SUMMARYIn this essay, inspired by J.G.A. Pocock's appropriation of Machiavelli's theory of political contingency, and building upon my previous engagements with Pocock's ‘republican existentialism’, I focus on the role played by ‘accidents’ in Machiavelli's analysis of war and foreign affairs within The Prince and the Discourses. In so doing, I consider the following issues: the ways through which a potential imperial hegemon might consolidate control over nearby lesser powers—and, conversely, how such less powerful polities might resist imperial encroachments (...) on their autonomy; the contrasting military modes and orders characteristic of ancient and modern republics; and the extent to which Machiavelli actually thought that accidents in foreign affairs were ever truly ‘accidental’ in light of his determinations concerning well- versus badly ordered domestic institutions. (shrink)

Post-Marxism emerged in the 1970s and 80s as a way to retain certain insights from Marxism while disposing of its indefensible and destructive elements, especially the tendency to reduce all social change to the economic base. This book offers a new and critical reading of post-Marxism, arguing that whilst it convincinly deconstructs the prevalent economism in Marxism as the necessary logic of social reproduction, it nonetheless still retains an ontology of a closed capitalist economy, inhabited by a set of necessary (...) logics. Through a careful symptomatic reading of the works of influential post-Marxian thinkers, Ernesto Laclau and Étienne Balibar, the book argues that while post-Marxian positions have constructed a theory of social contingency, it has failed in different ways to dislodge the constitution of class and capitalist reproduction from essentialist narratives. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente trabajo investiga la forma en que las ciencias sociales, principalmente chilenas, están respondiendo a las dispares demandas que reciben actualmente y que consisten en aportar a la comprensión crítica de fenómenos relevantes para la sociedad y adecuarse a las recientes transformaciones en la forma de producir y comunicar conocimiento científico incorporando mayores niveles de internacionalización, globalización, especialización y complejización. Para ello se realiza una revisión sistemática de la producción científica publicada sobre el movimiento estudiantil chileno, que constituye (...) uno de los movimientos sociales más relevantes de la historia reciente de Chile. Se sistematizaron 149 publicaciones editadas entre el año 2000 y el 2016. Los resultados muestran que la capacidad de las ciencias sociales chilenas para abordar estas demandas contradictorias es parcial, pues sus análisis críticos tienden a ser uniformes y de alcance temporal limitado, mientras que sus estudios empíricos no siempre poseen los niveles de internacionalización y complejidad demandados actualmente para participar en los circuitos internacionales de publicación.: The present work investigates the way in which social sciences, mainly Chilean, are responding to different demands that they are currently receiving and that consist of contribute to the critical understanding of phenomena relevant to society and adapt to recent transformations in the way of producing and communicating scientific knowledge, incorporating higher levels of internationalization, globalization, specialization and complexity. To this end, a systematic review of the scientific production published on the Chilean student movement is made. This movement is one of the most relevant in Chile's recent history. 149 publications were systematized, published between 2000 and 2016. The results show that the capacity of the Chilean social sciences to deal with these contradictory demands is partial, since their critical analyzes tend to be uniforms and limited in time, while their empirical studies do not always have the levels of internationalization and complexity currently demanded in international publishing circuits. (shrink)

This book explores the significance of rhetoric from the perspective of its complex relationship with philosophy. It demonstrates how this relationship gives expression to a basic tension at the core of politics: that between the contingency of its happening and the transcendence toward which it strives. The first part of the study proposes a reassessment of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric, as it was discussed by Plato, Aristotle, and above all Cicero and Quintilian, who ambitiously attempted to (...) bring them together creating an ideal that is at the roots of the humanist tradition. It then moves to twentieth-century political theory and shows how the questions that emerge from that quarrel still strongly resonate in the works of key thinkers such as H. Arendt, L. Strauss, and R. Rorty. The volume thus offers an original contribution that locates itself at the intersection of politics, rhetoric, and philosophy. (shrink)

The paper examines John Horton’s realist political theory, in particular his critique of John Rawls’s “high” or “liberal moralism”, and seeks to determine the extent to which, together with Horton, we would have reasons to leave Rawls’s and other Rawlsian accounts behind. The paper argues that some of the insights of Horton’s realism are mistaken, whereas many of those which are not mistaken are compatible with liberal moralism correctly understood. The argument is also formulated in terms of contingency, (...) in particular in terms of a contrast between the realist emphasis on the contingency of human existence and the liberal moralism’s neglect or inability to properly account for it, due to a strong focus on necessity. (shrink)

