Aristotle’s account of natural slavery as presented in his Politics is often treated by historians of philosophy as an account that can be analyzed purely internally in terms of its argumentative structure without referring to social factors. Against this view, Aristotle’s account of natural slavery is seen to be ideological according to at least one variant of the Marxist concept of ideology, and cannot be understood without reference to Aristotle’s socioeconomic context. The ideological nature of Aristotle’s account of natural (...) slavery is especially evident in his “proto-racialization” of the category of the “natural slave.” The Marxist concept of ideology is demonstrably useful in the historical study of philosophy, as compared with internalist historians of philosophy who claim that referring to nonphilosophical factors such as class interests inevitably obscures the philosophical content of the texts that are the objects of analysis. (shrink)

Hedonism is a basic problem in society, especially in Indonesia. There are several negative impacts produced by hedonism such as poverty, debt problems, and social conflict. With an income level that does not match one's level of spending, this can cause an imbalance in one's financial condition. The economic theory of Marxism—which was pioneered by Karl Marx through one of his books entitled The capital—helps us to understand more about logical considerations when consuming and maximizing utility to fulfill the collective (...) interest. Capitalism creates a quite radical push in one's consumption activity, where by analysis Law Diminishing Marginal Utility, capitalists will easily make new innovations so that they can produce new commodities that are deliberately positioned as commodities needed by society. Debt to Income Ratio which is one of the ratios to measure the liability and income of entities can be used as a step to prevent or slow down the development of a culture of hedonism and raise collective awareness in the midst of a fairly chaotic capitalist system. (shrink)

In ‘Equity and Marxist Buddhism,’ Tzu-wei Hung engages with the Marxist Buddhism developed by Taiwanese philosopher Lin Qiu-wu in the 1920s, brings this underexplored theory to the table and discusses a few merits and insights of the theory. Building on Hung’s analysis, this paper paper elaborates on the lessons and insights that Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism provides for modern times. The first three lessons are distinctive points that Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism brings to the discussion on combining (...) Marxism and Buddhism: the connections between the ethical and political, the responsibility for pursuing social justice and the nonviolence means towards social justice. The last lesson comes at the meta-philosophical level, focusing on how Hung’s engagement with Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism sheds light on the issue of diversifying the discipline philosophy. Overall, I argue that Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism not only makes contributions to theoretical frameworks while providing a practical means for pursuing equity and social justice, but it also manifests the epistemic and moral values for engaging with under-represented philosophical traditions. (shrink)

The state of our current world has brought about a very active discussion concerning possible alternatives to our current society. In this article, I wish to consider Marx’s idea of communism as a possible alternative, by understanding it as an undetermined concept that only proposes a society without classes and private property. The thesis I will defend here is that we can meaningfully think about such an alternative through the means of Science Fiction literature. In particular, I will take Ursula (...) Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (2006) as a case study. To clarify this relation between science fiction (SF) literature and communism as a particular case of an alternative society, I will introduce some concepts of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological theory. Thus, I shall argue that in SF we can presentify in bounded phantasy an alternative lifeworld, so furnishing with content the undetermined idea, and in doing so, strengthen the belief in the possibility of such an alternative society. (shrink)

My paper refers to Leszek Kołakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origin, Growth, and Dissolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1987). Kołakowski’s intention was to write a textbook on the history of Marxism based on his lectures but his book is much more than that. It is a philosophical treatise in which Marx’s doctrine of mankind and the program of its liberation are critically analysed and reinterpreted. The core of Marx’s philosophy is the idea of man and the belief that the real (...) existence of humans is not identical with their essence. Kołakowski shows that this belief is rooted in mythological thinking, the Platonic tradition, and in the Christian thought. A moral that follows from Kołakowski’s critical analysis of Marx’s doctrine is that man has never lived in a paradise and yet he perceives himself as banished thereof; that he will never enter a paradise and yet he cannot live without the faith that this is somehow possible. Therefore, what he should do is to have a minimum of common sense and skepticism related to it, for they would protect him against the traps laid by false prophets repeatedly asserting that they know the means to construct the paradise today or at least tomorrow. (shrink)

During the last two years, senior high school teachers struggled with course contents in a neoliberal education. While the Mass Training of Teachers (MTOT) focuses on pedagogical knowledge, their concern is to deepen their content knowledge. As a result, they face difficulty in teaching the subjects, one of which is Marxism under Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences (DISS). Enriching this paper, the query turns to the key participants of the sector and seek their insights. Then, critical analysis (...) applies what the literature says about the way Marxism is taught. (shrink)

The thesis that there is a reciprocal relationship between human beings and work—i.e., although man controls work, he may find in it either fulfillment or degradation—has its roots in the Marxist theory of alienation. This paper, therefore, tackles this problem from a Marxist perspective. It examines Marx and Engels’s analysis of the history and causes of human alienation by presenting their views on human nature and how work is related to the individual’s search for meaning and fulfillment. (...) The two—man and work—cannot be separated, for doing so leads to alienated work (production alienation) and alienated worker (self-alienation). Hence, the problem of employee satisfaction has to be dealt with from the perspective of how employees experience their relation to their work. (shrink)

No evangelistic erroneous network of ideas can guarantee the satisfaction of these two demands : (1) propagate the network without revision and (2) completely insulate itself against losses in credibility and adherents through criticism. If a network of ideas is false, or inconsistent or fails to solve its intended problem, or unfeasible, or is too costly in terms of necessarily forsaken goals, its acceptability may be undermined given only true assumptions and valid arguments. People prefer to adopt ideologies that (i) (...) are logically consistent, (ii) are more truth-like and of higher information content than their rivals, (iii) are systematically organised, (iv) solve their problems better than their rivals, (v) do not contain unfeasible demands, and (vi) do not contain uneconomic demands. Truth and validity therefore act as Darwinian-like filters on ideologies. Using Popper's notion of situational analysis and with reference to Darwinian evolution, considered as a special case of the former, and Bartley's theory of comprehensively critical rationalism I argue that a propagandist cannot guarantee his message or his movement from sound criticism. All positions are in a methodological sense open to argument. Moreover, the logic of a propagandist's situation constrains him into making his message and himself open to criticism in order to maximize its chances of being propagated through the population. But he then loses control of the message in two respects. Firstly, his audience are disposed to select from the competing ideas they encounter those that satisfy (i) to (vi) because of man's evolutionary history. Secondly, he cannot guarantee protection from criticism even a privileged section of his message because he cannot predict in a systematic way what logical repercussions each protective reformulation of the ideology will have on other sections of the ideology and what criticism the ideology will encounter. He cannot do the latter because of certain logical properties of theories that endow them with unfathomable depths. Marxism and Freudianism serve as case studies, especially for the analysis of Popper's notion of the immunizing stratagem, a methodological/logical device that is supposed to save theories from criticism. "Immunizing stratagems" either abandon the ideology they are meant to protect or seriously lower its chances of being reproduced. (shrink)

This book was completed by the early 1960s and published in 1984 but it has not lost its topicality, for it contains an important re-assessment of the relations of two main streams of contemporary philosophy - the Analytical and the Dialectic. Adherents and critics of these traditions tend to assurnethat they are diametrically opposed, that their roots, concerns and approaches contradict each other, and that no reconciliation is possible. In contradistinction Russell derives both traditions from the common root of the (...) dissatisfaction with the arguments against speculative philosophy. These according to the author leave a lacuna - certain elementsof our Weltanschaaung have been removed, but they cannot be removed without replacement lest we have an incomplete world view, so incomplete in fact that it cannot be viable. According to Russell part of this vacuum is taken up by the analytical tradition but this tradition is not capable of taking up the remainder of it. That portion of the vacant space is however taken up by the dialectical tradi tion, which in turn cannot itself handle the whole of the problem. Thus the two reactions to the demise of speculative philosophy appear to be complementary in at least this sense. But the author goes further, for according to hirn the analytical arguments themselves clearly point to the emergence of dialectical problems, and the dialectical problems themselves need some such background to arise. (shrink)

Exploring online criticisms of the ‘take the knee’ protest during ‘Euro 2020’, this article examines how alt- and far-right conspiracies were both constructed and communicated via the social media platform, Twitter. By providing a novel exploration of alt-right conspiracies during an international football tournament, a qualitative thematic analysis of 1,388 original tweets relating to Euro 2020 was undertaken. The findings reveal how, in criticisms levelled at both ‘wokeism’ and the Black Lives Matter movement, antiwhite criticisms of the ‘take the (...) knee’ protest were embroiled in alt-right conspiracies that exposed an assumed Cultural Marxist, ‘woke agenda’ in the tournament’s organization and mainstream media coverage. In conclusion, it is argued that conspiratorial discourses, associated with the alt-right, provided a framework through which the protest could be understood. This emphasises how the significance of conspiracy functions to promote the wider dissemination of alt-right ideology across popular cultural contexts, such as sport. (shrink)

