One of the reasons provided for the shift away from an ontology for physical reality of material objects & properties towards one of physical structures & relations (Ontological Structural Realism: OntSR) is that the quantum-mechanical description of composite physical systems of similar elementary particles entails they are indiscernible. As material objects, they 'whither away', and when they wither away, structures emerge in their stead. We inquire into the question whether recent results establishing the weak discernibility of elementary (...) particles pose a threat for this quantum-mechanical reason for OntSR, because precisely their newly discovered discernibility prevents them from 'whithering away'. We argue there is a straightforward manner to consider the recent results as a reason in favour of OntSR rather than against it. (shrink)

In this paper we deal with the problem of identity and individuality in quantum mechanics. We analyze three definitions of the concept of an individual and propose to check their merits in relation to the theory. In order to achieve our goals our approach also ties those definitions of individuality to two distinct kinds of naturalism in ontology: a strong version, according to which quantum mechanics must somehow authorize in a positive fashion the ontological concepts being dealt with, and a (...) weak naturalism, according to which quantum mechanics must be only compatible with those ontological concepts. We conclude that strong naturalism is incompatible with the three concepts of individuality in quantum mechanics, and we argue that weak naturalism is not completely motivated, so that the best position to be assumed, in the end, is that the entities are simply not individuals. That is, in its craving to be compatible with strong naturalism, individuality ends up evaporating and we are left with non-individuals. (shrink)

Gorbachev's ascent to power in the Soviet Union in 1985 and the events that followed appear to have led to a dramatic decline in philosophers' interest in Marxist philosophy. The magnitudes of philosophical literature on Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Hegel recorded in annual volumes ofThe Philosopher's Index have all been shrinking in recent years. In the 1992 volume, the share of the publications on Marx within all philosophical publications has dropped to almost one-third of what it was on average in (...) the 1981–1985 volumes, on Engels and Lenin to about one-fifth, and on Hegel to about two-thirds. (shrink)

The phenomenon of volunteer produced and freely disseminated information is a significant feature of the digitally networked environment. Notwithstanding recent expansions of copyright law and the development of rights management technology the Internet remains a platform for the free distribution of information and ideas. This article argues that, contrary to the predictions of enclosure, a flourishing commons exists in respect of information that is communicated via the Internet. The commons, however, remains a relatively under-theorized concept in political and legal theory. (...) This article explores the meaning of ‘the commons’ and its relationship to property and advances it as a useful explanatory tool for describing free information environments in cyberspace. (shrink)

"E. B. Pashukanis was the most significant contemporary to develop a fresh, new Marxist perspective in post-revolutionary Russia. In 1924 he wrote what is probably his most influential work, The General Theory of Law and Marxism. In the second edition, 1926, he stated that this work was not to be seen as a final product but more for ""self-clarification"" in hopes of adding ""stimulus and material for further discussion."" A third edition was printed in 1927. Pashukanis's ""commodity-exchange"" theory of law (...) spearheaded a perspective that traced the form of law, not to class interests, but to capital logic itself. Until his death, he continued to argue for the ideal of the withering away of the state, law, and the juridic subject. He eventually arrived at a position contrary to Stalin's who, at that time, was attempting to consolidate and strengthen the state apparatus under the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Inevitably, Pashukanis was branded an enemy of the revolution in January 1937. His works were subsequently removed from soviet libraries. In 1954, Pashukanis was ""rehabilitated"" by the Soviets and restored to an acceptable position in the historical development of marxist law. In Europe and North America, a number of legal theorists only rediscovered Pashukanis's work in the late 1970s. They subjected it to careful critical analysis, and realized that he offered an alternative to the traditional Marxist interpretations, which saw law simply and purely as tied to class interests of domination. By the mid-1980s the instrumental Marxist perspective in vogue in Marxist sociology, criminology, politics, and economics gave way, to a significant extent due to Pashukanis's insights, to a more structural Marxist accounting of the relationship of law to economics and other social spheres." --Descripción del editor. (shrink)