This paper is located within the critical management tradition of management education and development. The paper seeks to introduce the overlooked area of Actor Network Theory and Mol’s anti-foundationalist ontological politics and demonstrates their potential to developing alternative critical pedagogy and management practice. Following a discussion of problem-based learning, the paper goes on to introduce the emergent pedagogic practice termed contingent support. Through a series of vignettes drawn from fieldwork collected from a second year undergraduate decision-making module, the paper demonstrates (...) how the practice termed contingent support is informed by Actor Network Theory and ontological politics in particular. The paper goes on to reveal the significance of contingent support sensibilities of materiality, situatedness and performance and shows how they can give a new vigour to educators interested in developing more responsible management. Finally, the paper considers contingent support’s transformational potential and sets out an agenda for future research. (shrink)

This new reading of Thomas More’s Utopia focuses on the dialogue as literary genre disclosing several aspects that illustrate the close relation between the original design of the utopian political system and the contemporary English political arrangement. The author also examines the reasons for the lasting interest of this work in the centuries. Still today political utopia results useful and even necessary to good politicians who in their practice never forget their ideal goals.

Nietzsche’s self-proclaimed ‘anti-political’(EH ‘wise’ 3; cf. TI 8.4) stance is often ignored.1 Commentators, that is, often interpret Nietzsche’s texts as responding to familiar issues within political philosophy, and as furnishing a novel position therein. This could indeed be the appropriate hermeneutic response. Dismissing one of Nietzsche’s proclamations is, on a variety of different grounds, hermeneutically reasonable. In this particular case, given all that Nietzsche has to say about sociality and the roles of public institutions in modern life, dismissal (...) might even seem compelling. Here, however, I wish to recuperate Nietzsche’s anti-political stance. That is, I shall argue that Nietzsche’s self-proclamation does in fact reflect his deep commitments, and thus compels a reassessment of the political interpretations of his thought. (shrink)

The influential realist thesis that politics and morals are distinct and mutually exclusive spheres of interest is one that has been challenged within the tradition of analytic moral and political theory. Over the last 50 years, several notable liberal analytic philosophers, including Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, and Thomas Nagel, have argued that not only is politics not separate from and inimical to ethics but that there exists such a thing as political morality. This article contends that while the (...) notion of political morality may make more sense of what is regarded as a central and troubling problem of politics, it also forces us to confront the more fundamental challenge of the radical contingency of our moral and political predicament. Whether analytic political theory is capable of producing a convincing response to the latter challenge remains precariously unclear. (shrink)

The literature on antecedents of corporate social responsibility strategies of firms has been predominately content driven. Informed by the managerial sense-making process perspective, we develop a contingency theoretical framework explaining how political ideology of managers affects the choice of CSR strategy for their firms through their CSR mindset. We also explain to what extent the outcome of this process is shaped by the firm’s internal institutional arrangements and external factors impacting on the firm. We develop and test several (...) hypotheses using data collected from 129 Chinese managers. The results show that managers with a stronger socialist ideology are likely to develop a mindset favouring CSR, which induces the adoption of a proactive CSR strategy. The CSR mindset mediates the link between socialist ideology and CSR strategy. The strength of the relationship between the CSR mindset and the choice of CSR strategy is moderated by customer response to CSR, industry competition, the role of government, and CSR-related managerial incentives. (shrink)

This contribution defends Ripstein's attempt to reconstruct Kant's political philosophy as entirely and consistently grounded on the idea of people's innate right to freedom as independence, in particular with respect to charges of circularity raised by other contributors to this symposium. However, it also argues that, if the concept of freedom as independence is to provide a foundation for a full-blown account of political justice, a richer interpretation of it should be provided. In other words, we must be (...) willing to make controversial and empirically informed claims about what counts as a threat to our freedom as independence under specific circumstances. We must have a more embedded account of freedom as independence, one that engages with the contingencies of politics and of the human condition. (shrink)

