The overwhelming majority of Albania’s urban population is located in Tirana, a city with a very dynamic socio-spatial reality, resulting as an entry point for people from various origins, including multicultural rural societies, and has significant concentrations of finance and other economic activities. Urban areas demonstrate the dynamics that impact society from many angles, including those related to technology, economics, demographics, and culture, via a diverse and changed perspective. Since 1991, there has been a growing separation between classes, genders, and (...) regions, as well as between individuals and vulnerable groups, due to a lack of social protection and governmental measures for these groups and individuals, and the unrestricted power of the free market. Today, there is a noticeable improvement in the real pattern of social group concentration. This paper focuses on various divisions of social groupings in Tirana, how they are reflected in the city’s everyday life, and how they trend to the fragmentation of contemporary urban regions. In order to comprehend the change over time and transition patterns of Tirana from sites of production to places of consumption, the process method is modified by concentrating on the main stakeholders. The background of enhancing cities’ mobility and competitiveness demonstrates the interaction between different social groups and different living patterns in Tirana. The study also shows the socio-spatial pattern of the new city. The significant level of social fragmentation in Tirana is evident from analysis that only investigated a certain percentage of the city’s social groupings. The new master plans predicted in the city will help to overcome the issue. (shrink)

The overwhelming majority of Albania’s urban population is located in Tirana, a city with a very dynamic socio-spatial reality, resulting as an entry point for people from various origins, including multicultural rural societies, and has significant concentrations of finance and other economic activities. Urban areas demonstrate the dynamics that impact society from many angles, including those related to technology, economics, demographics, and culture, via a diverse and changed perspective. Since 1991, there has been a growing separation between classes, genders, and (...) regions, as well as between individuals and vulnerable groups, due to a lack of social protection and governmental measures for these groups and individuals, and the unrestricted power of the free market. Today, there is a noticeable improvement in the real pattern of social group concentration. This paper focuses on various divisions of social groupings in Tirana, how they are reflected in the city’s everyday life, and how they trend to the fragmentation of contemporary urban regions. In order to comprehend the change over time and transition patterns of Tirana from sites of production to places of consumption, the process method is modified by concentrating on the main stakeholders. The background of enhancing cities’ mobility and competitiveness demonstrates the interaction between different social groups and different living patterns in Tirana. The study also shows the socio-spatial pattern of the new city. The significant level of social fragmentation in Tirana is evident from analysis that only investigated a certain percentage of the city’s social groupings. The new master plans predicted in the city will help to overcome the issue. (shrink)

This essay examines theoretical arguments surrounding the use of post-colonial theory as a way to fill in the epistemological lacuna in the studies of post-socialism. It reviews the various streams of this theoretical development and employs Edward Said’s notion of “traveling theory” to demonstrate that theoretical claims made by proponents and opponents of this particular comparative perspective are historically, socially, and geographically situated, although not fixed. Disciplinary, national, and institutional affiliations, instead of theoretical justifications, are identified as (...) important factors in the propensity to accept or resist the introduction of post-colonial perspective on Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The essay concludes by acknowledging the potential usefulness as well as the limits of post-colonialism in the conceptualization of the post- socialist space. (shrink)

Istoria antropologiei culturale a înregistrat nu puţine descrieri mitologice sau interpretări ficţionale ale datelor etnografice, în așa măsură încât recursul la imaginaţie în caracterizarea „naturii umane” sau a diverselor grupuri sociale constituie un subiect de studiu în sine. El prezintă o cazuistică impresionantă când vine vorba de referirile la trăsăturile distinctive ale grupurilor etnice sau ale tradiţiilor naţionale, discursul politic despre acestea fiind încărcat de stereotipuri și reprezentări antropologice itologizate, care spun mai multe despre cei ce le vehiculează decât despre (...) obiectul la care se referă. Studiul de faţă prezintă comparativ două exemple de manifestare a acestor reprezentări ficţionale cu implicaţii antropologice în discursul public românesc post-socialist. (shrink)

Hirji’s book, somewhat overlooked since its release, offers a compelling analysis of the history and sociology of the sciences in Tanzania, with a focus on Hirji’s own field of statistics, from the post-independence period through to the 2010s. The first chapter provides an overview of Hirji’s career as a teacher. The second presents an account of Hirji’s experiences as a teacher under training, especially in light of the Arusha Declaration of 1967 and the turn towards building socialism in (...) Tanzania, and the philosophy of education for self-reliance that Nyerere attempted to institutionalize. The next four chapters provide a detailed account of Hirji’s years as a teacher at the University of Dar Es Salaam (UDSM) from 1971 until his dismissal and internal-exile in 1974. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a need to reconstruct a new paradigm for poverty policy planning in Africa because Neo-liberalism, Ubuntu ethics and African Socialism as proposed paradigms for Africa’s development are untenable. This is so because the above trio are sexist, androcentric and oblivious to structural injustices that feminize poverty in Africa. The paper further argues that even in the Western world, the neo-liberal GDP metric has been challenged and the search for alternative development indicators and paradigms (...) is on. In addition, there is a fully fledged post-neo-liberalism movement in Latin America and a de-growth and post-growth social movement in the West against neo-liberalism and its nebulous economic growth understanding of wellbeing. The paper contends that Africa cannot afford to remain aloof to all these developments. There is therefore a need to develop Pan African paradigms to articulate an endogenous perspective to African development. The paper thus advocates for the Dignified Humanness Paradigm (DHP) as an alternative to neo-liberalism, Ubuntu ethics and African Socialism. The paper also surmises that the actualization of the DHP requires an immediate awakening of the Pan African Moral Consciousness since this will militate on decolonization of the African mind from the amoral neo-liberal economism. (shrink)

In this article I analyse one of the most important claims of the neoliberal policy prescriptions for Central and East European states in the early 1990s, that 'communist' property should be privatised. My claim is that this neoliberal policy prescription was based on a number of false assumptions about what it was 'communist' property, and a number of false assumptions about communist law. As a result of these assumptions, the post-communist process of privatisation was plagued by a host of (...) unintended and negative consequences. Nevertheless, based on these false assumptions, the neoliberal ideology was capable to portray the privatisation as 'rights based' and essentially a democratic process. I debunk these pretenses by showing that the reality of 'communist property' was totally different than that assumed by neoliberal policies. The distinctiveness of communist arrangements of property resided not in absence of private property, which was tolerated under communism, but in the organisation of property as an administrative matter, based on unwritten operational rules. Moreover, the communist corporate law was more or less the similar with the 'western corporate' law, so a simple change of formal law would not lead to the transformation of communist property into private property. If a transformation was desired, what needed to be changed was the operational rules accordingly to which the communist property operated. However, this was a level of 'reform' totally ignored by the neoliberal policies, with the result that post privatisation these operational rules continued to apply. The result was the great enrichment of the former communist managers who were able to benefit 'privatisation' at the expense of the public, in a process which was not 'right based' or 'democratic.'. (shrink)

