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.

Tekst omawia związek sformułowanej przez Leona Chwistka koncepcji przeżycia artystycznego z charakterem ocen dotyczących najnowszych zjawisk w sztuce polskiej formułowanych przez niego w latach 30. XX w. Ukazuje pokrewieństwo tej koncepcji z pojęciem „całościowego sensu plastycznego dzieła sztuki”, określającym charakter eksperymentów artystycznych dokonywanych w środowisku przedwojennej Grupy Krakowskiej. Ufundowana na założeniach teorii wielości rzeczywistości, koncepcja przeżycia artystycznego podkreśla nierozdzielność doświadczenia odbioru rzeczywistości wyobrażeniowej dzieła sztuki z impulsem jej współtworzenia. W zamierzeniu Chwistka koncepcja ta dostarczać mogła ugruntowania teoretycznego sztuki zaangażowanej społecznie. (...) Stanowić miała również fundament dla kreślonego przez Chwistka projektu nominalistycznej estetyki zorientowanego na wypracowanie intersubiektywnych zasad oceny dzieł sztuki, na podstawie poddanych refleksji teoretycznej indywidualnych doświadczeń odbioru, przez wspólnotę osób zaangażowanych w publiczną dyskusję o sztuce. Wypracowane w ramach tego projektu kryteria oceny dzieł sztuki mogły znaleźć zastosowanie w krytyce artystycznej. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the ways in which human bodies, payback, and comestibility become inescapably entangled in cultures in which honor is the prevailing virtue. Shakespeare was deeply sensitive to the social and psychological processes through which these concepts become entwined when honor is at stake—to the ways in which, as a means of corrective response, men who transgress a code of honor can be rightly reduced to their bodies, similar to how those who are not allowed to be (...) full participants in an honor culture (most particularly women) always already are. I begin by examining Shakespeare’s earliest depictions of honor cultures in Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece, and then briefly discusses how the ideas they trade in are further developed and complicated later in his career, focusing specifically on Othello. -/- . (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy, Culture contains a rich selection of interviews and other writings by the late Michel Foucault. Drawing upon his revolutionary concept of power as well as his critique of the institutions that organize social life, Foucault discusses literature, music, and the power of art while also examining concrete issues such as the Left in contemporary France, the social security system, the penal system, homosexuality, madness, and the Iranian Revolution.

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)

The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences provides a remarkable comparative assessment of the variations of positivism and alternative epistemologies in the contemporary human sciences. Often declared obsolete, positivism is alive and well in a number of the fields; in others, its influence is significantly diminished. The essays in this collection investigate its mutations in form and degree across the social science disciplines. Looking at methodological assumptions field by field, individual essays address anthropology, area studies, economics, history, the philosophy (...) of science, political science and political theory, and sociology. Essayists trace disciplinary developments through the long twentieth century, focusing on the decades since World War II. Contributors explore and contrast some of the major alternatives to positivist epistemologies, including Marxism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, narrative theory, and actor-network theory. Almost all the essays are written by well-known practitioners of the fields discussed. Some essayists approach positivism and anti-positivism via close readings of texts influential in their respective disciplines. Some engage in ethnographies of the present-day human sciences; others are more historical in method. All of them critique contemporary social scientific practice. Together, they trace a trajectory of thought and method running from the past through the present and pointing toward possible futures. Contributors. Andrew Abbott, Daniel Breslau, Michael Burawoy, Andrew Collier , Michael Dutton, Geoff Eley, Anthony Elliott, Stephen Engelmann, Sandra Harding, Emily Hauptmann, Webb Keane, Tony Lawson, Sophia Mihic, Philip Mirowski, Timothy Mitchell, William H. Sewell Jr., Margaret R. Somers, George Steinmetz, Elizabeth Wingrove. (shrink)

