Cartesian Secularity: “Disengaged Reason,” the Passions, and the Public Sphere Beyond Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (2007)

2019 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 1050-1084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Public ◽  
Neutral Space ◽  
Secular Age ◽  
The Public Sphere

AbstractAlthough explicitly challenging overly simplistic dichotomies between secular reason and religious affect, Charles Taylor’s monumental genealogy A Secular Age (2007) downplays the role of the body in Descartes’s theory of agency and mistakenly projects this understanding of the “Cartesian” self upon the public sphere of the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Through a careful reading of Descartes’s last work, Les Passions de l’Âme (1649), and drawing on existing work by Cottingham (2012), Kahn (2006), and Kirkebøen (2001), this article argues the Passions is better seen as an attempt to reinscribe politics in the body through Descartes’s theory of the habit. A focus on the latter yields a complex understanding of the emergence of the public sphere, not as a neutral space for the free exchange of rational speech acts, but as a power-driven environment shaped by the manipulation of habit-creating experiences. The article ends by considering some implications for the genealogy of our “secular age.”

scholarly journals MIKHAIL BAKHTIN, PAUL RICOEUR E HANNAH ARENDT: DIÁLOGOS EM TORNO DO ESPAÇO PÚBLICO E DAS LINGUAGENS

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (26) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adna Candido de Paula ◽  
Cristine Gorski Severo
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Double Structure ◽  
The World ◽  
The Public Sphere

RESUMO: Esteartigo tem po robjetivo apresentar, de maneira interdisciplinar, reflexões acerca da relação entre espaço público e linguagens. Trata-se de abordar o tema a partir: (i) das noções bakhtinianas de enunciado, significação, mundo da vida, mundo da cultura, responsabilidade e ética; (ii) das concepções ricoeurianas de atos de fala, de configuração do mundo habitável, dadupla estrutura da identidade, enquanto idem e ipse, da relação entre identidade e alteridade e da dimensão ética das narrativas ficcionais. Algumas dessas noções são aproximadas às definições de Arendt acerca do espaço público e do papel do discurso e da ação nesta esfera. Finalizando, o conceito de espaço público possibilita a discussão de uma certa concepção de ética, vinculada à relação (dialógica) dos sujeitos com a alteridade. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: discurso, espaço-público, linguagens, ética. ABSTRACT: This article aims at presenting, in an interdisciplinary way, reflections on the relation between the public space and languages. For this purpose,we shall discuss the following topics: (i) fromBakhtin’sperspective, the notions of: utterance, meaning, the world of life, the world of culture, responsibility and ethics; (ii) from Ricqueur’s perspective, conceptions of: speech acts, the configuration of the habitable world, the double structure of the identity – as idem and ipse –, the relation between self identity and otherness, and the ethical dimension in fictional narratives. Some of these notions are related to Arendt’s definitions of the public sphere and the role of discourse and action in this sphere. To conclude, the notion of public space leads us to a discussion of a certain conception of ethics connected to the (dialogic) subject-other relations. KEYWORDS: discourse, public space, languages, ethics.

The gender dimension of the 2020 Belarusian protest: Does female engagement contribute to the establishment of gender equality?

2021 ◽  
pp. 2336825X2110291
Author(s):  
Vasil Navumau ◽  
Olga Matveieva
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Depth Interviews

One of the distinctive traits of the Belarusian ‘revolution-in-the-making’, sparked by alleged falsifications during the presidential elections and brutal repressions of protest afterwards, has been a highly visible gender dimension. This article is devoted to the analysis of this gender-related consequences of protest activism in Belarus. Within this research, the authors analyse the role of the female movement in the Belarusian uprising and examine, and to which extent this involvement expands the public sphere and contributes to the changes in gender-related policies. To do this, the authors conducted seven semi-structured in-depth interviews with the gender experts and activists – four before and four after the protests.

scholarly journals Contested Numbers: Census Controversies and the Press in 1960s Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Gerardo Serra ◽  
Morten Jerven
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
The State ◽  
Population Census ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This article reconstructs the controversies following the release of the figures from Nigeria's 1963 population census. As the basis for the allocation of seats in the federal parliament and for the distribution of resources, the census is a valuable entry point into postcolonial Nigeria's political culture. After presenting an overview of how the Africanist literature has conceptualized the politics of population counting, the article analyses the role of the press in constructing the meaning and implications of the 1963 count. In contrast with the literature's emphasis on identification, categorization, and enumeration, our focus is on how the census results informed a broader range of visual and textual narratives. It is argued that analysing the multiple ways in which demographic sources shape debates about trust, identity, and the state in the public sphere results in a richer understanding of the politics of counting people and narrows the gap between demographic and cultural history.