This chapter examines: (1) the Black Notebooks in the context of Heidegger's political engagement on behalf of the National Socialist regime and his ambivalence toward some but not all of its political beliefs and tactics; (2) his limited "critique" of vulgar National Socialism and its biologically based racism for the sake of his own ethnocentric vision of the historical uniqueness of the German people and Germany's central role in Europe as a contested site situated between West and East, technological (...) modernity and the Asiatic. Heidegger did not break with radical right-wing Germanist thought, as some scholars have argued. He at most placed National Socialism within his narrative of the history of being, metaphysics, and technology, and thereby relativized it without addressing either its uniqueness or its totalitarian structures and practices. Heidegger formulated his own metaphysical and ontological version of Antisemitism during the National Socialist period. This vision was deeply connected with his understanding of the "history of being" and was intensified during and immediately after the Second World War. Heidegger could perceive no difference between the Shoah and the Allied bombing, defeat, and occupation of Germany. Heidegger's post-war philosophy (of home, history and technology) is deeply shaped by, and remained complicit with, his thinking during this period. (shrink)

The present article aims to offer a synoptic picture of communist Romania’s relations with Third World countries during the Ceaușescu regime. Within these relations, economic and geopolitical motivations coexisted along with ideological ones, thus making the topic one of the most interesting and relevant key for understanding RSR’s complex and cunning international strategy. However, I intend to prove that mere pragmatism is not enough to comprehend the drive behind Ceaușescu’s diplomatic efforts in post-colonial Africa; ideological factors need also to (...) be taken into account. (shrink)

In the pre-Independence era, our republic founders held the Cold War mindset strongly. Consequently, the Indonesian republic proclaimed in 1945 was based on a Cold War mindset; our state philosophy (Pancasila) and the Constitution (UUD '45) were understood and construed on the Cold War discourse basis; and binary oppositions of capitalism-socialism and liberalism-communism since then have been created. Up to the 2020s, the Cold War mindset has still been held by public intellectuals and the binary oppositions have still been (...) rampant in intellectual discourses. If the mindset were still held for three decades to come, it would cause a setback to the development of Indonesian philosophy history. This article is a call to stop and an invitation to escape from the retrogressive mindset. As a call, the article exposes first the evil root of the Cold War mindset as well as the philosophical critique towards it. Then, as an invitation, it suggests three realistic alternative mindsets to replace the Cold War mindset, i.e. post- Cold War capitalistic mindset, deconstructive mindset, and utopian mindset, which are called herein as three growth scenarios. It is believed that, if the three generating scenarios are followed, they will move Indonesian philosophy history forward, and its ongoing development will not hinder or retard. (shrink)

Departing from the conventional readings of Karl Marx’s Capital and other of his works, by way of François Laruelle’s “radicalization of concepts,” Katerina Kolozova identifies a theoretical kernel in Marx’s thought whose critical and interpretative force can be employed without reference to its subsequent interpretations in the philosophical mainstream. The latter entails a process of abstracting a philosophical legacy — or rather, of putting it in brackets — and then codifying a history of a learned interpretation established in supposed fidelity (...) to the theoretical project of a “master.” Interpreting the master implies a mastery of doctrinal tools, which results in establishing a catechism of the Logos of the Master. And this catechism interferes, Kolozova argues, with more direct encounters with Marx’s writings. As we know, Marx’s rigorously descriptive language unravels the radical core of capitalist economic processes and, through that unraveling, also reveals capitalism’s necessary exploitation and subjugation of human labor. Toward a Radical Metaphysics of Socialism attempts to recuperate and emancipate the notion of metaphysics in this scenario by virtue of radicalizing thought’s encounter with the Real. Kolozova argues that this metaphysical drama is at the origin of the social and economic injustices of contemporary global economic-political realities, and she illustrates this state of affairs in discussions of the problem of wage labor, automated speculation as the core of late capitalism, the post-2008 financial crisis, the status of technology in late capitalism, sexual difference and gender, and the human and non-human body’s subjugation capitalist automation. (shrink)

The author starts from the thesis that there is no such thing as a "natural" or "apolitical" economy. The economy is always already political, as it is the economy’s material core of power, control, and its main mechanisms, i.e. exploitation and oppression. It is no less so in the era of neoliberalism, a time in which we witness the divorce between capitalism and democracy. In order to lay the foundations of a different economy, one that is not based on wage (...) labor and the exploitation of human life and nature based on their auto-alienation, but rather on action in accordance with their resources, we need – according the author – to rethink the concept of the state in a non-philosophical and post-capitalist fashion, structurally different from the modern bourgeois state. If the structure originating in the bourgeois state, as conceived by modern humanism, is preserved, it will mean that the determination in the last instance is still the same. In order to arrive at a determination in the last instance of a non-exploitative, non-wage-labor-based social order where the determination is affected by the real, we must first arrive at the generic core of the notion of the modern state. As soon as we determine the generic term of "the state," we can radicalize it by letting it be determined by the effects of the real. The generic notion, isolated from the chôra of the transcendental material that is offered by modern philosophies originating in the Enlightenment, should be used as the minimal transcendental description for the determining effect of the real. (shrink)

Burgeoning national security programs; thickening borders; Wikileaks and Anonymous; immigrant rights rallies; Occupy movements; student protests; neoliberal austerity; global financial crises – these developments underscore how much the fable of a hope-filled post-cold war globalization has faded. In its place looms the prospect of states and corporations transforming a permanent war on terror into a permanent war on society. How, at this juncture, might policymakers and power-holders in leading states and corporations of the Global North be reframing their pursuit (...) of power and control? What possibilities and limits do activists and communities face for progressive, radical political action to counter this power inside and outside the state? The book, a dialogue, links Gramscian and Benjaminian thought in an in-depth consideration of the prospects for a progressive, radical politics that is situated at the juncture of Socialism and Anarchism and which uses evasion against statist capitalism to create new forms of, what is termed, re-collective passage. (April 2016 Routledge, Interventions series). (shrink)

According to Warriner (1969) a simple way of defining land reforms is to name it “the redistribution of property or rights in land for the benefit of the landless, tenants and farm labourers”. Land reforms are mainly characterised by the government’s change of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reforms deal with the government in power distributing property which is in most times agricultural land. In some instances it also involves the distribution of land from the more powerful (...) or wealthy group of people such as nobles and bourgeoisie and giving potions of the land to the less powerful in society especially during the start of the post-colonial error in most countries in Southern Africa. During the pre-colonial period, land or pieces of land belonged to different ethnic groups, clans and lineages but now in the post-colonial land reform programs were to introduce individual ownership of land. There are many reasons why the government (both colonial and post-colonial) embark on land reforms and some of the factors influencing them include political reasons such promoting communism or socialism, social reasons such as separating the blacks from the whites and creating social stratification and economic reasons such as facilitating private investments and raising the country’s economic growth of the agricultural sector just but to mention a few reasons. Though some of the government’s reasons to embark on land reforms appear to be noble, local communities refuse these land reforms since they create social stratifications, at times increase poverty, destroy the matrilineal societies and are more political in nature rather than a means to better the people’s lives especially during the colonial error. The essay below will vividly portray why the government embarks on land reform programs and why local people resist these reforms using examples from both colonial and post-colonial Southern African countries. (shrink)

