This essay discusses political disorientation and what I define as a legibility crisis ushered in by the election of Donald Trump in 2016. After defining these concepts, it provides evidence for them and fleshes out how they were expressed in prophecies about Trump in white evangelical communities. A legibility crisis is the realization that some fundamental aspects of the symbolic domain (language, civic values, political practices, and institutions) are no longer binding or recognizable. There is a loss of touch (...) with what was once expected political conduct, but this loss gravitates toward something that is not fully graspable in its conceptual and emotional dimensions. In examining political disorientation, I refer to a three-dimensional condition encompassing the personal, the institutional, and the analytical. This disorientation challenges our expectations about institutional norms and forces us to realize that the respectability and legitimacy of those institutions have been hollowed out. This essay will also address the culture of prophecy in some evangelical groups and how prophetic utterances shape these groups’ understanding of the American Constitution and political reality. (shrink)

"A study of the cultural politics of loss and mourning in France from 1978 to the present. Focuses on national identity, secularism, Jacobin republicanism, and political-cultural exceptionalism"--Provided by publisher.

Roman Political Thought is the first comprehensive treatment of the political thought of the Romans. Dean Hammer argues that the Romans were engaged in a wide-ranging and penetrating reflection on politics. The Romans did not create utopias. Instead, their thinking was relentlessly shaped by their own experiences of violence, the enormity and frailty of power, and an overwhelming sense of loss of the traditions that oriented them to their responsibilities as social, political, and moral beings. However much the (...) Romans are known for their often complex legal and institutional arrangements, the power of their political thought lies in their exploration of the extra-institutional, affective foundations of political life. The book includes chapters on Cicero, Lucretius, Sallust, Virgil, Livy, Seneca, Tacitus, Marcus Aurelius, and Augustine and discussions of Polybius, the Stoics, Epicurus, and Epictetus. (shrink)

A large part of environmental politics is interested in protecting place authenticity against the ‘disenchanting’ effect produced by the advent of modernity. It adopts a rhetoric of nostalgia by regretting the loss of primeval relations between humans and nature, and endorses an essentialist, foundationalist and exclusivist definition of locality and the locals. In order to overcome the problematic political consequences of this (widely accepted) classic approach, the paper proposes to differently outline modernity, by adopting a heterogeneous geography standpoint (...) and postmodern hybrid networks theory. As a consequence, place is regarded in terms of heterogeneity, porosity and non-exclusivism; authenticity is reshaped in terms of throwntogetherness; and environmental politics is reconsidered in the structuration of a thing-oriented democracy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article examines the relationship between political myth and sacrifice. In recent years, as a result of theoretical advances as well as practical concern to understand the rapidly changing landscape of contemporary politics, the phenomenon of political myth has attracted increasing scholarly attention. This has led to a refined and robust theory of political myth, with a sharp analytical edge and relevant practical applications. The relationship between political myth and sacrifice, however, has not been convincingly addressed so far. Gathering (...) insights from the works of Hannah Arendt and Hans Blumenberg, it is argued here that while political myths succeed in providing guidance and orientation to people in a world that is significant to them, they may also involve a loss of sense of reality and produce a dangerous logic of sacrifice. (shrink)

This article examines the flaws and criticism on political secularism. It explains that secularism is a beleaguered doctrine and it is also contested in political theory. Critics of secularism claim that it is linked to a flawed modernization, has a mistaken view of rationality and its importance in human life, and fails to appreciate the importance of communities in the life of religious people. This article discusses the conceptual and normative structure of secularism and evaluates what ethical gains or losses (...) might ensue in the movement from a secular state to one that grants more importance to religion. It suggests that the Indian version of secularism is a modern alternative to its mainstream Western counterpart, one from which everyone may benefit in the future. (shrink)

Whereas the Belgian politica! world had planned a calm transitional political year leading to the January 1992 general elections, 1991 was a year of political turmoil resulting in the resignation of the cabinet and genera! elections. The Martens VIII cabinet had planned to implement the third and final phase of its constitutional reform package. However, in the fall tension rapidly rose inside the cabinet. White the majority parties were positioning themselves for the next elections, a row over arms sale licences (...) caused the fall of the cabinet. First the Volksunie left, but only a few days later Prime Minister Martens had to submit the resignation of bis cabinet. In the ensuing genera! electiOns, all the traditional parties lost ground except PW and the losses were particularly severe for the Flemish Christian Democrats and the Flemish Socialists. Winners were the ultra-right Vlaams Blok in Flanders and the ecologists in Francophone Belgium. (shrink)