This paper is a two-part project. First, I reject the analogous relationship between the Holocaust and slaughterhouses (found in the anti-meat novel The Lives of Animals) and cross-species analogical thinking entirely; instead, I opt for modes of analysis that can examine the specific circumstances of animals within slaughterhouses. Secondly, I assert that a socio-economic Marxist analysis is the best prism in which to recognize the suffering of pre-slaughter animals and the causation of their suffering (the ostensibly necessary (...) circulation and production of the meat-commodity). (shrink)

It is often supposed that Marxist philosophy and Wittgensteinian philosophy are not just very different but that they are opposed to each other. Wittgenstein was notoriously against theorizing in philosophy whereas Marx tried to give a scientific account of human society and culture. Marx famously said that ‘[t]he philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it’, while Wittgenstein was concerned with conceptual considerations and had very little to say about workers' struggles. My (...) aim in this paper is to show that these apparent differences dissolve once one realizes that Marx and Wittgenstein thought differently about the nature of philosophy. In the course of coming to this conclusion I will look at misinterpretations of Wittgenstein's philosophy from Perry Anderson and Alex Callinicos as well as at Wittgensteinian criticisms of Marxist philosophers such as Leon Trotsky, John Rees and Slavoj Žižek. I will conclude that Marxist philosophers stand to gain from a clearer understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy and that Wittgensteinians can similarly gain from an appreciation of the kind of analysis of economics, society and politics offered by Marxists. (shrink)

The term 'fascism' continues to be very much in currency in Philippines society. To the Filipino people, its meaning is often drawn from pained memory of wholesale deprivation of democratic rights and large-scale human rights abuses. Yet, to many, the fear of fascism has still to give way to a deeper understanding of this menace. This may hold true even among those belonging to the progressive movement. One Marxist philosopher and theoretician who gave extended treatment of the issues surrounding (...) the character and conditions giving rise to fascism was Nicos Poulantzas, whose theory is employed here to interrogate the debates about fascism in the post-Marcos Philippines context. (shrink)

Marxism has long been subject to criticism from the theorists of Political Ecology, and in recent years, as the concerns of Green thinkers have become harder to ignore, Marxists have begun to respond to this challenge, defending and sometimes amending Marxist theory in response to Green criticisms. This paper addresses one issue within this debate: the controversy over Marx’s commitment to the growth, or development, of the productive forces. My aim is to dispute the contention of Marx’s Green critics, (...) that his concept of the development of the productive forces leads inevitably to the exacerbation of ecological problems, and, more speculatively, to suggest some advantages of using this concept to investigate ecological problems. (shrink)

The article analyzes the views on the philosophy of Azerbaijan Enlightenment, the famous Azerbaijani historian of philosophy of the XX century, Enver Mirzekulievich Akhmedov (1920-1984). E.Akhmedov was one of the first scientists who studied the Azerbaijan philosophy of enlightenment in stages and systematically. He briefly referred to the legacy of almost every author, thoroughly studied by him during the period of Azerbaijan Enlightenment. E.Akhmedov managed to create a general philosophical picture of the era of enlightenment in Azerbaijan, which was formed (...) from the beginning of the XIX century and went through a difficult path of development until the 20s of the XX century. Despite the fact that in his works on the history of philosophy he tried to preserve scientific objectivity as much as possible, there is an ideological line of that time in his legacy, which is observed among most of our scientists who conducted research in the field of social sciences during the Soviet period. This moment makes it impossible, without a critical approach, to comprehend within the framework of the modern scientific paradigm, the rich legacy of E.Akhmedov and other historians of philosophy of the Soviet era. The obligatory Marxist-Leninist line of the Soviet era, the search for materialism and atheism in every period and thinker of the history of philosophy, unfortunately, undermines the scientific objectivity of research at this stage. The interpretation of such factors in the legacy of E.Akhmedov and our other scientists, based on scientific and philosophical critical analysis, allows the works of our historians of philosophy of the Soviet period to remain relevant in our time. (shrink)

I analyze Deleuze’s concept of temporality in terms of its ontology and axiological (political and aesthetic) aspects. For Deleuze, the concept of temporality is non-monolithic, in the senses that it is modified throughout his works — the monographs, lectures, and those works that were co-authored with Félix Guattari — and that it is developed through reference to a dizzying array of concepts, thinkers, artistic works, and social phenomena. -/- I observe that Deleuze’s concept of temporality involves a complex ontology of (...) difference, which I elaborate through reference to Deleuze’s analyses of Ancient Greek and Stoic conceptualizations of time. From Plato through to Chrysippus, temporality gradually comes to be identified as a form that comprehends the variation of particulars. Deleuze modifies the ancients’ concept of time to suggest that time obtains as a form of ceaseless ontological variation. Through reference to Deleuze’s reading of Gilbert Simondon, I further suggest that Deleuze tends to conceive of temporality as an ontogenetic force which participates in the complex process of individuation. -/- A standout feature of this dissertation involves an analysis of how Deleuze’s concept of temporality is modified in his works on cinema. In Cinema 1: The Movement-Image and Cinema 2: The Time-Image, temporality comes to be characterized as something other than the measure of the movement of existents. In his detailed analyses of Bergson — in Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, Cinema 2: The Time-Image, and Bergsonism — Deleuze suggests that time involves an actualization of aspects of a virtual past as contemporaneous with the lived present. While not an outright denial of the relation of temporal succession, Deleuze’s claim implies a diminishment of this relation’s significance in an adequate elaboration of the nature of temporality. -/- Further, I observe —through reference to Deleuze’s readings of Marx, Kierkegaard, and Spinoza — that (the explicitly temporal) change of societal forms of economic organization is non-reducible to that suggested by linear evolution. The claim is that putatively discrete modes of economic organization do not enjoy temporal displacement with respect to one another. This suggests that linear evolutionary models of societal development are inadequate. This further implies that temporality is non-reducible to the relation of temporal succession. In concrete terms, societal change is characterized as immanent temporal variation. -/- Taken together, these analyses yield the conclusion that Deleuze tends to conceive of the nature of temporality as involving the ongoing realization of multiple — non-identical, sometimes contrary — aspects of a stochastic process of creation that is expressed in ontogenetic circumstances, social evolution, literary works, and filmic works. (shrink)

While not considered the focus of Marx, aesthetics, and art have become a project of Marxism. But understanding art in a Marxist world requires taking Marx’s philosophy and understanding how art behaves in capitalism. I transplant the artwork to a Marxist analysis by investigating art as described by Heidegger, Dufrenne, and Merleau-Ponty, how art relates to the idea of the commodity in Marx, culture in Deleuze, and art in modern capitalism through Marcuse.

En este texto se realiza un análisis marxista del concepto de liberación animal en Peter Singer y Gary Francione, mostrando su convergencia liberal. El estudio comparativo se inscribe en el paradigma marxista dentro de los Critical Animal Studies (CAS) y la filosofía práctica. En un primer momento, se muestran las divergencias y convergencias entre el bienestar utilitario y la abolición deóntica, el neobienestarismo y el abolicionismo, haciendo énfasis en una preferencia común y fundamental por una sociedad liberal democrática post-especista (i.e. (...) un capitalismo democrático). En un segundo momento, desde una lectura marxista, se muestran dos potencialidades del principio de igual consideración y el principio de no reificación. En un tercer momento, se examinan las limitaciones de la crítica antiespecista a la explotación de los animales por las sociedades capitalistas, la desnaturalización de su especismo y el planteamiento de una topología política liberal reformista. Al final del proceso, se recapitulan y sopesan las cinco convergencias halladas, al igual que las dos potencialidades y limitaciones de los conceptos, como contribuciones a nuevos estudios sobre crítica e interpretación de los autores y nuevos abordajes del problema de la liberación animal. -/- This work realize a Marxist analysis of the concept of animal liberation in Peter Singer and Gary Francione, showing their liberal convergence. The comparative study is part of the Marxist paradigm within the Critical Animal Studies (CAS) and practical philosophy. At first, the divergences and convergences between utilitarian welfare and deontic abolition, new welfarism and abolitionism are shown, emphasizing a common and fundamental preference for a post-speciesist liberal democratic society (i.e. a democratic capitalism). In a second moment, from a Marxist reading, two potentialities of the principle of equal consideration and the principle of non-reification are shown. In a third moment, the limitations of the anti-speciesist critique of the exploitation of animals by capitalist societies, the denaturation of their speciesism and the approach of a liberal reformist political topology are examined. At the end of the process, the five convergences found are recapitulated and weighed, as well as the two potentialities and limitations of the concepts, as contributions to new studies on criticism and interpretation of the authors and new approaches to the problem of animal liberation. (shrink)

