This article presents the intellectual approach of an important thinker of the contemporary world, Michel de Certeau (1925-1986), to show its coherence. At the first look his work seems confusing: it addresses both the mystical phenomena of the past and the daily life of his contemporaries. His interests are multifaceted: he was at the same time theologian, historian, sociologist, philosopher of history. His work is a permanent research in a world in perpetual transformation. Although his main field of research was (...) history, his first works dealt with theological problems. The interest of M. de Certeau begins by the analysis of mysticism as a phenomenon characteristic of the beginning of modern times. This leads him to take a broader interest in history as a set of events that cannot be reduced to a “system”. The spiritual experience of that period offers a clue to understanding current events. A significant part of M. de Certeau’s works deals with the problem of “modernity” and “everyday life”. There is a will to “think about event”. In the last part of his life, he works on the anthropology of the everyday life of “ordinary” people, in order to show the capacity they have to “invent” their existence by “tinkering” with the materials they receive. The religious dimension permeates all his work, his religious themes embrace both historical and contemporary Christianity. Christianity is for him the “religion of event”. That is why it must always remain open to meeting the other. Throughout his creativity Michel de Certeau shows a great concern for the singularity of every person, spiritual experience, interrelations with others. (shrink)

Systemic epistemic failings in institutions are often explained through settler epistemologies and settler colonial frameworks that both obscure and reproduce the conditions necessary for those failings to endure. What is never questioned in the standard picture of institutional epistemic injustice is the implicit origin myth of an ‘institutional big bang’ that spawned many modern social institutions out of presumably noble orienting goals for a well-functioning society in democratic nation-states. We are concerned with the functional outcomes of institutions in settler colonial (...) societies, and how these outcomes consistently undermine whitewashed narratives of any inherent institutional design allegedly aimed at promoting testimonial justice in settler colonial societies. Institutions are built to target and maintain a status quo, especially (but not only) when they are charged with securing part of the social order or fabric of settler colonial societies. We will illustrate this concern through a discussion of various functional outcomes of the U.S. institution of asylum using Shannon Speed’s (2019. Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler-Capitalist State. The University of North Carolina Press) analysis of the violence Indigenous women migrants from Latin America experience within the complex administrative web of U.S. migration and asylum systems. (shrink)

Previous research has found that funding disparities are driven by applications’ final impact scores and that only a portion of the black/white funding gap can be explained by bibliometrics and topic choice. Using National Institutes of Health R01 applications for council years 2014–2016, we examine assigned reviewers’ preliminary overall impact and criterion scores to evaluate whether racial disparities in impact scores can be explained by application and applicant characteristics. We hypothesize that differences in commensuration—the process of combining criterion scores into (...) overall impact scores—disadvantage black applicants. Using multilevel models and matching on key variables including career stage, gender, and area of science, we find little evidence for racial disparities emerging in the process of combining preliminary criterion scores into preliminary overall impact scores. Instead, preliminary criterion scores fully account for racial disparities—yet do not explain all of the variability—in preliminary overall impact scores. (shrink)

This paper proposes an extended idea of critique, bypassing the paradox of a critique of critique. It reconstructs the semantics of critique from ancient commentary to autonomous interpretation, identifying the blindness of critical theory in the claim to detect crises and to indicate how to overcome them. The critique of critique is achieved not by rejecting critique but by moving to second-order observation. In this understanding, critique does not refuse what is normal but observes it as improbable. Critical observation is (...) understood as reflection on normality, its opposite, and its alternatives. The debate on risk society is presented and commented on as an example. (shrink)

The papers in this volume present some of the most recent results of the work about contradictions in philosophical logic and metaphysics; examine the history of contradiction in crucial phases of philosophical thought; consider the relevance of contradictions for political and philosophical actuality. From this consideration a common question emerges: the question of the irreducibility, reality and productive force of (some) contradictions.