State policy in the field of law enforcement during the Khrushchev's period wasn't a stabile. The first wave of changes was associated with the abolition of some legislative acts of the Stalinist period, a significant softening of punitive line, narrowing of the scope of capital punishment, empowerment convicted people etc. On the one hand, these steps are partially rehabilitating the Soviet law enforcement. On the other hand, government actions were unreasoned and populist, designed for quick political effect. The next wave (...) of change was due to the spread of the idea of the gradual withering away of the state in terms of building a communist society. As a consequence of this ideology was the reduction of employees in the field of law enforcement and attracting a variety of civic organizations, labor groups and citizens to fulfill a variety of law enforcement functions (voluntary civil police, civil judges, civil assistant investigator, civilian prosecutors, civil lawyers, etc.). And finally, the soviet leadership made steps in the field of law enforcement toward stricter penalties for serious crimes, as well as expanding the scope of the death penalty. The country's leadership was actively intervened in the work of law enforcement. Communist Party took control the law enforcement agencies due to the appointment to senior positions along party lines and managing work of party members through the party cell. One of the major controversies of the time was mixing the steps to improve of law enforcement sphere (increased attention to the frames, structural changes, strengthening analytical work in the study of crime statistics), with a desire to demonstrate the advantages of the socialist way of life (which was manifested in the silencing of certain criminal manifestations, artificially lowering their significance by reducing the liability on them, outright ignoring problems and their causes, etc.). Contradictions were observed in the conduct of state punitive line too. On the one hand, it was a significant step up from the Stalinist penal system by expanding the rights of prisoners, procedural rules, which led to a softening of the repressive pressure on the population. On the other hand, the state retained its attitude to dissent; applying the new forms social exclusion of dissidents, for example, applying to them the impact of psychiatric measures. These moments hampered consolidation of the new format of normative behavior in the minds of ordinary citizens, and gave rise to "double standards", the imbalance between what is declared and what actually happened. (shrink)

The author argues that the co‐habitation of an established Church and non‐established ones is bound to generate unfair discrimination and abridges religious tolerance which is a European achievement and an indispensable part of Western political and constitutional culture. In defiance of the strong traditions that survive in certain European countries, the institution of the established Church should wither away.

As a classical liberal, or libertarian, I am concerned to advance liberty and minimize coercion. Indeed on this view liberty just is the absence of coercion or costs imposed on others. In order to better understand the notion of coercion I discuss Robert Nozick's classic essay on the subject as well as more recent contributions. I then address the question of whether law is coercive, and respond to Edmundson and others who think that it isn't. Assuming that the law is (...) in fact coercive, there is still a question,as with all coercive acts, as to whether that coercion is justified. Edmundson thinks that this places a special burden on the state of justifying its existence, whereas it simply places the same burden on the state as anyone else. What I reject is the longstanding doctrine of Staatsrason, namely that the state is not subject to the same moral rules as its subjects. With respect to the relation of morality to law, Edmundson thought that another of the fallacies of which philosophical anarchists were guilty was that of assuming that there was a sphere of morality where law had no business. On the contrary, our concern is with spheres of law which appear to have little to do with morality, which is to say laws against wrongs of the malum prohibitum variety, as opposed to wrongs which are malum in se. I then turn to a matter with which Edmundson begins his study, namely how it is that states acquire the authority to do what they do, namely coerce their subjects. While the fact that the philosopher's stone of political obligation has proved rather elusive may mean that a legitimate state lacks the authority to demand obedience pure and simple, Edmundson contends that it can at the very least demand that we do not interfere in the administration of justice. I argue that this attempt to sidestep the justification of the authority of the state fails and that we seem in the end to be having to take the state's word for it that we must do X on pain of penalty P. Nor, as I go on to argue, is it any help to appeal to democracy to remedy a failed justification of the authority of the state. There either is a moral justification of state coercion in order to prevent harm to innocent subjects, or there isn't, and this holds,if it does, not only at the level of individuals, but also at the level of the state, regardless of its constitutional form. After concluding that the attempts of Edmundson and others to refute the anarchic turn in recent political philosophy have failed, it would seem that the withering away of the state foreseen in Marx's eschatology is not as improbable as maybe it once appeared. (shrink)

