‘Culturology’ is an integral, often compulsory, part of Russian university courses; the discipline has largely replaced chairs in Marxist-Leninism and dialectical materialism, and bookshops are full of texts on the subject. This article is based on analysis of more than ten university textbooks recommended to first-year students. Marlène Laruelle examines why culturology has become so important, the place claimed for it within the human sciences, and what it means for changing Russian ideas of identity and nation.

This brief paper explores the contradistinctions between conservatism and illiberalism. These concepts are fluid and need to be investigated in a specific time and space, as well as situationally in their interaction with other competing political concepts such as liberalism, itself plural and multifaceted. In today’s world, conservatism and illiberalism do not simply overlap: they may share some components in their ontological philosophy of mankind but they diverge in their relationship to the liberal democratic framework and in their strategies for (...) challenging and weakening the liberal hegemony. This implies that illiberalism should be read as an ideological family with internal contradictions and orientations that is yet united in its vision of a liberalism that failed and should be reversed. This opens avenues for scholarly explorations on illiberalism as a byproduct of liberalism and their intrinsic relationship. (shrink)

How the new spirit of capitalism confronts the new modes of workplace radicalism The period 2008-2009 has seen a spate of workplace conflicts obeying a common logic in terms of the modes of mobilisation. The conflicts emerge inside the sphere of production. They occur in the wake of the announcement of a partial or total suspension of production and their stated goal is to save jobs and/or to negotiate redundancy payments going beyond the legal entitlement. The aim of the article (...) is to confront the paradigm which Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello formulated in The New Spirit of Capitalism in order to articulate the concepts of the civic and the critical to the features of the new discursive protocols which have emerged in the context of these recent conflicts. The article addresses two questions. The hypothesis put forward is that the discursive protocol which those promoting militant action draw upon goes beyond a model of intelligibility that is fundamentally built around the reference to a corrective critique and thus fails to take account of the place in which the discourse of radical critique is actually rooted. (shrink)

The 2017 Commission on Public Relations Education report found new professionals are not meeting employers’ expectations regarding ethics knowledge, skills and abilities. This mixed-method s...

Se analizan saberes docentes de una maestra al enseñar el tema, las aportaciones de Darwin: adaptación y selección natural, en grado primero de secundaria en una escuela rural en el estado de Tlaxcala- México. Es un estudio etnográfico, en él se describen y examinan fragmentos de clase y se encuentra que sus saberes se asocian con tres aspectos de la dimensión colectiva de la enseñanza, referidos a: cómo involucrar a los niños en el trabajo grupal, cómo recapitular contenidos en beneficio (...) de la clase y cómo organizar el trabajo para el grupo. Estudios de esta naturaleza son importantes porque permiten comprender la acción docente más allá de prescripciones documentadas y aportan a la discusión de las investigaciones educativas en México. (shrink)

Originally published in French as François Laruelle, "L’Appel et le Phénomène," Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 1996 (1): 27–41. English translation by Kris Pender.

Scholars have long asserted that public relations (PR) professionals should play the role of organizational conscience, but little research has focused on why and how they play this role effectively. We found that PR professionals who played the role of organizational conscience had broadened conceptions of their roles and responsibilities, including a fervent duty to the public interest. This often put them in the position of providing criticism to powerful organizational players. Rather than raising their ethical concerns as persuasive orators, (...) they used subtle, resourceful, and experiential approaches to persuasion. Playing the role of organizational conscience typically necessitated gaining access to informal coalitions since access to dominant power coalitions often was limited or late. Organizations with participative cultures supported the role of organizational conscience. (shrink)

After years of near total neglect, the problem of childhood obesity is now in the limelight. Terms like “epidemic,” “crisis,” and “emergency” are used frequently when describing the trend. Progress is defined with strong language and fueled by statistics such as the observation that this generation of children will be the first to live shorter lives than their parents. Multi-disciplinary journals such as the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics have dedicated symposiums to the issue, and conferences have been convened (...) not only by health professionals but by government agencies, the food industry, and even professionals who market to children. The seriousness of childhood obesity is no longer in doubt, and finally attention has turned to the more complex question – what must be done? (shrink)

