to Marx's main economic work, Capital. The dissertation reviews Marx's successive projects for his economic work since the 1844 Manuscripts and then proceeds to a presentation and critical discussion of Grundrisse. The proposed interpretation explains the linkage that Marx operated in 1857-58 between Ricardo's economics and Hegel's dialectics, and it emphasizes that Marx was at that time primarily trying to reconstruct the dynamics of capitalism, without going to the stage of developing a formal theory of value and exploitation, as he will eventually do in Capital. (shrink)

This chapter situates Karl Marx’s dissertation The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature (1841) within his intellectual biography. It explores the role of a German ideal known as Bildung, translated as “education”, “cultivation” or “culture”, within Marx’s classical education in the Gymnasium and the dissertation itself. Both Wilhelm von Humboldt, who reformed the Gymnasium curriculum prior to Marx’s attendance, and philosopher G.W.F. Hegel have classically inspired notions of Bildung. Each presents the white European (...) man as the model for this “education” or “cultivation”. This chapter argues that the dissertation assimilates Epicurus and his atom into this Eurocentric paradigm, with Marx taking for granted his predecessors’ racist teleology of history and applying their conception of the individual to the atom. Then, it addresses the dissertation’s influence in the development of historical materialism, a facet of Marxism already critiqued for its Eurocentrism. This chapter concludes by showing how non-White and non-Western Marxists have updated Marxist thought through constant critique of its Eurocentrism instead of abandoning its revolutionary vision. It suggests that Marxism is relevant to scholars of antiquity not because of the dissertation but the tradition’s self-interrogation of its foundational ideas and persistent focus on improving the conditions of the marginalised. (shrink)

The article presents J. Kmita’s methodological interpretation of selected cognitive methods used by K. Marx. Those methods were (and I believe they still are) significant for the social sciences and the humanities, even a century after they had been developed. J Kmita’s interpretation reveals specificity of epistemic procedures carried out by the author of “Capital” and emphasizes contemporary actuality of Marx’s epistemological ideas. To achieve that aim, Kmita refers to the concepts established in the field of philosophy (...) of science of his time. According to J. Kmita, the attractiveness of Marx’s approach lies in the opportunity to develop a methodological interpretation of Marx philosophy, which in turn enables the formation of a unique theory of science development, alternative to those provided by logical positivism, falsificationism, neopragmatism or sociology of knowledge. Such theory would combine the perspective of sociology of knowledge with an epistemological approach to the development of science. (shrink)

Much contemporary ontological inquiry takes place within the so-called ‘Quinean tradition’ but, given that some aspects of Quine’s project have been widely abandoned even by those who consider themselves Quineans, it is unclear what this amounts to. Fortunately recent work in metaontology has produced two relevant results here: a clearer characterisation of the metaontology uniting the aforementioned Quineans, most notably undertaken by Peter van Inwagen, and a raft of criticisms of that metaontology. In this paper I critique van Inwagen’s Quinean (...) metaontology, finding that certain challenges, supplemented by pressure to reflect more closely Quine’s work, should drive Quineans to adopt a stronger metaontology incorporating more of Quine’s radical views. I conclude that while van Inwagen’s Quineanism is problematic there are prospects for a viable, more wholeheartedly Quinean, metaontology. (shrink)

In in this paper, I make use of an “doxastic planning model” of epistemic evaluation to argue for a form of epistemic internalism. In doing so, I begin by responding to a recent argument of Schoenfield’s against my previous attempt to develop such an argument. In doing so, I distinguish a variety of ways that argument might be understood, and discuss how both internalists and externalists might make use of the ideas within it. Then I argue that, despite (...) these complexities, the doxastic planning model continues to support a modest form of epistemic internalism. I conclude by showing that, far from conflicting with “anti-luminosity” arguments in epistemology, this form of internalism is best understood as a natural reaction to these arguments. (shrink)

The Darwin-Hecker hypothesis, viz. that laughter induced by tickling and humor share common underlying mechanisms, is so-called in part because of a quotation attributed to Ewald Hecker. However, a German counterpart of the quotation does not appear in the location cited. Some textual sleuthing is undertaken to find out what Hecker actually wrote and where he wrote it.

