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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Social & political philosophy
Dissenting Words is a lively and engaging collection of interviews that span the length of Jacques Ranciere's trajectory, from the critique of Althusserian Marxism and the work on proletarian thinking in the nineteenth century to the more recent reflections on politics and aesthetics. Across these pages, Ranciere discusses the figures, concepts and arguments he has introduced to the theoretical landscape over the past forty years, the themes and concerns that have animated his thinking, the positions he has defended and the wide range of objects and discourses that have attracted his attention and through which his thought has unfolded: history, pedagogy, literature, art, cinema. But more than reflecting on the continuities, turns, ruptures and deviations in his thought, Ranciere recasts his work in a different discursive register. And the pleasure we experience in reading these interviews - with their asides, displacements and reconstructions - stems from the way Ranciere transforms the voice of the thinker commenting on his texts and elucidating his concepts into another, and equally rich, manifestation of his thought. Core sections of this edition are translated from the french publication Et tant pis pour le gens fatigues, by Jacques Ranciere, (c) Editions Amsterdam 2009, published by arrangement Agence litteraire Pierre Astier & Associes
Organization, Society and Politics helps readers understand the strengths and limitations of Western civilization's most influential social theorist. Would you like to know why Aristotle said we are 'political animals' (and what that really means); or see how his Politics can be used to evaluate the legacy of the Blair government, and examine David Cameron's 'Big Society'? How does the Nicomachean Ethics help us understand the 2011 UK riots? Perhaps you are suspicious of claims that 'good ethics is good business' and would like to be able to say why, or curious to see how Aristotle's Poetics can be used to teach about revolution, or glimpse the rhetorical skills of Barack Obama? This thought-provoking volume explores these topics amongst many others. Specialists will welcome the attention to original texts, whilst non-specialists will appreciate the lucid summaries and applications that make Aristotle fascinatingly accessible and relevant across politics, business studies, and social science.
Throughout its ten related essays, Imagining the Real contrasts our abstract imaginings about the human world with the imaginative insights provided by art and experience. It questions, variously, the relevance of game theory and sociobiology to politics; the supposed intrinsic values of liberal freedom, cultural change, and democratic action; and the claims of Marxism, deconstruction and "Theory" generally to be non-ideological. More positively, it reinterprets fiction as a specific invitation to imagine, and celebrates Shakespeare, L.H. Myers and Beckett as truly critical, because truly imaginative, exponents of ideas.
In this age of overlapping and mutually reinforcing deep global crises (financial convulsions, global warming, mass migrations, militarism, inequality, selfish nation-states, etc.), there needs to be more realistic dialogue about radical alternatives to the status quo. Most literature produced heretofore has focused on the surface causes of these crises without much attention given to the sorts of major societal changes needed in order to deal with the crises we face. This book moves the debate beyond the critiques and the false or not fully realised alternatives, to focus on what can be termed "practical utopias". The contributors to this book outline a range of practical proposals for constructing pathways out of the global economic, ecological and social crisis. Varieties of Alternative Economic Systems eschews a single blueprint but insists on dealing directly with the deep structural problems and contradictions of contemporary global capitalism. It provides a diverse array of complementary proposals and perspectives that can inform both theoretical thinking and practical action. This volume will be of interest to academics and students who study political science, ecological economics, international politics and socialism.
The Routledge Companion to Politics and Literature in English provides an interdisciplinary overview of the vibrant connections between literature, politics, and the political. Featuring contributions from 41 scholars across a variety of disciplines, the collection is divided into five parts: Connecting Literature and Politics; Constituting the Polis; Periods and Histories; Media, Genre, and Techne; and Spaces. Organised around familiar concepts - such as humans, animals, workers, empires, nations and states - rather than theoretical schools, it will help readers to understand the ways in which literature affects our understanding of who is capable of political action, who has been included in and excluded from politics, and how different spaces are imagined to be political. It also offers a series of engagements with key moments in literary and political history from 1066 to the present in order to assess and reassess the utility of conventional modes of periodization. The book extends current discussions in the area, looking at cutting-edge developments in the discipline of literary studies as a whole which will appeal to academics and researchers seeking to orient their own interventions into broader contexts.