Two major developments of the last two decades have radically undermined traditional justifications of leftist politics: the failure of 20th-century `socialist' experiments, and what might be termed the deessentializing movement in contemporary philosophy. However, the social injustices that animated revolutionary thinkers in many respects remain, and some have arguably worsened in the era of globalized capitalism. This article investigates whether it is possible to articulate a new theoretical underpinning for progressive politics that nevertheless avoids the essentialist moves of Marxism. Ethico- (...) class='Hi'>political readings of Derrida — one of the most influential anti-essentialist thinkers — are compared to Ernesto Laclau's attempts at formulating a post-Marxist progressive politics built around the notions of `hegemony' and `radical democracy'. Laclau's intervention in the Marxist tradition is to deconstruct its traditional categories so as to take account of contingency; his intervention in deconstruction is to introduce what in this article is described as `contestation', so as to provide a more coherent account of the political. The article concludes that neither deconstruction nor radical democracy provides an adequate basis for poltical action, but that the latter's account of the political is a meaningful development of the theoretical schema articulated by the former and does point to the possibility of a non-essentialist progressive politics. Key Words: aporia • contestation • contingency • deconstruction • Jacques Derrida • hegemony • justice • Ernesto Laclau • Emmanuel Levinas • responsibility. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an increased attention to temporality in political theory, and such attention is sorely needed. For too long political theory, with the exception of occasional phenomenological forays, has remained grounded in a particular experience of time as linear and sequential. This book aims to unsettle the dominant framework by putting time itself, and the experience of time in everyday life, at the center of its critical analysis. Smita Rahman focuses on the experience of (...) time as one where past, present, and future intermingle with each other and refuse to adhere to a sequential structure. Rather than trying to tame the flux of time, this book places this "out of joint" experience of time at the center of its analysis of global politics. Rahman takes the highly abstract concept of time and decenters it to speak to a wide range of political issues across disciplines by exposing the cultural construction of the foundational concept of time in political theory and attending closely to the challenges of cultural incommensurability that it encounters in a globalized world of difference. Specifically, the book looks at interrogation practices in Afghanistan, the challenges of coping with the burdens of collective memory in Algeria, South Africa, and Rwanda, the difficulty of uncritically applying such a framework to the Muslim world through the language of secularism, and finally at the beginnings of democratic emergence in Bangladesh to explore a politics of contingency. (shrink)

Offers an interpretation of neoliberal ideology as a political theology of chance that both justifies and dissembles risk-laden market processes as obscure divination tools used both to determine fate and fortune and yet to deny that such determination is taking place by any accountable authority.

It is widely believed that philosophical pessimism is committed to fatalism about the sufferings that characterize the human condition, and that it encourages resignation and withdrawal from the political realm in response. This paper offers an explanation for and argument against this perception by distinguishing two functions that pessimism can serve. Pessimism’s skeptical mode suggests that fundamental cross-cultural constraints on the human condition bar us from the good life (however defined). These constraints are often represented as immune to (...) class='Hi'>political amelioration, leading to the perception that pessimism is intrinsically fatalistic and resigned. Yet pessimism’s critical function emphasizes the political, economic, and cultural contingency of many sources of suffering and crisis while exhorting us to reject and reimagine the social forces that actively harm our capacity to flourish. It also offers an internal critique of skeptical pessimism’s tendency to naturalize and depoliticize the sources of our sufferings. These sometimes contradictory skeptical and critical tendencies should both be grouped under the pessimist banner, and we should see pessimism’s critical mode as especially valuable to political critique. -/- . (shrink)

This paper takes as its point of departure Merleau-Ponty’s assertion: “everything will have to begin again, in politics as well as in philosophy”. In pursuing his later work, Merleau-Ponty signalled the need for a reconfiguration of his philosophical vision, so it was no longer caught in Cartesianism and the philosophy of consciousness. This required a turn towards ontology through which he consolidated two key ideas: firstly, a pervasive interdependence articulated in his reversibility thesis and the ontology of ‘flesh’; secondly, a (...) radical contingency at the heart of existence. This paper interrogates the political implications of these ideas, and specifically regarding humanism and human progress. Relatedly, I address the question – how might recognitions of ontological interdependence and radical contingency support a flourishing democracy? Merleau-Ponty’s early political work concerned the issues of his day – Nazism, Marxism and the status of humanism – and did not engage extensively with these emerging onto-political concerns. Nonetheless, there are indicative reflections in the writings and interviews; the political implications of his ontological interrogations become more thematic in the later works. There is no rupture between the earlier and later works regarding his philosophical vision, although he later distanced himself from Marxism with revelations of the gulags under Stalin and the Korean War. The overarching claim of this paper – we need to rethink politics from the ground up beginning with ontology; ontology is political and the political is intrinsically ontologically informed. Getting the ontology ‘right’ is a matter of discovery and not theory choice. (shrink)