Abstract. This paper illustrates how philosophy and science may converge and inform one another. I begin with a brief rehearsal of John Morreall’s “formulaic” theory of laughter, that laughter results from a pleasant psychological shift, and of my previously published criticisms and counterproposal that laughter results from titillation (where “titillation” is a semitechnical term). I defend my own position against charges that it is trivial, circular, or vacuous (charges that, if correct, would apply equally to Morreall’s position), showing that these (...) charges are misguided or premature. Then I indicate how my position is reflected in and might be given empirical content by a hypothesis that is already under preliminary experimental investigation in psychology, namely the Darwin-Hecker hypothesis, and also how my position is in harmony with recent work in psychology alleging the discovery of evolutionary antecedents of human laughter in rats. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the relevance of the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer for contemporary feminist scholarship on epistemic injustice and oppression. Specifically, I set out to argue for the Gadamerian notion of hermeneutical openness as an important hermeneutic virtue, and a potential remedy for existing epistemic injustices. In doing so I follow feminist philosophers such as Linda Martín Alcoff and Georgia Warnke that have adopted the insights of Gadamer for the purpose of social and feminist philosophy. (...) Further, this paper is positioned in relation to a recent book chapter by Cynthia Nielsen and David Utsler in which they argue for the complementarity, and intersecting themes and concerns of Gadamer's hermeneutics and Miranda Fricker's work on epistemic injustice. However, Nielsen and Utsler solely focus on Fricker's conception of epistemic injustice and the two forms of epistemic injustice, testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice, that she identifies. In this paper I expand their analysis by considering other forms of epistemic injustice such as wilful hermeneutical ignorance and contributory injustice. Thus, this paper contributes to the budding literature on the relevance of Gadamer's work for the debates pertaining to epistemic injustice and oppression by expanding such analysis to other forms of epistemic injustice, and by further arguing for the strength of Gadamer's work in terms of offering relevant insights for the reduction and remedy of existing epistemic injustices. (shrink)

In recent years, several philosophers - including Joshua Gert, Douglas Portmore, and Elizabeth Harman - have argued that there is a sense in which morality itself does not treat moral reasons as consistently overriding.2 My aim in the present essay is to develop and extend this idea from a somewhat different perspective. In doing so, I offer an alternative way of formalizing the idea that morality is modest about the weight of moral reasons in this way, thereby making more explicit (...) the connections between this thesis and similar issues in the epistemic sphere. In addition, I discuss how these ideas can transform our thinking about familiar questions in ethics such as the nature of self-effacement, the significance of reflective endorsement, the weight that moral reasons ought to be given in all things consideration, and the plausibility of “indirect” moral theories. Finally, I show that these ideas are compatible even with pictures of morality – such as Kant’s – on which morality might seem to anything but modest about its own importance. In doing so, I stress that it is possible to see morality as modest about the weight of specifically moral reasons, while also seeing all practical reasons as grounded in morality more indirectly – namely, by seeing morality as determining the weight that both moral and non-moral considerations deserve to have in all things considered deliberation. (shrink)

This is the commentary on Richard C. Richards, "Humor and Happiness”, read at the Lighthearted Philosophers' Society 5th Annual Conference, 14 October 2011, Treasure Island, Florida.

With respect to the topic of “powers and abilities,” most readers will associate David Hume with his multi-pronged critique of traditional attempts to make robust explanatory use of those notions in a philosophical or scientific context. But Hume’s own philosophy is also structured around the attribution to human beings of a variety of basic faculties or mental powers – such as the reason and the imagination, or the various powers involved in Hume’s account of im- pressions of reflection and the (...) passions. Indeed, there is a clear case to be made that, despite his deflationary account of our concept of power, Hume continues to treat certain basic powers or faculties as forming the explanatory bedrock for his new “science of man”. In this essay, I will discuss how this apparent conflict between the “critical” (if not outright skeptical) and “constructive” aspects of Hume’s discussion of powers and abilities is best resolved – with special attention to the question of how this illuminates Hume’s place in the development of early modern conceptions of the proper method for philosophy. (shrink)

Several counterexamples are adduced against the view that surprise is an essential ingredient of humor.

How to account for the power that art holds over us? Why do artworks touch us deeply, consoling, transforming or invigorating us in the process? In this paper, we argue that an answer to this question might emerge from a fecund framework in cognitive science known as predictive processing (a.k.a. active inference). We unpack how this approach connects sense-making and aesthetic experiences through the idea of an ‘epistemic arc’, consisting of three parts (curiosity, epistemic action and aha experiences), (...) which we cast as aspects of active inference. We then show how epistemic arcs are built and sustained by artworks to provide us with those satisfying experiences that we tend to call ‘aesthetic’. Next, we defuse two key objections to this approach; namely, that it places undue emphasis on the cognitive component of our aesthetic encounters—at the expense of affective aspects—and on closure and uncertainty minimization (order)—at the expense of openness and lingering uncertainty (change). We show that the approach offers crucial resources to account for the open-ended, free and playful behaviour inherent in aesthetic experiences. The upshot is a promising but deflationary approach, both philosophically informed and psychologically sound, that opens new empirical avenues for understanding our aesthetic encounters. -/- This article is part of the theme issue ‘Art, aesthetics and predictive processing: theoretical and empirical perspectives’. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen’s pathbreaking book, Karl Marx‘s Theory of History: A Defence (1978), prompted extensive reconsideration of historical materialism. This effort recast ongoing debates about Marx‘s theory of history by defending the view that historical materialism embodies a set of substantive claims as appropriately subject to analytical scrutiny as those of any other viable theory. Specifically, Cohen advances one central substantive claim that summarizes his reading of the “Preface” to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. (...) “History is, fundamentally, the growth of productive power, and forms of society rise and fall according as they enable or impede that growth.” This premise affirms that the same set of factors that explain changes societies undergo within a given historical epoch also explain transitions between historical epochs. The theoretical account of intraepochal historical development suffices equally to cover interepochal, revolutionary change. In this paper we reject this premise and argue that even on the most plausible reconstruction of Marx’s theory of history—a reconstruction that employs, among other things, a careful ownership-based criterion of historical epochs and the use of functional explanations—Marx’s theory of history cannot explain social revolutions. -/- . (shrink)

Preface to the Hebrew Translation of Karl Marx's Introduction and Preface to the Critique of Political Economy .