A SECOND COMPLETELY REVISED EDITION OF THIS TEXTBOOK ON INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH WAS PUBLISHED WITH AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS IN 2022. Check out that version here and a PDF of its ToC and Introduction, as this first edition (AUP 2016) is no longer available. [This book (128 pp.) serves as an introduction and manual to guide students through the interdisciplinary research process. We are becoming increasingly aware that, as a result of technological developments and globalisation, problems are becoming so complex that they (...) can only be solved through cooperation between multiple disciplines. Healthcare, climate change, food security, energy, financial markets and quality of life are just a few examples of issues that require scientists and academics to work in a crossdisciplinary way. As a result of these developments, an interdisciplinary approach is becoming increasingly popular in higher education and must be considered an absolute necessity. Young academics are being called on to step beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplines in order to contribute to addressing fundamental problems and solving challenges facing society. There is a need for people who are not afraid to ask critical questions, who can work together well and can look beyond the boundaries of their own field. This means students need to learn more about how they can integrate and apply knowledge, methods and skills from different fields. Interdisciplinary research projects and practical training courses offer students more than one perspective on the same subject. Comparing and contrasting, connecting, adding and adapting concepts, theories and methodologies from different disciplines ultimately results in new insights and better answers to complex problems.]. (shrink)

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

The article analyzes the significance of situated knowledges for going beyond dominating conceptual dichotomies that a) establish status quo dialectics, b) proliferate homogenization of the Global Northern experienced materialities, and c) conceal and suppress alternate affectual body-environment experiences and materializations. With the example of postsocialist ontogenealogies, the article analyzes the potential blind spots when failing to consider both sides of a status quo dialectic in their interconnectedness. To conclude, the article suggests the potential of situated knowledges as a vehicle for (...) future environmental ethicalities. (shrink)

In the 1990s, a debate raged across the whole postsocialist world as well as in Western development agencies such as the World Bank about the best approach to the transition from various forms of socialism or communism to a market economy and political democracy. One of the most hotly contested topics was the question of the workplace being organized based on workplace democracy (e.g., various forms of worker ownership) or based on the conventional employer-employee relationship. Well before 1989, many (...) of the socialist countries had started experimenting with various forms of "self-management" operating in more of a market setting, Yugoslavia being the most developed example. Thus one "path to the market" would .. (shrink)

Three concrete instances of modern and contemporary art development in the former Soviet bloc are addressed in the study. Comparing three particular cases of post-socialist countries (Czechoslovakia, Poland and Lithuania), three distinctive situations are identified in order to establish a link between modern and contemporary art and the emergence of canonized stories of their development. Although these concrete cases turned out to represent a certain range of situations-models that have taken place, the study indicates a variety of omissions and (...) unrecognized vital moments in the currently prevailing canons, which puts the connection of the shifting point of 1989 and the transition from modern to contemporary art into a new light. (shrink)

I develop a socialist republican conception of economic liberty and show how it can be used to understand the domination of workers. It holds that both paid and unpaid workers can be deprived of economic freedom when they are exposed to an arbitrary power to undermine their access to the economic capabilities needed for civic equality. Measures intended to reduce domination are recommended, including public ownership of productive property, workplace democracy, and robust unconditional basic income and services. Finally, I discuss (...) the implications of this approach for platform capitalism, digital surveillance, the rise of automation, and post-work politics. (shrink)

Over the years, as the all-encompassing processes of globalization and neoliberalization unfolded, the Popular Republic of China increasingly deepened its developmental policies intended to grow its technological and economic competitiveness. Chinese universities experimented with various forms of managerial techniques imported from the West, including those inspired by the neoliberal ideology. Their achievements in the field of tertiary education were so impressive that they easily became a source of inspiration for neoliberal managers aspiring to „excellence” all around the world. On the (...) other hand, in post-socialist Europe, stuck in an unsatisfying and unfulfilled search for ideal neoliberal productivity models, Romanian university managers are still obsessing with pushing their institutions among the ones listed by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), while many Romanian researchers are seeking to publish in Chinese journals. Some of them look up with envy to the generous incentives that Chinese public universities are providing in order to increase their publication output. However, the interest for debating or critically understanding the governance behind all these trends is barely visible. More often than not, researchers and experts alike are happy to believe that their academic work has nothing to do with politics or ideology. Few are questioning the political bases of neoliberal reforms at home, and even fewer are trying to find out more about what really happens in China. In this paper I will try to incite questions or working hypotheses about the ideology of neoliberal competitiveness, encouraging Romanian readers to reflect upon issues and debates informed by the prestige-driven university reforms experimented over the last three decades by the Popular Republic of China. Also, the paper will provide some useful bibliographical suggestions for those who want to dive deeper and better understand recent policy directions adopted by the Communist Party of China in this field. (shrink)

Memorialization in the form of the architectural statue can suggest that our stance towards the past is concrete while memorials in the form of repeated social activity represent reconciliation with the past as a continual process. Enacted memorials suggest that reconciliation with the past is not itself a thing of the past. Each generation must grapple with its inherited memories, guilt, and grief and self-consciously take its own stance towards that which came before it. This article considers Dominik Smole’s (...) class='Hi'>post World War II rewrite of Antigona as an enacted memorial within the context of socialist Yugoslavia. The practice of restaging Antigona in Slovenia may be seen as the practice of meta-memorialization, which routinely returns to the past while openly weighing the dangers of awakening the unburied dead against the dangers of letting the unaddressed conflicts of the past sleep. (shrink)

This paper argues that the current scholarship of radical politics primarily bannered by Christopher Ryan Maboloc is a misappropriation of the postMarxist political project of Mouffe and Laclau. Drawing primarily both on Mouffe’s and Laclau’s work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics and an interview with Chantal Mouffe herself, the paper argues how the post-Marxist radical political project of Mouffe and Laclau fails to theoretically fit to the style of governance and regime of Duterte. Fundamental to (...) the idea of radical democratic politics is the task of radicalizing liberal democracy. However, as discussed in the paper, liberal democracy is a project whose very institutions and processes Duterte and his regime have undermined and attacked. Under Duterte’s regime, radical democracy lost the conditions for its flourishing, rendering its own impossibility. (shrink)