In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari claim that a general theory of society must be a generalised theory of flows. This is hardly a straightforward claim, and this paper attempts to examine the grounds for it. Why should socio-political theory be based on a theory of flows rather than, say, a theory of the social contract, or a theory of the State, or the questions of legitimation or revolution, or numerous other possible candidates? The concept of flow (and the related notions (...) of code and stock), I argue, is derived from contemporary economic theory, and most notably John Maynard Keynes. Deleuze and Guattari remained Marxists, not only because they held that contemporary political philosophy must inevitably be centred on the analysis of capitalism, but also because they held, following Marx himself, that the Marxist analysis of capital must constantly be transformed and adapted to new conditions. Thus, while certain aspects of Marx's analysis disappear from Capitalism and Schizophrenia, they are supplemented by the addition of new concepts adequate to the contemporary state of capitalism. The paper concludes, then, with an analysis of the role played by the concepts of flow, code and stock in Deleuze and Guattari's political philosophy. (shrink)

The Philippine government has been relentless in its counterinsurgency campaigns. From the colonial wars that vilified as insurgents and bandits the honored heroes of today, up to the anti-communist and anti-secessionist civil and military efforts of the postcolonial regimes, these campaigns have not only rolled out large state resources but also cost lives of innocent civilians. Patterned after the United States (US) of America’s principle of low-intensity conflict aimed at countering Marxist and anti-imperialist movements (Reed 1986), counterinsurgency campaigns have (...) unleashed a warfare that indiscriminately target its supposed opponents, including unarmed activists. In 2007, the United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston examined the horrible political situation of the Philippines – characterized by political killings, abductions, and tortures – and identified how state elements, under the blanket protection of waging a counterinsurgency campaign, were responsible for the political repressions then (Sales 2009). Today, under the murderous Duterte regime, the counterinsurgency campaign has reached an unprecedented level of ferocity as it is waged through a militarist whole-ofnation approach composed by multi-level government and multi-agency responses. -/- Being greatly influenced by the US, counterinsurgency campaigns in the Philippines follow the paranoiac and hysterical communist witch-hunt of McCarthyism (Hutchins-Viroux 2008). The hysteria’s contemporary and local expression is the phenomenon called red- or terror-tagging.1 Terror-tagging is the systematic process of maliciously naming or identifying an individual or group as a communist and/or terrorist by its association with a supposed communist and/or terrorist group. Being a systematic process, it is initiated and sustained by state elements with the view of maligning or defaming political activists. Terror-tagging is aimed against activists, dissenters, and even the political opposition. The social activist Rhoda Dalang (2014) has noted how terror-tagging has been deployed by the Philippine state in its counterinsurgency efforts, from the Marcos up to the then Aquino regime. And until the previous Duterte regime, yet with increased intensity and fatality, terror-tagging continued to defame and liquidate activists. As terror-tagging has not received enough academic attention, this chapter aims to fill this gap by providing a preliminary analysis of it. The chapter will be doing a critical discourse analysis. It will take off from a revealing study done by Don Kevin Hapal and Raisa Serafica of Rappler, a media outlet in the Philippines. Through a separate discourse analysis of Facebook posts of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTFELCAC),2 the chapter will also identify aspects of terror-tagging. The discussion will further be theorized using the Marxist analysis of the State and informed by interviews of Atty. Maria Sol Taule and Cristina Palabay. They are both human rights workers who have worked with terror-tagged activists and are themselves subjected to terror-tagging. (shrink)

Can Marxist-Leninist philosophy disregard dialectical materialism, the analysis of material and social contradictions, the need to overcome and resolve them in the service of revolutionary transformation? ‘Does the lecturer acknowledge that the philosophy of Marxism is dialectical materialism’, as Lenin asked Bogdanov one day in May 1908? What had 'official Soviet Marxism' really become, capable of combining ideological dictatorship with militant philosophical ignorance, in turn justified by the achievements of modern science, skilfully used as an instrument of domination (...) and preservation of the established order? How can one conceptually dominate reality and its contradictions, knowing well that knowledge is never neutral but is class-based? These questions are answered by Evald Ilyenkov, one of the greatest Marxist philosophers of the 20th century, re-examining Lenin's Materialism and Empiriocriticism at the end of the 1970s with a text entitled Leninist Dialectics and the Metaphysics of Positivism, still unpublished in Italy, and identifying in the revolutionary leader an exceptional theoretical ally. Just as Lenin had had to fight the attacks promoted by the theories of Bogdanov, who approached the empirio-criticism of Mach, Avenarius and Berman, seeing it as dogmatic and reactionary materialism directed against the natural sciences, so Ilyenkov fought against the penetration of positivism into Soviet politics and philosophy, criticizing the rejection of the dialectic only functional to the technocratic project of building 'socialism' in the Brezhnev era, a disguised heir of the empirio-criticism denounced by Lenin as the natural metaphysical conclusion to the logic of positivism. (shrink)

This article shows why it is important to not "hastily condemn the condemnation of Gutiérrez by ecclesiastical authorities, [instead] we should learn from those censures". Then the essay shows why the last two Popes, John Paul the Great and Pope Bendict were sceptical of liberation theology. Nonetheless, this mode of theological praxis is now pervasive throughout global and Indian academia. The last part of this long essay contextualises how liberation theology has concetreley shaped the Indian Church and also, to an (...) extent, Hinduism. -/- . (shrink)

Socialist republicans advocate public ownership and control of the means of production in order to achieve the republican goal of a society without endemic domination. While civic republicanism is often attacked for its conservatism, the relatively neglected radical history of the tradition shows how a republican form of socialism provides powerful conceptual resources to critique capitalism for leaving workers and citizens dominated. This analysis supports a programme of public ownership and economic democracy intended to reduce domination in the workplace (...) and wider society. I defend this socialist republicanism from both the Marxist objection that it overlooks the impersonal nature of domination under capitalism and the left-liberal objections that property-owning democracy or worker codetermination are sufficient to suppress dominating relationships. The resulting position identifies the need for more ambitious institutional grounds for republican liberty than is often supposed, while offering us a distinctive emancipatory justification for socialism. (shrink)

The Community of Shared Future for Mankind (CSFM) concept is a comprehensive Chinese proposal for a better future of mankind. In this article, we provide a comprehensive analysis of this concept by focusing on its origin, evolution and philosophical foundation. This article deals with the origin and evolution of the CSFM concept. We show that the concept originated during the presidency of Hu Jintao, who initially used it for the domestic affairs of China. However, the usage of the concept (...) was later extended from domestic to international affairs. Though Hu Jintao conceived the CSFM concept, it is president Xi Jinping who became its greatest advocate. We explore the CSFM concept’s development and evolution into one of the most influential, diverse and dominant concepts of international relations under president Xi. Furthermore, the article explores the philosophical foundation of the CSFM concept. We argue that although CSFM concept is seen as a 21st century Chinese idea, the roots of the concept can be traced back to much earlier time in history. The concept is based on three major philosophical thoughts: Marxism, Confucianism and the philosophy of Mencius. We show that the CSFM concept is greatly influenced by Marx’s ideas such as the transformation of the world, the free association of producers, historical materialism and dialectics. We also point to a number of Confucian principles that are adopted by the CSFM concept. The CSFM concept not only adopts Confucian principles but also extends their scope from the individual level to international relations. Similarly, we also highlight that the CSFM concept is influenced by Mencius’ concepts such as universal brotherhood, responsibility towards the betterment of the world, humane governance, free trade, equal sharing of wealth and the conservation of natural resources. (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)

Adam Schaff was one of the most important Marxist philosophers in Poland. His work well documents the time, when Marxism was an 'official philosophy', burdened with political responsibilities and problems of strategy. The text is a critical analysis of Schaff's political writings. It highlights the most specific traits of his often paradoxical position, that was termed in literature as 'orthodox-revisionism'. Schaff tried to meet double and often conflicting requirements: tried to develop Marxist theory by posing problems unforeseen (...) by the classics, and to stay faithful to what he understood as strategic interests of socialist countries at the same time. It will be argued, that even in its theoretical shortcomings, his writings are still among the most important resources for reflection on complex and tragic history of the Left in 20th Century. (shrink)

The relationship between Marxism and psychoanalysis has been frequently debated; nonetheless, one rarely comes upon a thoroughgoing, in-depth treatment of this connection. The Capitalist Unconscious is therefore a belated but welcome inquiry into the points of intersection between the two, a project whose contours could be traced back to the works of Marx and Freud. It is in the work of Lacan, however, that this correlation between Marxism and Psychoanalysis becomes visible. This article explores Samo Tomšič’s analysis of the (...) logical, epistemological, and political continuity of Marx’s critique of political economy and Freud’s theory of libidinal economy, meanwhile appraising the possible emancipatory potential of this project. (shrink)

