A close examination of Marx's dialectical method of analysis, this studies uses the lens of current debates in cultural studies, political economy, and critical sociology. It seeks to reanimate Marx's theoretical reconstruction of the capitalist formation from the point of view of recent and emerging social dynamics within advanced consumer economies. The book consists of two parts: part one reconstructs the defining movement of Marx's analytical approach as a function of abstraction. It demonstrates how Marx's method articulates a specific theory and practice of representation--one of the several dimensions through which it expresses an "aesthetic sensibility"; part two opens up to a broader analysis of the continuing pertinence of Marx's method in the analysis of contemporary global capitalism wherein cultural production takes centre stage.

Named by Rowan Williams as one of his Books of the Year (2021) in the New Statesman. Socrates On Trial tells of Socrates's return to a modern city that is plagued by prejudice, privilege and populism. On resuming his questioning in the agora he is arrested, interrogated by his prosecutors, questioned by his Judge, and confessed to by his inquisitor. On a Festival Day, he explores a new model for the just city --a city based not on mastery but on learning --before offering a new apology to the court that will, once again, decide his fate. This new/old Socrates offers the city a renewed vision of justice by reconceptualizing the meaning and significance of thinking and education. From the force of Socratic questioning, he unfolds a different logic of truth, freedom, and justice. His conversations exert a gravitational force that draws key cultural elements of the city -- property, wealth, money, family, essence, gendered and racialized identities, production, distribution and consumption -- into its educational orbit. At stake here is the vulnerability of modern democracy to authoritarian leaders and their sponsors. Influenced by sophisticated propaganda people's frustration with democracy is channeled into visceral anger on the one hand, and into disillusioned scepticism and cynicism on the other. Belief in truth and education collapses in exhaustion and fatigue, caught in the headlights of seemingly irresolvable and petrifying rational paradoxes that block all paths to social justice. Socrates On Trial, describing the return of Socrates to the modern city, heralds a new education for such a city.

Plato is the best known and most widely studied of all the ancient Greek philosophers. Malcolm Schofield, a leading scholar of ancient philosophy, offers a lucid and accessible guide to Plato's political thought, enormously influential and much discussed in the modern world as well as the
ancient. Schofield discusses Plato's ideas on education, democracy and its shortcomings, the role of knowledge in government, utopia and the idea of community, money and its grip on the psyche, and ideological uses of religion.

That the world is changing is not surprising. What, however, is to be understood by the "politics of change"? This book takes a critical view of the debate on "globalization" and assesses revamped versions of structuralist thought, which underpin much of the globalization discourse. Special attention is given to the work of Jürgen Habermas. In contrast to conventional views on change, the book emphasizes 'change' as a politics of emancipation. Bringing together original, specially-commissioned chapters by leading international scholars, it will rapidly establish itself as a landmark text.

This book engages with the diverse traditions within non-Western Marxisms, as they emerge across the Global South, positioning itself against calls for a "pure" Marxism. The author views Marxism as a conceptual "field", similar to electromagnetic or gravitational fields, where bodies and objects impact other bodies and objects without necessarily coming in contact with the. So too, in the "field" of Marxism, people behave in specific ways and deploy languages and concepts with their own specific inflections and accents. While rejecting the view of Marxism as an inherently European and fully-formed doctrine that is corrupted by contact with alien contexts, Nigam simultaneously acknowledges the residual force of certain elements of the theory and the gravitational pull that the authoritative figures continue to have on the evolution of the field in non-Western contexts. He argues that since a large part of Marxism's earthly journey was undertaken in the Global South, it is that experience that needs to be rendered legible, by setting aside the conceptual lens of Western Marxism that repeatedly misreads such experience. Ultimately, the book invites a fruitful and challenging re-examination of a variety of phenomena arising from the contemporaneous co-existence of pre-capitalist and capitalist social relations that have been an inextricable part of the majority of the world-what the author terms "untimely encounters."