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

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

The paper charts both the interpersonal connections between historical anarchist figures and the beat poets as well as the philosophical similarities between them. Almost all the beat poets were anarchists, though their politics was secondary to their attempts to transform consciousness. Among the anarchists, the romantic socialist Gustav Landauer, who was especially popular in post-war American anarchist circles, came closest to the political perspective of the beat poets. Like the beats, Landauer was a poet, a pacifist, an anarchist, a (...) communitarian, a romantic, and a mystic. In northern California, the circle of anarchists surrounding Kenneth Rexroth provided support and inspiration to the early beat movement. In New York, the beats had an affinity with anarchists such as David Thoreau Wieck and the publication "Why?" (later "Resistance"), as well as Dwight Macdonald's "politics" and Holley Cantine's "Retort". (shrink)

Many anthropologists interpret neoliberalism as a radical break from and dangerous rupture in post-war societies that featured Keynesian economic policies and welfare provision. The allure of a mythic welfare state has boosted John Maynard Keynes’s popularity to many who embrace certain facets of socialism. Many critical social scientists have embraced Keynesianism in ways that overlook how the US used Keynesian policies to reengineer and redeploy state power. Keynes’s liberal synthesis inspired managers in the US Treasury Department to understand (...) depression-era problems of unemployment and poverty in ways that were consonant with the expansion of corporate power. For understanding Keynesianism, as it actually existed during the Cold War, we must analyse how the US Treasury and State Departments used Keynesian principles to rebuild the social reproductive capacities necessary for capitalist accumulation both domestically and in Western Europe. I focus on how the architects of postwar capitalism used full employment policies, labour laws and welfare provision to renovate the nexus of political practices and institutional structures in ways that formed a benevolent and caring image of ‘the state’ and the myth of a class compromise. Through these reforms, governmental planners and administrators used the ‘state idea’ to reorganize capital accumulation as if the post-war economy would represent ordinary people’s best interests. In the process, these sophisticated practices of power became reified as the ‘welfare state’ and the ‘Keynesian compromise’ in ways that endow these institutions and policies with a character divorced from practices of power. The post-war state embodied a dialectic of repression and reform that combined criminalizing dissent with full employment policies and welfare provision. Taking these aspects of power into account, we can see post-war Keynesianism in ways that inspire a robust and far-reaching criticism of the contemporary predicament of economic uncertainty, political instability and environmental degradation. (shrink)

The current image of Georg Lukács (1885-1971) is widely swayed by an interpretative standard grounded on a deep partition between his young (1910-1918),intermediate (1918-1930) and mature (1930-1971) intellectual production. Despite rejecting an undeniable discontinuity in Lukács’ philosophical evolution,especially between his pre-Marxist works (The Soul and the Forms and Theory of Romance) and the post-1918 Marxist production, I aim for a global reconsideration of Lukács’ philosophy, evaluating a greater unity in his thought. A reflection on ethical problems, specifically on the (...) matter of responsibility, emerges – and not by chance – during different turning points of Lukács’ personal life. On the poverty of Spirit (1913), Tactic and Ethic (1918) and The social responsibility of the philosopher (1960 ca.) are the three essays in which Lukács attempts in different ways to give a philosophical legitimation of some decisive biographical choices, such as his separation from Irma Seidler (1911), his adhesion to the Communist Party (1918) and his acceptance of Socialism, even after the dramatic events of Budapest in 1956. A more unitary consideration of Lukács’ thought could be reached only through a deeper reflection on the content of the ethical problem of responsibility in his thinking. Despite their differences, the essays mentioned above are united in terms of the meaning of a true responsibility,which Lukács conceives always in a direct connection – maybe in an excessively binding way ‒ between individual choice and the course of history. (shrink)

This paper argues that the ‘scientific dispute’ between Hermann Cohen and Rudolf Stammler is symptomatic of a philosophical movement of left-wing Kant interpretations at the turn of the twentieth century. By outlining influential predecessors that shaped Cohen’s and Stammler’s thinking, I show that their Kantian justifications of socialism differ regarding their conception of law, history, and the political implications that follow from their practical philosophies. Against scholars who suggest that the Marburg School’s view on socialism was a coherent (...) school of thought, I introduce the concept of ‘left-Kantianism’ as an open term that includes a wide variety of novel socialist approaches to Kant at the time. (shrink)

This book is a personal answer to the crisis of the left. The author of this text belongs to a generation habituated to live with global explanations. During our youth, the future of the world was the future of democracy and socialism. We belong to a generation of “leftist” that found in Marx and Freud, phenomenology and structuralism the most important answers that made sense of the everyday world. However, the developments of events during the last sixty years showed (...) that our confidence was ungrounded. The depreciation of the theoretical thought accelerated in direct proportion to the development of technologies, and among them the impact of the digital developments was devastating. One of the most notable consequences of the digitalization of culture was the depreciation of the Marxian thought, but also the less recognized depreciation of all kinds of political-economic thought. The collapse of the world created before the Second World War open for the end of the “grand narratives” and the enthronization of Postmodernism. The production of fragmentary explanations took over the historical perspective with an important influence on social and economic thought. After 60 years of postmodern thinking, we believe that the time of Postmodernism is over. Politicians and economists over the world cannot continue to produce results in small packages. The whole picture must be restituted. Of course it must be done incorporating the lessons of the past to avoid to make the same mistakes. Postmodernism has left behind lots of scattered modernist philosophical remnants. It left a chessboard with only few pieces to work with, and in this allegory, only as references. The philosophical schools remains, but the study of them is strictly for an education in the history of ideas. The situation is aggravating since the most important works from the 1960’s and forth, (post-structuralists) deliberately have avoided obvious identity patterns. A word in Rio de la Plata’s jargon language describes this situation, cambalache, a sort of “flea market” where everything lies higgledy-piggledy. Deconstruction and the focus on differences are vital to Postmodernism. Remaining is therefore the intersections, the contrasts, shadows, and sketches. When trying to orient in such an intellectual environment, the task reminds of patching scatterings, and building with tools of eclecticism. However, we believe that is time to reconstruct instead of deconstruct, moving back to Modernism that we will describe as Cyborgism. (shrink)