This book centres on Samuel Pufendorf's (1632-1694) moral and political philosophy, a subject of recently renewed interest among intellectual historians, philosophers and legal scholars in the English-speaking world. Pufendorf's significance in conceptualizing sociability in a way that ties moral philosophy, the theory of the state, political economy, and moral psychology together has already been acknowledged, but this book is the first systematic investigation of the moral psychological underpinnings of Pufendorf's theory of sociability in their own right. Readers will discover how Pufendorf's psychological and social explanation of sociability plays a crucial role in his natural law theory. By drawing attention to Pufendorf's scattered remarks and observations on human psychology, a new interpretation of the importance of moral psychology is presented. The author maintains that Pufendorf's reflection on the psychological and physical capacities of human nature also matters for his description of how people adopt sociability as their moral standard in practice. We see how, since Pufendorf's interest in human nature is mainly political, moral psychological formulations are important for Pufendorf's theorizing of social and political order. This work is particularly useful for scholars investigating the multifaceted role of passions and emotions in the history of moral and political philosophy. It also affords a better understanding of what later philosophers, such as Smith, Hume or Rousseau, might have find appealing in Pufendorf's writings. As such, this book will also interest researchers of the Enlightenment, natural law and early modern philosophy.
This edited volume examines concepts of sincerity in politics and international relations in order to discuss what we should expect of politicians, within what parameters they should work, and how their decisions and actions could be made consistent with morality. The volume features an international cast of authors who specialize in the topic of sincerity in politics and international relations. Looking at how sincerity bears on political actions, practices, and institutions at national and international level, the introduction serves to place the chapters in the context of ongoing contemporary debates on sincerity in politics and international theory. Each chapter focuses on a contemporary issue in politics and international relations, including corruption, public hypocrisy, cynicism, trust, security, policy formulation and decision-making, political apology, public reason, political dissimulation, denial and self-deception, and will argue against the background of a Kantian view of sincerity as unconditional. Offering a significant comprehensive outlook on the practical limits of sincerity in political affairs, this work will be of great interest to both students and scholars.
This edited collection showcases some of the best recent research in the philosophy of science. It comprises of thematically arranged papers presented at the 5th conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA15), covering a broad variety of topics within general philosophy of science, and philosophical issues pertaining to specific sciences. The collection will appeal to researchers with an interest in the philosophical underpinnings of their own discipline, and to philosophers who wish to study the latest work on the themes discussed.
This progressive volume furthers the interreligious, international and interdisciplinary understanding of the role of religion in the area of human rights. Building bridges between the often-separated spheres of academics, policy makers and practitioners, it draws on the expertise of its authors alongside historical and contemporary examples of how religion's role in human rights manifests. At the core of the book are four case studies, dealing with Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Authors from each religion show the positive potential that their faith and its respective traditions has for the promotion of human rights, whilst also addressing why and how it stands in the way of fulfilling this potential. Addressed to policy makers, academics and practitioners worldwide, this engaging and accessible volume provides pragmatic studies on how religious and secular actors can cooperate and contribute to policies that improve global human rights.
Who is entitled to be a citizen? What rights and duties does citizenship involve? These political questions are being asked today with a renewed urgency, both by practising politicians and by scholars. These essays by distinguished contributors examine the changing frontiers of modern citizenship. They look at the way citizenship is being reshaped within the nation state, in relations between women and the state, under the impact of economic crisis and recession, and in the face of new multinational political forces.
For centuries it has been assumed that democracy must refer to the empowerment of the People's voice. In this pioneering book, Jeffrey Edward Green makes the case for considering the People as an ocular entity rather than a vocal one. Green argues that it is both possible and desirable to understand democracy in terms of what the People gets to see instead of the traditional focus on what it gets to say. The Eyes of the People examines democracy from the perspective of everyday citizens in their everyday lives. While it is customary to understand the citizen as a decision-maker, in fact most citizens rarely engage in decision-making and do not even have clear views on most political issues. The ordinary citizen is not a decision-maker but a spectator who watches and listens to the select few empowered to decide. Grounded on this everyday phenomenon of spectatorship, The Eyes of the People constructs a democratic theory applicable to the way democracy is actually experienced by most people most of the time. In approaching democracy from the perspective of the People's eyes, Green rediscovers and rehabilitates a forgotten "plebiscitarian" alternative within the history of democratic thought. Building off the contributions of a wide range of thinkers-including Aristotle, Shakespeare, Benjamin Constant, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and many others-Green outlines a novel democratic paradigm centered on empowering the People's gaze through forcing politicians to appear in public under conditions they do not fully control. The Eyes of the People is at once a sweeping overview of the state of democratic theory and a call to rethink the meaning of democracy within the sociological and technological conditions of the twenty-first century. In addition to political scientists and students of democracy, the book likely will be of interest to political journalists, theorists of visual culture, and anyone in search of political principles that acknowledge, rather than repress, the pathologies of political life in contemporary mass society.