Iran, as a country that has never been colonized, underwent a rapid modernization process, which arose from its internal pressures. Starting from 1945, with the rise of globalism at the end of World War II, a new stage of modernization began in Iran which continued to grow and foster the culture of mass consumption. Globalization also led to the rise of different maternities in the housing sector. Focusing on Tehran, the dominant tendency to create a modern society based on nationalism (...) and modernism values, led to the creation of a very new image of the city, at odds with its introverted urban form till early of the twentieth century. The majority of urban policies were based on the need to create a major change in public life and to revolutionize the socio-political aspects of Iranian society. This chapter has been divided into three chronological periods. The first section Planning the Metropolis aims to focus on the idea of Tehran as a modern capital back in the 1950s and late 1960s with a special focus on class segregation and housing politics. The second part of this chapter Housing as a Revolution has a special focus on the transformation of housing strategies in Iran after the 1978-79 Islamic revolution. The third part Post-Revolution focuses on the current policies for the housing sector and construction economy. As a result of the imposition of US sanctions on the Iranian economy after unilaterally abandoning the Iran nuclear deal, the country’s economy has been hit hard by Tehran’s inability to export oil. Inflation has also hit the housing sector. In general, this chapter aims to bring forward the idea of housing as politics in modern Tehran through a critical and historical perspective. (shrink)

This book offers a radical reformulation of the pluralist position in 'English School' theory, providing an account of world politics that is normatively progressive and rooted in the significance of multiple community membership to human lives.

Comparative political theory is at best an embryonic and marginalized endeavor. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory generally involves a rehearsal of the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx. Only rarely are practitioners of political thought willing (and professionally encouraged) to transgress the canon and thereby the cultural boundaries of North America and Europe in the direction of genuine comparative investigation. Border Crossings presents an effort to remedy this situation, fully launching a (...) new era in political theory. Thirteen scholars from around the world examine the various political traditions of West, South, and East Asia and engage in a reflective cross-cultural discussion that belies the assumptions of an Asian "essence" and of an unbridgeable gulf between West and non-West. The denial of essential differences does not, however, amount to an endorsement of essential sameness. As viewed and as practiced by contributors to this ground-breaking volume, comparative political theorizing must steer a course between uniformity and radical separation--this is the path of "border crossings.". (shrink)

The Politics of Paradigms shows that America’s most famous and influential book about science, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions of 1962, was inspired and shaped by Thomas Kuhn’s political interests, his relationship with the influential cold warrior James Bryant Conant, and America’s McCarthy-era struggle to resist and defeat totalitarian ideology. Through detailed archival research, Reisch shows how Kuhn’s well-known theories of paradigms, crises, and scientific revolutions emerged from within urgent political worries—on campus and in the public sphere—about the invisible, unconscious (...) powers of ideology, language, and history to shape the human mind and its experience of the world. (shrink)

This essay explores the significance of political and ideological context as well as experimental culture for the participation of women in radioactivity research. It argues that the politics of Red Vienna and the culture of radioactivity research specific to the Viennese setting encouraged exceptional gender politics within the Institute for Radium Research in the interwar years. The essay further attempts to provide an alternative approach to narratives that concentrate on personal dispositions and stereotypical images of women in science to explain (...) the disproportionately large number of women in radioactivity research. Instead, the emphasis here is on the institutional context in which women involved themselves in radioactivity in interwar Vienna. This approach places greater importance on contingencies of time and place and highlights the significance of the cultural and political context in a historical study while at the same time shedding light on the interrelation between scientific practices and gender. (shrink)

The debate on the communitarian notion of personhood as initiated by Gyekye, in response to Menkiti, is both exhaustive and exhausted. Its exhaustiveness and exhaustion lies in the fact that, in all probability whatever can be said around it has been said, with truly nothing new likely ever being added. What is possibly left, is the potential for further additions to be more strident in their picking of sides or repeating that Gyekye and Menkiti are not sufficiently different or insisting (...) on the authenticity of either approach to African thought. What is needed is to transcend the constraints of this debate by opening up new vistas of interpreting communitarian thought in personhood. Whatever merit there is in showing whether radical or moderate communitarianism is real, or in showing which of these two is better than the other, this discussion can be furthered by looking at implications of communitarianism to other facets of philosophy. The most plausible avenue that could be implicated in communitarian considerations is the sphere of politics. Theorising about the communitarian notion of persons, I suggest, is partly to theorise about the political. If the commitments on which the doctrine of communitarianism is founded, are used to capture the sort of relations that exist between individuals, and between individuals and the community, then this relationship has an effect on how we conceive of the political theory we think appropriate. It is suggested here that contemplating on the communitarian polity will show the shortcomings of communitarianism as conceived by Gyekye and Menkiti. Keywords: Menkiti, Gyekye, Communitarianism, Limited Communitarianism, Personhood, Classical Communitarianism. (shrink)