Whatever we speak about enhancement as the, just, one array of the wide range of the bioethical fields, or as the kind of ideological and theoretical field, it is necessary to emphasize relevant ideological and theoretical distinctions between different approaches. Trying to give some fundamental shape to debate among them, as well within themselves, I specified three possible streams with more or less arbitrary boundaries. First one is transhumanistic stream , whose representatives openly promote the practice of genetic, prosthetic and (...) cognitive enhancement of human kind - transition from human to a post human society; bioconservative, whose representatives perceive a threat in the violation of human dignity, meddling in “God’s business” ( playing God ), and in changes to the nature of human beings; representatives of the “middle standpoint” consider that danger lies within the dialectic relation of “capitalism and medicine.” I present the tree ideological standpoints trying to building consistency through different ethical arguments. Discussing the relevant theoretical/ideological distinction between standpoints and their claims, I will argue that ideological distinction among standpoints is less relevant than contingency within their arguments. Such mutual contingence creates some similarity regarding epistemological and social issues. (shrink)

In this article I investigate the Confucian sense of responsibility from the framework of “moral economy,” understood as a causal relationship between one’s virtue and non-moral goods including political position/success, and “contingency,” the failure of moral economy, and argue that early Confucians’ astute understanding of the contingent nature of the political world enabled them to subscribe to the non-causal sense of responsibility. Contrary to the common argument that Heaven was invoked by the Confucians in order to shield (...) themselves from responsibility for their political failures, I argue that they imposed a more expanded sense of responsibility both on them and on the rulers, largely preoccupied with realpolitik. In their effort to restore moral economy between the ruler’s virtue and his political position in particular, I show Confucians engaged in what I call reverse moral economy, at the heart of which was to constrain the ruler’s arbitrary use of political power. (shrink)

This is a unique guide to one of the most exciting develpments within contemporary jurisprudence. It systematically applies a critical philosophy to the substance of common law, overviewing its politics and cultural significance.

The article focuses on Oakeshott’s attempt to maintain a categorial distinction between political philosophy and normative prescription. It accepts the thrust of Oakeshott’s argument against rationalism in politics, but contends that the residual normative dimension in Oakeshott’s thinking should not be dismissed as philosophically irrelevant. The article takes seriously the practical demands made on agents in difficult circumstances. It focuses specifically on what may be said to be going on when we ‘pursue intimations’. By concentrating on what Oakeshott actually (...) does (rather than what he claims to be doing) the article places Oakeshott much closer to the mainstream in western political philosophy. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s self-proclaimed ‘anti-political’(EH ‘wise’ 3; cf. TI 8.4) stance is often ignored.1 Commentators, that is, often interpret Nietzsche’s texts as responding to familiar issues within political philosophy, and as furnishing a novel position therein. This could indeed be the appropriate hermeneutic response. Dismissing one of Nietzsche’s proclamations is, on a variety of different grounds, hermeneutically reasonable. In this particular case, given all that Nietzsche has to say about sociality and the roles of public institutions in modern life, dismissal (...) might even seem compelling. Here, however, I wish to recuperate Nietzsche’s anti-political stance. That is, I shall argue that Nietzsche’s self-proclamation does in fact reflect his deep commitments, and thus compels a reassessment of the political interpretations of his thought. (shrink)

In a series of memorable exchanges, three eminent theorists engage in a dialogue on central questions of contemporary philosophy and politics.

Rousseau’s embrace of popular sovereignty – a sovereignty that is unmediated and unrepresented – is often understood as entailing a kind of democratic absolutism. However, Richard Tuck has argued t...