This study firstly addresses three threads in Chris Marker’s work – theology, Marxism, and Surrealism – through a mapping of the work of both Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Derrida onto the varied production of his film and photographic work. Notably, it is late Agamben and late Derrida that is utilized, as both began to exit so-called post-structuralism proper with the theological turn in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It addresses these threads through the means to ends employed and as (...) ends proper (as production of semi-autonomous works that also, paradoxically, index a much larger field of inquiry and theoretical praxis). It is perhaps French “schizophrenia” regarding theological versus political agency that best accounts for the sardonic deployment of irony and humor in Marker’s work in the face of Big History. Such means to ends (plus a subtle anti-intellectualism vis-à-vis fashionable academic trends) tend to underscore the severity and ultimate sincerity of Marker’s overall cultural-political project. -/- Dossier Chris Marker is also a study of a late-modern chiasmus, impersonal-personal agency, as it comes to expression in the works of Marker, as the dynamic interplay of political and subjective agency. As chiasmus, the complementary halves of this often-apocalyptic dynamis (a semi-catastrophic, temporal or historical force-field) also – arguably – secretly agree to meet, through the work of art, in the futural (problematized in contemporary French post-phenomenological and post-post-structuralist theory as “the event).” Consistent with the classical figure of concordia discors, Marker resolves these irreducible warring aspects of life experience in an atemporal and ahistorical moment that inhabits the work of art from its inception. This redemptive aspect in art is also the ultimate gesture of the artwork as autonomous subject and “mask” (or “screen”) for forces that reside beyond the frame of the image or work, as its proverbial Other, or within the frame, as other to that Other. -/- Despite the complications of the as-yet unresolved post-modern condition (its nihilist-relativist bias), and its similar, mostly circular concerns with the image and/or media, Marker’s work is clearly not post-modern. In fact, when tested against immemorial cultural epiphenomena, that work withstands all attempts at categorization and/or art-historical analysis proper. It remains unassimilable to the post-modern cause ... What emerges, upon closer examination, and through rigorous re-contextualization, is the prescient force of Marker’s works toward that futural state buried in art that is also “theological,” versus atheological, and heedlessly anterior to cultural politics per se. -/- In the case of Marker, this age-old or immemorial “thing-in-itself” (the artwork as image of world-chiasmus) finds its foremost or penultimate formation in his very-still photography – the singular images that are also the building blocks for his renowned ciné-essays. Not without irony, this same austere, reductive force of the still image (as form of proscription) also inhabits the more complex, synthetic works (or montages) that he has formulated and presented “dramatically,” here and there, through the often-sketchy apparatuses of his new-media experiments, as of the late 1980s. Ultimately, this world-image as chiasmus was always present within his earliest literary projects, from the 1940s forward – most especially in books and essays, with or without actual images. -/- Marker’s “return” to photography (to exhibiting still photography in galleries), in the late 2000s, is in many ways a return to the singular object of the artist-critic’s desire; the image in/for itself, while that image – endlessly troubled or interrogated for decades – continues to speak “in tongues” anyway, often against, or oblivious to, the voice of the author/artist/narrator. -/- Marker is a High Romantic Christian Marxist. The “Christic” aspect is rightly well-hidden, but emerges when the eschatological versus historical center of his work is exposed (the existential-metaphysical fuse such as also inhabits the works of Caravaggio), and when his early years are examined in light of his later and/or final years. Marker’s semi-personal/semi-impersonal apocalyptic vision is writ large in diverse works that cross decades, figuring a redemptive, world-shattering formation of art as pleroma. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between progressive Islam, Marxism, and Tan Malaka. Progressive Islam is one of the new movements in contemporary Islamic dynamics. Marxism is a tradition of thought. Tan Malaka is one of the Muslim leaders who uses the tradition of Marxism in every thought and struggle. This article uses the method of philosophy with the technique of historical-factual study of figures. Data analysis uses the concept of externalization from the sociological theory of knowledge. The result is (...) that Marxism is one of the external spaces of progressive Islam, where its characters externalize. Similarly to progressive Islamic figures, Tan Malaka also externalized Marxism, so that he could have knowledge about Marxism. Thus Marxism became the connecting bridge between progressive Islam and Tan Malaka. This is the relationship between progressive Islam, Marxism, and Tan Malaka. (shrink)

I will review the argument from complexity of the phenomena represented by Hayek (1967) that asserts that the human phenomena are, in some way, inherently complex, thus, that the laws in social sciences are not available in principle; and by Scriven (1956), who asserts a more elaborate version of the argument from complexity, given space for the possibility that the complexity is not intrinsic to the social phenomena, but that they are constitutive to the level of description that we are (...) interested in. Against both, following McIntyre (1993) I will hold that they would be, by one hand, idealizing the scientific practice and, by the other hand, not being able to explain the social phenomena to the level that we are interested in because they end up by eliminating it. Then, in a second part, I will expose the role of explanation in historical materialism (from an analytical marxist perspective) trying to conciliate the functionalism exposed by Cohen (2001) and the methodological pluralism of Little (1991). Historical materialism, by modifying the conception of the constitution of society (substituting the methodological individualism for a structural analysis with a primacy of the socio-economical social relations) allows us even to lay the necessary foundations for identifying, in a non-abstract nor idealized way, the rational agency of individuals that constitute the social classes. This proves an advantage over methodological individualism in that it does not eliminates the phenomena that are being explained. (shrink)

The thesis aims at covering two paths that can be found within the XX Century's continental philosophy. On one hand, the analysis will focus on what M. Theunissen called Heidegger's "Being and Time"'s 'social ontology'. On the other, the work will delve into young Herbert Marcuse's so-called 'heideggerian marxism' via questioning his works located between 1928 and 1933.

This analysis examines economic collectivization, which is one of the problems in modern economic studies, and reconstruction efforts through a Marxian economic approach with an emphasis on meritocracy. This analysis highlights criticism of modern economic approaches which tend to be abstract, ignore practical aspects of economics, and ignore social problems. The Marxian economic approach is seen as an alternative that prioritizes use-value in economics rather than simply exchange-value. Through Marxian meritocracy, it is hoped that collaboration between econometrics analysts (...) and human resources can produce more relevant economic analysis, consider forgotten social aspects, and support sustainable economic collectivization. (shrink)

What does social justice require in contemporary societies? What are the requirements of social democracy? Who and where are the individuals and groups that can carry forward agendas for progressive social transformation? What are we to make of the so-called new social movements of the last thirty years? Is identity politics compatible with egalitarianism? Can cultural misrecognition and economic maldistribution be fought simultaneously? What of the heritage of Western Marxism is alive and dead? And how is current critical social theory (...) to approach these and other questions? Much of the most productive work done in recent social theory has revolved around such issues, in particular, around those concerning the relationship between the politics of recognition and the politics of distribution. After the intense theoretical focus over the last fifteen years or so on the issues of recognition politics—multiculturalism, multi-nationalism, identity politics, group-differentiated rights, the accommodation of difference, and so on—some social theorists have worried that attention has been diverted from important issues of distributive equality—systematic impoverishment, increasing material inequality, ‘structural’ unemployment, the growth of oligarchic power, global economic segmentation, and so on. While some critics seem to have adopted a blunt ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ line of criticism,1 others have attempted to develop an overarching, integrative theoretical framework adequate to the diverse issues concerning both economic and cultural justice. For example, Axel Honneth proposes that a suitably developed and normatively robust theory of intersubjective recognition can adequately integrate an analysis of apparently diverse contemporary struggles: those for a just division of labor and hence, a fair distribution of resources and opportunities, as well as those for a culture free of identity-deforming disrespect and denigration. (shrink)

Hegel's lord-bondsman dialectic has been of especially great interest to progressive and radical Hegelians—broadly speaking, politically left-leaning interpreters of Hegel who object to certain social hierarchies and demand their abolition. They read Hegel as giving an account of how ‘lordship’ over others is an inherently unstable and unsatisfying social formation, even for its supposed beneficiaries. Marxists, feminists and post-colonial theorists have all found inspiration in Hegel's analysis of the lord and bondsman by applying it to concrete relations of oppression, (...) such as capitalism, patriarchy, or racism. In contrast, recent scholarship on Hegel's views on race and colonialism has cast doubt on whether his systematic political philosophy and philosophy of history can be of similar use to progressives. Hegel was undeniably a Eurocentric thinker, but philosophers like Robert Bernasconi and Alison Stone have convincingly shown that he was also a racist and a defender of colonialism. Crucially, however, few of the scholars who write on Hegel's pro-colonialism have analysed this feature of Hegel's thought in connection with the lord-bondsman dialectic. In this article, I argue for two connected theses. First, I argue that contrary to the hopes of some progressive defenders of Hegel, we cannot easily separate the lord-bondsman dialectic from Hegel's pro-colonialism. This is because Hegel himself appealed to the lord-bondsman dialectic to argue that colonial slavery educated its victims, and could therefore be temporarily justified. Second, I argue that this pro-colonial reading of the dialectic, though largely ignored by contemporary interpreters, was in fact recognized and embraced by a group of Hegelians in North America known as the St Louis Hegelians. They used the lord-bondsman dialectic as a basis for a qualified defence of pre-Civil War American slavery. (shrink)