Disciplinary issues -- Field studies -- Appendix: Theory of law : legal ethnography, or, the theoretical fruits of the inquiries into folkways. /// Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1995 to 2008 /// DISCIPLINARY ISSUES -- LAW AS CULTURE? [2002] 9–14 // TRENDS IN COMPARATIVE LEGAL STUDIES [2002] 15–17 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES: ATTEMPTS AT CONCEPTUALISATION [1997] 19–28: 1. Legal Culture in a Cultural-anthropological Approach 19 / 2. Legal Culture in a Sociological Approach 21 / 3. Timely Issues of (...) Central and Eastern Europe 24 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES? [2001] 29–48: 1. Legal Comparativism Challenged 29 / 2. Comparative Legal Cultures versus Comparative Law 34 / 3. Contrasting Fields 40 [a) The Historical Understanding of Socialist Law 42 / b) Convergence of Civil Law and Common Law 44] 4. Concluding Remarks 46 // THEATRUM LEGALE MUNDI: ON LEGAL SYSTEMS CLASSIFIED [2005] 49–75: 1. Preliminaries 49 / 2. Proposals 50 / 3. Impossible Taxonomy, or the Moment of Practicality in Legal Mapping 69 / 4. Diversity as a Fundamental Quality of Human Existence 74 // LEGAL TRADITIONS? IN SEARCH FOR FAMILIES AND CULTURES IN LAW [2004] 77–97: 1. Comparative Law and the Comparative Study of Legal Traditions 78 / 2. ‘System’, ‘Family’, ‘Culture’, and ‘Tradition’ in the Classification of Law 80 / 3. Different Traditions, Differing Ways of Thinking 85 / 4. Different Expectations, Differings Institutionalisations in Law 88 / 5. Different “Rationalities”, Differing “Logics” 92 / 6. Mentality in Foundation of the Law 94 / 7. Defining a Subject for Theoretical Research in Law 96 // SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING OLD IN THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY OF LAW? [1995] 99–102 --- FIELD STUDIES -- MEETING POINTS BETWEEN THE TRADITIONS OF ENGLISH–AMERICAN COMMON LAW AND CONTINENTAL-FRENCH CIVIL LAW: DEVELOPMENTS AND EXPERIENCE OF POSTMODERNITY IN CANADA [2002] 105–130: I. Canadian Law in General 105 / II. Canadian Legal Developments in Particular [1. The Transformation of the Role of Precedents 112 / 2. The Transformation of Law-application into a Collective, Multicultural and Multifactorial Search for a Solution 116 / 3. Practical Trends of Dissolving the Law’s Positivity 120 / 4. New Prerogatives Acquired by Courts 125 {a) Unfolding the Statutory Provisons in Principles 126 / b) Constitutionalisation of Issues 127 / c) The Supreme Court as the Nation’s Supreme Moral Authority 129}] // MAN ELEVATING HIMSELF? DILEMMAS OF RATIONALITY IN OUR AGE [2000] 131–163: I. Reason and its Adventures 1. Progress and Advance Questioned 131 / 2. The Human Search for Safety Objectified 133 / 3. Knowledge Separated from Wisdom 135 / 4. Pure Intellectuality thereby Born 137 / II. The Will-Element Formalised in Law 5. Mere Voluntas in the Foundation of Legal Positivism 141 / 6. Formalism with Operations Fragmented 145 / III. The State of America Exemplified 7. “Slouching into Gomorrah” 147 / IV. Consequences 8. Utopianism-cum-Voluntarism 154 / 9. With Logic in Posterior Control of Human Formulations Only 159 / V. Perspectives 10. And a Final Resolution Dreamed about 161 // RULE OF LAW? MANIA OF LAW? ON THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN RATIONALITY AND ANARCHY IN AMERICA [2002] 165–180: {Transformation of American Law and Legal Mentality 165 / With Repercussions on the Underlying Ethos 168 / Legislation through Processualisation 170 / With Hyperrationalism Added 172 / Example: Finding Lost Property 172 / Practicalness Veiled by Verbal Magic 173 / Ending in Jurispathy 175 / Transubstantiating the Self-interest of the Legal Profession 178 / Post-modernity, Substituting for Primitiveness 178} // TRANSFERS OF LAW: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS [2003] 181–207: 1. Terms 182 / 2. Technicality 190 / 3. Contrasts in Transfers of Law 200 {Contrasts 200 / Criticisms 202 / Alternatives205} 4. Conclusions 206 // THE DANGERS FOR THE SELF OF BEING SELF-CENTRED: ON STANDARDS AND VALUES [2002] 209–212 --- APPENDIX -- THEORY OF LAW – LEGAL ETHNOGRAPHY, OR THE THEORETICAL FRUITS OF THE INQUIRIES INTO FOLKWAYS [2008] 213–234 1. Encounters 213 / 2. Disciplines 218 / 3. The Lawyerly Interest 223 / 4. Law and/or Laws 226 / 5. Conclusion 233 --- Index of Subjects 235 / Index of Normative Materials 242 / Index 244 . (shrink)

Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1986 to 2009 /// Historical background -- An imposed legacy -- Twentieth century contemporaneity -- Appendix: The philosophy of teaching legal philosophy in Hungary /// HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- PHILOSOPHY OF LAW IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE: A SKETCH OF HISTORY [1999] 11–21 // PHILOSOPHISING ON LAW IN THE TURMOIL OF COMMUNIST TAKEOVER IN HUNGARY (TWO PORTRAITS, INTERWAR AND POSTWAR: JULIUS MOÓR & ISTVÁN LOSONCZY) [2001–2002] 23–39: Julius Moór 23 / István Losonczy 29 // (...) ON THE SURVIVAL OF ILMAR TAMMELO’S LETTER AND MANUSCRIPT ADDRESSED TO PROFESSOR MOÓR [2009] 41–44 // PROFESSIONAL DISTRESS AND SCARCITY: ALEXANDER HORVÁTH AND THE LEGACY OF NATURAL LAW IN HUNGARY [2005] 45–50 // HUNGARIAN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY [2011] 51–72: I. The Pre-war Period [1. Bódog (Felix) Somló (1871–1920) 52] / II. The Inter-war Period [2. Gyula (Julius) Moór (1888–1950) 54 / 3. Barna Horváth (1896–1973) 55 / 4. József Szabó (1909–1992) 57 / 5. István Bibó (1911–1979) 58 / 6. Tibor Vas (1911–1983) 59 / 7. István Losonczy (1918–1980) 60] III. The Post-war Period (Communism) 61 [8. Imre Szabó (1912–1991) 62 / 9. Vilmos Peschka (1929–2006) 63 / 10. Kálmán Kulcsár (1928–2010) 65] IV. Contemporary Trends and Perspectives 66 [11. Csaba Varga (b. 1941) 66 / 12. András Sajó (b. 1949) 69 / 13. Béla Pokol (b. 1950) 70] V. Our Understanding of the Law Today 71 --- AN IMPOSED LEGACY -- LOOKING BACK [1999] 75–94: 1. On Ideologies and Marxism in general 75 / 2. Life of an Intellectual in Communism 79 / 3. On Marxism and its Socialist Cultivation in Particular 82 / 4. Legal Philosophising [4.1. Approaches to Law 87 / 4.2. Arriving at a Legal Ontology 91] 5. Conclusion 94 // LEGAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE MARXISM OF SOCIALISM: HUNGARIAN OVERVIEW IN AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE [2003] 95–151: I. Development and Balance of Marxist Philosophising on Law in Hungary [1. Preliminaries (until 1948) 96 / 2. Stalinism (from the Soviet Occupation on) {a) Liquidation of the »Residues« 98 / b) Soviet-type Uniformisation [Gleichschaltung] 99 / c) Denial of the Past, with a Dual Effect 99 / d) »Socialist Legality«, Drawn from the Progressive Past of Western Europe 103 / e) Search for the Germs of Scholarly Evolution 103} 3. Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation (from the 1960s) [a) Epigonism Becoming the Scholarly Ideal 104 / b) Stalinism in a Critical Self-perspective 105 / c) Disciples Diversified Launching their own Trends 107 / d) Comparatism 110 / e) (Re)discovery of the Western Legal Philosophy as a Competitor 112 / f) A Leading Mediatory Role within the »Socialist World Order« 114} 4. Disintegration (in the 1980s) {a) Attempt at Laying New Foundations for Marxism with Epigonism Exhausted 115 / b) Competitive Trends Becoming Exclusive 115 / c) Western Legal Philosophy Acknowledged as a Fellow-traveller within the Socialist Orbit Proper 116 / d) Hungarian Legal Theory Transforming into a National Corpus 118 / e) The Practical Promotion of Some Balance 119} 5. End-game for a Substitute State Religion (in the 1990s) 120] II. Marxist Legal Philosophising in an International Perspective [Ad 1: To the Preliminaries 122 / Ad 2: To Stalinism 124 / Ad 3: To Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation {a) Late Separation from Vishinskiy’s Theory 125 / b) From Ideological Self-closure to an Apparently Scholarly Openness 127 / c) From Political Ideology to Genuine Scholarship 130 / d) International Recognition of Socialist Jurisprudence as an Independent Trend 135 / e) Together with Western Trends 137} Ad 4: To Disintegration {a) Loss of Attraction as Mere Epigonism 139 / b) Exclusivity of Competing Trends 139 / c) Fellowship with »Bourgeois« Trends 140 / d) An own Trend, Internationally Recognised 141 / e) A yet Progressive Role 142} Ad 5: To the Present state 143] III. A Temporary Balance 145 // AUTONOMY AND INSTRUMENTALITY OF LAW IN A SUPERSTRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE [1986] 151–175: 1. The Strange Fate of Concepts 151 / I. A Relational Category 2. Basis and Superstructure: The Genuine Meaning 154 / 3. Exerting Social Influence as a Conceptual Minimum 156 / 4. Relationships within the Prevailing Totality 158 / 5. Attempts at Interpretation in Hungary 159 / 6. The Lukácsian Stand 162 / 7. Lukács’s Recognitions 168 / 8. Some Criticism 169 / II. The Law’s Understanding 171 / 9. Law Interpreted as Superstructure 171 / 10. Conclusions Drawn for the Law’s Understanding 173 // LEGAL THEORY IN TRANSITION (A PREFACE FROM HUNGARY) [2000] 177–186 // DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL LEGAL THOUGHT IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM [2006] 187–215: 1. International Environment 188 / 2. The Situation in Hungary 190 / 3. Outlook I: The Historical-comparative Study of Legal Cultures and of the Lawyerly Way of Thinking 203 / 4. Outlook II: The Paradigmatic Enigma of the Transition to Rule of Law 207 / 5. Incongruity in Practice 213 / 6. Perspectives 214 --- TWENTIETH CENTURY CONTEMPORANEITY -- CHANGE OF PARADIGMS IN LEGAL RECONSTRUCTION: CARL SCHMITT AND THE TEMPTATION TO FINALLY REACH A SYNTHESIS [2002] 219–234: 1. Dangers of Intellectualism 219 / 2. Schmitt in Facts 221 / 3. Schmitt and Kelsen 222 / 4. On Bordering Conditions 226 / 5. With Kelsen in Transubstantiation 230 / 6. Polarisation as the Path of Theoretical Development 232 // KELSENIAN DOCUMENTS IN HUNGARY: CHAPTERS ON CONTACTS, INCLUDING THE GENESIS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY [2006] 235–243: 1. Preludes 235 / 2. The Search for Moór’s Bequeath 235 / 3. Moór’s Collegiality 238 / 4. Bibó as a Disciple Translating 241 // THE »HART-PHENOMENON« [2002] 245–267: I. The Hart-miracle 246 [1. The Scene of Britain at the Time 247 / 2. The Personal Career 250 / 3. The Opus’ Career 252 / 4. Verbal Sociologism 255 / 5. Growing into the British Pattern 259] II. The Hart-phenomenon 260 [6. Origination of a Strange Orthodoxy 261 / 7. Mastering Periods of the 20th Century 263 / 8. Raising the Issue of Reception in Hungary 365] // LITERATURE? A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL PHILOSOPHY? [2007] 269–287: 1. The Enigma of Law and its Study 269 / 2. “Law and Literature” 271 / 3. Varieties of “Law and Literature” 274 / 4. The German Study of Artistic Representations 280 / 5. Some Literary Reconsiderations 285 / 6. Conclusion 287 --- APPENDIX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN HUNGARY [2007] 291–320: I. Why and How to Philosophise in Law? 291 / II. The State of Teaching Legal Philosophy 294 / III. The Philosophy of Teaching Legal Philosophy 296 / IV. Programme at the Catholic University of Hungary 300 [1. Graduate Studies 300 {a) Basic Subjects 301 / b) Facultative Seminars 305 / c) Closing Subjects 309 / d) Written Memoranda and the Thesis 312} 2. Postgraduate Studies 313 / 3. Conclusion 317] V. Perspectives 318 /// Index of Subjects 321 / Index of Normative Materials 328 / Index of Names 329 . (shrink)

This booklet deals in the form of "impromptus" with philosophy and philosophers in the "Third Reich" and the interesting story of post-war German philosophy to just ignore this topic.

The 20th century was full of epoch-making events that left their mark on it. From the outbreak of the First World War and the fall of The German Empire, through numerous political and social shake-ups, until the outbreak of the Second World War, that became the event without precedent in the history of mankind. The First World War meant in many cases not only the end of some form of rule – the monarchy, but also, and maybe first of all, (...) it originated the increase of xenophobia and anti-Semitism. The post-war years were identified with economic problems on a large scale that had influence on every aspect of life. Revolutions and an attempt to create the first democratic country in the history of Germany influenced the outlook of the world and beliefs of all people that lived at that time. The German people were under the influence of ideas and ideals of the educated social class, but also of Catholic child rearing or Protestant values. In that social and political situation wrote Clemens Graf von Galen in 1932 the treatise on Die Pest des Laizismus und ihre Erscheinungsformen, in which he carried out a critical analysis of all occurrences of social, political, religious-morals and economical life that took place in the falling Weimar Republic. Not in a direct way he also took a stand on growing in strength of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The under mentioned article is aimed at presenting a profile of Clemens August Graf von Galen, later the Bishop of Münster, cardinal and the Blessed of the Roman Catholic Church, the origins of his beliefs that were reflected in his treatise Die Pest des Laizismus und ihre Erscheinungsformen. (shrink)