This article examines Karl Marx’s distributive justice principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” contained in the Critique of the Gotha Program (1875). It argues that Marx advocates for “unequal equality,” since the end result of his principle is unequal contribution (due to the contributors’ different abilities) and unequal distribution (due to recipients’ different needs); that Marx’s principle avoids many pitfalls of contemporary desert theories; that while Marx is critical (...) of formal, abstract right (Recht), he maintains that right will be enhanced in the future communist society; that Marx’s attitude toward work is contradictory, since for him work is both “life’s prime want” and a hindrance to the intellectual and social flourishing possible only in leisure time; that the widespread interpretation of the communist society as one of abundance where all needs can be satisfied has scant textual basis; and that Marx’s principle continues to inspire theories of distributive justice and efforts to expand welfare and social services, and endeavors to establish a classless, cooperative society. (shrink)

The paper aims to provide a critical analysis of Marx’s normative conception, both in terms of his economicistc mistakes and in relation to the normative principles implied in his general theoretical framework. The attention is then focused on Marx’s immanent critique of capitalism, also in relation to the normative interpretation of socialism recently presented by Axel Honneth; the Author highlights as Marx’s concept of freedom is linked to the idea of liberation from forced labour.

There is hardly any theme in Karl Marx’s theoretical corpus that has garnered as much traction as his theory of fetishism. Ever since Marx introduced the term into his critique of political economy in Capital, fetishism became a field of theoretical force, creating its own gravitational center toward which the interest of later generations of historians, social theorists, and political activists has been pulled. While much ink has been spilled on the specific content and theoretical scope of (...) fetishism in Capital for over one and a half centuries, young Marx’s initial exploration of the term rarely enjoyed critical attention. This is especially true in regard to the period from his early journalism in the Rheinische Zeitung (1842–43) to his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. (shrink)

After years of neglect, alienation has again reached the agenda of critical thought. In my case, I recognize alienation as a challenge for education in contemporary societies. To obtain conceptual resources to overcome this challenge, I have revisited the comprehensive 20 th century discussion of alienation. Today, alienation is naturally discussed as an existential condition of human being, but still in the 1980s, there was a strong Marxist current that claimed alienation to be implied by capitalism, in particular by the (...) institution of private property and the social division of labor, and that alienation therefore should be criticized as part of the critique of capitalism and political economy and possibly overcome. Today, under the hegemony of neo-liberal capitalism, this critical and processual concept of alienation is more relevant than ever. Hence, in the present work I argue that the basic logic of Marx's idea of alienation still has critical potential. The argument forms a long engagement with mainly 20 th century literature, departing from the very idea of capitalism, considering the ideas of history, education and democracy, discussing how to distinguish and translate key terms, considering why alienation became an object of controversy among Marxists, offering an interpretation of Marx's critique relevant for contemporary society, thus considering alienation a consequence of working under conditions of private property, i.e. being a human being in a capitalist society, and finally presenting Marx's idea of communism as relevant to the contemporary educational agenda. (shrink)

Although cognitivism has lost some ground recently in the philosophical circles, it is still the favorite view of many scholars of emotions. Even though I agree with cognitivism's insight that emotions typically involve some type of evaluative intentional state, I shall argue that in some cases, less epistemically committed, non-propositional evaluative states such as mental pictures can do a better job in identifying the emotion and providing its intentional object. Mental pictures have different logical features from propositions: they are representational, (...) and some may or may not portray actual objects aptly. Yet, unlike propositional attitudes, mental pictures do not allow for objective criteria by which one can judge that a certain picture is an apt portrait of someone or something. (shrink)

In the first stage of his thinking Karl Marx founded his revolutionary politics on philosophical speculation, while in the second (mature) stage he relied on economics and the theory of exploitation based on his theory of surplus value. Marxism, however, developed in the opposite direction. After Marx's economic doctrine became vulnerable to powerful objections, Marxists tried to find a refuge in his early philosophical writings and in this way avoid refutation. Ultimately this attempt proved unsuccessful too.

I discuss a large number of emotions that are relevant to performance at epistemic tasks. My central concern is the possibility that it is not the emotions that are most relevant to success of these tasks but associated virtues. I present cases in which it does seem to be the emotions rather than the virtues that are doing the work. I end of the paper by mentioning the connections between desirable and undesirable epistemic emotions.