The NGOization of Space: Dilemmas of Social Change, Planning Policy, and the Israeli Public Sphere

10.1068/d459t ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haim Yacobi
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
Planning Policy ◽  
Strategic Goals ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper offers a critical analysis of the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that deal with planning policy in general and in Israel in particular. The inherent dilemmas of the different NGOs' tactics and strategies in reshaping the public sphere are examined, based on a critical reading of Habermas's conceptualization of the public sphere. The main objective of this paper is to investigate to what extent, and under which conditions, the NGOization of space—that is, the growing number of nongovernmental actors that deal with the production of space both politically and tangibly—has been able to achieve strategic goals which may lead towards social change.

scholarly journals Desiring the Secular: Capital, Cohesion, and the Fantasy of Secularization

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 410
Author(s):  
Ian A. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Religious Subject ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Public Sphere

Towards the end of the twentieth century, religion re-emerged as a topic of pressing concern in a number of the most self-consciously secularized states of the global north. From disputes over the wearing of headscarves in schools to debates over accommodations for religious practices in the public sphere, religion, particularly the ‘foreign’ religiosity of migrants and other minority religious subjects, appeared on the scene as a phenomenon whose proper place and role in society required both urgent and careful deliberation. This article argues that in order to account for the affective potency produced by the immanence of the figure of the ‘foreign’ religious subject, it is necessary to understand secularization as fantasy. It is within the fantasy of secularization that the secular emerges as an object of desire—as something that, if attained, appears as a solution to the problem of ‘foreign’ religiosity—and figures of inassimilable religiosity assume the role of scapegoats for the failure to resolve these concerns. In this sense, within this fantasy scene, the secular promises to provide ‘us’ with something that we are lacking. However, this promise has been undermined by the apparent persistence of religious difference. As such, as a result of their continued religiosity, ‘they’ appear to be taking something from ‘us’.

Ambiguities and Clichés in the Debate about Public Intellectuals

2007 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Misztal
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
New Left ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
The Public ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper's purpose is to exam Turner's (2006a) thesis that Britain neither produced its own public intellectuals nor a distinctive sociology. It aims to outline difficulties with the logic of Turner's argument rather than to discuss any particular public intellectual in Britain. The paper argues that Turner's claim about the comparative insignificance of public intellectuals in Britain reinforces the myth of British exceptionalism and overlooks the significance of the contribution to the public sphere by intellectuals from other disciplines than sociology. It discusses Turner's assumption that intellectual innovation requires massive disruptive and violent change and suggests that such an assertion is not necessarily supported by studies of the conditions of the production of knowledge. Finally, the paper argues that Turner's anguish at the absence of public intellectuals among sociologists in Britain is symptomatic of New Left thinking that models the idea of the intellectual on Gramsci. In conclusion, the paper asserts that Turner's idea of the intellectual fails to note the tension at the heart of the role of public intellectual–the tension between specialist and non-specialist functions.

Secular–Religious Competition and the Exclusion of Islam from the Public Sphere: Islamic Welfare in Western Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Kortmann
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Service Delivery ◽  
Religious Competition ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Islamic Organizations

AbstractThis paper deals in a qualitative discourse analysis with the role of Islamic organizations in welfare delivery in Germany and the Netherlands. Referring to Jonathan Fox's “secular–religious competition perspective”, the paper argues that similar trends of exclusion of Islamic organizations from public social service delivery can be explained with discourses on Islam in these two countries. The analysis, first, shows that in the national competitions between religious and secular ideologies on the public role of religion, different views are dominant (i.e., the support for the Christian majority in Germany and equal treatment of all religions in the Netherlands) which can be traced back to the respective regimes of religious governance. However, and second, when it comes to Islam in particular, in the Netherlands, the perspective of restricting all religions from public sphere prevails which leads to the rather exclusivist view on Islamic welfare that dominates in Germany, too.

scholarly journals The Utopian Internet, Computing, Communication, and Concrete Utopias: Reading William Morris, Peter Kropotkin, Ursula K. Le Guin, and P.M. in the Light of Digital Socialism