Some authors have claimed that Hegel's ‘determinate negation’ should be distinguished from ‘logical’ or ‘formal’ negation, that is, from a view of negation as a contradictory forming operator. In contrast, I argue that dialectical determinate negation involves a view of negation as a contradictory forming operator, and can therefore count as formal negation in every respect. However, as it is clear in contemporary glutty semantics of negation, one may distinguish between different accounts of the relationship between negation, contradiction and content. (...) I suggest that, differently from classical negation, and as glutty negation, dialectical negation has partial content. (shrink)

The paper is about the connection between logic and discrimination, with special focus on Plumwood’s ideas in her groundbreaking article ‘The Politics of Reason. Towards a Feminist Logic’ (1993). Although Plumwood’s paper is not focused on the notion of discrimination, what she writes is useful for illuminating some basic mechanisms of thought that are at the basis of discriminatory practices. After an introductory section about the concepts of logic and discrimination and their possible interconnections, I present Plumwood’s ideas in 1993 (...) with a special focus on their relevance for understanding the nature of discrimination. More specifically, I use examples of discriminatory practices that make the connection between logical operations and oppression envisaged by Plumwood clear. I focus especially on two questions: Can logic produce discrimination? Can logic contribute to the fight against discrimination? If so, how? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Theory in the “Post” Era: A Vocabulary for the 21st-Century Conceptual Commons ed. by Alexandru Matei, Christian Moraru and Andrei TerianLaura Elena Savu WalkerMatei, Alexandru, Christian Moraru, and Andrei Terian, editors. Theory in the “Post” Era: A Vocabulary for the 21st-Century Conceptual Commons. Bloomsbury, 2021. 376pp.Far from “mourning” the demise of theory, this timely and thoughtfully curated essay collection testifies to its “renewed vitality,” its compelling presence (...) “across fields, domains of life, and geocultural boundaries,” and its power to build an ever-expanding world community of practioners who are forming what has come to be known as a “theory commons” (ix). As the collection’s editors point out, theory’s new lease on life hinges on ensuring both the democratic workings of this “world discourse formation” (1) and on the responsible theorizing of the very notion of community in “a world threatened by all kinds of anti-communal actions and reactions, from runaway globalization to exacerbated tribalism and tunnel-vision politics” (x). Working on the margins, specifically, out of a Romanian “lab” called The Critical Theory Institute (CTI), which opened its doors in early 2000, the contributors seek to revise the “standard history of theory,” one whose “Western origins, authority, and cultural compass ” strike them as “exceedingly reductive” (3). This project of geotheoretical repositioning and recalibration aims to recast theory as a “quintessentially cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, trans- and intercontinental undertaking” (4). As such, it carries on the project, launched in a previous volume, Romanian Literature as World Literature (2018), of fashioning an alternative to the nation-state paradigm that has long shaped literary and intellectual histories. In both of these works, Romanian critics and theorists have tuned into a wide range of voices, and tapped into a shared conceptual and methodological apparatus—itself the product of “an ethno-linguistic medley of traditions” (8). This approach informs what editors see as the “epoch-making” (17) discursive paradigm that has taken shape in globally networked post-Cold War societies (17), a viral model of cultural influence that fosters an ontology of “contact, contagion, of infection, dissemination, and horizontal accumulation” (15).To give us a sense of theory’s complex genealogy and evolution, the editors reference the Bulgarian critic Galin Tihanov, who has attributed [End Page 122] important developments in contemporary theory to the achievements of theorists (Nikolai Trubetskoi, Roman Jakobson, Vladimir Propp, and Georg Lukács) and schools of thought (Russian Formalism and the Prague Linguistic Circle). In “Traveling Theory” (1983) and “Traveling Theory Reconsidered” (2000), Edward Said called attention to the migratory nature of contributions made, for instance, by Georg Lukács, whose theories moved across different European locales in this period. Since then, contemporary theory has branched out to integrate the travels and travails of scholars affiliated with theory labs located in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, and last, but not least, Romania (10).Theory in the “Post” Era highlights five characteristics that distinguish theory in the “post” era from earlier forms: 1) It has a “reluctantly epoch-alist” thrust (19; original italics), which assumes that the “post” lexicon entails “rupture, discontinuity, and opposition” (19), radical departures, tentative claims, provisional conclusions, and ex-centric perspectives; 2) it adopts a “self-reflexive and experimental” (20; original italics) stance in which theorists invoke inherited approaches or invent new ones; 3) it introduces a “transdisciplinary” (21; original italics) scope that allows authors to interrogate the foundations, aims, and methods of theoretical discourse and practice across several knowledge domains, from which they “borrow whole vocabularies and toolkits” (21); 4) it is “nationally, transnationally, and ecologically affiliative” (20) in ways that allow theorists to “think with others at a distance” (21) about global issues; and 5) it is programmatic, placing critical and theoretical concerns in the service of “the ethical, the political, and the communal” (22). Organized around three main themes (“Aesthetics,” “Temporalities,” and “Critical Modes”), the essays juxtapose discussions of pivotal historical events and cultural phenomena with literary analyses of Romantic era “classics,” modernist experiments, and postmodern works of the post-Communist era, a corpus that includes, but is not limited to, landmark works of national culture that are now part of a fast-expanding planetary... (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Hegel’s and Priest’s answers to three questions: “What is logic?” “Can logic be revised?” “If so, how is this done?” Considering that the two views are separated by more than 150 years in which logic has experienced its perhaps most radical revolution, the two accounts are surprisingly close. Both authors admit different meanings of “logic”. In both accounts what could be called a metaphysical concept of logic plays an important role. Moreover, both authors hold that (...) logic as theory can be revised. Yet the two conceptions also differ in some relevant respect. (shrink)