_A mood for Philosophy_ __ _ _ _In this dialogue with Francois Laruelle Anne-Françoise Schmidt suggests that Laruelle's non-philosophy, which begins with an indecision, could be conceived as something that in the history of painting has been called figura serpentinata, "serpentine line". This line, which produces a kind of music by the use of concepts, is visible according her trough his whole work: from his first book on Ravaisson, _Phenomenon and Difference,_ through to his last one, _The Last (...) Humanity: A New Ecological Science_, published in French in 2015 and expected to appear in English in 2018._. (shrink)

How veridical is perception? Rather than representing objects as they actually exist in the world, might perception instead represent objects only in terms of the utility they offer to an observer? Previous work employed evolutionary modeling to show that under certain assumptions, natural selection favors such “strict‐interface” perceptual systems. This view has fueled considerable debate, but we think that discussions so far have failed to consider the implications of two critical aspects of perception. First, while existing models have explored single (...) utility functions, perception will often serve multiple largely independent goals. (Sometimes when looking at a stick you want to know how appropriate it would be as kindling for a campfire, and other times you want to know how appropriate it would be as a weapon for self‐defense.) Second, perception often operates in an inflexible, automatic manner—proving “impenetrable” to shifting higher‐level goals. (When your goal shifts from “burning” to “fighting,” your visual experience does not dramatically transform.) These two points have important implications for the veridicality of perception. In particular, as the need for flexible goals increases, inflexible perceptual systems must become more veridical. We support this position by providing evidence from evolutionary simulations that as the number of independent utility functions increases, the distinction between “interface” and “veridical” perceptual systems dissolves. Although natural selection evaluates perceptual systems only on their fitness, the most fit perceptual systems may nevertheless represent the world as it is. (shrink)

Chaque époque invente de nouvelles pratiques et de nouvelles écritures de la philosophie. La nôtre aurait dû introduire dans celle-ci des mutations au moins équivalentes à celle du cubisme, de l’abstraction, du dodécaphonisme : elle ne l’a fait que très partiellement. Que faire de la philosophie elle-même? Comment changer globalement notre rapport à cette pensée qui se démontre de plus en plus conservatrice et répétitive? Ces deux raisons ensemble sont à l’origine de ce que nous appelons la "non-philosophie", qui n’est (...) pas la négation de la philosophie.--. (shrink)

Does shame have a limited moral role because it is associated with a loss of self-respect or is it an important emotional support for socially beneficial behaviours? Aristotle supports the latter position. In his ethical theory, he famously claims that shame is a semi-virtue essential in the habituation of moral norms. He clarifies this role in the Rhetoric’s lesser-known distinction between true and conventional shame, which implies human beings make subjective evaluations of those appropriated cultural norms. Importantly, he locates this (...) potential for ethical assessment in friendship and not in public discourse, as he thinks it would be shameless to publicly evaluate moral rules. The article ends by exploring potential critiques to his position and argues that Aristotle’s approach makes shame indispensable for moral progress, even though we might want to consider some limited role for shameless public protest. (shrink)

Providing an introduction to Laruelle's novel theory of 'non-epistemology' or 'unified theory of thought', this volumes challenges the way we think about the traditional philosophical problems.

This paper connects two notions: Hart and Mas-Colell’s ‘potential’, related to the value of coalitional games, and Coleman’s earlier notion of ‘power of a collectivity to act’, related to the easiness to make decisions by means of a voting rule.

Does the establishment of a permanent InternationalWar Crimes Tribunal (International Criminal Court - ICC) constitute a challenge to national sovereignty? According to previous US governments and several American observers, the answer is yes. Establishing a world court that acts independently of the states that gave birth to it renders the idea of sovereignty meaningless. This article analyzes the American objections to the ICC and the conception of sovereignty and international law underlying these objections. It first considers the structure and intent (...) behind the criminal court and attempts to unveil the logic hiding behind the idea of ‘America’s historical uniqueness.’ It touches on the diverging US and European conceptions of sovereignty and ends up arguing that governments that stick to traditional conceptions of sovereignty and international law in the employment of their foreign policy may lose the moral legitimacy that has proven increasingly important for winning the sympathy of allies and regaining world leadership. Keywords: The ICC; US opposition to the court; sovereignty; international law; exceptionalism (Published: 19 May 2009) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2009, pp. 83-108. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v2i2.1973. (shrink)