Upturning the typical view of Turkey's democratic trajectory as a product of authoritarian assault or unfortunate circumstances, this book argues that the AKP, first elected in 2002, has consistently advanced a narrative of democracy as the work of an elite working for the 'National Will'. Beginning with an analysis of the historical processes that led to the AKP's rise at the beginning of the 21st century, the book then focuses on the AKP since 2002. Though Turkey's democratic transition was originally characterised by Western co-operation, the author outlines the gradual deterioration of these relations since the 2010s, as well as the decline of political rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law. However, bringing in theoretical perspectives of democracy, it is argued that the AKP has adopted an alternative definition based on the 'National Will' throughout its rule, resistant to the Western essentialist view. As such, the AKP's story highlights that the root of this crisis lies within democracy itself. The book will appeal to historians and analysts of Turkish politics, as well as to political scientists interested in theories of democracy. Moreover, for those interested in the global contemporary crisis of democracy, the book provides an important case-study.

This book introduces a refreshing approach to twenty-first-century scientific approach in an age, which is also known as the Century of Complexity. It deals with the deep problem of complexity, being operative from the bottom-up. The current lack of understanding of complexity has led scholars into the so-called embarrassment of complexity. A long overdue paradigm shift is necessary to address complexity as generative complexity and brings readers to the edge of a scientific revolution: that is, a generative revolution in the Century of Complexity. The book offers a radical shift of paradigm from the paradigm of simplifying into the new generative paradigm of complexifying about processes that develop from the bottom-up. The book links complex generative reality with a corresponding radical new generative nature of order and explores new fronts in science. This book explores innovative concepts of interaction, of causality, of the unit of study, and of reality itself and enables readers to see complexity as generative, emergent complexity as being operative from the bottom-up. The book discusses and suggests solutions for the problem of complexity in this Century of Complexity. The author provides a new understanding of complexity based on a generative flux of forces and relations. The book aims to bring about a fundamental and foundational change in how we view and 'do' science for an interdisciplinary audience of academics ranging from social science and humanities to economy and biology.

Capitalism and its Critics offers an accessible account of major theories of capitalism from the industrial revolution to the present day. The book provides a comprehensive account of the economic and social thought of key theorists from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to David Harvey and Thomas Piketty. Capitalism has long been the subject of passionate debate, and today such contestations are perhaps more timely than ever. For its advocates, capitalism brings democracy and freedom and is the cornerstone of modernity and of progress. For its critics, capitalism is based on the exploitation of labour and is responsible for the destruction of the environment as well as colonialism. Whether capitalism survives the century, or whether an alternative social system emerges, may very well determine the fate of humanity. Capitalism and its Critics gives a comprehensive critical analysis of the most important theorists of capitalism, including Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Polanyi, F.A. Hayek, J.M. Keynes, David Harvey, and Thomas Piketty. The book discusses some of the main debates about capitalism and considers alternatives in the twenty-first century. The 12 chapters are loosely chronologically organised around the main approaches and historical phases in the history of capitalism. Central themes of the book are the ideas of capitalist crisis and of tensions between democracy and capitalism in the making of modernity. A highly readable, informative and engaging text, Capitalism and its Critics is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding capitalism and its alternatives.

Feminist Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy: Theorizing the Non-Ideal is a collection of feminist essays that self-consciously develop non-idealizing approaches to either ethics or social and political philosophy (or both). Characterizing feminist ethics and social and political philosophy as marked by a tendency to be non-idealizing serves to thematize the volume, while still allowing the essays to be diverse enough to constitute a representation of current work in the fields of feminist ethics and social and political philosophy. Each of the essays either serves as an instance of work that is rooted in actual, non-ideal conditions, and that, as such, is able to consider any of the many questions relevant to subordinated people; or reflects theoretically on the significance of non-idealizing as an approach to feminist ethics or social and political philosophy. The volume will be of interest to feminist scholars from all disciplines, to academics who are ethicists and political philosophers as well as to graduate students.

This book begins from the premise that a common nature is shared by all human beings, regardless of social or economic background. The author asserts that significant moral consequences flow from the assumption that all human beings share a common set of natural needs. Using this starting point, the book seeks to defend an objectivist epistemology.