This article makes two main claims: that Debord’s concept of the ‘integrated spectacle’ is related to end of History narratives; and that the related concept of ‘disinformation’ is manifested in new forms of media-driven warfare. These claims are substantiated through a comparative analysis between Debord’s texts and contemporary politics, primarily as described by Adam Curtis and by the RETORT collective. The resulting understanding of our contemporary politics is a situation where subjects who appear to be free, are in fact (...) only free to choose between competing brands of neo-liberalism that manipulate and baffle in order to obfuscate their true agendas. This situation is termed a ‘spectacular malaise’. The article then critiques post-Marxist claims to a re-birth of History and therefore a potential end to the spectacular malaise. It argues that the Arab Spring and Occupy movement did not signal an end to the end of History, as they were unable to articulate an alternative vision. This situation is compared to the last days of the Soviet Union, when change also seemed unimaginable. It identifies Mark Fisher’s call for activists to demonstrate alternative possibilities and reveal contingency in apparently natural orders to counter the spectacular malaise. Three art collectives are considered as potential candidates to take up this challenge: Women on Waves, Voina, and SUPERFLEX. The article concludes that while making actual social and political change is useful for demonstrating alternative possibilities, it is art’s symbolic value that reveals contingency and strikes at the heart of the spectacular malaise. (shrink)

This chapter picks up on what Heidegger in his 1949 ‘Letter on ‘Humanism’’ calls ‘the historical in being’, that dimension of being within which, for Heidegger, a ‘productive dialogue’ between phenomenology and existentialism, on the one hand, and Marxism, on the other, ‘first becomes possible.’ It introduces the possibility of this dialogue through a particular, and particularly revealing, problem with The German Ideology: namely, Marx and Engels offer no analysis of the relationship between time, temporality and their materialist concept (...) of history. (shrink)

All theory makes assumptions about the nature of reality (either implicitly or explicitly) and such ontological assumptions necessarily regulate how one studies the things and events under investigation. Successful study is inex- tricably dependent upon an adequate ontology. As Bryant neatly puts it, "Effective application, in turn, is connected with adequate working assumptions about the constitution of society. Argument about the constitution of society is thus not a recondite activity which most sociologists [and organi- sation theorists] can safely ignore" (1995: (...) 58, interpolation added). The central concern in this paper is with the ontological underpinnings of much of the current literature in organisation studies in respect of struc- ture and culture. It will be argued that conflation of irreducible and causally-efficacious strata of social reality in the shape of social structure and culture permeates much of the current literature, thus rendering analysis of the interplay between them and their relationship with human agency diffi- cult to elucidate. The ontological underpinnings of organisational analysis have arguably turned full circle from the depth of social reality acknowl- edged by functionalism, structural Marxism and systems theory to the generic endorsement of Giddens’ structuration theory. As will be argued, Giddens’ theory entails a depthless ontology, which necessarily precludes methodological prescription. (shrink)

Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation diagnosed what had happened in the Nineteenth Century that led to poverty, increasingly wild economic fluctuations, increasingly severe depressions, and social dislocation and oppression on a massive scale – the market had been disembedded from communities which were then subjected to the imperatives of a supposedly autonomous market. In fact, such disembedding and imposition of these imperatives was a deliberate strategy developed as a means to impose exploitative relations on people, in opposition to ideas (...) of republican democracy. Recognizing this, after such disembedding had engendered a major global depression in the 1890s and an even more severe depression in the 1930s, along with two world wars, reformers largely succeeded in re-embedding markets. This achievement was fought by neoliberals, and their triumph in the 1970s was a really a project of reversion to the Nineteenth Century economic and political order, now upheld by much more powerful forces, including immensely powerful transnational corporations and financial institutions, corrupt politicians, and much more effective mind control industries. As in the Nineteenth Century, it has concentrated wealth and income, destabilized economies, and threatens a new Great Depression and, as a by-product of the tensions generated by global ecological destruction, possibly a new world war. As opposed to Marxist analyses, Polanyi’s analysis provided a much clearer goal to aim at that has not been discredited by the failures of supposedly communist countries. However, there are still huge problems to be overcome if we are to re-embed the market in communities, including the problem of grappling with the immense power of transnational corporations and financial institutions and those who serve them and the success they have had in corrupting the institutions and culture of democracy. This includes not only undermining the power of nations to control their economies and their subversion of democratic processes, but also in promoting passivity in the population to render them inert and powerless. In this paper I will examine proposals, such as those promoted by Arild Vatn in his book Institutions and the Environment, to develop institutions able to achieve this re-embedding. (shrink)

Friedrich Engels’ dialectical assessment of modern science resulted from his fascination with the natural sciences in combination with his resurging interest in the work of “old Hegel.” Engels became especially interested in what he saw as the molecular essence of life, namely proteins or, more specifically, albumin, seeing life as the mode of existence of these enigmatic substances. Hegelian dialectics is crucial for a dialectical materialist understanding of contemporary technoscience. The dialectical materialist understanding of technoscience as a research practice builds (...) on Engels, but also on later authors who were inspired by his writings, e.g., life scientists such as Haldane and Bernal. Considering the criticism raised against Engels’ dialectics by 20th-century Marxists, a dialectical diagnostic of contemporary technoscience can be achieved, which shifts the focus from artificial albumin as “living matter” to contemporary research on synthetic cells. (shrink)

Although Merleau-Ponty’s early phenomenology of perception and his essays on art, politics, and language already showed an affinity between the aesthetic phenomena of expression and style and the political and cultural dynamics of society at large, this paper specifically focuses on his late theorizing of the notion of flesh and its relevance to his late understanding of politics and democracy. The emergence of flesh as a concept was contemporary to Merleau-Ponty’s break with Marxism as a philosophical model and with revolutionary (...) dialectics as a political project. It is by showing that such a break was consistently grounded on his theorizing of the being flesh of both the body and of society that this paper shows Merleau-Ponty’s unique contribution to democratic theory and to contemporary political philosophy. In the course of this analysis, it will become clear that in philosophically breaking with the position of a “no that is a yes”—i.e. the model of the revolution, which implies a total negation of the given that becomes a total affirmation of the new order (dictatorship) once in power—he would politically embrace the Weberian “heroic liberalism”—or his “non-communist left”—of parliamentary democracy. (shrink)

Easy to understand philosophy papers in all areas. Table of contents: Three Short Philosophy Papers on Human Freedom The Paradox of Religions Institutions Different Perspectives on Religious Belief: O’Reilly v. Dawkins. v. James v. Clifford Schopenhauer on Suicide Schopenhauer’s Fractal Conception of Reality Theodore Roszak’s Views on Bicameral Consciousness Philosophy Exam Questions and Answers Locke, Aristotle and Kant on Virtue Logic Lecture for Erika Kant’s Ethics Van Cleve on Epistemic Circularity Plato’s Theory of Forms Can we trust our senses? Yes (...) we can Descartes on What He Believes Himself to Be The Role of Values in Science Modern Science Kant’s Moral Philosophy Plato’s Republic as Pol Potist Bureaucracy Schopenhauer on Human Suffering Bertrand Russell on the Value of Philosophy The Philosophical Value of Uncertainty Logic Homework: Theorems and Models Searle vs. Turing on the Imitation Game Hume, Frankfurt, and Holbach on Personal Freedom Manifesto of the University of Wisconsin, Madison Secular Society Michael’s Analysis of the Limits of Civil Protections Bentham and Mill on Different Types of Pleasure Set Theory Homework Aristotle on Virtue Nagel On the Hard Problem Wittgenstein on Language and Thought Camus and Schopenhauer on the Meaning of Life Camus’ Hero as Rebel without a Cause My Little Finger: Camus’ Absurdism Illustrated Are Late-term Abortions Ethical? Does Mathematics Assume the Truth of Platonism? The Self-defeating Nature of Utilitarianism and Consequentialism Generally What is The Good Life? Bentham and Mill regarding types of pleasures Kant’s Moral Philosophy Five Short Papers on Mind-body Dualism Tracy Latimer’s Father had the Right to Kill Her: Towards a doctrine of generalized self-defense Arguments Concerning God and Morality Goldman, Rousseau and von Hayek on the Ideal State J.S Mill on Liberty and Personal Freedom A Kantian Analysis of a Borderline Date-rape Situation Living Well as Flourishing: Aristotle’s Conception of the Good Life Three Essays on Medical Ethics: Answers to Exam Questions on Elective Amputation, Vaccination, and Informed Consent Hobbes, Marx, Rousseau, Nietzsche: Their Central Themes De Tocqueville on Egoism Mill vs. Hobbes on Liberty Exam-Essays on the Moral Systems of Mill, Bentham, and Kant Kant’s Moral System Aristotle on Virtue Plato’s Cave Allegory An Ethical Quandary Superorganisms The Tuskegee Experiment A Rawlsian Analysis Why Moore’s Proof of an External World Fails A Defense of Nagel’s Argument Against Materialism A Utilitarian Analysis of a Case of Theft The Paradox of the Self-aware Wretch: An Analysis of Pascal’s Moral Philosophy Jean-Paul Sartre: Decline and Fall of a Marxist Sell-out A One Page Proof of Plato’s Theory of Forms Plato’s Republic as Pol Potist Bureaucracy The problem of the one and the many Four Short Essays on Truth and Knowledge What is ‘the Good Life?’ The Ontological Argument Different Political Philosophies: Plato, Locke, Madison, Rousseau, Hayek, and Mill on the State What do I know with certainty? Skepticism about skepticism Neuroscience and Freewill Operant Conditioning What makes us special? Are Late-term Abortions Ethical? No Two Papers on Epistemology: Gettier and Bostrom Examination Nietzsche on Punishment God’s Foreknowledge and Moral Responsibility . (shrink)