Philosophers of mind and epistemologists are increasingly making room in their theories for epistemic emotions (E-emotions) and, drawing on metacognition research in psychology, epistemic – or noetic or metacognitive – feelings (E-feelings). Since philoso- phers have only recently begun to draw on empirical research on E-feelings, in particular, we begin by providing a general characterization of E-feelings (section 1) and reviewing some highlights of relevant research (section 2). We then turn to philosophical work on E-feelings and E-emotions, situating (...) the contributions to the focus section (two articles devoted to E-feelings and two devoted to E-emotions) with respect to both the existing literature and each other (section 3). We conclude by brie y describing some promising avenues for further philosophical research on E-feelings and E-emotions (section 4). (shrink)

WEBARTIGOS -/- KARL MARX: TRABALHO E CLASSES SOCIAIS Publicado em 12 de June de 2019 por Emanuel Isaque cordeiro da silva -/- KARL MARX: TRABALHO E CLASSES SOCIAIS(1) -/- KARL MARX: WORK AND SOCIAL CLASSES -/- Alana Thaís Mayza da Silva - CAP-UFPE(2) Eduarda Carvalho da Silva Fontain - CAP-UFPE(3) Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva – IFPE-BJ, CAP-UFPE e UFRPE(4) -/- Dentro do mundo marxista, como para a Sociologia, a fundamental e principal obra de (...) Karl Marx foi O capital (1867 o primeiro volume e os demais volumes -2- foram publicados pós-morte de Marx, em 1883). Karl Marx é considerado um dos maiores pensadores da Economia, da Sociologia e da Filosofia de seu tempo até os dias atuais. Seus estudos centraram-se na devassa dos nexos de força entre os sujeitos. Para Marx, a principal questão para a elucidação das metamorfoses sociais é o nexo conflituoso entre forças sociais, isto é, entre esferas sociais divergentes entre si e com interesses completamente contrários. -/- Nessa perspectiva, Marx explana: -/- A história de toda a sociedade até aqui é a história de lutas de classes. [Homem] livre e escravo, patrício e plebeu, barão e servo [Leibeigener], burgueses de corporação [Zunftbürger] e oficial, em suma, opressores e oprimidos, estiveram em constante oposição uns aos outros, travaram uma luta ininterrupta, ora oculta ora aberta, uma luta que de cada vez acabou por uma reconfiguração revolucionária de toda a sociedade ou pelo declínio comum das classes em luta. [...] A moderna sociedade burguesa, saída do declínio da sociedade feudal, não aboliu as oposições de classes. Apenas pôs novas classes, novas condições de opressão, novas configurações de luta, no lugar das antigas. A nossa época a época da burguesia, distingue-se, contudo, por ter simplificado as oposições de classes. A sociedade toda cinde-se, cada vez mais, em dois grandes campos inimigos, em duas grandes classes que diretamente se enfrentam: burguesia e proletariado. (MARX e ENGELS, 1988).(5) -/- A alegação principal de Marx é a de que os corpos sociais se fracionam em esferas ou classes sociais. Esse fracionamento é consequência de um processo histórico de embates em que uma das esferas/classes torna-se hegemônica e imperante e acaba subjugando os interesses das demais classes. No capitalismo, o filósofo observa que a chamada burguesia(6), tornou-se hegemônica e imperante em todo os países industrializados. A burguesia, primeiramente venceu a nobreza e a hegemonia do feudalismo, o sistema que imperava na Europa até a Revolução Francesa e, posteriormente, instaura um novo tipo de sodalismo(7). A elite(8) ou a alta sociedade, ou ainda, os burgueses, passaram a designar e constituir as formas de governo, a cultura e a política, de acordo com seus interesses. Isso implica dizer que as regras sodalísticas, as leis instauradas mediante o diálogo social e os magistrados, as normas coercitivas ou não, os gostos e os arquétipos de consumo, de estruturação e conformação da economia, da ciência e da política passaram a ser estabelecidas e designadas pelos anseios e interesses da elite. Isto é, o corpo social capitalista em que subsistimos tem como primordial finalidade a reprodução da forma de vida da elite, alicerçada na formação do lucro e arquitetada na produção de mercadorias. Para demonstrar o feitio de vida da elite, é imprescindível que haja uma esfera que produza