In an unusual appearance in the press room in Fall 2017 then White House Chief of Staff general John Kelly made an interesting set of observations that compared our political present to a more traditional and seemingly upright past. "You know when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That's obviously not the case anymore, as we've seen from recent cases. Life - the dignity (...) of life - is sacred. That's gone. Religion, that seems to be gone as well", he said. In his comments Kelly seemed to be lamenting the loss of a chivalric past (which, to be clear, lounged grandly on a system of violent exclusion and deep prejudice) that is no longer available to us. In particular, he linked the idea of the sacred with the concept of honor, which in turn was linked to its close cousin, dignity. In Kelly's language, our present political moment was cast as profane and corrupt, unmoored from religion and tradition and cloaked in the shadows of moral bankruptcy. It was characterized as an age without honor and therefore without the guardrails of decency to govern behavior. It is not surprising to see the concept of honor invoked in this context in our contemporary political discourse, doused heavily in the language of remembrance of things past and often with a hyper masculine tint (look no further than Jordan Peterson and his acolytes for the most reductive examples of such thinking, or much more profoundly, to Harvey Mansfield's work on masculinity). Invoking honor in this manner seeks to restore balance and constancy to a chaotic present that in these renderings has been unmoored by radical feminists, populist movements for racial equality, and advocates of gay and trans rights. (shrink)

This article aims to approach the COVID-19 health crisis through the category of precarity in two senses. On the one hand, in the face of power, a state of exception has been configured as the new form of political handling of the new normality. On the other hand, the loss of public space has meant that community ties have been broken, fostering greater atomisation and loneliness. Both processes were already present in modernity and post-modernity and foster an increasing uprooting (...) of the individual through the loss of the symbolic axes of socialisation, as well as more intense social control. In short, the defining characteristic of the pandemic is the precarity of life. (shrink)

A daring marriage of philosophical theory and practical politics, this collection is the first of Gianni Vattimo's many books to combine his intellectual pursuits with his public and political life. Vattimo is a paradoxical figure, at once a believing Christian and a vociferous critic of the Catholic Church, an outspoken liberal but not a former communist, and a recognized authority on Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as a prominent public intellectual and member of the European parliament. Building on his (...) unique position as a philosopher and politician, Vattimo takes on some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is it still possible, long after Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, to talk of moral imperatives, individual rights, or political freedom? Are these values still relevant in today's world? Tackling these crucial issues, Gianni Vattimo argues that nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of a plurality of meanings; it is not the end of civilization but the beginning of new social paradigms. Commonly associated with the pessimistic belief that all of existence is meaningless, nihilism, as a philosophical principle, is far less sensational--it is the ethical doctrine that there are no moral absolutes or infallible natural laws, that "truth" is inescapably subjective. Because the conditions for equality and liberty are not "naturally" given, society must actively create these ideals or it will inevitably fall prey to irrationality, prejudice, and oppression. Vattimo contends that the infighting, timidity, and confusion that have overtaken contemporary liberal thought and politics are the products a prolonged and indulgent mourning over the loss of the transcendental father figure--any institution or power structure that defines truth, knowledge, and reality. Until humanity overcomes its need for external authority--whether it be organized religion, the nation-state, or free-market capitalism--emancipation will remain unattainable. Collecting fourteen of Vattimo's most influential essays on ethics, politics, and law, _Nihilism and Emancipation_ is a provocative reevaluation of meaning, values, and the idea of freedom in Western culture. (shrink)

Over the last year, pundits looking for an explanation for the improbable victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election have turned to the opioid epidemic, a public health crisis qua political crisis. Since the widespread closure of steel mills and other manufacturing plants throughout middle America in the 1980s, a new so-called "Oxy electorate" has emerged, citizens who rely on painkillers to ameliorate the material realities of economic decline and loss of community. According to postelection statistics, six (...) of the nine counties in Ohio that flipped from traditionally Democratic to vote Republican in 2016 logged an overdose rate that well exceeded the national average. Historian Kathleen Frydl... (shrink)