The article proposes some ideas for a sociological analysis of security policies, with specific regard to urban contexts and focusing especially on the intersection between policy and politics. The main questions concern the way in which security has been studied as a public good construed as a collective problem and an object of political action, as well as how to develop further perspectives and conceptual tools within this approach. Some other questions are also asked and provisionally answered, regarding two aspects (...) of security policies that are suitable for a research agenda: the role of knowledge and the related politics of expertise; the relationships between urban security policies and the processes of neoliberalization. (shrink)

This book explores the relationship between modern technological progress and classical liberalism. The compatibility of classical liberalism and technology is questioned, using fiction and film as a window into Western society’s views on politics, economics, religion, technology, and the family.

RESUMO Neste artigo pretendemos refletir acerca da constituição do sujeito político a partir de dois conceitos específicos: rosto e cena de dissenso. Nosso argumento pretende evidenciar como, ao “aparecerem”, os indivíduos produzem uma cena polêmica de enunciação na qual se desencadeia um processo de subjetivação política e de criação de formas dissensuais de comunicação e performance que inventam modos de ser, ver e dizer, configurando outras interfaces entre experiência estética e política. Tal processo potencializa a invenção de novas visualidades e (...) interlocuções nas quais se inscreve o rosto, definido aqui como o vestígio de um lugar do outro que se transforma na promessa do meu próprio lugar, assumindo caráter político e comunicacional, num processo incessante de subjetivação política em que ética e estética se tangenciam. ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to ponder on the constitution of the political subject from two specific concepts: the face and the scene of dissensus, in order to show how the “appearance” of the individuals can produce a controversial scene of dissensus, trigger a process of political subjectivation and the creation of dissensual forms of expression and communication that invent new ways of being, seeing and saying, configuring new ways of collective enunciation and interconnections between aesthetic experience and politics. This is related to the invention of new visualities and interlocutions in which the face is inscribed. Face is defined here as the vestige of a place of the other that is transformed into the promise of my own place, assuming a political and communicational character, in an incessant process of political subjectivation where ethics and aesthetics are related. (shrink)

Introduction : the politics of our selves -- Foucault, subjectivity, and the enlightenment : a critical reappraisal -- The impurity of practical reason : power and autonomy in Foucault -- Dependency, subordination, and recognition : Butler on subjection -- Empowering the lifeworld? autonomy and power in Habermas -- Contextualizing critical theory -- Engendering critical theory.

In this paper, I present the beginnings of a resemblance theory of representation. I start by surveying the contemporary philosophical debate surrounding musical representation and reveal that its main interlocutors share a conception of artistic representation as a mode of meaningful communication. I then show how conceiving of artistic representation in this way severely limits music’s possibilities as a medium for representation. Next, I propose an alternative conception of representation that, despite its widespread acceptance outside of the philosophy of art, (...) has been largely denigrated within it: namely, that representation fundamentally depends on structural resemblance. Finally, I demonstrate how conceiving of artistic representation as grounded upon structural resemblances, rather than as a mode of meaningful communication, provides us with a more accurate picture of both (a) how music represents and (b) how we perceive and appreciate musical representations. (shrink)

This paper explores the poetic politics of lesbian and feminist writing, the textual violence that writing exercises and the amazon intertext it creates. In this particular essay, Jeffner Allen takes as her point of departure the writing of Hélène Cixous and Monique Wittig.