What is the nature of time? This new study engages with the philosophy of Henri Bergson on time and proposes a new way of thinking about the effects of future events on the past. According to Bergson, time is an integral feature of real things, just as much as their material or size. When a flower grows, it takes a period of real time for it to flourish, which cannot be quickened or slowed down, nor can it be eliminated from (...) the process of growth. Bergson named this real time 'duration' and argued that everything and everyone exist as duration, and that internal processes flow into one another, with no clear boundaries that separate one phase of duration from another. According to Bergson's philosophy, the past does not disappear but smoothly flows into the present, forming an indivisible dynamic unity. But what if the causal flow of temporal reality is not unidirectional? What if not only past events influence future ones, but future ones in their turn have retrospective effect on past occurrences? The author of this book analyses these key questions, asserts that the changeability of the past follows from Bergson's theory of time and proposes a theory of embodied time that involves the retrospective enrichment of reality. (shrink)

Russians and Westerners access, process and communicate information in different ways. Whilst Westerners favour detailed analysis of subject matter, Russians tend to focus on certain components that are, in their view, significant. This disparity makes it difficult to achieve constructive dialogues between Western and Russian stakeholders contributing to cross-cultural communication problems. The author claims that the difference in the ways Russians and Westerners negotiate information is a significant cultural difference between Russia and West rather than an irritating (and in principle (...) amenable) lack of analytical skills on the Russian partners’ part. Understanding the reasons behind the Russian-specific approaches to dealing with information would be a positive step towards a more effective cross-cultural communication, important in business situations and essential in diplomacy. (shrink)

This book seeks to fill a void in contemporary aesthetics scholarship by considering the cognitive features that make the aesthetic and artistic worthy of philosophical study. It innovatively seeks to correct the marginalization of aesthetics in analytical philosophy by reinterpreting aesthetic cognition through an integration of Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms with Paul Crowther's theory of imagination and philosophy of art.

My aim is to reconstruct the basic steps and the fundamental idea of Kant’s transcendental deduction of categories as well as Hegel’s interpretation and reframing of Kant’s idea. Hegel’s reading is crucial for two reasons: first, for fixing the basic form of the Kant­ian argument and secondly, for understanding its metaphilosophical relevance. For Hegel, philosophical proof has a specific nature, which distinguishes it from scientific proof and brings it closer to a juridical one. In this perspective the transcendental deduction, which (...) is universally considered one of the most difficult chapters in the history of philosophy, reveals itself as the genuine clarification of specifically philosophical proof. I first present the idea of Kant’s transcendental deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason as well as its Hegelian reading in the Science of Logic and reformulation as the very method of philosophy in the Philo­sophy of Right. I show what in the Kantian argumentation constituted the basis for Hegel’s own interpretation and transformation. In so doing, I highlight a ‘red thread’ between the two ideas of the transcendental deduction. I conclude by proposing a formal account of Kant’s and Hegel’s ideas and by summing up the main metaphilosophical insights we can gain from Kant’s idea and its Hegelian interpretation. (shrink)