A daring marriage of philosophical theory and practical politics, this collection is the first of Gianni Vattimo's many books to combine his intellectual pursuits with his public and political life. Vattimo is a paradoxical figure, at once a believing Christian and a vociferous critic of the Catholic Church, an outspoken liberal but not a former communist, and a recognized authority on Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as a prominent public intellectual and member of the European parliament. Building on his (...) unique position as a philosopher and politician, Vattimo takes on some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is it still possible, long after Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, to talk of moral imperatives, individual rights, or political freedom? Are these values still relevant in today's world? Tackling these crucial issues, Gianni Vattimo argues that nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of a plurality of meanings; it is not the end of civilization but the beginning of new social paradigms. Commonly associated with the pessimistic belief that all of existence is meaningless, nihilism, as a philosophical principle, is far less sensational -- it is the ethical doctrine that there are no moral absolutes or infallible natural laws, that "truth" is inescapably subjective. Because the conditions for equality and liberty are not "naturally" given, society must actively create these ideals or it will inevitably fall prey to irrationality, prejudice, and oppression. Vattimo contends that the infighting, timidity, and confusion that have overtaken contemporary liberal thought and politics are the products a prolonged and indulgent mourning over the loss of the transcendental father figure -- any institution or power structure that defines truth, knowledge, and reality. Until humanity overcomes its need for external authority -- whether it be organized religion, the nation-state, or free-market capitalism -- emancipation will remain unattainable. Collecting fourteen of Vattimo's most influential essays on ethics, politics, and law, _Nihilism and Emancipation_ is a provocative reevaluation of meaning, values, and the idea of freedom in Western culture. (shrink)

Politically motivated attacks against civilians are typically evaluated by focusing on objective factors, such as the loss of innocent life, the justness of a rebel organization's political vision, and whether the attacks are successful in advancing that vision. Albert Camus' philosophy on rebellion provides an alternative approach that focuses on subject experience of the rebel. The rebel experiences a genuine moral dilemma created by the passionate desire to fight injustice and the feeling of universal solidarity that encompasses even those (...) who the rebel believes it is necessary to kill. From this standpoint, any action the rebel takes is immoral. Camus thus makes authenticity the focus of his analysis. Authentic rebels continue to value solidarity, which creates a limit on how violence can be used in rebellion. Drawing from The Rebel and The Just Assassins, this paper develops several criteria for immoral but authentic acts of political violence, which are then applied to suicide bomb attacks directed against civilians. (shrink)

This paper 1 explores the potential of ‘new nature writing’ – a literary genre currently popular in the UK – as a kind of arts activism, in particular in terms of how it might engage with the environmental crisis and lead to a kind of collective politics. We note the limitations of the genre, notably the reproduction of class, gender and ethnic hierarchies, the emphasis on nostalgia and loss, and the stress on individual responses rather than collective (...) class='Hi'>politics. But we also take seriously the claims of art to enable us to imagine other futures, suggesting that new nature writing has the potential to play a role in collective forms of environmental justice and capabilities. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence, while presenting itself as a novelty in the fields of education, science and the business industry, is likely being used as a hegemonic tool for economic and political control. Concerns about privacy ethics, class division and the specter of AI-incited biowarfare controlled by supremacist-minded entities that benefit from the datafication of individuals for economic profit and the attainment of politicized control-seeking objectives are the axial arguments of this position paper. As a result, this review makes a case that (...) AI is being used as a tool of hegemony by presenting an analytical framework derived from the ‘less mainstream’ varied corpus of literature published between 1984 and 2024. Furthermore, while the literature also reveals attempts to monitor misuse of AI, to date there have been no solutions offered concerning privacy and surveillance, alternatives to the potential loss of jobs through automated AI or the menace of AI-operated biological warfare already being tested in war-torn parts of the world. Resolving the existing hegemonic challenges is of paramount importance and must be properly addressed in order not to be met with an existential crisis threatening the continuity of humanity. (shrink)