The introduction of Viagra in Japan is largely associated with the construction of ‘abject masculinities’. The approval of the drug comes amidst worries about hormones polluting the environment and Japanese men's unwillingness to perform their ‘appropriate gender role’ in a country coping with problems in the economy, a growing number of unmarried people, an ageing population and declining birth rates. In this article, I analyse how impotence, gender and reproduction are entangled in the ways in which Japanese physicians report erectile (...) dysfunction (ED) and prescribe Viagra. The accounts of physicians, taken from the media and scientific reports, show that medical doctors tend to uphold ‘the Viagrization of ED’, which will lead to the Viagrization of Japan. Despite discourses on medicalized sexuality, reproductive behaviour and promotion of childbirth, the politics of Viagra largely promote male recreational sex with substantial benefits for the pharmaceutical and sex industries. Also, the politics of Viagra seem to underpin the commodification of a sexualized male body that ignores the reproductive health concerns of Japanese men. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to outline and compare the way that Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt understand the spheree of politics as well as analyse the concepts of power and freedom connected with their theories. Both Schmitt and Arendt criticise liberal democracy for its “neutrality” and counterpoise it with their own understanding of political action. Especially Schmitt who understand such action as a conflict between friends and enemies. The analysis of their approach to the power and the contrasting (...) their models of politics allows Wonicki to draw conclusions about contemporary liberalism and indicating its limits. (shrink)

This article contributes to an emerging literature on the “neo” or “entrepreneurial” developmental state that emphasizes the role of innovation policy in promoting the structural transformation of industry. It finds further evidence that supports this approach and advances it by making two unique contributions. First, it highlights an essential yet underappreciated feature of contemporary innovation policy: the state’s capacity to condition public assistance and discipline private firms that do not adhere to government guidelines. These capacities are necessary to guarantee that (...) the benefits of public investment in innovation—the social and economic spillovers—are not appropriated by private actors but shared more broadly within society. Second, it highlights that politics—reflected in the relations between innovation agencies and key social actors—represents an important causal factor in both the formation and subsequent transformation of these institutional capacities. These points are illustrated through a historical analysis of a crucial case: the state-led development of Israel’s thriving high-tech sector. (shrink)

The leading scholars represented in _Politics, Philosophy, Writing_ examine six key Platonic dialogues and the most important of the epistles, moving from Plato's most public or political writings to his most philosophical. The collection is intended to demonstrate the unity of Plato's concerns, the literary quality of his writing, and the integral relation of form and content in his work. Taken together, these essays show the consistency of Plato's understanding of the political art, the art of writing, and the philosophical (...) life. Studies emphasizing the unity of Plato's lifework have given way in recent scholarship to specialized and overspecialized examinations of individual dialogues. While each of the contributors to _Politics, Philosophy, Writing_ studies one text, his or her work is oriented toward illuminating the whole of Plato's project. Each of the essays is an innovative contribution to scholarship on its topic; as a collection, they constitute a unique reading of Plato's political philosophy. Plato scholars have generally divided themselves into two camps: those who concentrate on the analytic or logical aspects of the dialogues, and those who concentrate on the literary-critical features. In one camp are the philologists and classicists, and in the other, the writers of inventive interpretive commentaries. By avoiding distinctions between Plato the poet and Plato the philosopher, _Politics, Philosophy, Writing_ allows a deeper exploration of the comprehensiveness of Plato's theoretical vision and illuminates the lasting challenge of his understanding of the human condition. (shrink)

"The Politics of Transindividuality" proposes a new understanding of not just the relation of the individual to the collective, but of politics and economics, one that can not only keep pace with existing transformations of capital but ultimately contest them.