The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The resultant (...) trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure. This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization. (shrink)

Is political equality viable given the unequal private property holdings characteristic of a capitalist economy? This book places the wealth-politics nexus at the centre of scholarly analysis. Traditional theories of democracy and property have often ignored the ways in which the rich attempt to convert their wealth into political power, operating on the implicit assumption that politics is isolated from economic forces. This book brings the moral and political links between wealth and power into clear focus. The chapters are (...) divided into three thematic sections. Part I analyses wealth and politics from the perspective of various political traditions, such as liberalism, republicanism, anarchism, and Marxism. Part II addresses the economic sphere, and looks at the political influence of corporations, philanthropists and commons-based organizations. Finally, Part III turns to the political sphere and looks at the role of political parties and constitutions, and phenomena such as corruption and lobbying. Wealth and Power: Philosophical Perspectives will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in political philosophy, political science, economics, and law. (shrink)

One of the central strengths of Salem's analysis of Nasserism is that she recognizes both its world-historical significance as a progressive nationalist movement, and its severe limitations. In the first section of this paper, I discuss Salem's notion of the "afterlives" of the Nasserist project by drawing attention to one of the most debilitating legacies of that project, namely the transformation of Egyptian politics into petty bourgeois politics. In the second section, I argue that while Salem does not explicitly (...) draw on Hegel's understanding of tragedy in her account of Nasserism, her analysis of Nasserism essentially amounts to depicting it as a Hegelian tragedy. By placing Salem's book in conversation with Hegel (and his philosophy of action), we can make explicit what I take to be one of the central claims made by Salem, namely that when passing judgment on past and present national liberation movements we should remember that innocence is "only non-action, like the mere being of a stone" [nur das Nichttun wie das Sein eines Steines] (Hegel 1986, 346). In the third section of this paper, I raise some critical points about Salem's characterization of the nationalism that was associated with the Nasserist project, as well as about the deployment of the concept of modernity in her analysis. I argue that her account of modernity in the book does not distinguish between the concept of modernity as it refers to a certain kind of normative philosophical discourse, and modernization theory qua theory of development. Finally, I draw on Salem's use of the concept of hegemony in order to pose a question regarding the political significance of the contemporary cultural hegemony of Islamist movements in Egypt. (shrink)

(A chapter in the book edited by Ine Gevers, Robot Love: Can We Learn from Robots About Love?) Similarly to the method employed by Marx in his analysis of the capital and to de Saussure’s structuralist explanation of language, I suggest we conceive the categories in question as materially conditioned while resulting into full abstraction in the process of analysis. Thus, instead of theorising in terms of the anthropologically (and philosophically) conditioned phantasm of a “digital subjectivity” or a (...) “cyborg self,” let us radicalise and absolutise the concepts of the material and the ideal (or the mind understood in opposition to the material), arriving to physicality, regardless of whether organic or synthetic, and the automaton of signification as our main two categories of analysis. Therefore, let us also note that the category of “automaton” implies we are not dealing with a form of cognition but rather of language or signification. It is through operation with these categories that we shall postulate the sociopolitical and economic relevance of the cybernetic development for the post-human society and for the post-humanist self. The statement just made refers to a de facto political project, and it is impossible to arrive to results that would represent a fundamental change in relation to the humanist history of civilization/s without resorting to philosophical concepts. (shrink)