In this interdisciplinary and wide-ranging study, Roger Kennedy looks at the roots of tolerance and intolerance as well as the role of the stranger and strangeness in provoking basic fears about our identity. He argues that a fear of a loss of attachment to one's home might account for many prejudiced and intolerant attitudes to refugees and migrants; that basic fears about being displaced by so-called 'strangers' from our precious and precarious sense of a psychic home can tear communities (...) apart, as well as lead to discrimination against those who appear to be different. Present day intolerance includes fears about the 'hordes' of immigrants confused with realistic fears about terrorist attacks, populist fears about loss of cultural integrity and with it a sense of powerlessness, and fearful debates about such basics as truth, including the so-called 'post truth' issue. Such fears, as explored in the book, mirror old arguments going back centuries to the early enlightenment thinkers and even before, when the parameters of discussion about tolerance were mainly around religious tolerance. There is urgency about addressing these kinds of issue once more at a time when the 'ground rules' of what makes for a civilized society seem to be under threat. Kennedy argues that society needs a 'tolerance process', in which critical thinking and respectful judgment can take place in an atmosphere of debate and reasonably open communication, when issues around what can and cannot be tolerated about different beliefs, practices and attitudes in people in our own and other cultures, are examined and debated. Tolerating Strangers in Intolerant Times, with the help of psychoanalytic, literary, social and political thinking, looks at what such a tolerance process could look like in a world increasingly prone to intolerance and prejudice. It will appeal to psychoanalysts as well as scholars of politics and philosophy. (shrink)