as mercadorias, cujo trabalho dessa classe produtora é explorado pelos capitalistas. Com efeito, ao passo em que se constitui historicamente uma classe de elite, também é formada uma esfera antagônica à burguesia, que nada mais é do que a classe dos trabalhadores, ou como Marx designa de proletariado(9). Diante do processo histórico de estruturação e organização do capitalismo, a elite que acabara de nascer já gozava da exploração do trabalho de pequenos produtores. Logo, ao passo da ascensão desse feitio de produção, a elite torna-se imperante e o coletivo de laboradores, antigos servos e agricultores, também ascende vigorosamente conformando-se em um feitio de proletariado industrial. Logo, as esferas sociais essenciais do corpo social capitalista são a elite de burgueses (a classe capitalista, que detém o poderio) e os laboradores ou o proletariado. -/- Não obstante, aparecem algumas indagações quanto ao dualismo burgueses e proletários, e uma das principais questões gira em torno do por que a classe laboral deixa ser explorada? E por que não há uma equidade econômica entre os sujeitos? Segundo o filósofo, ao longo da História, a esfera laboral foi desapoderada de seus meios de produção, isto é, de suas propriedades, de suas ferramentas e de seus locais de trabalho. A elite que se empoderou dos meios de produção dos trabalhadores, passaram a subjugar os trabalhadores a vender seu trabalho em troca de um salário.(10)(11) Com a desapropriação de suas posses e a oferta de empregos para subsistência, os trabalhadores são submetidos a oferecer seu labour-power(12) a determinado salário, a certas condições e jornadas de trabalho, a um ritmo ditado pelo burguês e, sobretudo, a uma certa demanda de produtividade. Com todas essas determinações da elite, a esfera laboral não tem escolha. Se o trabalhador quiser sobreviver nesse mundo capitalista, deve a todo momento vender seu labour-power a um capitalista, seja no meio comercial, seja no meio industrial, seja numa instituição de ensino particular ou até mesmo à campo, cortando cana-de-açúcar para uma usina produtora de álcool. A esfera capitalista (elite) tem como ponto motriz de sua imperância a reprodução e a exploração do trabalho. Para tanto, a produção industrial caba se tornando cada vez mais incrementada, tanto na esfera dos feitios de gerência quanto as novas tecnologias que são introduzidas para maximizar a produção e produtividade. Com efeito, surgem implicações como o por que é tão essencial a introdução de mais e mais tecnologias para desenvolver a produção de mercadorias? O filósofo entende que quanto mais o trabalhador é comedido, maior será sua produtividade, todavia menor será seu poder político no corpo social. Dessarte, a permuta do trabalhador por uma máquina é uma tendência do capitalista para obtenção maximizada de mercadorias, ascendendo a produtividade da atividade laboral. Vale salientar que com a máquina a produção ascende, mas também aumenta o controle do capitalista sobre os trabalhadores, uma vez que os mesmos, para não perder o emprego, terão que responder ao mesmo ritmo que as máquinas. Isto é, o patrão goza da máquina ou robô para aumentar a produtividade e para aumentar seu poder político sobre os trabalhadores. Ao submeter o trabalhador ao mesmo ritmo da máquina, ritmo esse que ele não comanda, o patrão subjuga a aumentar sua produtividade com relação ao seu trabalho para que o mesmo não venha a perder seu emprego. -/- Podemos sintetizar essa inquirição com uma frase de Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa(13): "é preciso que tudo mude para que tudo se mantenha”. Isto quer dizer que é essencial desenvolver novas tecnologias para a produção e feitios de organização, fazendo com que: 1. Ascenda a produção e, com efeito, o lucro dos capitalistas também maximizem; 2. É importante também que aumente o controle e o poderio do patrão sobre a esfera laboral. Em vista disso, para Karl, a ascensão desenfreada do capitalismo é alicerçada mediante a exploração e imperância da classe trabalhadora pela esfera capitalista. Assim, as esferas sociais esbarram-se e as metamorfoses históricas e sociais se desenrolam. -/- Ante todo o supracitado texto, observemos que de um lado estão os proletários, que reivindicam seus direitos por intermédio de