Dit boek bevat de uitgebreide, geannoteerde en geïllustreerde versie van de 48ste Huizinga-lezing die Marlene Dumas vrijdagavond 6 december 2019 heeft uitgesproken in de Pieterskerk in Leiden. Dumas spreekt onder meer over het onderscheid tussen de kunstenaar en diens werk, het nadeel van een titel en de naaktheid van mannen in de kunst. 0Het boek bevat tevens een interview met Marlene Dumas, een schets van het leven en werk van Johan Huizinga, de naamgever van de lezing, en een korte geschiedenis (...) van de Huizinga-lezing, die al sinds 1972 bestaat. (shrink)

This book is a foundational text for our understanding of François Laruelle, one of France's leading thinkers, whose ideas have emerged as an important touchstone for contemporary theoretical discussions across multiple disciplines. One of Laruelle’s first systematic elaborations of his ethical and "non-philosophical" thought, this critical dialogue with some of the dominant voices of continental philosophy offers a rigorous science of individuals as minorities or as separated from the World, History, and Philosophy. Through novel theorizations of finitude and (...) determination in the last instance, Laruelle develops a thought "of the One" as a "minoritarian" paradigm that resists those paradigms that foreground difference as the conceptual matrix for understanding the status of the minority. The critique of the "unitary illusion" of philosophy developed here stands at the foundation of Laruelle’s approach to "uni-lateralizing" the power of philosophy and the universals with which it has always thought, and thereby acts as a basis for his subsequent investigations of victims, mysticism, and Gnosticism. This book will appeal to students and scholars of continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, ethics, aesthetics, and cultural theory. (shrink)

Introductory collection of writings by a creative and subversive thinker, ranging from the origins of “non-philosophy” to its evolution into what Laruelle now calls “non-standard philosophy.” The question “What is non-philosophy?” must be replaced by the question about what it can and cannot do. To ask what it can do is already to acknowledge that its capacities are not unlimited. This question is partly Spinozist: no-one knows what a body can do. It is partly Kantian: circumscribe philosophy's illusory power, (...) the power of reason or the faculties, and do not extend its sufficiency in the shape of by way of another philosophy. It is also partly Marxist: how much of philosophy can be transformed through practice, how much of it can be withdrawn from its “ideological” use? And finally, it is also partly Wittgensteinian: how can one limit philosophical language through its proper use? This introductory collection of writings by creative and subversive thinker François Laruelle opens with an introduction based upon an in-depth interview that traces the abiding concerns of his prolific output. The eleven newly translated essays that follow, dating from 1985 to the present, range from the origins of “non-philosophy” to its evolution into what Laruelle now calls “non-standard philosophy.” Two appendices present a number of Laruelle's experimental texts, which have not previously appeared in English translation, and a transcript of an early intervention and discussion on his “transvaluation” of Kant's transcendental method. (shrink)

Are the things of this world given to thought? Are things really meant to be known, to be taken as the objective manifestations of a transcendental conditioning power? The Western philosophical tradition, according to François Laruelle, presupposes just this transcendental constitution of the real--a presupposition that exalts philosophy itself as the designated recipient of the transcendental gift. Philosophy knows what things really are because things--all things--are given to philosophy to be known. Laruelle's trenchant essays show how this presupposition (...) controls even the ostensibly radical critiques of the philosophical tradition that have proliferated in the postmodern aftermath of Nietzsche and Heidegger. For these critiques persist in assuming that the disruptive other is in some way given to their own discourse--which shows itself thereby to be still philosophical. An effective critique of philosophy must be non-philosophical. It must, according to Laruelle, suspend the presupposition that otherness is given to be known, that thought has a fundamentally differential structure. Non-philosophy begins not with difference, not with subject and object, but with the positing of the One. From this axiomatic starting point, non-philosophy takes as its material philosophy, rethought according to the One. The non-philosophy project does not, like so much postmodern philosophy, herald the end of philosophy. It takes philosophy as an occasion to raise the question of another kind of thought--one that, instead of differentially relating to the world that it presupposes, asserts that it is ultimately, in the flesh, at One with what it can never know. Publisher's note. (shrink)

Nurse educators have the responsibility of assisting students and their colleagues with understanding and practicing ethical conduct. There is an inherent responsibility to keep codes current and relevant for existing nursing practice. The code presented here is a revision of the Code of ethics for nurse educators originally published in 1983 and includes changes that are intended to provide for that relevancy.