Johann Arnason’s work combines the most erudite historical-comparative sociology, discussing highly knowledgeably enormous stretches of world-history, with the most subtle social and political philosophy, drawing creatively on the traditions of hermeneutics and phenomenology. Invariably, his works introduce more nuance and sophistication into the analysis of even very well studied socio-historical phenomena. At the same time, he addresses such major phenomena in terms of modernity, democracy and capitalism, agreeing that there often – maybe always – is a combination of empirical, conceptual (...) and normative issues at work when analysing human history. Nevertheless, readers of his work may at the same time be impressed by the nuance and sophistication and at a loss with regard to what such further refinement of our socio-historical knowledge entails in terms of understanding our own time in its historical context. Searching through Johann Arnason’s work, this article identifies unexplored questions in the conceptual and historical relation between civilization, modernity, and equality and tries to understand why they have been left open. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Anonymous Versus Open Donation and Queerness as Political:Comments on Groll's Conceiving PeopleAmanda Roth (bio)1. IntroductionIn this commentary on Daniel Groll's 2021 book Conceiving People: Genetic Knowledge and the Ethics of Sperm and Egg Donation, I examine a number of the book's major themes, especially around the idea that donor-conceived children have a significant interest in genetic knowledge and therefore, donor-conceiving parents are morally required to use an open donor.1 (...) I point to some concerns about Groll's case for this view and, in doing so, highlight the way in which taking up an LGBTQ+ perspective complicates and undermines the case against anonymous donation. The major theme of my comments is that the open versus anonymous decision is not merely an ethical decision, but a political one.My comments are organized around a few of the book's major themes, so I'll begin with laying out the most relevant themes in some detail. I then take up four points to consider in more depth. In so doing, I'll be drawing on my own scholarly perspective on issues of nontraditional reproduction, which is informed by my own social positionality in relation to family matters; this means that I (not so subtly) bring a queer perspective to the discussion of Groll's book. The through-line of my comments is this: While I agree with and appreciate much of Groll's approach, I want to stress the sense in which gamete donation is not just an ethical issue, but a political one, given its implication in bionormativity (and heteronormativity). I wonder if a deeper acknowledgment of the political nature of the issues might lead to moral conclusions that are different from those that Groll comes to, even assuming similar ethical values as starting points.2. Groll's major claims(1) Claim 1: Disclosure to donor-conceived offspring—in the usual case at least—is morally required given the intimacy argument: [End Page 166]The intimacy argument suggests that keeping "the secret" about donor conception involves intentional deception and undermines the proper intimacy of parent-child relationships (Groll 2021, 36–49).(2) Claim 2: Anonymous donor conception is (generally) morally impermissible because of the significant interest view.Donor-conceiving parents can reasonably foresee that their children will likely develop a significant interest in genetic knowledge. Significant interests "matte[r] quite a lot to the person who has [them]," "tak[e] up a space … in a person's mental economy" and/or "pla[y] a structuring role in a person's life and self-conception" (Groll 2021, 62–3). But not all donor-conceived people take such an interest in genetic information, and this information is not necessary for identity construction or psychological wellbeing (Groll 2021, 58, 61).2 Rather, multiple routes to self-identity exist, the genetic route being one among the options. Moreover, one needn't experience any loss in not taking this route; however, for those who take it up, genetic knowledge is objectively valuable and nonfungible (Groll 2021, 81–9). This is because genetic knowledge is uniquely relevant to the identity-related question "Who am I?" (Groll 2021, 112–3).3Groll argues that donor-conceiving parents should assume that their child will form such an interest because this is empirically a "good bet." Further, significant interests—at least when they are worthwhile (that is, not trivial and not morally objectionable)—are connected to one's wellbeing by the wellbeing principle: In satisfying a non-instrumental significant worthwhile interest, one's life goes better (Groll 2021, 62). It follows, then, that parents ought to choose open donors since (to simplify) parents are obligated to promote their children's wellbeing (ibid).4Counter to what one might expect, Groll does not take his ethical case against anonymous donor conception to justify prohibition of the practice. This is because wronging children in this way is within the realm of (unethical) choices we allow parents to make without societal interference.5 Moreover, to aim regulation at anonymous donor conception could reinforce bionormativity and target already marginalized families for special negative attention (Groll 2021, chapter 8).(3) "Claim" 3: Groll's own personal... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prelude to Tackling Contemporary Crises: William James and a Psychological Springboard to Political ChangePaul Croce (bio)“That selective industry of the mind,... incessantly deciding, among many things,... which ones for it shall be realities.”—William James, 1892 (PBC, 167)“[N]either the whole of truth, nor the whole of good, is revealed to any single observer.”—William James, 1899 (TT, 149)The modern world has witnessed tremendous increases in prosperity, and that material abundance has (...) spurred great achievements. But these successes have also brought enormous and troubling side effects. Climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality, and more problems have grown into crises with potential to challenge the achievements themselves. Alongside these challenges, many outstanding proposals have also emerged for dealing with our present crises. The crises and the insights for addressing them are in a harrowing competition, reminiscent of what H. G. Wells called “a race between education and catastrophe.” During recent chapters of this contest, especially in the United States, sound suggestions for halting or reversing environmental deterioration and for reducing class and racial inequities have gained some public and political support but have also met considerable resistance.1 While direct work to [End Page 26] address the crises is important, those efforts can be supported with understanding of the people and ideologies resisting that work. In fact, neglect of these impediments, which can further enable them to reduce abilities or willingness to address problems or even notice them, may be the biggest crisis of all.Just as medication can directly heal an illness while rest and self-care can build up general strength to support recovery, so coping with crises calls for both grappling with them directly and also consideration of the impediments that reduce the strength of those steps toward social healing. The inquiry here serves as a complement to sound proposals for immediate action by diagnosing what has hindered their realization. Outcries against injustice and creative interventions address the acute conditions of current crises, while cultural assessments of ways those responses gain or lose attention serve as prescriptions for addressing the chronic conditions that have exacerbated the crises through distraction. As with medical issues, long-term and preventive care of chronic problems can support acute treatment, even as they do not displace the need for immediate action.This article confronts a puzzle about why so many people do not pay attention to such large problems in nature and society and what steps can be taken to bridge that divide between the committed and the distracted. The emphasis here on attention shifts focus away from ideological differences and toward the values selections that drive the ideological differences. This article portrays James’s own path as he learned from differences before explaining how his theories offer insights on how selective choices shape the assumptions supporting ideologies that so often form into hostile contrasts.2 In addition to these alerts about the challenges of disagreement, he also presents methods to encourage listening across differences for chances to turn some of those commitments into constructive possibilities rather than treating them as reasons [End Page 27] to fight. These ways to evaluate cultural and political debates and increase understanding about selective choices can shed light on how so many people have been unwilling or unable to pay attention to the mounting problems, and through encouragement of more listening with respect, these methods can encourage more support for addressing the crises themselves.I. Jamesian Ways to Listen Across DifferencesCharles Taylor calls William James (1842–1910) “our great philosopher of the cusp.” This brief, elegant expression depicts a borderland thinker adept at mediating contrasting ideas. James’s often-difficult experiences in development toward that way of thinking and that reputation provide more depth about the contrasts that he experienced on the way toward his creative syntheses in psychology and philosophy.3 His wrestling with different interpretations serves as a microcosm for the challenges and rewards of listening for potential insights on each side of even hostile contrasts. He designed deliberate ways to reckon with differences, considering each to be a partial yet valuable window into the human condition. In his youth, he was torn between the competing perspectives of religious thought... (shrink)