sindicatos, na busca por melhores salários e condições de trabalho. Em contrapartida, estão os burgueses ou os capitalistas, que visam somente a maximização de seus lucros. Logo, ante esse dualismo, existe um embate entre forças sociais completamente divergentes e opostas. Os capitalistas querem maximizar os lucros, e para isso empregam técnicas produtivas cada vez mais sofisticadas; a outra esfera, a dos trabalhadores, resiste, com o objetivo de manter e/ou ampliar suas condições materiais de sobrevivência na sociedade. Temos, assim, um corpo social alicerçado em relações divergentes, que inspiram embates políticos provindos da fragmentação social em classes. -/- Notas: -/- (1) In. AMORIM, H.; BARROS, C. R. de.; MACHADO, I. J. de R. Sociologia Hoje. 1ª. ed. São Paulo: Ática, 2013. 127-129. -/- (2) Estudante do Colégio de Aplicação da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (2018-2020). Cursa Especialização em História Geral e do Brasil na Universidade Católica de Pernambuco. (3) Atualmente estuda o ensino médio no Colégio de Aplicação da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (2018-2020). Cursa Inglês e Francês no Instituto Brasileiro de Línguas no Bairro Derby em Recife. Cursa ballet clássico na Escola de Ballet Marisa Queiroga. -/- (4) Bacharelando em Zootecnia pela Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco – UFRPE (2019-). Tecnólogo em Agropecuária pelo Instituto Federal de Pernambuco Campus Belo Jardim (2016-2018). Normalista (magistério) pela Escola Estadual Frei Cassiano Comacchio (2014-2017). Professor substituto e de reforço do Colégio de Aplicação da UFPE e do Colégio Santa Maria. Pesquisador assíduo de assuntos com cunho educacional, filosófico, político e social. Contatos: [email protected] / [email protected] e WhatsApp: (82)9.8143-8399. -/- (5) ENGELS, F.; MARX, K. Manifesto do Partido Comunista. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1988. p. 66-67. -/- (6) Para o professor Emanuel Isaque, por burguesia pode-se entender a camada ou classe social de Capitalistas modernos (ao tempo de Marx) ou contemporâneos, proprietários de indústrias ou quaisquer meios lucrativos e de produção social e que empregam por meio do trabalho assalariado, em que o indivíduo trabalha por horas semanais e ao fim do mês é lhe conferido um salário correspondente ao seu trabalho. -/- (7) Para o professor Emanuel Isaque, Sodalismo nada mais é do a doutrina relacionada à tudo que se conecta diretamente com a sociedade, à exemplo, vida sodalícia significa vida em sociedade. Nada mais é do que um simples sinônimo. -/- (8) O termo burguesia é trocado pelo termo elite para designar a classe social que detém o poder político, econômico, etc. -/- (9) Para o professor Emanuel Isaque, por proletariado pode-se entender a classe de trabalhadores assalariados modernos, aos quais não tendo meios próprios de produção nem de subsistência, são reduzidos a vender sua força de trabalho (labour-power) para que possam viver no corpo social capitalista. -/- (10) O professor Emanuel Isaque diz que é sumamente essencial lembrar e salientar que para o filósofo, o trabalho que enfrentamos cotidianamente tem como suma finalidade a geração de lucros para o capitalista. Toda a produção de uma indústria, à exemplo, é organizado de acordo com essa finalidade suprema. Todavia, os proletários ficam apenas com uma pequena parcela equivalente à produção. O resto é exatamente o lucro do capitalista proveniente do labour-power do trabalhador. -/- (11) Uma profícua ampliação do tema poderá ser encontrado em: MAIOR, J. L. S. Um conceito marxista de salário. Germinal: Marxismo e Educação em Debate, Salvador, v. 6, n. 2, p. 95-109, dez. 2014. -/- (12) Nota de Engels à edição inglesa do manifesto do Partido Comunista de 1888. -/- (13) Escritor italiano (1896-1957). -/- -/- SBS - Sociedade Brasileira de Sociologia PUCRS - PPG em Ciências Sociais Avenida Ipiranga, 6681 - Partenon CEP: 90619-900 - Porto Alegre, RS [email protected] -/- Quaisquer meios de reprodução do artigo é extremamente proibida. Os infratores estarão sujeitos à pena de três meses à um ano de prisão conforme artigo 184 do Código Penal e Lei 9.610/98. -/- Todos os direitos reservados para Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva. ©2019. (shrink)