Must freedom be sacrificed to achieve ecological sustainability - or vice versa? Can we be genuinely free and live in sustainable societies? This book argues that we can, if we recognise and celebrate our ecological embeddedness, rather than seeking to transcend it. But this does not mean freedom can simply be redefined to fit within ecological limits. Addressing current unsustainability will involve significant restrictions, and hence will require political justification, not just scientific evidence. Drawing on material from perfectionist liberalism, capabilities approaches, human rights, relational ethics and virtue theory, Michael Hannis explores the relationship between freedom and sustainability, considering how each contributes to human flourishing. He argues that a substantive and ecologically literate conception of human flourishing can underpin both capability-based environmental rights and a eudaimonist ecological virtue ethics. With such a foundation in place, public authorities can act both to facilitate ecological virtue, and to remove structural incentives to ecological vice. Freedom and Environment is a lucid addition to existing literature in environmental politics and virtue ethics, and will be an excellent resource to those studying debates about freedom with debates about ecological sustainability.
The essays in this Festschrift are celebrations of the human mind in its manifold expressions - philosophical, scientific, historical, aesthetic, political - and in its various modes - analytical, systematic, critical, imaginative, constructive. They are offered to Robert S. Cohen on the occasion of his 70th birthday, in acknowledgment of his own extra ordinary participation in the life of the mind, and of his unfailing encouragement and facilitation of the participation of others. It is fitting that these volumes should appear in the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, the series which he co-founded so many years ago, and of which he has been the principal editor for more than three decades. (These are perhaps the only volumes of that series which he has not edited or co-edited ) The three volumes that constitute this Festschrift cover the range of Cohen's interests as a philosopher/scientistlhumanist, as they also represent the spectrum of his professional and personal friendships. (Regretfully, the editors could not include contributions from more of them here. ) The first volume centers around the philosophy and history of the natural sciences and mathematics; Volume Two collects essays related to Marxism and science, philosophy of culture and the social sciences; and the third volume focuses on science and the humanistic understanding in art, epistemology, religion and ethics."
The book presents the first comprehensive survey of limits of the intentional control of action from an interdisciplinary perspective. It brings together leading scholars from philosophy, psychology, and the law to elucidate this theoretically and practically important topic from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary approaches. It provides reflections on conceptual foundations as well as a wealth of empirical data and will be a valuable resource for students and researchers alike. Among the authors: Clancy Blair, Todd S. Braver, Michael W. Cole, Anika Fasche, Maayan Davidov, Peter Gollwitzer, Kai Robin Grzyb, Tobias Heikamp, Gabriele Oettingen, Rachel McKinnon, Nachschon Meiran, Hans Christian Roehl, Michael Schmitz, John R. Searle, Gottfried Seebass, Gisela Trommsdorff, Felix Thiede, J. Lukas Thurmer, Frank Wieber.
This book explains the notational system NUSAP (Numeral, Unit, Spread, Assessment, Pedigree) and applies it to several examples from the environmental sciences. The authors are now making further extensions of NUSAP, including an algorithm for the propagation of quality-grades through models used in risk and safety studies. They are also developing the concept of Post-normal Science', in which quality assurance of information requires the participation of extended peer-communities' lying outside the traditional expertise.
This innovative account of Charles de Gaulle as a thinker and writer on nationalism and international relations offers a view of him far beyond that of a traditional nationalist. Centring on the way de Gaulle regarded nations as individuals the author frames his argument by rationalising de Gaulle's nationalism within the existential movement that flowed as an intellectual undercurrent throughout early and mid-twentieth-century France. Graham O'Dwyer asserts that this existentialism of the nation and 'the presence of the past' allowed de Gaulle to separate the 'nation' from the 'state' when looking at China, Russia, Vietnam, and East European countries, enabling him to understand the idiosyncrasies of specific national characters better than most of his contemporaries. This was especially the case for Russia and China and meant that he read the Cold War world in a way that Washington and London could not, allowing him a unique insight into how they would act as individuals and in relation to other nations.
Revised for the first time in over thirty years, this edition of
Emile Durkheim's masterful work on the nature and scope of
sociology is updated with a new introduction and improved
translation by leading scholar Steven Lukes that puts Durkheim's
work into context for the twenty-first century reader.