There has been an increasing interest in the meaning and importance of friendship in recent years, particularly in the West. However, the history of friendship, and the ways in which it has changed over time, have rarely been examined. Friendship: A History traces the development of friendship in Europe from the Hellenistic period to today. The book brings together a range of essays that examine the language of friendship and its significance in terms of ethics, social institutions, religious organizations and political alliances. The essays study the works of classical and contemporary authors to explore the role of friendship in Western philosophy. Ranging from renaissance friendships to Christian and secular friendships and from women's writing to the role of class and sex in friendships, Friendship: A History will be invaluable to students and scholars of social history.

America today is a hypersexual society. Sexual discourse, erotica, and pornography are pervasive in the culture. Sexual materials, many times extending into erotica and pornography, are found in the consumer world, academia, sex therapy, the publishing world, mass media (especially radio, television and movies) and the Internet. The sexual materials found in all these areas of American society provoke relentless opposition by groups and individuals who want to repress or censor sexual materials. The combined effects of those who promote and produce sexual materials, and those who try to supress them, add up to a cacophony of sexual discourse.

In this book eminent philosopher Burton Porter examines the concept of "forbidden knowledge" in religion, science, government, and psychology. From the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden (forbidden fruit), to world altering scientific research (nuclear power, stem-cells, cloning) to damning government secrets (Abu Ghraib, domestic spying), to traumatic experiences that individuals want to repress (sexual abuse), humanity has encountered knowledge that has been hidden and suppressed. We experience this denial as a loss of control and respect, and we want to know exactly what knowledge has been prohibited and why we cannot have access to it. Forbidden knowledge, therefore, is of enormous interest to the general public. The basic question, then, is: when, if ever, should knowledge be forbidden? Are there sacred realms that human beings are not meant to explore? Can scientific research be a Frankenstein monster, which will harm us one day? When are government secrets necessary for national security, and when does the public have a right to know? Is too much information classified? When do databanks, eavesdropping, and surveillance invade our privacy? Is self-deception justified if the truth would be psychologically disturbing? In short, can we know more than is good for us? The author takes the general position that too much material is prohibited, especially today, even while business and government invade individual privacy more and more. A primary assumption in a democracy is that we can have confidence in the people, so information should not be forbidden unless there is a vital and compelling reason to withhold it.

Max Stirner was one of the most important and seminal thinkers of the mid-nineteenth century. He exposed the religiosity behind secular humanism and rationalism, and the domination of the individual behind liberal modes of politics. This edited collection explores Stirner's radical and contemporary importance as a political theorist.

This book argues that the structure of public education is a key factor in the failure of America's public education system to fulfill the intellectual, civic, and moral aims for which it was created. The book challenges the philosophical basis for the traditional common school model and defends the educational pluralism that most liberal democracies enjoy. Berner provides a unique theoretical pathway that is neither libertarian nor state-focused and a pragmatic pathway that avoids the winner-takes-all approach of many contemporary debates about education. For the first time in nearly one hundred fifty years, changing the underlying structure of America's public education system is both plausible and possible, and this book attempts to set out why and how.

Historians have long noted the intense debates nineteenth and twentieth-century scholars had over the concept of work, but few are aware of the medieval debates over work that set the stage for modern discussions. Indeed, medieval society established the framework within which modern Western ideas about work have grown. It is essential, therefore, that we learn what medieval thinkers had to say on the subject. This study addresses this need by examining the thought of Peter Damian and numerous other religious leaders and groups of the High Middle Ages for evidence of their contributions. The result is a deepening of our historical understanding of the concept of work as well as widening our appreciation of the modern world's debt to medieval society.