Arnošt Kolman (1892–1979) was a Czech mathematician, philosopher and Communist official. In this paper, we would like to look at Kolman’s arguments against logical positivism which revolve around the notion of the fetishization of mathematics. Kolman derives his notion of fetishism from Marx’s conception of commodity fetishism. Kolman is aiming to show the fact that an entity (system, structure, logical construction) acquires besides its real existence another formal existence. Fetishism means the fantastic detachment of the physical characteristics of real (...) things or phenomena from these things. We identify Kolman’s two main arguments against logical positivism. In the first argument, Kolman applied Lenin’s arguments against Mach’s empiricism-criticism onto Russell’s neutral monism, i.e. mathematical fetishism is internally related to political conservativism. Kolman’s second main argument is that logical and mathematical fetishes are epistemologically deprived of any historical and dynamic dimension. In the final parts of our paper we place Kolman’s thinking into the context of his time, and furthermore we identify some tenets of mathematical fetishism appearing in Alain Badiou’s mathematical ontology today. (shrink)

Одной из особенностей прагматизма является, как известно, трактовка познания, свободная от апелляции к корреспондентной теории истины и постулирования независимой (от человека) реальности. Все прагматисты, к каким бы воззрениям по частным вопросам они ни склонялись, придерживаются операциональной концепции познания. Согласно этой концепции, достаточным основанием знания является его применимость на практике. Данный аспект неоднократно затрагивался в ходе дискуссий о сходствах и различиях марксизма и прагматизма. Несмотря на существенное расхождение между прагматизмом и марксизмом в понимании природы знания, многие исследователи пытались провести параллели между (...) этими двумя интеллектуальными традициями. В частности, Бертран Рассел указывал на близость философии Дьюи «доктрине другого экс-гегельянца, Карла Маркса, как она была сформулирована в его “Тезисах о Фейербахе”». По мнению Рассела, если не придавать слишком большого значения терминологическим нюансам, Марксова теория деятельности, или праксиса, в главных моментах «едва отличима от инструментализма». Этот взгляд получил распространение даже среди прагматистов, а также американских марксистов (точнее, троцкистов), которые в конце 40-х годов прошлого века трактовали прагматизм Дьюи как прямое продолжение и развитие марксизма. Дж. Новак, к примеру, утверждал, что «самым выдающимся современным мыслителем, впитавшим в себя все лучшее, что было у Маркса, является Дьюи». В. Ленина — как практика, а не теоретика — Новак считал, в свою очередь, «скрытым последователем» Дьюи. Согласно бывшему марксисту С. Хуку, прагматизм — это философия «экспериментального натурализма», т. е. теория, «развивающая наиболее здравые и продуктивные идеи Маркса о мире». В статье (с опорой главным образом на аргументацию советских марксистов) критически пересматривается философский диалог между марксизмом и прагматизмом. Основное внимание уделяется понятию деятельности, или праксиса, а также взаимосвязи субъекта и объекта в познании. // It is well-known that pragmatism advocates an approach on cognition without appealing to man-independent reality and truth as correspondence with reality. Instead, pragmatists, notwithstanding the diversity of their particular views, hold an operational conception of knowledge, according to which all that is needed is knowledge to have a suitable kind of correspondence with practice. This point has been scrutinized in the long standing discussion about the convergences and deviations between Marxism and pragmatism. The profound divergence between Marxism and pragmatism with regard to the aforementioned issues was not enough to prevent philosophers from attempting to trace affinities between these two distinct intellectual trends. For example, Bertrand Russell pointed out the “close similarity” of Dewey’s doctrine to “that of another exHegelian, Karl Marx, as it is delineated in his Theses on Feuerbach.” Russell thinks that Marx’s concept of activity or praxis is in spite of differences in terminology “essentially indistinguishable from instrumentalism.” This line of reasoning seems to be quite influential, even among pragmatists. Notably, some American Marxists (especially Trotskyists, to be exact) at the late 40’s overemphasized the affinity between Dewey’s pragmatism and Marxism, and even understood Dewey’s pragmatism as a continuation of Marxism. For example, G. Novack comments that “[t]he most outstanding figure in the world today in whom the best elements of Marx’s thought are present is John Dewey,” and presents Lenin as “an unavowed disciple of Dewey in practice.” According to S. Hook, a former Marxist who turned to pragmatism and became one of the most influential philosophers who discussed the relation between Marxism and pragmatism, the latter is “the philosophy of experimental naturalism” which can be regarded “as a continuation of what is soundest and most fruitful in Marx’s philosophical outlook upon the world.” In this paper, I intend to critically reassess this philosophical dialogue between Marxism and pragmatism, by further deploying the argumentation provided mainly by Soviet Marxists with regard to the aforementioned issues, focusing especially on two of them: the concept of activity (or praxis) and the interrelation of subject and object in cognition. (shrink)

"Capital is moved as much and as little by the degradation and final depopulation of the human race, as by the probable fall of the earth into the sun. Apres moi le deluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation" (Marx, CAPITAL Vol 1, 380-381).

Book synopsis: This collection of essays from the Royal Institute of Philosophy shows the connections and interrelations between the analytic and hermeneutic strains in German philosophy since Kant, partly to challenge the idea that there are two separate, non-communicating traditions. The distinguished contributors include David-Hillel Ruben on Marx, Robert Solomon writing on Nietzsche, Michael Inwood on Heidegger, P. M. S. Hacker on Frege and Wittgenstein, Christopher Janaway on Schopenhauer, Thomas Uebel on Neurath and the Vienna Circle, and Jay Bernstein (...) on Adorno. The collection is rounded off by a paper by Jürgen Habermas specifically on hermeneutic and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, feminist epistemologists have exposed the cultural biases that have denied epistemic value to certain epistemic styles and agents while they have explored ways to reclaim the devalued epistemic modes--including more practical, emotionally invested, and community-situated modes of knowing--that many of us have found to be meaningful ways of engaging the world. At the same time, feminist critics have sought not merely to reverse received epistemic hierarchies but to explore more pluralistic epistemologies that appreciate (...) as well as examine critically the diverse ways that humans engage the world. This paper examines how Simone Weil’s concept of paying attention can contribute to such a critical and pluralist epistemology. By reading Weil’s account of “a certain kind of attention” together with feminist and decolonial critiques of modern epistemic norms, I show how Weil points toward an epistemic framework that would open our intellectual communities to a greater plurality of epistemic styles and agents and, ultimately, would make possible richer knowledge practices more responsive to world problems. (shrink)

Although it was, until recently, unfashionable in certain circles to say this, Marx was not a philosopher in any interesting sense. He was a social theorist. As social theory, I am thinking primarily of two areas : the methodology of social inquiry, and its metaphysical presuppositions, and normative philosophy.

For over last two centuries, education in the West has been destructively influenced by the philosophical thought of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Following the route of exposing threats, which waylay the Catholic understanding of human being and education, I would like to point out that Rousseau’s educational utopianism is actually neither alone, nor prevailing. For the contemporary culture seems to be under the dramatic impact of many idealistic thinkers which actually are captained by Karl Marx.