Readers of Hannah Arendt’s now classic formulation of the statelessness problem in her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism abound at a moment when the number of stateless peoples worldwide continues to rise exponentially. Along with statelessness, few concepts in Arendt scholarship have spawned such a volume of literature, and perhaps none have provoked as much interest outside of the field of philosophy, as ‘the right to have rights.’ Interpreting this enigmatic term exposes the heart of our beliefs about the (...) nature of the political and has important consequences for how we practice politics on a global scale because it implicitly takes plural human beings, and not the citizen, as its subjects. Arendt’s conceptualization of this problem remains unsurpassed in its diagnosis of the political situation of statelessness, as well as its intimate description of the human cost of what she refers to as ‘world loss,’ a phenomenon that the prevailing human rights and global justice discourse does not take into account. And yet, as an alternative framework for thinking about global politics, the right to have rights resists easy interpretation, let alone practical application. (shrink)

In our contemporary society it is widely recognized that public discourse has become increasingly polemical and polarized, as claims to truth and justice are cynically dismissed as manipulative power plays. We argue first that this growth of power politics reflects the triumph of the objectifying stance of the social sciences, and the consequent loss of any distinction between legitimate and illegitimate power, and second that it is ad hominem to dismiss or accept people’s arguments simply because of their (...) identity interests, their positionality, instead of considering the explicit meaning and validity of what they say. By adopting the objectifying perspective of the social sciences, identity theorists on the left and the right reduce “power” to coercion and fail to appreciate the power of persuasion, and the normative conditions that make rational agency possible. This tendency is ultimately contemptuous of human dignity because it undermines the rational agency and moral responsibility of everyone concerned, from the objectified human subjects to the objectifying theorists. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Isaiah Berlin's value pluralism remains attractive because of its compelling account of tragic loss. The expectation and recognition of tragic loss can alert us to, and help guard us against, the fanaticism, the distortion of values, and the self-deception that may result from even the most well-meaning and good-faith pursuit of political ideals.

In ‘Listening to Music Together’, Nick Zangwill offers three arguments which aim to establish that listening to music can never be a joint activity. If any of these arguments were sound, then our experiences of music, qua object of aesthetic attention, would be essentially private. In this paper, I argue that Zangwill’s arguments are unsound and I develop an account of shared musical experience that defends three main conclusions. First, joint listening is not merely possible but a common feature of (...) our socially situated experiences of music. Second, when listening with others our experience of the music and our sense of community with our fellow listeners often reciprocally enhance one another. Third, how deeply and intimately we share a musical experience with others depends upon such factors as our respective backgrounds, interests, and levels of expertise. (shrink)

The September 2006 military coup against the Thaksin government in Thailand has had a profound impact on Thai politics. It has arrested the process of democratic consolidation that was set in motion in the country in the 1990s. Although many of Thaksin's policies lacked the spirit of democratic governance, he was democratically elected and was ousted from power unconstitutionally. The entire tenure of Thaksin has brought to the fore two deep cleavages in Thailand. The first of these is the (...) deep divide between the rural and urban electoral constituencies. The former provided a major vote bank with little bearing on the dispersion of power and resources that was effectively dominated by the latter. Thaksin and his populist policies effectively undermined the urban electorate and strengthened the rural constituency. The second and perhaps structurally more significant tension is that which has developed between the new business elite and the old establishment elite that comprise the monarchy, military, and the bureaucracy. This old elite has been at the forefront of displacing Thaksin through its fear of loss of control over the domestic political process. The drawn out confrontation that has spawned two social movements has significantly raised the country's political temperature and there is the real potential for the situation to deteriorate into violence. Despite these changes, a number of continuities unique to the Thai political situation continue to obtain as well. (shrink)