In this exciting new study, Don Dombowsky proposes that the
foundation of Nietzsche's political thought is the aristocratic
liberal critique of democratic society. But he claims that
Nietzsche radicalizes this critique through a Machiavellian
conversion, based on a reading of "The Prince," adapting
Machiavellian "virtbliog-- "(the shaping capacity of the
legislator), and immoralism (the techniques applied in political
rule), and that, consequently, Nietzsche is better understood in
relation to the political ideology of the neo-Machiavellian elite
theorists of his own generation.
This is an elegantly written and well-organised book on a subject whose star continues to rise. Those who are familiar with Rapport's project will be anticipating its publication with some excitement. Those who are not familiar with his work are in for a treat in that this is the culmination of his work so far... He is an exceptional essayist and although each chapter might stand alone, together they form a considerable contribution which is significant both in terms of the theoretical and moral advance of the discipline. . Peter Collins, Durham University The book is one of the first full-length monographs on the cosmopolitan project in anthropology, and should draw a wide readership... It]is well researched and brings together a wealth of important scholarly sources. Readers stand to learn much from the discussion. . Lisette Josephides, Queen's University Belfast The significance that people grant to their affiliations as members of nations, religions, classes, races, ethnicities and genders is evidence of the vital need for a cosmopolitan project that originates in the figure of Anyone - the universal and yet individual human being. Cosmopolitanism offers an alternative to multiculturalism, a different vision of identity, belonging, solidarity and justice, that avoids the seemingly intractable character of identity politics: it identifies samenesses of the human condition that underlie the surface differences of history, culture and society, nation, ethnicity, religion, class, race and gender. This book argues for the importance of cosmopolitanism as a theory of human being, as a methodology for social science and as a moral and political program. Nigel Rapport is Professor of Anthropological and Philosophical Studies at the University of St. Andrews, where he directs the Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies. He has also held a Canada Research Chair in Globalization, Citizenship and Justice. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh."
This volume presents the concepts of schizoanalysis and ecosophy as Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze understood them, in interviews and analyses by their contemporaries and followers. This accessible yet authoritative introduction is written by distinguished specialists, combining testimonies from some of Guattari's colleagues at the La Borde psychiatric clinic where he practiced, with expository essays on his main ideas, schizoanalysis and ecosophy, as well as his relations with Lacan. The last section of the book deals with the subsequent creative application of those ideas by his philosophical and psychoanalytic followers situated within the contemporary moment. This collection also provides the crucial historical context of France at the time Guattari was developing his concepts, including the role of the Maoists and the significance of the political situation in Algeria.
Reorientation: Leo Strauss "in the 1930s" seeks to explain the
'change in orientation' that Strauss underwent during a decade of
personal and political upheaval. Though he began to garner
attention in the 1950s, it was in the 1930s that Strauss made a
series of fundamental breakthroughs which enabled him to recover,
for the first time since the Middle Ages, the genuine meaning of
political philosophy. Despite this being a period of marked output
and activity for Strauss, his research in this era remains
overlooked. This volume is the first to assemble in one place an
examination of Strauss' various publications throughout the decade,
providing a comprehensive analysis of his work during the period.
It includes, for the first time in English, five newly translated
writings of Strauss from 1929-37, brought to life with insight from
leading scholars in the field.
Like any other social activity, negotiation exhibits both universal patterns determined by the finite possibilities of its nature and local variations determined by cultural practices. Universalities predominate if one digs deep enough, and peculiarities abound in surface manifestations. This book investigates how deep is deep enough, and how shallow the surface, and attempts to find the meeting line. As more and more individuals meet around the negotiation table, providing conditions for cultural encounters and clashes, this volume examines the actors involved, the role culture plays, and the role of organizations.
In this broad philosophical examination of the relationship between religion and the family, Jay Newman delves into issues concerning Biblical religion, culture, sociology, and family values. He maintains that recent media debates about the Bible and family values have obscured the complex relationship between the family and religion. Focusing on how the family values that the Biblical literature imparts might be relevant--or irrelevant--to family problems and other cultural problems in a modern Western democracy, this study contributes to the understanding of basic cultural relations between religion and the family. After reflecting on the effects of much Biblical teaching on the family, the book proceeds to explore the cultural and existential significance of competition and cooperation between Biblical religion and the family. |
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