Abstract:This paper offers a historico-political exegesis of V-I Mudimbe’s Invention of Africa and Idea of Africa, reading how these texts respond to a post-independence African context of political and epistemic despair. This despair reflects at once the desire for a non-Western claim to knowledge and life, for political and economic autonomy from the West, and the seeming impossibilities (confirmed by the political ordinary) of enacting these. Retracing Mudimbe’s analysis of African political thought in the wake (...) of Négritude and his critique of representation, this essay works through Mudimbe’s intellectual historical methods to draw out a subtextual response to questions of historicity, political commitment, and the role of intellectual thought in Black resistant response. I argue that these questions are instantiated in the concept of “absolute discourse.” This concept reveals a theory of speech, inhabitation, and contingency critically aligned with postcolonial Marxist demands for authenticity, sovereignty and authority. Moreover, through this, and against any presumption of futility, I argue that Mudimbe constitutes a theory of politics—of resistance, claim, and seizure, and their limits—and contingency amidst seeming and real epistemic and material closures. (shrink)

Although an important feature of firms’ corporate social responsibility, the strategic pressures behind firms’ corporate philanthropy are not well researched or understood. This research note argues that firms’ CP and firms’ corporate political activity may share common strategic antecedents; forces in firms’ political environment may shape both CP and CPA. Using S&P 500 data in a longitudinal analysis, the authors find evidence suggesting that industry-level political uncertainty increases firm propensity for engaging in both CP and CPA, above (...) and beyond the propensity to engage in either as a stand-alone strategy. The authors use this preliminary evidence to explore political marketplace contingencies for the relationship between CP and CPA. CSR literature indicates that CP can benefit firms by creating and enhancing their relational wealth and institutional legitimacy. Such benefits may also serve firm interactions with government policy makers—a dynamic largely ignored until recently. The authors’ findings may indicate that, due to its institutional signaling ability and impact on firms’ reputations, CP may allow firms to differentiate themselves or stand out from others when faced with political uncertainty, and that these outcomes should be considered when firms engage in CP. (shrink)

This short paper is a response to Richard Smith’s ‘ion and finitude: education, chance and democracy’. In his paper Smith contends that a rationalist agenda dominates education and democracy today, and that this agenda by rendering us insensitive to the tragic dimension of life, breeds a sense of hubris, or arrogance towards fate which is fuelled by an inordinate confidence in our knowledge. In the worlds of education and politics it has led to an obsession with management and transparency, and (...) to students who fear to take risks. As a specific example of this, he takes up the recent fixation in universities with learning how to learn, which he says leads to an over-emphasis on skills in the curriculum, and to an ‘audit’ culture. While sympathising with much of his analysis of the latter, my counter-suggestion is that the contemporary world lacks anything but a sense of the contingency of things, to the contrary, that at the heart of its mangerialist culture and its performatist ethos lies the need for reassurance. My response focuses on the politics of the self-directed learner that lies at the heart of the lifelong learning literature, on learning how to learn, on the notion of transparency and on the transparent society, and on the politics of contingency and scepticism. (shrink)

In the 1970s and 1980s a strong opposition and anxiety towards biological and naturalizing knowledges was the norm in feminist discourse. In the past decades the certainties of that ‘anti-biologism’ have been challenged, in part because of a new recognition of the role of contingency in both biological determination and biological science. What seems to have survived the shift is a set of normative assumptions concerning the role of determinacy and contingency (or being-born and becoming) in the (...) class='Hi'>political implications of ontological claims: an assumed political valorization of contingency. This article challenges those assumptions. It draws attention to the embrace of contingency and processuality on the part of supremacist biopolitical discourse, and suggests the need to think again about the politics of contingency and becoming (in constructivist as well as biologistic discourses). Focusing on the issue of racism and supremacist-specification, the article takes a genealogical look at ‘second-wave’ feminist anti-biologism. Monique Wittig’s materialist feminist attack on naturalizing ideology and ‘the myth of woman’ provides the (ideal-typical) historical example. The article draws attention to curious absences in Wittig’s (and Rosalind Rosenberg’s) anti-biologistic statements concerning early 20th-century biologistic feminism: the absence of a critique of eugenics, racism and supremacism. Arguably the condemnation of biology as a conservative ‘ideology of the status quo’ created masks for biopolitical ontology, obscuring the progressive, dynamic, processual character of biologism and of modern racism. While dislodging some powers of biologistic discourse, feminist anti-biologism might also have played a part in facilitating the revitalization of biopolitical racism within the constructivist culturalist rubric. The aim of the article is not to critique ‘second-wave’ feminism from the perspective of contemporary scholarship, but to help generate new ways of thinking and feeling about the role of ontology, contingency and temporality in the present politics of classification. (shrink)