The economic shift initiated in the 1980s, the reign of the market and the computer, often resulted in the reappearing of a “feudal legal structure... consisting of networks of allegiance.” This paradox (ultra-modernity and neo-feudalism) is rarely considered a historical tool for studying late twentieth-century philosophy. This article is a first step in that direction, using Supiot’s characterization of the period as a “shift from law to tie” to approach the work of Levinas. In Totality and Infinity and Otherwise than (...) Being, Levinas defends a revelation of or exposure to the Other directed against the “neutralization of the Other” as being, object, or phenomenon. It is meant to liberate an interpellation by the Other before and beyond any general constitution of the object by the subject. Can this shift in twentieth-century philosophy be reconsidered if we add to Levinas’s own account Supiot’s historical understanding concerning the withering-away of general normative forms in favor of personal ties of allegiance? (shrink)

How can controversy promote mutual respect in analytical psychology? Analytical psychology is a broad church, and influences areas such as literature, cultural studies, and religion. However, in common with psychoanalysis, there are many different schools of thought and practice which have resulted in divisions within the field. _Controversies in Analytical Psychology_ picks up on these and explores many of the most hotly contested issues in and around analytical psychology. A group of leading international Jungian authors have contributed papers from contrasting (...) perspectives on a series of key controversies. Some of these concern clinical issues such as what helps patients get better, or how closely analysts should work with the transference. Other contributions focus on the relationship between analytical psychology and other disciplines including evolutionary theory, linguistics, politics and religion. A critical eye is cast over Jungian theories and practices, and a number of questions are raised: * are they homophobic? * do they denigrate women? * do they confuse absolute with narrative truth? * are the frequency of sessions chosen for political rather than clinical reasons? _Controversies in Analytical Psychology_ encourages critical thinking on a variety of issues, helping foster dialogue and investigation in a climate of mutual respect and understanding. It will be invaluable for Jungian analysts and psychoanalysts in training and practice and psychotherapists. (shrink)