This paper examines the remarkable but not much analyzed phenomenon of anti-Cartesianism in the Weimar Republic, which was fueled by philosophers as well as by literary scholars, such as Ernst Robert Curtius. The outright rejection of Descartes needs to be seen within the context of the deep social and political crisis of a defeated Germany between the two World Wars. Rejection of rationality in favour of a perceived deeper German grasp of reality was part of the conservative backlash against the (...) national humiliation. Descartes as both the ‘father of modernity’ and the epitome of French ‘civilisation’ served as the perfect antagonist to what was extolled as the German authentic mode of being. Implanting this anti-Cartesianism into his nationalist elitist philosophical discourse Heidegger amplified it, and under the slogan “German philosophy resists” he channeled it into the national-socialist ideology. In a strange turn of events it was the surge of interest he encountered in post-war France that reestablished Heidegger’s intellectual standing and paved the road to his comeback in Germany around 1950. (shrink)

The idea of Europe has already a long history and beyond its ethical attractiveness it became victorious in the political praxis of the 2nd half of the 20th century first of all as a motive force serving the aim of a long-term restoration of peace in the post-war Western Europe and then as a unifying principle for the whole continent after the collapse (implosion) of “really existing socialism”. A little later, in the course of the expansion of the (...) free market economy towards the previously centralized economies of Eastern Europe it soon became obvious that the idea of Europe was not everywhere interpreted the same way and that in some cases it seemed to cause more problems than the ones it should have solved. Especially the current refugee crisis that has initially emerged in the so-called developing world outside of Europe but nevertheless significantly affects the Old Continent can be seen as a major theoretical and practical challenge around the fundamental sustaining (and in itself sustainable) concept of European openness: i.e. in order to remain open in its internal function the liberally organized Europe has to close its outer borders and to decisively limit the access of many humans to its single common market, thus imposing obstacles to the generalization of prosperity and liberty that once were felt as its core values. We will try to show that apart from the immediate cultural, ideological and strategic aspects of such phenomena and the often unavoidable pitfalls of short-term decision making it is important to study and explore the necessity of the current processes. The idea of Europe became, at least partly, synonymous with the overall economical and social globalization of our times whereas such a major process cannot unfold its inherent dynamic without the constitutive role of certain crises that eventually pose existential challenges or otherwise enable the stabilization of the newly emerging system(s). (shrink)

The main problem of how to transform a centrally planned market into a market economy has emerged as one of the most influential and challenging issues in modern times. Nowadays, post-Soviet republics and nations of Central and Eastern Europe are in a transformation process and seek to capture claimed efficiency and advantages of market mechanisms for their economies. This is a very complex issue, because a rapid transition from socialism to a market economy is an unprecedented phenomenon and (...) requires fundamental restructuring of a nation’s economic, political, social and legal institutions as well as its physical infrastructure. (shrink)

This dissertation describes and assesses post-1961 Soviet discussions of the nature of the person. It focuses on post-1961 literature because the volume of Soviet material on the nature of the person increases dramatically following the 22d Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . At that congress the CPSU declared that the USSR had become a socialist nation and that the country would now build a communist society. According to the CPSU, building communism required educating persons (...) capable of living in communist society. ;Unlike many Western theories on the nature of the person, Soviet theories do not proceed from the proposition that a person's consciousness or self-consciousness differentiates him from all other kinds of entity. They proceed rather from the proposition that a person is different from all other kinds of entity because he is social. Soviets attempt to describe what makes persons social. ;Soviets have argued among themselves concerning a number of issues regarding the nature of persons. During the early 1960s some argued that no general theory of the person was possible and that theories must center on persons of particular classes and historical eras. In the late 1960s Soviets came to believe that a general theory of the person is possible. ;General theories of the person presented by Soviets sometimes distinguish between persons, humans and individuals. This distinction is most clear when these are conceived as properly social, bio-social, and properly biological entities, respectively. There is no general agreement concerning this distinction, however, and this lack of agreement has carried over into discussions of the essence of Man. This essence is said to consist in social relations. ;Soviets have attempted to account for a person's social nature by concentrating on his ethical behavior, his social roles and his activity. None of these accounts succeeds in describing what makes persons social. ;Since social relations are considered the essence of Man, Soviets attempt to characterize them. The best attempt to do this describes social relations as relations between conscious entities. This attempt fails because it is inconsistent with Marxist dogma that consciousness is a consequence--not a cause--of Man's social nature. It also fails because it does not exclude some apparently non-social relations. ;Research for this dissertation was conducted at the libraries of Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Moscow State University and Leningrad State University, and at the Library of Congress and the Lenin Library. (shrink)

In Nigeria, if the effects of development policies were felt by every Nigerian citizen, the search for respite would have assumed committed and prompt dimensions. Common hindrances to social development seem to be inflation, corruption, embezzlement, extreme ethnicity, selfishness and man's inhumanity to man. Nigeria has suffered exploitation in two phases: first in the colonial era, and second, during the post-colonial era, in which the nation is struggling against the forces of independent colonialism by its own people. Nigerians have (...) approached their struggles in various dimensions. Their criticisms have been registered freely in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. Yet, nothing has changed. Many have suffered different shades of attacks and embarrassment in the course of protest, while a few are doing it intellectually through some literary means. Chris Nwamuo, a Theatre Arts Administrator, a teacher, a playwright and a play director falls within this category. He has offered his voice as a cry for the underdogs of this society and has exhibited this attribute in several of his plays, one of which is The Prisoners. The play makes the author a "Marxist" in some way. The theory of class struggle forms the basis of modern socialism pioneered by Karl Mark, Friedrich Engels, as well as the conservative advocate of social reform, Lorenz Von Stein (Killian and Turner 279). The theory of class struggle, encapsulated in class-consciousness in its restricted sense, incorporates as a central feature, the burning conviction that members of a class suffer from a shared state of injustice. In the Marxian analysis, class-consciousness has always been understood as a political consciousness of one's own rational class interests and their opposition to the interest of other classes. (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)

Post-truth politics has been diagnosed as harmful to both knowledge and democracy. I argue that it can also fundamentally undermine epistemic autonomy in a way that is similar to the manipulative technique known as gaslighting. Using examples from contemporary politics, I identify three categories of post-truth rhetoric: the introduction of counternarratives, the discrediting of critics, and the denial of more or less plain facts. These strategies tend to isolate people epistemically, leaving them disoriented and unable to distinguish between (...) reliable and unreliable sources. Like gaslighting, post-truth politics aims to undermine epistemic autonomy by eroding someone’s self-trust, in order to consolidate power. Shifting the focus to the effects on the victim allows for new insights into the specific harms of post-truth politics. Applying the concept of gaslighting to this domain may also help people recognize a pernicious dynamic that was invisible to them before, giving them an important tool to resist it. (shrink)