In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine (...) sense of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike. (shrink)

This article investigates the liberal political implications of Michael Oakeshott’s political theory of civility and civil association by focusing on his judicious attempts to abate contingency. It argues that Oakeshott’s political theory can be best understood as ‘political pluralism’, aimed at the maximalist accommodation of abundant and fluctuating human pluralities, individual and associational. By reinterpreting Oakeshott as a defender of civil society, composed of numerous purposive associations, against state-imposed monism, it argues that in Oakeshott’s theory (...) civil association is devised to protect associational freedom, thereby keeping civil society as free as possible. It then discusses the distinctiveness of Oakeshott’s characteristically ‘liberal’ political theory by critically engaging it with two dominant strands of liberalism, namely, liberal pluralism and political liberalism. (shrink)

This book presents a comprehensive study of Oakeshott’s conception of political activity. The author first examines Oakeshott in the contexts of liberal, conservative and Idealist thought, and then presents a detailed interpretation of the change in his conception of politics in the context of British postwar political thought. It is argued that Oakeshott’s conception of political activity shifted from a near contempt of politics towards the applauding of politics as a deliberative and reflective activity. The development is (...) disclosed by examining the change in his key concepts, such as authority and tradition. Accordingly, some rather unexpected aspects of Oakeshott’s thought, such as his close relationship to the linguistic turn, appear. The author argues that although Oakeshott cannot exactly be classified as belonging to that group of political philosophers for whom politics represents a superior human activity, his later work presents an important and original view of politics as an art of contingency. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to discuss the connection between Arendt and Merleau-Ponty’s political thought based on the relation between the contingency of action and the spatiality of conflict. Even though the shared concern for developing a phenomenology of action institutes a common ground between their theories, I intend to show that there are significant philosophical differences when it comes to their understanding of conflict and the space in which it unfolds. Although both authors approach the question (...) of action by decentering the subject and by rejecting the notion of an objective and “egocentered” space, the way in which history and the social sphere inform their elucidation of the spatiality of conflict reveals a mismatch between Arendt’s plurality and Merleau-Ponty’s coexistence. I argue that this mismatch holds important consequences as to what each of them understands by political action. (shrink)

우연성이 우선한다는 것은 과연 무엇을 뜻할까? 오늘날 우연성은 현대철학이 옹호하는 개념이 되었다. 좌파 정치철학과, 새로 등장한 실재론 모두 우연성의 우선성을 옹호한다. 그런데 우연성의 우선성에서 중요한 것은 우선성이 아니다. 이것은 오히려 매개라는 새로운 문제를 야기한다. 우연성과 필연성, 보편과 개별, 그리고 구조와 변화의 관계를 규정하지 않은 채 우연성의 우선성을 말할 수 없기 때문이다. 그런데 우연성의 우선성을 옹호하는 철학이 매개 문제를 푸는 방식은 이중적이다. (일관되지 않다.) 이 철학은 매개가 필요없다고 주장하면서도, 새로운 매개 개념을 제시한다. 우연성의 철학이 이렇게 동요하는 이유는 보편성의 자기 회귀적 특성을 (...) 부정하거나 회피하기 때문이다. 거꾸로 보편성의 자기 회귀적 특성을 인정하면, 매개 개념은 중요해진다. 보편성이 자기 회귀적 특성을 가지려면, 매개가 반드시 필요하기 때문이다. 이런 맥락에서 보편성의 자기 회귀적 특성은 새로운 정치철학을 암시한다. (shrink)

That they are ‘following the science’ has become the watchword of many politicians during the present pandemic, especially when imposing or prolonging lockdowns or other liberty-restricting regulations. The scientists who advise politicians however are usually careful to add that the decision what to restrict and when is ultimately a political one. In science, as in medical practice, there is a delicate balance to be maintained between confidence in the best available information, and the necessary caveat that the assumptions and (...) calculations on which that information is based are subject to further scientific enquiry. For politicians and the public, moreover, as for patients, whether those informing them are judged to be trustworthy is a necessary consideration, a judgement determined by a variety of personal and political contingencies and circumstances. Ethics, by contrast, unable to appeal to scientific consensus or political authority, let alone a confidence-inspiring bedside manner, must rest the case for its essentially contestable assumptions and arguments being judged trustworthy, on its willingness to admit all reasoned voices to a conversation that is potentially unending, but in the process often highly enlightening. That conversation is contributed to in this issue of the Journal by several reasoned voices, mostly on ethical aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Relevant to issues on which politicians claim to be ‘following the science’, but also raising fundamental ethical questions, is this month’s feature article. In Ethics of Selective Restriction of Liberty in a Pandemic, 1 Cameron and colleagues consider ‘if and when it may be ethically acceptable to impose selective liberty-restricting measures in order to reduce the negative impacts of a pandemic by preventing particularly vulnerable groups [for example, the elderly in COVID-19] of the community from contracting the disease’ [and thereby, for example, increasing …. (shrink)