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-186
Author(s):  
Christian Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Political Imagination ◽  
The Public ◽  
Internet Computing ◽  
Post Market ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Technology And Communication ◽  
Satisfaction Of Needs

This paper asks: What can we learn from literary communist utopias for the creation and organisation of communicative and digital socialist society and a utopian Internet? To provide an answer to this question, the article discusses aspects of technology and communication in utopian-communist writings and reads these literary works in the light of questions concerning digital technologies and 21st-century communication. The selected authors have written some of the most influential literary communist utopias. The utopias presented by these authors are the focus of the reading presented in this paper: William Morris’s (1890/1993) News from Nowhere, Peter Kropotkin’s (1892/1995) The Conquest of Bread, Ursula K. Le Guin’s (1974/2002) The Dispossessed, and P.M.’s (1983/2011; 2009; 2012) bolo’bolo and Kartoffeln und Computer (Potatoes and Computers). These works are the focus of the reading presented in this paper and are read in respect to three themes: general communism, technology and production, communication and culture. The paper recommends features of concrete utopian-communist stories that can inspire contemporary political imagination and socialist consciousness. The themes explored include the role of post-scarcity, decentralised computerised planning, wealth and luxury for all, beauty, creativity, education, democracy, the public sphere, everyday life, transportation, dirt, robots, automation, and communist means of communication (such as the “ansible”) in digital communism. The paper develops a communist allocation algorithm needed in a communist economy for the allocation of goods based on the decentralised satisfaction of needs. Such needs-satisfaction does not require any market. It is argued that socialism/communism is not just a post-scarcity society but also a post-market and post-exchange society.

scholarly journals Progressive Social Movements and the Internet

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah J. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Power ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Public Sphere

Because of the field’s foundational concerns with both social power and media, communication scholars have long been at the center of scholarly thought at the intersection of social change and technology. Early critical scholarship in communication named media technologies as central in the creation and maintenance of dominant political ideologies and as a balm against dissent among the masses. This work detailed the marginalization of groups who faced restricted access to mass media creation and exclusion from representational discourse and images, alongside the connections of mass media institutions to political and cultural elites. Yet scholars also highlighted the ways collectives use media technologies for resistance inside their communities and as interventions in the public sphere. Following the advent of the World Wide Web in the late 1980s, and the granting of public access to the Internet in 1991, communication scholars faced a medium that seemed to buck the one-way and gatekeeping norms of others. There was much optimism about the democratic potentials of this new technology. With the integration of Internet technology into everyday life, and its central role in shaping politics and culture in the 21st century, scholars face new questions about its role in dissent and collective efforts for social change. The Internet requires us to reconsider definitions of the public sphere and civil society, document the potentials and limitations of access to and creation of resistant and revolutionary media, and observe and predict the rapidly changing infrastructures and corresponding uses of technology—including the temporality of online messaging alongside the increasingly transnational reach of social movement organizing. Optimism remains, but it has been tempered by the realities of the Internet’s limitations as an activist tool and warnings of the Internet-enabled evolution of state suppression and surveillance of social movements. Across the body of critical work on these topics particular characteristics of the Internet, including its rapidly evolving infrastructures and individualized nature, have led scholars to explore new conceptualizations of collective action and power in a digital media landscape.

scholarly journals Archives, libraries and museums in the Nordic model of the public sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Håkon Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Library And Information Science ◽  
Archival Science ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of ALM organizations within a Nordic model of the public sphere. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper discussing the role of archives, libraries and museums in light of a societal model of the Nordic public sphere. Throughout the discussions, the author draw on empirical and theoretical research from sociology, political science, media studies, cultural policy studies, archival science, museology, and library and information science to help advance our understanding of these organizations in a wider societal context. Findings The paper shows that ALM organizations play an important role for the infrastructure of a civil public sphere. Seen as a cluster, these organizations are providers of information that can be employed in deliberative activities in mediated public spheres, as well as training arenas for citizens to use prior to entering such spheres. Furthermore, ALM organizations are themselves public spheres, as they can serve specific communities and help create and maintain identities, and solidarities, all of which are important parts of a civil public sphere. Research limitations/implications Future research should investigate whether these roles are an important part of ALM organizations contribution to public spheres in other regions of the world. Originality/value Through introducing a theoretical model developed within sociology and connecting it to ongoing research in archival science, museology, and library and information science, the author connects the societal role of archives, libraries, and museums to broader discussions within the social sciences.

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