Awarded an Honourable Mention by the Association for Israeli Studies. Exploring the politics of the image in the context of Israeli militarized visual culture, Civic Aesthetics examines both the omnipresence of militarism in Israeli culture and society and the way in which this omnipresence is articulated, enhanced, and contested within local contemporary visual art. Looking at a range of contemporary artworks through the lens of "civilian militarism", Roei employs the theory of various fields, including memory studies, gender studies, landscape theory, and aesthetics, to explore the potential of visual art to communicate military excesses to its viewers. This study builds on the specific sociological concerns of the chosen cases to discuss the complexities of visuality, the visible and non-visible, arguing for art's capacity to expose the scopic regimes that construct their visibility. Images and artworks are often read either out of context, on purely aesthetic or art-historical ground, or as cultural artefacts whose aesthetics play a minor role in their significance. This book breaks with both traditions as it approaches all art, both high and popular art, as part of the surrounding visual culture in which it is created and presented. This approach allows a new theory of the image to come forth, where the relation between the political and the aesthetic is one of exchange, rather than exclusion.

In 1980, Michel Foucault's work makes two decisive turns. On the one hand, as announced at the start of his course at the College de France for that year, Le Gouvernement des vivants, his topic will be the modalities through which power constitutes itself in relation to truth. On the other, the texts on which he will concentrate will no longer be those of the early modern period. Rather, he begins with one by Dio Cassius on the emperor Septimius Severus and then proceeds to spend the next two sessions offering a reading of Oedipus Tyrannus. He will concentrate on works from antiquity for the rest of his life. This book will offer the first detailed account of these lectures, examining both the development of their philosophical argument and the ancient texts on which that argument is based. This is the period during which Foucault also began work on Volumes 2 and 3 of the History of Sexuality. Yet, while there are clear overlaps between the work he was presenting in his course and the last books he published before his death, nonetheless the seminars are anything but rough drafts for the published work. Instead they offer a sustained encounter with the texts of the classical and early Christian era while seeking to trace a genealogy of the western subject as a speaker of truth.

This book is the first comprehensive interpretation of Nietzsche's Untimely Meditations. It argues that the four Meditations-which Nietzsche said "deserve the greatest attention for my development"-are not separate pieces, but instead form a unified philosophic narrative that constitutes his first attempt to diagnose and cure the spiritual ailments whose causes he traced to modern culture and science. Taking Nietzsche's commentary on the four essays in his autobiographical work Ecce Homo as its interpretive guide, this book also shows that the Untimely Meditations contain early expositions of concepts like the last man, the overman, the new philosopher, the creation of values, and the malleability of nature-all staples of his later philosophy.

This book explains how people can be radically manipulated by extreme groups and leaders to engage in incomprehensible and often dangerous acts through psychologically isolating situations of extreme social influence. These methods are used in totalitarian states, terrorist groups and cults, as well as in controlling personal relationships. Illustrated with compelling stories from a range of cults and totalitarian systems, Stein's book defines and analyses the common identifiable traits that underlie these groups, emphasizing the importance of maintaining open yet supportive personal networks. Using original attachment theory-based research this book highlights the dangers of closed, isolating relationships and the closed belief systems that justify them, and demonstrates the psychological impact of these environments, ending with evidence-based recommendations to support an educational approach to awareness and prevention. Featuring a foreword by John Horgan, the new edition has been fully updated to include recent work on political extremism and radicalization and totalitarian systems, as well as the recent highly publicized NXIVM case. Terror, Love and Brainwashing, second edition is essential reading for professionals, policy makers, legal professionals, educators and cult survivors and their families themselves.

Reading Texts on Sovereignty charts the development of the concept from the classical period to the present day. Defined in antiquity as an absolute or supreme type of power, sovereignty's history has been marked ever since by numerous moments of crisis and contestation through which its meaning has been redefined and reconfigured. Using extracts of key texts selected and analysed by leading contributors from the USA, the UK, New Zealand, Japan, Cyprus, Finland, France, Austria, Israel, and Italy, this volume examines these moments and how different societies have grappled with sovereignty through the ages. The book explores a diverse range of geographical and cultural contexts within which the issue of sovereignty became critical, including ancient China and medieval Islam. In addition, the book includes chapters that respond to the vital interplay between the development of the theory of sovereignty and such momentous historical events and developments as the birth of the democratic polis in the classical world, the legal and political developments that attended the rise of the Roman and Islamic empires, the bitter struggles over sovereign rights between the 'temporal' and 'spiritual' authorities of medieval and early modern Europe, the English Civil War, the French and American Revolutions, and the October Revolution.