Making decisions can be tough, but how do you know it s the right one and how can you be sure that unconscious biases aren t distorting your thinking? In Risky Business, Anna Withers and Mark Withers draw on decades of research in the fields of psychology, behavioral economics and neuroscience to explain why are so-called rational brains are frequently fooled by over 100 powerful unconscious biases. At the same time they provide a straightforward framework everyone can use, where these (...) biases are embodied into eight memorable characters that help us to avoid these pitfalls and make better decisions.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Place and the "Spatial Turn" in Geography and in HistoryCharles W. J. WithersI. IntroductionA few years ago, British Telecom ran a newspaper advertisement in the British press about the benefits—and consequences—of advances in communications technology. Featuring a remote settlement in the north-west Highlands of Scotland, and with the clear implication that such "out-of-the-way places" were now connected to the wider world (as if they had not been before), the (...) advert proclaimed "Geography is History." What the advert signalled to as the "end" of geography in the sense of the social gradients associated with space and distance is what is known, variously, as "time-space convergence" and "time-space distanciation."1 The terms embrace not just the "collapse" of geographical space given technical advances (in travel time and in communications—consequences of what Castells calls "the information age" and "the network society"2), but also the idea that the modern world has become [End Page 637] more homogenized. One place is now much the same as another. Further, given the likelihood of such technical and cultural changes continuing into the future, geographical distinctiveness, evident in the particularity of place, would be a thing of the past: geography would indeed be history. There is, of course, much evidence to the contrary: that, in the face of "globalisation," questions of locality, sense of place and of identity in place matter now more than ever. Even, then, as Francis Fukuyama cautioned against the "death" of liberal democratic politics as The End of History,3 geography—that is, geography understood as questions to do with place, and questions to do with where you are in the world as part of questions about how you are and who you are in the world—has had considerably heightened significance and for some places and people more than others.4These notions of place—as a particular location, and the character or sense of place—are only part of the meanings associated with place in geographical and in historical work. Like space, its regular epistemic dancing partner in geographical ubiquity and metaphysical imprecision, place is a widespread yet complex term. What follows is historiographical in focus and, of necessity, partial in range. I offer a historiographical survey of the term place, principally but not alone within recent work in geography. In more detail, and with reference to one of the strong senses in which place is used, namely that of locale, "the local," or localness, I trace here the connections between place, space, and the idea of the local as evident in recent work in history and in geography, especially within the history and the geography of science. Particular attention is paid in this context to the distinctive features of what we may think of as the "spatial turn" in the history of science by looking at the idea of place and space in recent work in Enlightenment studies. My argument is three-fold. Notions of place and space, much debated by geographers, have been as central a concern for intellectual historians and historians of science as for philosophers and others, but they have been differently expressed. There is, I shall argue, value in looking at these different views in order to understand that whilst place is a commonplace term it is not agreed upon: working with imprecision has been both opportunity and restriction. In relation to work within the history of science and in Enlightenment studies, consideration of the so-called "spatial turn," of place [End Page 638] as social practice and of placing as a process in accounting for the uneven movement of ideas over space and time may help provide some precision and strengthen connections between geography and history.II. Place (In Geography): A Partial HistoriographyPlace is one of the most fundamental concepts in human geography. It is also one of the most problematic.5 Place, or small-scale regional space, features as a subdivision within the Classical tripartite division of cosmography (the earth in relation to other planetary bodies), geography (the earth as a whole) and chorography (parts of the earth or regional geography). So, too, does the distinction between chorography and chronology as... (shrink)

The globalized societies of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are de-composing, according to Bernard Stiegler. This decay is expressed by breakdown in the compositional pr...

This article presents a conceptual approach to feminist history that focuses on the strategies activists use in different temporal and spatial locations. The argument builds on recent insights within feminist theory and historiography that reveal an intimate relationship between historiography and epistemology in knowledge politics. This article, however, probes the limitations of this relationship by focusing on how current historiographical methods exclude or dilute the actions and events of history through representation and citation. By examining the work of Jamaican theatre (...) collective Sistren, and Bristol agit-prop group Sistershow, the article presents two ways to rethink temporality that makes those histories resistant to representation. This article argues for a more careful historiography that can do justice to the action of different historical temporalities. In the process, it opens emergent spaces and temporal challenges for feminist knowledge politics. (shrink)

A term with myriad associations, revolution is commonly understood in its intellectual, historical, and sociopolitical contexts. Until now, almost no attention has been paid to revolution and questions of geography. Geography and Revolution examines the ways that place and space matter in a variety of revolutionary situations. David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers assemble a set of essays that are themselves revolutionary in uncovering not only the geography of revolutions but the role of geography in revolutions. Here, scientific (...) revolutions—Copernican, Newtonian, and Darwinian—ordinarily thought of as placeless, are revealed to be rooted in specific sites and spaces. Technical revolutions—the advent of print, time-keeping, and photography—emerge as inventions that transformed the world's order without homogenizing it. Political revolutions—in France, England, Germany, and the United States—are notable for their debates on the nature of political institutions and national identity. Gathering insight from geographers, historians, and historians of science, Geography and Revolution is an invitation to take the where as seriously as the who and the when in examining the nature, shape, and location of revolutions. (shrink)