Architecture and Deconstruction Case of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi -/- Introduction Towards deconstruction in architecture Intensive relations between philosophical deconstruction and architecture, which were present in the late 1980s and early 1990s, belong to the past and therefore may be described from a greater than before distance. Within these relations three basic variations can be distinguished: the first one, in which philosophy of deconstruction deals with architectural terms but does not interfere with real architecture, the second one, in which (...) a collaboration between Jacques Derrida and a group of architects interested in his concepts is commenced, and the third one, in which completed or only designed objects or new concepts of deconstruction created by architects gain their supremacy over philosophy. The following book analyses these three possible ways, first of all with the reference to Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. -/- Peter Eisenman -/- Misreading… and Other Errors -/- The issue of relations between Peter Eisenman’s work and philosophy of deconstruction may be referred to his activity more than ten years preceding his direct collaboration with Jacques Derrida (in 1985) and organisation of the exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture at Museum of Modern Art in New York (in 1988). As soon as at the stage of designing the first houses (House I-III, 1967-1970), which almost entirely inscribed in formalistic aesthetics of Modernism, the architect analysed the problem of architecture dependence on its assumptions. All his later designs may be treated as consequence of this initial interest in relations between practice and theory, and at the same time as an introduction to manipulations later on led at the level of metaphysics of architecture. Beginning with the issue of presence, considered in comments to House VI (1972), the number of ideas having their analogies in philosophy of deconstruction increased. The text entitled The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of the End (1984), in which Eisenman criticised questions of representation in architecture, its delusive strive for truth and comparably unattainable attempts at ultimate definition of elementary rules, should be acclaimed the breaking point. This attitude was extended by numerous strategies disturbing architecture rules defined at metaphysical level in an essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors: an Architecture of Absence (1986). The issue of Eisenman’s passage from formalism to deconstruction has already been much discussed in the literature (Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Patin among others), still it should be mentioned that the threads similar to Derrida’s concept included in Eisenman’s writing reveal untranslatability of architecture and philosophy. -/- Choral Works or Separate tricks -/- In 1985-1986 a series of seven disputes between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman took place. The pretext for them were designs concerning Parc de la Villette in Paris. The situation of many months of collaboration between a notable philosopher of the second half of the 20th c. and an architect that already had a huge theoretical oeuvre, ended up with a publication of a large volume entitled Chora L Works and it became at the same time a vast study area for historians of contemporary architecture and philosophers. Derrida’s contribution to concept works were his considerations over the idea of chôra, the properties related to this concept were about to be reflected in shapes of the park. Therefore, Chora L Works became an example of the abilities of contemporary art, both in its capability of translation from philosophical ideas to artistic forms and its resistance to tradition of representing in architecture some phenomena and values originating outside this discipline. In the final period of their collaboration both interlocutors started to polemicise with each other more decidedly, what became a separate part of their thought exchange. The exchange of letters between Derrida and Eisenman at the turn of 1989 ended up the period of their direct contacts, nevertheless, at this time precisely a large group of experts in issues of deconstruction joined the discussion and extended the revealed in the former dispute problems into more than ten years of further considerations and publications. Except for a long text by Jeffrey Kipnis, who had participated in the meetings of the philosopher and the architect, there appeared also comments of researchers of artistic theories (K. Michael Hays, Thomas Patin), philosophers (Andrew Benjamin), and even experts in Greek literature (Maria Theodorou or Ann Bergren). Following these debates a contemporary reflection on architecture has saturated with indeed numerous concepts originating in philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Architecture which imitates mute philosophy -/- The series of Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman meetings, which took place in the period of 1985-1987, induced many authors to make comments. Some of them (Jeffrey Kipnis, Ann Bergren, Maria Theodorou) developed the subject of chôra which was introduced to the discussion by Derrida. The problem that was about to be solved was the question of tying up the concept of chôra with architecture, including Eisenman’s architecture and the series of meetings within frames of Chora L Works project. Kipnis on this occasion paid attention to chôra and its character of anachronia which infects any being created within chôra. In other words any event has its counterpart (analogon) in another, earlier event. He demonstrated the similarity of structure of many events and statements from the times of Derrida and Eisenman’s meetings to the almost identical behaviour of figures in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The loss of beginning present in this phenomenon was appropriate to both features of chôra and the effects of typical analyses of philosophy of deconstruction. Bergren’s analyses focused on accentuating gender of chôra, which, according to this author, had been neglected hitherto in discussions. She collated chôra descriptions with characteristics of women in myths, early Greek epic and philosophy and she arrived at a conclusion that chôra has features of a single woman and a married one at the same time. And yet Theodorou’s studies showed that in the Homeric epics chôra is not treated as an idea but is related with single things and events. The other part of the comments (represented by Andrew Benjamin and K. Michael Hays’ utterances) concerns Eisenman’s attitude to tradition which was treated as a variety of iteration understood philosophically. Benjamin commenced his considerations at the point of closeness between a definition of tradition and a concept of chôra understood as perpetuation (placement). A problematic issue was for him Eisenman’s complex relation to tradition based on its contest and affirmation at the same time. Overcoming the simple subordination to tradition – according to Benjamin – was based on awareness of the role of repetition in culture not known before. Hays made an attempt to explain the pleasure and torment of repetition with the support of Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes’ concepts. According to Hays repetitions are attempts of a single being to a certain primal state perceived as free of any tension. In a similar way Rosalind Krauss explained a motif of a grate present in Modernistic art and also exceptionally frequent in Eisenman’s work. -/- Annex Architecture is still writing Balzac novels. Peter Eisenman and literature -/- Architecture’s approach to writing, script or literature, present within Peter Eisenman’s work, is an exceptional phenomenon, furthermore a complex one. The article considers four possible relations. The first one relates to Eisenman’s characteristics as a person extremely gifted with the ability to wordplay, which very ‘play’ reveals skills to create architectural images. In the second approach the attention has been paid to Eisenman’s interests – in the first period of his oeuvre – in linguistic works by Noam Chomsky and his transformational-generative grammar. The third kind of relations applied to overcoming the need for autonomy of architecture (and of modernist aesthetics at the same time) and renew interests in questions of meaning in architecture. The fourth sort of relations occurred when Eisenman started to create reflections of historic or literary narrations in architecture – ‘stone stories’ and architectural fictions of their kind. -/- Bernard Tschumi -/- From perversion to deconstruction In Bernard Tschumi’s writings from the 1970s and 1980s we can find a transposition of important threads of post-structuralist ideas deriving from Georges Bataille, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida’s works. The analysis of the architect’s writings also shows roots in Phillippe Sollers, Michel Foucault and Denis Hollier’s works. The analysis of borrowed elements from the beginnings of Tschumi’s theoretical activity may be helpful in explaining the contents of his later writings motre inspired by philosophy of deconstruction. The set of his earliest views was inspired by Marxism, Neo Marxism and French Structuralism, mainly by the writings of Henri Levebre and Guy Debord. From the thought of Levebre Tschumi took interest for city as not only a question of urbanistics but also a political issue. From Debord’s concepts he borrowed a conviction about the role of situational violation for changes in the society structure. Some of these beliefs were preserved in his own concepts of architecture as an event. From this period derived also his will to change conservative elements of social structure not by means of political revolution but of theoretical and creative activity. Tschumi acknowledged that the effective way of the proceedings towards achieving his aims would be accepting the role of both a critical intellectualist and architecture expert who would not hide away his left-wing orientation. The speculations defined by the architect as ‘revolting analyses’ were about to characterise contradictions which tear the society apart, penetrate architecture and constitute the basis of culture. Spreading away of the conscience of false assumptions hidden away in various disciplines could have weakened cohesion of a conservative society and influence the will to change among the elites. This way the beginnings of political revolution were rooted in philosophy of architecture. In 1977 Tschumi published his text entitled The Pleasure of Architecture inspired by Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text, it also included some concepts derived from Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. First of all the author used Barthes’s concept which made an assumption that literary activity is pervaded by the spirit of resistance towards social rules, and Tschudi transferred this remark onto architecture. From the ideas of Bataille, acquainted via Holier’s work, he derived his belief that two concepts of space, a conceptual one (defined as Pyramid) and a sensual one (defined as Labirynth), not losing their distinct features, they join in the concept of experienced space which exceeds contradictions. The exceeding itself was defined as the basic rule of architecture and it was referred to situations in which architecture not only negates social needs, but also disavows its own tradition. Crossing the borders applies not only to political issues or permanent rules of the very discipline but also interfering with other fields (especially literature and film). The fact that architecture is associated with organising events turned Tschumi’s attention to questions of violence that result from upsetting architectural order of a given building by its users and the one hand, and on the other from forcing the users to specific acts imposed by this very order. The analysis of the concepts used by Tschumi in his early writings indicates that they are close to definitions that would occur in his reflection in the following years influenced by philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Approaching deconstruction Tschumi in his theories developed in the 1980s presumed that the current social world had undergone a deep process of decay, and the reaction against which ought to be based on ordering-up actions, and also preserving the main outline of disintegration of the whole and its elements in the state of conflict. The statements concerning the nature of the contemporary to Tschumi social relations were applied by him to the world of architecture, this led him to coming up with designing strategies that took into consideration the destabilised character of conditions in which works of architecture were created. New ways of conduct invented by Tschumi drew their inspiration from literature and research on literature, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, structuralism and post structuralism, and eventually also deconstruction philosophy. The proposed methods were opposed by their author both to functionalism continuity trends and postmodern architecture. Tschumi’s proposals contradicted any forms of conservatism or traditionalism in political sphere as well as in reference to tendencies in architecture. They were not simple contradictions of social or architectural rules, they intrude them from the inside, weaken or escalate the already existing incongruities, they move the boundaries between the areas. Revolutionary illusions about the possibility of radical changes were replaced with strategies which completed, tainted or test former rules in the series of formal games of permutation and combination. Quite different from avant-garde formalism Tschumi’s games were not about maintaining the autonomy of a given area, but on the contrary – polluting it with other areas’ influences. Tschumi enjoyed demonstrating illusions of architecture concerning simple relations between form and function, or between form and meaning. Making use of Freud, Lacan and Foucault’s research he introduced a category of “madness” into architecture allowing an observation that the recognised norms are nothing but merely ones of many possible principles of behaviour, and their recognised status resulted from unjustified hindering innovativeness which is crucial for architecture. To reborn architecture’s capability of changing Tschumi also made use of Barthes’s discoveries concerning rules of narration and works by writers who applied in their writing knowledge on linguistics. Making a work’s author unclear by various mechanical transformations of its elements was however apparent only, and formal rigours imposed on the process of designing liberated possibilities difficult to obtain in more traditional creative action. Another mode of acting introduced by Tschumi was combining his work of elements deriving from outside architecture; joining space records with notation of motion and events accompanying architectural objects among others. These architectural and extra-architectural elements were not unified, on the contrary their heterogenous and conflictual character was stressed. This is how shock, anxiety and instability, typical for live in great metropolises, infiltrated architecture. Taking some ideas of deconstruction philosophy as a pattern Tschumi also took into critical consideration in his essays traditional in architecture oppositions between form and figuration, or theory and practice. By combining various inspirations he eventually worked out an idea of architectural event, which he understood as a series of actions contesting its own field, redefining its sources, principles and elements. An event, understood in this way, was not so much producing works as rather creating conditions of their production and at the same time designing the society different from a hierarchic one. -/- Park of deconstruction Among numerous philosophical strategies of deconstruction most frequently used was questioning the practice of strong opposition of two reasons. In many cases Bernard Tschumi’s writings just consider functioning of the conflict juxtaposition of the ideas of structure and ornament or theory and practice in history of architecture. Violation of traditional relations between terms of this kind, both old and modern, raised Jacques Derrida’s objections, when he was induced for the first time to co-operate with architects’ milieu. During this long lasting thought exchange the philosopher eventually acknowledged Bernard Tschumi’s arguments for reasoning the encroachment of architecture’s fundamental rules. Deconstruction applied in architecture was not a simple transposition or analogy of practices that had been applied by philosophy of deconstruction. We may even say that considering architectural terms became an important formula of deconstruction. Architecture understood in philosophical way became something beyond the practice and theory of its own discipline, a sort of metaphysics of both philosophy and architecture. The deliberate encroachment of simplicity of dividing architecture into theory and practice, for the first time became a clear aim for Tschumi in his drawings and texts entitled The Manhattan Transcripts. The contents of this series of works was a record of characteristic features of this New York district in such a way that not only objects were the subject of the record but also relations between objects, people and events. The record was about to take into consideration a conflict character of elements of this representation and at the same time to avoid applying to them the rule of mimetism. The record became a form of reflection over the very record by an increased control over the ways of representation. Architecture which was considered in the The Manhattan Transcripts was not directed to fulfill the needs of inhabitation or production, it was rather related with hitherto usually marginalised liminal situations: building ostentatiously big monuments, religious cult, war etc. Architecture operating in these relations focused also the attention on the included in it continuous tendency to overpass its own restrictions, the role of violence as its not recognised factor, or the meaning of excess and shock in its operation. Architecture moving from reason towards madness became even more visible in the design of Parisian Parc de la Villette, whose pavilions were defined as folies (in French it means both small park buildings and follies). The park was supposed to be on the one hand a reflection of traditional society disintegration while on the other it questioned basic rules of producing a work of architecture. The traditional rules of designing, based on ordering up, were replaced with the strategies of dysfunction and dissociation. In Tschumi’s opinion methods of this kind may be equivalent of what Derrida named différance. Instead of aiming at mergence, any diversity, plays or variations were strengthen. Tschumi’s texts, in which he explained his attitude, were completed by Derrida’s extent statement entitled Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture. Derrida’s article is the most significant of all his statements on architecture as a form of thinking and activity. According to the philosopher, architecture should divide space (in French defined as espacement), what enables both thinking and action – it arranges the space of an event. Tschumi’s buildings, defined as folies, in an essential way destabilise any created order, and at the same time they refresh it. Derrida’s statement suggests that architecture may become both metaphor of an order merging a language or a society but also of inner forces which deconstruct and reconstruct it. Therefore architecture is at the same time a construction, a deconstruction and a reconstruction. Parc de la Villette stands out in this system with its attempt to step beyond the scheme of an easy repetition and its heading for chances of achieving more radical otherness. -/- Conclusion Destruction as construction. Paradoxes of deconstruction in architecture -/- Scepticism about persistence and common importance of fundamental values of human culture evinced in philosophers and writers’ works as early as in Greek antiquity, nevertheless it was not expressed so strongly as in the second half of the 20th century. Especially in Heidegger’s work Being and Time (although originated in 1927, still influential in all later philosophy) the following states were characterised: the state of losing the ground (Abgrund), of being out of sight (Unheimlichkeit) and of being out of dwelling (Un-zuhause-sein) – as the basis of self-confidence of conscious being there (Dasein). The entire criticism of philosophy of home and dwelling draws the inspiration from this early writing of the German philosopher, it combines crisis of basic terms of metaphysics with social conditions which are dictated by living in large metropolis. The crisis of both metaphysical foundation and home appears to be similar to the situation of weakening the relations between a man and his dwelling in extensively expanding cities. Whereas philosophy, as well as many disciplines of social sciences, have diagnosed for a long time the destabilisation of fundamental ideas of Western culture and crucial changes in the ways of dwelling, architecture itself occurred to be “the last fortress of metaphysics” (J. Derrida). Among contemporary architects, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi were the ones who engaged most decidedly in the issues of critical analysis of architecture foundation and its social role. Both the architects noticed new formulas of contemporary social and individual existence, tremendously different from the entire history, and at the same time they affirmed lack of adequacy of architecture concepts to new situations. Both Eisenman and Tschumi used to describe the existing architecture as a tool for consolidation of highly integrated and hierarchised societies, and also as a discipline extremely uncoincidental with the current character of social life based on ideas of freedom and diversity. The means to transform architecture and make a factor of further social changes out of it, was a concept that accentuated revealing the inner contradictions of this discipline, and considering them in designing strategies. Eisenman’s activity, in regard of what has just been noticed, was focused on questioning the basic rules of traditionally comprehended architecture, especially the rule of purpose. The American architect noticed that the concept of architecture as fulfilment the need of location, hides away the fact that the location has to be constantly reconsidered, and hence it is overtaken by change (dislocation). Therefore new concept of architecture propounded architectural activity to translocate the concept of location – more than before – but also to change its status perpetually. Such comprehended architecture should claim, as its main purpose, the constant revision of this purpose and create itself anew permanently. Even Eisenman’s earliest designs of houses nos. I-IV broke with such values as the sense of safety, closeness and familiarity, and just on the contrary they accentuated senses of strangeness, homelessness and loss of confidence. The contradictions within architecture noticed by Tschumi referred to combination of intellectual and sensual values in architecture, when their non-appropriation was defeated by an additional condition, namely the way of experience based on pleasure of excess, marked by insanity. The features of folly were especially visible in his designs of gardens, where the order of planning was mixed with sensual experience introduced by particular elements (both the ones created by nature, and the buildings defined as folies). Parc de la Villette designed by the French architect in Paris put in question not only the common understanding of purpose in architecture but also the ideas of order and integrity, as its plan was based on the combination of independent layers with records of grids of points, various lines and planes. The architecture that collides inadequate elements with each other was supposed to be a kind of an event with no beginning and no end. The architecture treated as an event became a form of a space weakened articulation that maintains its diversity and lack of accordance of the elements building it up. The analyses of Eisenman and Tschumi’s theoretical writings indicate how much the aims of architecture have actually changed; instead of supporting social persistence, the architecture is rather intensifying contradictions, and instead of providing people with the sense of safety, it sublimes danger. From simple acts of defamiliarisation, increasing the distance to itself and enhancing the role of theory, through discomfort, anxiety, not feeling someone at home, weirdness, excess, shock and violence, architecture reached the edge of stability and uncertainty, only to make an attempt at penetrating what is impossible and unutterable, and recording what cannot become the subject of any records. -/- . (shrink)