Regionalism is experiencing a global resurgence as countries grapple with issues such as coordination problems, economic inequality, racial tensions, and environmental degradation. Nations are exploring various regional entities as potential solutions to these challenges. However, despite the growing prominence of regions, they remain undertheorized. While extensive research has been conducted on national and local governments, regions have often been treated as either state-like or locality-like, or as ad-hoc remedies for the limitations of both. This article seeks to complicate this perspective (...) and present the initial stages of a theory of regions. By examining the case study of the Cities’ Union in Israel and tracing its historical origins and legal evolution into multipurpose regional clusters, the article uncovers valuable theoretical insights about regions. First, it argues that just as “the local” and “the national” mutually shape one another, “the local” and “the regional” too are interdependent concepts, each definition relying on the other. The existence of a third concept—the regional—is crucial, making this a conceptual triad rather than a dyad. Second, the article highlights that legal institutions such as interlocal cooperations and special-purpose governments (SPGs) are not inherently local or regional but can be perceived as either depending on historical and political contingencies. The conceptualization and concrete manifestations of local and regional forms are subject to political concerns and ideological commitments, extending beyond mere technical or functional considerations. Lastly, the article reflects on the unique characteristics of regional forms that make them legally, socially, geographically, and economically nimbler and more adaptable than their national and local counterparts. (shrink)

Enduring Contingency: Remarks on the Precariousness of Liberal Democratic Law Van der Walt, in my reading, suggests that enduring contingency, in the twofold sense of an enduring state of contingency and of contingency as what needs to be endured, justifies the central role of the majority/minority principle in liberal democratic law. Does this endorsement of the principle go far enough in addressing the radical challenge of contingency? What about those cases in which a group refuses (...) to understand itself as a disaffected minority in conflict with a majority, hence as part of a unity, even if only the unity of a legal order? At issue is a group that demands exclusion from a polity rather than demanding its recognition and inclusion as a minority entitled to be treated as equal to, even if different from, the majority. I suggest that, in the end, Van der Walt justification of the majority/minority principle espouses an agonistic defence of political and legal unity. (shrink)

In this, the first major philosophical study of contingent pacifism, Larry May offers a new account of pacifism from within the Just War tradition. Written in a non-technical style, the book features real-life examples from contemporary wars and applies a variety of approaches ranging from traditional pacifism and human rights to international law and conscientious objection. May considers a variety of thinkers and theories, including Hugo Grotius, Kant, Socrates, Seneca on restraint, Tertullian on moral purity, Erasmus's arguments against just war, (...) and Hobbes's conception of public conscience. The guiding idea is that the possibility of a just war is conceded, but not at the current time or in the foreseeable future due to the nature of contemporary armed conflict and geopolitics - wars in the past are also unlikely to have been just wars. This volume will interest scholars and upper-level students of political philosophy, philosophy of law, and war studies. (shrink)

In recent times, schools have begun to focus on issues of wellbeing, engaging with ideas from various fields such as positive psychology. It is in this context that there is a growing interest in humility, rather than this interest having emerged from debates in moral philosophy and moral education. However, to the extent that education for wellbeing initiatives might promote humility as a virtue, it is important to address the extent to which it can be considered as good. This paper (...) critically explores the shift of humility from vice to virtue in the west with the advent of Christianity. Drawing on historical, religious, and philosophical sources, the status of humility as a moral good is brought into question. It is argued that humility can only be understood, like other virtues, within historical, political, and social context. Thus, it is in how humility is operationalised in contexts of social relations that we can evaluate its moral worth. As such, we suggest that educators and schools should take account of the contingent nature of humility, its paradoxes and politics, rather than promoting it as an unquestionable good. (shrink)