Search results for "Continental philosophy"

Politics of the Idea: (Anti-)Platonic Politics in Arendt and Badiou

2020

This paper compares two influential but conflicting contemporary models of politics as an activity: those of Hannah Arendt and Alain Badiou. It discovers the fundamental difference between their approaches to politics in their opposing evaluations of the contemporary political significance of the legacy of Plato, Platonism, and the Platonic Idea. Karl Popper’s and Arendt’s analyses of the inherently ideological nature of totalitarianism are contrasted with Badiou’s vindication of an ideological “politics of the Idea.” Arendt and Badiou are shown to share an understanding of politics as a realm for the human deployment of novelty and world-transformation. Their key disagreement concerns the …

The Dialectics of Free Energy Minimization

2019

Karl Friston’s free energy minimization has been received with great enthusiasm. With good reason: it not only makes the bold claim to a unifying theory of the brain, but it is presented as an a priori principle applicable to living systems in general. In this article, we set out to show how the breadth of scope of Friston’s framework converges with the dialectics of Georg Hegel. Through an appeal to the work of Catherine Malabou, we aim to demonstrate how Friston not only reinvigorates Hegelian dialectics from the perspective of neuroscience, but that the implicit alignment with Hegel necessitates a reading of free energy minimization from the perspective of Hegel’s speculative philosophy.…

Ceļš: Latvijas Universitātes Teoloģijas fakultātes teoloģisks, reliģijpētniecisks un kultūrvēsturisks izdevums, Nr. 65

2015

Being Itself and the Being of Beings : Reading Aristotle’s Critique of Parmenides (Physics 1.3) after Metaphysics

2018

The essay studies Aristotle’s critique of Parmenides (Physics 1.3) in the light of the Heideggerian account of Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysics as an approach to being (Sein) in terms of beings (das Seiende). Aristotle’s critique focuses on the presuppositions of the Parmenidean thesis of the unity of being. It is argued that a close study of the presuppositions of Aristotle’s own critique reveals an important difference between the Aristotelian metaphysical framework and the Parmenidean “protometaphysical” approach. The Parmenides fragments indicate being as such in the sense of the pure, undifferentiated “is there” (τὸ ἐόν)—as the intelligible accessibility of meaningful reality to think…

Labor as Action: the Human Condition in the Anthropocene

2020

Abstract The Anthropocene has become an umbrella term for the disastrous transgression of ecological safety boundaries by human societies. The impact of this new reality is yet to be fully registered by political theorists. In an attempt to recalibrate the categories of political thought, this article brings Hannah Arendt’s framework of The Human Condition (labor, work, action) into the gravitational pull of the Anthropocene and current knowledge about the Earth System. It elaborates the historical emergence of our capacity to “act in the mode of laboring” during fossil-fueled capitalist modernity, a form of agency relating to our collectively organized laboring processes reminiscent of the…

The (Meta)politics of Thinking

2021

In this chapter, Jussi Backman approaches Hannah Arendt’s readings of ancient philosophy by setting out from her perspective on the intellectual, political, and moral crisis characterizing Western societies in the twentieth century, a crisis to which the rise of totalitarianism bears witness. To Arendt, the political catastrophes haunting the twentieth century have roots in a tradition of political philosophy reaching back to the Greek beginnings of philosophy. Two principal features of Arendt’s exchange with the ancients are highlighted. The first is her account, in The Human Condition (1958), of the profound transformation of the Greek perceptions of political life initiated by Plato, the…

Interdisciplinarity in The Second Sex: Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis

2015

This chapter analyzes Simone de Beauvoir’s way of combining different theoretical frameworks, in particular, those of phenomenology and psychoanalysis. To elucidate the nature of Beauvoirian interdisciplinarity, I will examine Beauvoir’s discussion of penis envy and her application of Helene Deutsch’s views. I will argue that the combination of psychoanalysis and phenomenology in The Second Sex brings about an inner tension, of which those interested in applying Beauvoir’s interdisciplinary approach should be aware. nonPeerReviewed

Le paraître et la parure. Corporéité et animalité chez Merleau-Ponty et Deleuze

2013

This chapter presents an overview on the corporeality and animality in Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. Ontological dimension of perception was particularly highlighted in the Phenomenology of Perception and this work will deepen considerably even in the visible and invisible by the introduction of theme of the flesh as "depth" and "being latency". Merleau-Ponty draws indeed fundamental philosophical conclusions about the structures of the Environment. Merleau-Ponty discusses the descriptive material assets and perceptual behavior of animals in their own environment, not in the laboratory. It is therefore a radical mistake to pretend to judge of animality in terms of theoretical knowledge. The in…

The structure of the sporting community: a dialogical proposal

2015

Este artículo se propone mostrar que la filosofía anglo-americana y la continental han de trabajar de forma conjunta dentro del área de la filosofía del deporte. Para ello, analizaré y aplicaré el concepto de la “comunidad comunicativa”, que se encuentra en la ética del discurso de Apel y Habermas, en relación al deporte. Algunos autores han tratado de realizar esta tarea con anterioridad, por ejemplo, Raúl Sebastian Solanes, Robert L. Simon y William J. Morgan. Por lo tanto, analizaré sus propuestas de modo crítico. Al hacerlo, mostraré que hemos de luchar por conseguir una comunidad deportiva más integrativa que la propuesta hasta el día de hoy, con el fin de dar sentido al deporte contem…

Ero ja immersio. Tutkimus artefaktin ongelmasta ja aineellisen ja käsitteellisen välisistä suhteista

2021

Tutkimus on kulttuurifilosofinen ja kulttuurintutkimuksellinen väitöskirja aineellisen artefaktin ongelmasta ja filosofinen tutkimus aineellisen mieltämisen ehdoista. Ihmistekoisen statuksen uudelleen arvioinnin pohjalta kehitän siinä uuden tavan ajatella aineellista ja ruumiillista. Historiallisesti suhteellisen nuoreen artefaktin käsitteeseen on tullut materiaalisuuksien kasvun myötä sen painon sivuuttavaa itsestäänselvyyttä, kuten tapahtui ikivanhalle olemisen käsitteelle Martin Heideggerin käänteentekevän huomion mukaan. Käsitteen neutraloituminen onkin siitä välittymättömän aineellisuuden neutraloitumista, mitä kutsun konstituutioharhaksi. Konstituutioharha on modernissa vallitseva tap…