Philosophers and psychologists sometimes categorize emotions like surprise and curiosity as specifically epistemic. Is there some reasonably unified and interesting class of emotions here? If so, what unifies it? This paper proposes and defends an evaluative account of epistemic emotions: what it is to be an epistemic emotion is to have fittingness conditions that distinctively involve some epistemic evaluation. We argue that this view has significant advantages over alternative proposals and is a promising way to identify (...) a limited and interesting class of emotions. (shrink)

El artículo revela cómo la filosofía que desarrolló Karl Marx estuvo centrada en el tema de la vida. La esencia de la comprensión marxiana de la sociedad y la historia no radica en una primacía abstracta de lo económico, sino en el proceso real de producción y reproducción de la vida. Es la vida –y no la economía por sí misma– la que constituye el fundamento de la concepción materialista de la historia desarrollada por Marx.

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

This paper begins with a discussion the role of less-than-admirable epistemic emotions in our respectable, indeed admirable inquiries: nosiness, obsessiveness, wishful thinking, denial, partisanship. The explanation for their desirable effect is Mandevillian: because of the division of epistemic labour individual epistemic vices can lead to shared knowledge. In fact it is sometimes essential to it.

Karl Marx claims that alienation inheres in all wage labor. I raise questions about the applicability of this claim to subjects of patriarchy. In the first section, I discuss industrial wage labor and its allure for women who were trying to escape the norms of familial patriarchy. In the second section, I extend this criticism of Marx’s claim by considering the racially enslaved subjects of the Antebellum American South, for whom economicallyrecognized wage labor was still a bloody (...) political battle. Finally, I turn to the identification of working class women and sexuality, in order to show how wage labor offered liberation from narrow bourgeois sexual strictures. I conclude by reassessing the viability of Marx’s critique of alienation, taking into account the standpoints from which wage labor itself was a considerable political achievement. (shrink)

In Marxist circles it is common to refer to Karl Marx’s The Civil War in France for a theoretical analysis of the historical significance of the Paris Commune, and to Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray’s History of the Commune of 1871 for a description of the facts surrounding the insurrection of the Paris workers and its repression by the National Assembly led by Adolphe Thiers. What is less well-known is that Marx himself oversaw the German translation of Lissagaray’s book and (...) made numerous additions to it. In this article we describe Marx’s addenda to Lissagaray’s work, showing how they contribute to concretising his analysis of the Paris Commune and how they relate to the split in the International Working Men’s Association between Marxists and anarchists that took place after the Commune’s defeat. We also show how Marx’s additions to the German version of Lissagaray’s book were linked to his involvement with the recently created Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany and to his criticism of the programme it had adopted at the congress celebrated in the city of Gotha. (shrink)

Irfan Ajvazi's forthcoming book from Idea Books (July, 2021): -/- "In Defense of Karl Marx seems the politics of the Left, the criticism of neo-liberalism, and the capitalist class of the powerful tyranny who brings inequalities and the discrimination of Working Class and the Workers. From the conception of freedom, Irfan looks the Politics of Neo-liberalism , Capitalism, and the Tyrannies as a destructive force in the ideological struggle, The Book calculate the economics of the communism and the (...) History of Philosophy, with a Hegelian Dialectics and Lacanian theory mixing also the rational argument of Spinoza and Kant.". (shrink)

This paper will address the nineteenth-century reception of Bacon as an exponent of materialism in Joseph de Maistre and Karl Marx. I will argue that Bacon’s philosophy is “quasi-materialist.” The materialist components of his philosophy were noticed by de Maistre and Marx, who, in addition, pointed out a Baconian materialist heritage. Their construction of Bacon’s figure as the leader of a materialist lineage ascribed to his philosophy a revolutionary import that was contrary to Bacon’s actual leanings. This (...) contrast shows how different the contexts were within which materialism was conceived and valued across the centuries, and how far philosophical and scientific discourses may be transformed by their receptions, to the point that in many cases they could hardly be embraced by the authors of these discourses. (shrink)

Interpreters have noticed that Nietzsche, in addition to sometimes being uproariously funny, reflects more on laughter and having a sense of humor than almost any other philosopher. Several scholars have further noticed that Nietzschean laughter sometimes seems to have an epistemic function. In this chapter, I assume that Nietzsche is a pluralist about the functions of humor and laughter, and seek to establish the uses he finds for them. I offer an interpretation according to which he tactically uses humor (...) and laughter for epistemic purposes. His epistemic aims include enabling inquiry (when faith and reverence might have forbidden it), achieving knowledge (for himself or for his reader), and abandoning error (again for himself or for his reader). Humor supports these goals by inducing contempt and the laughter that expresses (and sometimes also conjures) it. (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)

Is there any place for morality and normative ethics in Marx's ideas? The attempt to answer this question has generated a long debate and a large number of studies. Most of them agree that Marx is ambiguous at this point because he oscillates between science and normativity. But the reasons for this contradictory attitude have not been clearly identified. A distinction between practical materialism and historical materialism, as two different theories that coexist in Marx's work, can be (...) an effective way to address the problem. While the former is inherently ethical, the scientism of the latter can hardly be associated with morality. Young Marx's practical materialism becomes subordinated to mature Marx's historical materialism, but never disappears. And its ethical-political content is rescued by revolutionaries like Gramsci and Mariátegui when they realize that historical materialism does not really lead to socialism. (shrink)