This article endeavors to establish the moral force behind the worker’s claim to a compensatory wage in return for the labor burdens she endures. The apparent incompatibility between compensation and voluntary losses suggests that the only reason for providing a compensatory wage is the need to entice a valued service. In response, the article considers and rejects attempts to ground the compensatory wage on duress, mutual trade, and desert. Instead, it argues that the worker is not responsible for her (...) class='Hi'>loss of well-being because she would not have incurred it in the absence of the employer’s promise to compensate. Key Words: compensatory wage • contributory wage • detrimental reliance • desert • labor burdens • promises • responsibility. (shrink)

The article examines the transformations of the philosophical concept of world as it appears in the cosmopolitan tradition of political thought and its relation to the problem of the border. It focuses particularly on how world is understood as either lost or multiplied in the contexts of modernity, globalisation, and migration. The article discusses postcolonial conceptions of cosmopolitics and the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt to show how the universal ideal of the world is replaced by singular constructions of worlds (...) in terms of the experience of migrants and refugees or the phenomenological horizon of political action. I conclude by suggesting that Jacques Rancière’s understanding of politics as a conflict of worlds can take us beyond the traps of both cosmopolitan universalism and the phenomenological singularity of being-in-the-world. (shrink)

From a nonideal justice perspective, this article investigates liability and compensation intheir wider theoretical context to better understand the governance of climate loss anddamage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC). The usual rationale for considering compensation takes a backward-looking understanding of responsibility. It links those causing harm directly to its remedy. Thisarticle shows that, under current political circumstances, it is more reasonable to understandresponsibility as a forward-looking concept and thus to differentiate responsibilitieson grounds of capacity and (...) solidarity. The article argues that loss and damage entitlementsinUNFCCCgovernance should be understood as entitlements to a threshold of capabilitiesfor resilience. While compensation merely means redressing the situation ex ante a threat,entitlements to capabilities for resilience can entail more demanding responsibilities ofsupport. This means that Article 8 of the Paris Agreement has much more demandingimplications than it might at first appear. (shrink)

This biography is a short yet comprehensive overview of the life of Meghnad Saha, the mastermind behind the frequently used Saha equations and a strong contributor to the foundation of science in India. The author explores the lesser known details behind the man who played a major role in building scientific institutions in India, developed the breakthrough theory of thermal ionization, and whose fervor about India's rapid progress in science and technology, along with concern for uplifting his countrymen and optimizing (...) resources, led him to eventually enter politics and identify the mismanagement of many programs of national importance to Parliament. This book is free of most academic technicalities, so that the reader with general scientific knowledge can read and understand it easily. One interested only in Saha's contribution to physics can pick up just that part and read it. Conversely, the average reader may skip the technical chapters, and read the book without loss of continuity or generality to still get a coherent picture. This work touches on all aspects of Saha's multidimensional personality, which overflows in the pages of his periodical, Science and Culture,as well as his many speeches, debates and discussions in Parliament, all of which is appropriately conveyed in this book. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset not only expressed his views on subjects such as art or mass culture but he was also one of the promoters and founders of a United Europe which he considered a cultural unity. However, his view on the proper functioning of multicultural societies was as skeptical as his attitude towards the possibility of constructing an unified world that could be based on cultural coexistence of the Western World societies.

The recent rise of injectable ‘wonder drugs’ for weight loss has been rapid and unregulated (so rapid that it has resulted in a worldwide shortage of Ozempic). We analyse the commercialisation of these drugs, and the political manoeuvres companies engage in to leverage and manufacture the gendered capitalism of ‘care’. Marketing relies heavily on situating ‘obesity’ as a chronic disease influenced by genes or other aspects of biology, working therefore to supposedly mitigate the blame and shame of the taken-for-granted (...) aetiology of ‘obesity’, overwhelmingly understood as excess food intake and insufficient activity. Armed with this evidence, women are told to ‘stand up against weight care judgement’ and to engage in ‘shame free’ care. Pharmaceutical interventions are at the ready to inject this weekly dose of care, producing freedom through neoliberal pleasure but, ironically, in doing so, sacrificing the pleasure of food and non-conditional self-acceptance as vital forms of self-care. (shrink)