In the first English translation of his work, Laruelle explores the major European thinkers from Nietzsche to Derrida to define his own 'non-philosophical' ...

ABSTRACTThe idea that metaphorical meaning is guided by speakers’ experiences of the world is central to Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Yet little is known about the ways in which speakers’ understandings of objects in the world around them influence how they use words in metaphorical and non-metaphorical ways. This article is a corpus linguistic analysis of the collocational patterns of metaphorical and non-metaphorical bridge instances from the Corpus of American English Corpus of Contemporary American English. The study shows that metaphorical and (...) non-metaphorical uses of words are systematically linked to different types of real world experiences. It is argued that lexical metaphors are, in fact, lexico-encyclopedic conceptual metaphors, and that they are constrained by cognitive salience. (shrink)

Referenciado na Análise Institucional do Discurso, o estudo investigou os sentidos atribuídos ao "ser alguém na vida" no discurso de estudantes do ensino médio de uma escola pública do litoral paranaense. Realizaram-se entrevistas, cuja análise buscou delinear os modos de produção de subjetividade, ..

Traditionally, ontology, or at least western ontology, bas been an anthropocentric enterprise, that takes only human experiences into account. In this paper I argue that a prolific biocentric ontology can be based on UexkülI's Umwelt theory. UexkülI offers the basis of an ontology according to which the study of experiences is a much wider field than it is as depicted by classical ontology and contemporary philosophy of consciousness. Based on the thoughts of the contemporary philosopher Thomas Nagel I claim that (...) there might very well be Iifeforms that are totally unimaginable to us. I argue that this view is compatible with the Umwelt theory, and that it should be adopted by biosemioticians. Furthermore, I argue that a biosemiotic possibilism should be implemented. Followingly, one should not claim to know which characteristics of living beings are universally and necessarily valid, but restrict oneself to statements about life as we know it. (shrink)

El propósito de este ensayo es mostrar que el fenómeno globalizador impulsado desde Occidente, ha venido configurando un escenario, que amenaza reducir lo identitario a una lógica de guerra entre lo propio y lo ajeno. Además, se muestra a Occidente desde otras voces, cuyos argumentos de resistencia a toda visión reduccionista de la experiencia humana cuestionan la universalización monologizante de Occidente, y nos instan a revalorizar nuestros legados culturales e identitarios más próximos, y a redescubrir lo comunitario como un espacio (...) de encuentro y potenciación de aquellas necesidades y expresiones más constitutivas de lo humano. (shrink)

In this important new book, the leading philosopher François Laruelle examines the role of intellectuals in our societies today, specifically with regards to criminal justice. He argues that, rather than concerning themselves with abstract philosophical notions like justice, truth and violence, intellectuals should focus on the human victims. Drawing on his influential theory of ‘non-philosophy’, he shows how we can submit the theorizing of intellectuals to the scrutiny of the everyday suffering of the victims of crime. In the course (...) of a wide-ranging discussion with Philippe Petit, Laruelle suspends the presumed authority of intellectuals by challenging the image of the ‘dominant intellectual’ exemplified by philosophers such as Sartre, Foucault, Lyotard and Debray. In place of domination, he puts forward instead a theory of ‘determination’: the determined intellectual is one whose character is conditioned by his relationship to the victim, rather than one who attempts to dominate the victim’s experience through a process of theorizing. While philosophy consistently takes the voice away from victims of suffering, non-philosophy is able to construct a theory of violence and crime that gives voice to the victim. This highly original book will be essential reading for all those interested in contemporary French philosophy and all those concerned with justice in the modern world. (shrink)

Crucible experiences are essential in the development of leaders. Crucibles refer to trials and challenges that test and mold the character, values and behavior of leaders. Through in-depth interviews with 32 public relations leaders, we examined how crucible experiences specifically shaped them to practice servant leadership. Through the narratives they constructed about these experiences, we were able to learn specific details about these experiences, the lessons they gleaned and how they shaped and transformed their character, virtues and leadership style. These (...) insights matter, because public relations leaders have the potential to serve as ethical role models for their employees and colleagues. (shrink)