-- 05.04.2024 -- Intervention held at the Italian Philosophical Society’s national congress’ section entitled "Texts, Words and Images: Philosophical Traditions and Translations", at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy -- -/- The aim of this intervention is to briefly advance an interpretation of the post- COVID19 digitalisation processes as to be recognised within the philosophical framework of Vorstellung Metaphysik, “metaphysics of representation”. I would maintain that the formula, firstly indicated by Martin Heidegger, can provide us with a tool (...) to interpret contemporary culture as founded on an “iteration” of individual and collective consciousness into non-existent digital realities. Moreover, I will argue that these concepts are philosophically relatable to those of alienation and reification that come from Marxist traditions. Ultimately, the analysis will try to use the above mentioned tools to delve into an interpretation of remote working and education as potential carriers of alienation. (shrink)

Our planet contains 194 independent states and much more nations. They share membership of the United Nations and in consequence they subscribed the Universal Declaration of Rights. These are rooted in the modern universal conception of states and human rights formulated by philosophers of the Enlighten Age like Locke, Kant., Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau. Concepts like democracy are mirrored to the organization of the political life as it was developed in North America and Europe at the end of the 18th (...) and the 19th century. Universality was deeply rooted in the Western intellectual, moral and religious tradition of that part of the world. Even globalization of the economic and social life is governed by the same Western standards and worldwide consumed basic goods like prime matter,. food and energy is expressed in terms of Western currency like dollar, pound sterling or euro. Despite this economic globalization there were two contradictory political evolution to discern: At the one hand more than 70 new states where created and on the other hand 28 European states started to integrate to a political European Union. The latter trend was based on a deep economic integration and since the creation of the euro also a financial integration. Basic idea was the creation of a free economic market as bases for a political unified Europe. Euro criticism is not only identified with conservatism, nationalism, narrow mind and even racism, euro criticism is deprived from any intellectual significance. However other trends put some shadow on the European project. First the Soviet experience around Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism unified more different nations than the European Union but ended in a complete political and economic chaos. Secondly the financial euro crisis involves only the tacit undermining of the national political independence of the member states, but does not make room for a deep analysis what the fundamentals are of this crisis such as lack of confidence of the citizen in the created unified political and financial market and its main instruments like banks that we consider as the fundamental boundary conditions of the worldwide globalization of goods, power and all aspects of human life. Furthermore we claim that this market in al its aspects is the worst answer to the inconvenient yet unavoidable truth that Western way of life of consumption includes a ecological footprint that exceeds since many years the sustainability of our planet. -/- . (shrink)

We know that technological developments will affect economic development which will have an impact on the level of public consumption. Law Diminishing Marginal Utility cause boredom which will comprehensively reduce one's purchasing power and interest in the commodities on the market. Capitalism and its development always try to encourage people's consumption continuously to the maximum point. Hedonism and consumerism cause financial imbalances which are a real threat to our society today. Law Diminishing Marginal Utility and followed by the application of (...) Economic Materialism Asymmetry to reduce unnecessary or philosophically form a normative framework so as not to get trapped in a destructive hedonistic cycle. These measurements are not carried out quantitatively or in a stricter context, this is intended to make it easier for the public to apply theoretical concepts from analysis to create a balance of consumption which has implications for alleviating poverty. (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)