The relation of our past memories and our communication with others is not simply that of linear causality, whereby our memories smoothly glide into our communicative performance and remain unaffected themselves. Psychologists reveal the opposite process where a current communication has an effect on our memories, not just influencing their selection but also producing false recognition. In this article I will attempt to give a philosophical evaluation of this twofold relationship of memory and communication, paying a special attention to the (...) fabrication of memories, to the significance of this process for the effectiveness of social integration, and to the effects it may have on our authenticity as individuals.An act of communication is not a creation ex nihilo but is a culmination of numberless physical and psychological processes, one of which is remembering, forgetting and recalling. What we say ourselves may be a logical and smooth prolongation of our memories and our past lives, but what we hear from others is not. The information that is communicated to us may contradict our previous beliefs, our previous understanding of the matter in question, and even threaten our established worldview. This is acutely felt by people who have to live through a value-changing period in their society or through a crisis in their personal life.Nevertheless we are required to maintain the communicative process and respond to new demands, and so we have to find ways of adapting ourselves to the new information, even if our past experiences and beliefs cannot serve as a foundation for accepting it. We can, however, construct such a foundation retrospectively, making ourselves believe that we were being prepared for this new situation. For example, the people who lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union, had to face a complete change of values, and the process of adaptation seemed less traumatic for those who, fabricated or inflated their own supposed disagreement with the system prior to the political changes. (shrink)

The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability. By.

The Moving Spotlight: An Essay on Time and Ontology. By Cameron Ross P..

This essay analyses Hegel’s use of the metaphor of «the cross and the rose», not only in the Preface to the Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, which all major interpretations refer to, but also in two other texts: Wer denkt abstrakt? of 1807 and the 1829 review of Schubart's and Garganico’s Über Philosophie überhaupt... In Wer denkt abstrakt? Hegel criticizes a sentimental, as equivalent to a «non concrete», interpretation of the figure; in the Preface he claims that «reason is the (...) rose in the cross of the present», assimilating the image to a platonic idea of State; in the review of 1829 he criticizes a naïve interpretation of the figure. In the light of these observations, it is possible to conclude that Hegel sees the figure as the specific image of the relation of the platonic and the critical element, typical of dialectical rationality. The Hegelian use of the figure thus results, in this perspective, by far more subtle than the one envisaged by its “political” interpretations. (shrink)

In this paper I consider Benedetto Croce’s interpretation and critique of Hegel’s dialectic in Ciò che è vivo e ciò che è morto della filosofia di Hegel (1906)and I compare it with a very similar critique elaborated by Gilles Deleuze around sixty years later (in Différence et répetition, 1968, Nietzsche et la philosophie,1962 and Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? 1991). Even if they are two very different authors, belonging to very different traditions and contexts, both Croce andDeleuze criticise Hegel with a (...) very similar argument, namely by saying that Hegel did not adequately take into account the concept of difference, and subordinated it to opposition (or negation). In addition, albeit by taking different roads, both Croce and Deleuze thought that philosophy has its own specific logic, and this logic is a logic of concept. (shrink)

In this paper I consider Hegel’s idea of logic in different passages of his work (in the Introduction to the Science of Logic, in the Vorbegriff of the Encyclopaedia Logic, in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy), and I compare it with some contemporary conceptions of logic. In my view, such a comparison is relevant in at least two senses. First, it makes possible to address the controversial question: «what kind of logic is Hegel’s logic?». Second, it allows to (...) locate Hegel’s view within contemporary debates, assessing its actuality. In this perspective, Hegel’s reflections reveal to be crucial in order to deal with some questions at the very core of contemporary debates in the philosophy of logic. (shrink)