From artistic performances in the visual arts and in music to motor control in gymnastics, from tool use to chess and language, humans excel in a variety of skills. On the plausible assumption that skillful behavior is a visible manifestation of intelligence, a theory of intelligence—whether human or not—should be informed by a theory of skills. More controversial is the question as to whether, in order to theorize about intelligence, we should study certain skills in particular. My target is the (...) view that only a particular class/kind of skill (i.e., ‘theoretical’, or ‘intellectual’ skills, versus ‘practical’, or ‘embodied’ skills) manifests intelligence, or especially does so. I call this view ‘Intelligence Elitism’. Intelligence Elitism is pervasive in popular culture, in academic culture, as well as in psychometrics. It has, arguably, a long pedigree in philosophy (though explicit arguments for it are rare). But it is a substantive view which, if false, can promote unfairness. In this article, I defend Intelligence Socialism—the claim that intelligent behavior is everywhere skillful behavior is. I go on to isolate the best case for the further Elitist claim that, even if all skillful behavior is intelligent in some modest sense of ‘intelligence’, there is a principled difference in intelligence between theoretical, or intellectual, skills, on one side, and practical, or embodied skills, on the other, and I show it wanting. (shrink)

Mill’s socialism and democratic theory have led some scholars to accuse him of trying to eliminate conflict from political life. Whereas Graeme Duncan has averred that Mill’s socialism aims to institute a completely harmonious society, James Fitzjames Stephen has contended that Millian democracy sought to evacuate conflict from political discussion. This article reconstructs both critiques and argues they are imprecise. Even if disputes motivated by redistribution of material goods would no longer exist in an egalitarian society, conflicts driven (...) by resentment over social reputation would keep the flame of conflict burning in a Millian socialist community. Moreover, a close reading of Considerations on Representative Government shows that Mill knew that no amount of political discussion is able to make conflicting opinions disappear. According to him, conflict is unavoidable in democratic politics because citizens analyse political issues from different social perspectives. Mill’s goal was not to eliminate conflict, but rather to regulate it in such a way as to bring about its attendant benefits, namely, progress and self-development. (shrink)

This paper offers an exploration of the socialist principle “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” The Abilities/Needs Principle is arguably the ethical heart of socialism but, surprisingly, has received almost no attention by political philosophers. I propose an interpretation of the principle and argue that it involves appealing ideas of solidarity, fair reciprocity, recognition of individual differences, and meaningful work. The paper proceeds as follows. First, I analyze Marx’s formulation of the Abilities/Needs Principle. (...) Second, I identify the principle’s initial plausibility, but show that it faces serious problems that cannot be addressed without developing a fresh interpretation of it. Third, I provide an interpretation of the principle that highlights demands concerning opportunities for self-realization in work, positive duties of solidarity, sensitivity to individual differences, and mechanisms of fair reciprocity. Fourth, I discuss a possible institutional implementation of the Abilities/Needs Principle. Finally, I identify some normative puzzles about the transition from capitalism to socialism, and suggest how the Abilities/Needs Principle might gain motivational traction by mobilizing the powerful idea of human dignity. (shrink)

Is “liberal socialism” an oxymoron? Not quite, but I will demonstrate here that it is a much more unstable and uncommon hybrid than scholars had previously thought and that almost all liberals should reject socialism, even in its most attractive form. More specifically, I will show that three leading varieties of liberalism—neutralist, plural-perfectionist, and deliberative-democratic—are incompatible with even a moderate form of socialism, viz., associational market socialism. My paper will also cast grave doubt on Rawls’s belief (...) that justice as fairness is consistent with liberal socialism. (shrink)

A prevalent political narrative is that we are facing an epistemological crisis, where many citizens no longer care about truth and facts. Yet the view that we are living in a post-truth era relies on some implicit questionable empirical and normative assumptions. The post-truth rhetoric converts epistemic issues into motivational issues, treating people with whom we disagree as if they no longer believe in or care about truth. This narrative is also dubious on epistemic, moral, and political grounds. (...) It is epistemically dubious in being largely insensitive to the problem of complexity in politics; it is morally dubious because “post-truth” is often a derogatory label for individuals or groups that are deemed stupid, irrational, or morally compromised; and it is a politically toxic neologism because it purports to use the language of ‘truth’ as a weapon against power, yet these truth-claims are often themselves attempts to exert power over others by delegitimizing their perspectives. While it may seem as if truth and democracy are on especially bad terms lately, politics and truth have long had a vexed relationship, and moral panics about the value of truthfulness in politics are as old as politics itself. (shrink)

Born 80 years ago, Continental Philosophy is on its last legs. Its extraordinary career has been helped along by an almost total absence of interest on the part of analytic or other exact philosophers in what the Australian philosopher David Stove calls "the nosology of philosophy" 1, the exploration of the manifold forms taken by bad philosophy. Stove points out that such an enterprise involves doing history. A nosology of Continental Philosophy is, at least in the first instance, inseparable from (...) the history of this strand in twentieth century philosophy, a history which would make clear the relations, philosophical and historical, between it and exact philosophy. Rorty is quite right to point to the absence of such a historical perspective. (shrink)

Socialists have historically thought a lot about the catastrophic risks society faces. Today many DSA chapters have gotten involved in mutual aid to respond to the Covid crisis, generating a debate about how mutual aid fits into socialist work. One form of community engagement that is likely to be increasingly necessary, and is an opportunity for radicalizing angry neighbors, is disaster preparedness. While the prepper subculture is perceived as right-wing, and parts are tied into the militia movement, there are also (...) opportunities for progressive organizations to work with FEMA and local governments. This essay discusses distinctive socialist perspectives on disasters past and future and gives examples of strategic ways socialists can help build disaster-resilient communities. (shrink)

This paper presents a critique of left republican writings from a non-republican socialist standpoint. It examines three claims that have been advanced by left republican authors: that workers are dominated 1) by their lack of access to the means of production; 2) by the market; and 3) by their employer. With regard to 1) and 2), it argues that alternative conceptions of freedom can identify the unfreedom in question, and that there are good reasons for pressing these complaints on the (...) basis of these alternative conceptions. With regard to 3), it argues that, while alternative conceptions of freedom may be able to identify the unfreedom in question, republican freedom provides a more suitable basis for pressing this claim. It concludes that while left republicans have shown that socialists have reason to care about republican freedom, they have not shown that socialists should adopt republican freedom at the expense of other conceptions of freedom. (shrink)

Socialism is a political ideology that proposes that the state should control the means of production to manage a planned economy. The possibility of realizing this thesis has been debated throughout the 20th century. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) includes technologies such as artificial intelligence or big data that could reopen the debate through the formulation of new digital models of planned economy. This qualitative research presents some theoretical models proposed in academia to update socialism in the 4IR. (...) It describes six new theoretical forms of digital socialism: Platform Economy, Socialist Feedback Infrastructure, Algorithmic Central Planning, Cyber-Communism, Fully Automated Luxury Communism (FALC), and Open Loop In Natura Economic Planning. The study concludes that the study of political ideologies and the debate about the future of society would benefit from further analysis of these models. (shrink)