By the late 1920s in Europe new art directions were regarded as already completed phenomena, a part of “avant-garde tradition.” Such views were expressed by Jean Arp and El Lissitzky’s in their book Kuntismen, and by Amédée Ozenfant’s in Art. Bilan des arts modernes en France. Similar opinions were also voiced by Jan Brzękowski, a Polish poet and critic, who regarded this time as a period of “establishing certain values” rather than new breakthroughs. In this article I discuss Brzękowski’s strategies (...) as a spokesman of modern art, an intermediary between the Parisian artworld and Polish avant-garde, an author connected with constructivism, and also with surrealist circles in Paris. My main focus is his magazine “Sztuka Współczesna – L’Art Contemporain” and his series of articles “Mileages,” in which he summarizes the developments of modern art. Conscious of the “wearing up” of avant-garde ideas and critical about seeking “novelty” for its own sake, Brzękowski tried to establish a progressive position based on the idea of formal discipline and creative construction. While rejecting a mimetic conception of art, he argued for abstract artistic form that would be “anchored to the bottom of life,” thus emphasizing the interplay of abstract and figurative elements and their dialectic. (shrink)

This book offers an opportunity for an anti deficit and positive examination of Black/Black-multiracial culture and its role in creating educational efficacy among academics of color. Through personal narrative, educational and learning theory, and creative writing/poetry, this hybrid text examines the cultural path to the doctorate.

What is the relation between parts taken together and the whole that they compose? The recent literature appears to be dominated by two different answers to this question, which are normally thought of as being incompatible. According to the first, parts taken together are identical to the whole that they compose. According to the second, the whole is grounded in its parts. The aim of this paper is to make some theoretical room for the view according to which parts ground (...) the whole they compose while being, at the same time, identical to it. (shrink)

Grounding contingentism is the doctrine according to which grounds are not guaranteed to necessitate what they ground. In this paper I will argue that the most plausible version of contingentism is incompatible with the idea that the grounding relation is transitive, unless either ‘priority monism’ or ‘contrastivism’ are assumed.

According to Composition is Identity, a whole is literally identical to the plurality of its parts. According to Mereological Nihilism, nothing has proper parts. In this note, it is argued that Composition is Identity can be shown to entail Mereological Nihilism in a much more simple and direct way than the one recently proposed by Claudio Calosi.

Damiano Costa has recently offered a novel mereological definition of endurantism based on the idea that for an object to be wholly present at a time is for it to be a whole at that time. In this paper, I argue that Costa’s is not a definition of endurantism, since the idea that every object is a whole at every time it exists can be accepted by endurantists and perdurantists alike.

In its simplest form, a Spritz is an aperitif made with (sparkling) water and (white) wine. A ‘gunky Spritz’, as I will call it, is a Spritz in which the water and the wine are mixed through and through, so that every proper part of the Spritz has a proper part containing both water and wine. In the literature on the notion of location the possibility of mixtures like a gunky Spritz has been thought of as either threatening seemingly intuitive (...) locative principles, or as requiring the position of multiple primitive locative relations. In this paper I present a new theory of location which assumes as primitive only the notion of pervasive location and show that it can account for the possibility of gunky Spritz in an intuitive and adequate way. (shrink)

In this paper I address two important objections to the theory called ‘ Composition as Identity’ : the ‘wall-bricks-and-atoms problem’, and the claim that CAI entails mereological nihilism. I aim to argue that the best version of CAI capable of addressing both problems is the theory I will call ‘Atomic Composition as Identity’ which consists in taking the plural quantifier to range only over proper pluralities of mereological atoms and every non-atomic entity to be identical to the plurality of atoms (...) it fuses. I will proceed in three main steps. First, I will defend Sider’s Composition as identity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 211–221, 2014) idea of weakening the comprehension principle for pluralities and I will show that :219–235, 2016a) it can ward off both the WaBrA problem and the threat of mereological nihilism. Second, I will argue that CAI-theorists should uphold an ‘atomic comprehension principle’ which, jointly with CAI, entails that there are only proper pluralities of mereological atoms. Finally, I will present a novel reading of the ‘one of’ relation that not only avoids the problems presented by Yi Composition as identity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 169–191, 2014) and Calosi :429–443, 2016b, Am Philos Q 55:281–292, 2018) but can also help ACAI-theorists to make sense of the idea that a composite entity is both one and many. (shrink)