Dispositionalist accounts of scientific laws are currently at the forefront of discussions in the metaphysics of science. However, Mumford has presented such accounts with the following dilemma: if laws are to have a governing role, then they cannot be grounded in the relevant dispositions; if on the other hand, they are so grounded, then they cannot perform such a role. Mumford’s solution is drastic: to do away with laws as metaphysically substantive entities altogether. Dispositionalist accounts are also deficient in (...) that they either make no mention of the significant role of symmetries in science, or attempt to inappropriately eliminate this role. Here we shall attempt to motivate a structuralist view of laws by showing how it evades Mumford’s dilemma and accommodates the role of symmetry principles. In addition we shall consider how this view deals with a number of issues that dispositionalism finds problematic and indicate how the supposed necessity of laws and the explanation of relevant counterfactuals look from this structuralist perspective. (shrink)

The Enlightenment was the age in which the world became modern, challenging tradition in favor of reason, freedom, and critical inquiry. While many aspects of the Enlightenment have been rigorously scrutinized—its origins and motivations, its principal characters and defining features, its legacy and modern relevance—the geographical dimensions of the era have until now largely been ignored. Placing the Enlightenment contends that the Age of Reason was not only a period of pioneering geographical investigation but also an age with spatial dimensions (...) to its content and concerns. Investigating the role space and location played in the creation and reception of Enlightenment ideas, Charles W. J. Withers draws from the fields of art, science, history, geography, politics, and religion to explore the legacies of Enlightenment national identity, navigation, discovery, and knowledge. Ultimately, geography is revealed to be the source of much of the raw material from which philosophers fashioned theories of the human condition. Lavishly illustrated and engagingly written, Placing the Enlightenment will interest Enlightenment specialists from across the disciplines as well as any scholar curious about the role geography has played in the making of the modern world. (shrink)

This chapter sets out to briefly introduce the theory of the legal form as originally conceived by Evgeny Pashukanis, a famous early Soviet legal scholar. Firstly, it will provide an account of Pashukanis's life, tragically cut short during the Great Terror. Secondly, it will move onto summarising his theory of the legal form through three theses: (i) Commodity Form Thesis, (ii) Bourgeois Law Thesis, and (iii) Withering Away Thesis. Thirdly, it will compare these theses to the positions on (...) law and state advanced by his various interlocutors, past and contemporary, namely Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Petr Stuchka, and Andrey Vyshinsky. Fourthly, it will analyse the similarities and differences identified in the previous section, drawing conclusions as to the cause of Pashukanis's downfall. It will be eventually pointed out that Pashukanis's theory was fundamentally unsuitable to the project of Soviet state-building, which explains why viewing law and state from Pashukanist lens was contested and eventually abandoned. (shrink)

Euro Women's Independent Label Distribution (WILD) was a pan-European network of feminist music distributors active in the early 1980s. They were affiliated to WILD, the US-based Women's Music distribution network founded in 1979 to disseminate the growing corpus of Women's Music emerging from the US Women's Liberation Movement (WLM). This article presents an interpretation of archive materials that document Euro WILD's activities from the Women's Revolutions Per Minute archive, housed at the Women's Art Library, London. Constrained and enabled by the (...) archive materials on offer, I revisit some of the practical and political problems the network faced as European distributors of US Women's Music. Key issues explored include the perception of US cultural imperialism by women based in Europe and the affective politics that circulated transnationally between distributors. Finally, this article explores how the concept and practice of the Women's Music industry changed when women beyond the borders of the US engaged with it. (shrink)

The practice of psychiatry rests on two pillars: mental illness and involuntary mental hospitalization. Each of these elements justifies and reinforces the other. Traditionally, psychiatric coercion was unidirectional, consisting of the forcible incarceration of the individual in an insane asylum. Today, it is bidirectional, the forcible eviction of the individual from the mental hospital supplementing his or her prior forcible incarceration in it. So intimate are the connections between psychiatry and coercion that noncoercive psychiatry, like noncoercive slavery, is an oxymoron.

Devises a theoretical framework to think through the politics of transmission within feminism. It draws upon and develops the work of Bernard Stiegler to create a theoretical apparatus that can analyze the politics of transmission within digital culture.