In _The Politics of Toleration in Modern Life _Susan Mendus gathers a group of distinguished public figures—philosophers, historians, lawyers, and religious leaders—to reflect on a core issue within contemporary political debate. At the close of a century that will be remembered for its two world wars and its eruptions of genocide, the contributors examine the importance of an insistence on tolerance and the dangers of its lack, both historically and in the present day. How can toleration be fostered in a (...) contentious and tightly populated world? What situations and fears have historically fed attitudes of intolerance? When and how should states intervene? The authors of these essays seek answers to such questions and examine topics such as why certain national groups are especially vulnerable to intolerance and narcissistic fantasies and how the colonial view of intolerant exploitation as an acceptable norm of behavior has been replaced by a drive toward international solidarity. The essays address religious tolerance, the role of toleration in legal contexts, the philosophical justification of tolerance, and the concept of solidarity. Ethnic identity, nationalism, the “goods of conflict,” and the treatment of refugees seeking asylum are discussed as well. While one contributor argues that a moment of genuine tolerance is achieved only when there is a cost involved in the act of tolerating another person’s way of living, another stresses that rational, communal dialogue can only take place if the state is excluded from the discussion, if conflict is recognized as valuable, and if local communities come to consensus about what behavior and discourse is intolerable. Offering an accessible and engaging commentary on the concept of tolerance, _The Politics of Toleration in Modern Life_ will interest a wide range of readers of philosophy, political science, religion, sociology, and history. _Contributors_. George Carey, Christopher Hill, Michael Ignatieff, Helena Kennedy, Alasdair MacIntyre, Susan Mendus, Julia Neuberger, Bernard Williams. (shrink)

(1999). Love, politics, and the Victorians: Liberal feminism and the politics of social integration. The European Legacy: Vol. 4, Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians, pp. 42-57.

ABSTRACTHélène Landemore's Democratic Reason marks a crucial achievement in democratic theory, as it successfully shows that democracy is about more than procedural legitimacy—and that it should be. Nonetheless, the procedural argument remains at the heart of the case for democracy. For many democratic decisions, getting the right answer is not what we ask of political institutions. Politics is often about defining what counts as a problem, and no single definition counts as the right one. Furthermore, the epistemic claim that democracy (...) is likely to get moral questions right can obscure the difficulty of getting moral questions exactly “right.” The best political approach to controversial questions is often to strike a balance of competing claims, and every actual democracy does this in ways that leave many citizens dissatisfied. This is why many citizens participate in democratic politics as partisans: they put more trust in their party than in the democratic regime to get it right. Partisanship fuels the never-ending democratic contest over what it means to get it right in politics, but it is also appropriately epistemic, in that it is prompted by the never-ending possibility that even democracy will get things wrong. (shrink)

Discussion of educational policies in light of scientific thought, economic processes, and world politics. Analysis and commentary on educational philosophy and curriculum construction. Originally published in 1968.

In a period in Italy in which the fascist “Ethical State” gave way to a lesser god, the ethical party, culture was transformed into a sort of political pedagogy. Bobbio insisted on the fact that the “first task of intellectuals ought to be to prevent the monopoly of force from becoming the monopoly of truth.” Today the ethical parties have disappeared, along with political pedagogy. Bobbio was aware of the reasons that make participatory democracy difficult: In complex societies citizens are (...) poorly informed judges regarding their own interests; hidden powers condition the visible choices; pluralism borders on corporatism and even on a modern version of feudalism; and, lastly, where mass individualism prevails, perception of the general interest appears increasingly distant and difficult. Consequently, we need a different relationship between culture and politics. (shrink)

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)

Current radical democratic politics is characterized by new participatory spaces for citizens’ engagement, which aim at facilitating the democratic ideals of freedom and equality. These spaces are, however, situated in the context of deep societal inequalities. Modes of discrimination are carried over into participatory interaction. The democratic subject is judged by its physically embodied appearance, which replicates external hierarchies and impedes the freedom of self-expression. To tackle this problem, this article seeks to identify ways to increase the freedom of the (...) subject to explore its multiple self. Understanding the self as inherently fugitive, the article investigates participatory, deliberative and agonistic concepts of self-transformation. As all of them appear limited, it introduces a transformative perspective in democratic thought. Enriching the transformative perspective with queer and gender theory, the article generates the concept of a politics of becoming, which, through radical democratic practices of disidentification, advances the freedom of the subject to change. (shrink)