scholarly journals Cynicism as Immanent Critique: Diogenes and the Philosophy of Transvaluation

2022 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-148
Author(s):  
Darren Gardner

Abstract I argue that Diogenes and early Cynicism can be understood in an explicitly social and political context, where Cynic praxis, performative public action, can be seen to make visible oppositions inherent to the polity. In doing so, Diogenes’ praxis should be understood as a form of immanent critique, one that demonstrates, for example, that nature and custom (phusis and nomos) are interrelated oppositions in the polis. Cynicism here is understood as a form of immanent critique because Diogenes challenges the social norms of the polis without endorsing external universal standards or predetermined models, but from illuminating dynamics from within the polis and polity.

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
CORNELIU BJOLA

AbstractBy remaining epistemologically committed to an outdated distinction between facts and values, traditional definitions of legitimacy either divest the concept of an important critical component or fail to properly anchor it in the social reality. As an alternative, the article proposes a constitutive theory of legitimacy that reconciles the epistemological tension via the concepts of fairness and tractability and bridges the theoretical gap via the concept of deliberative legitimacy. By applying it to the issue of the use of force, the article argues that a normatively sound and politically relevant model of legitimacy must take into account both to the manner in which actors’ commitment to social norms is crafted and the type of conditions that facilitate or constrain the definition, contestation, and adjudication of what counts as legitimacy in a particular political context.


In their debate over Dreyfus’s interpretation of Heidegger’s account of das Man in Being and Time, Frederick Olafson and Taylor Carman agree that Heidegger’s various characterizations of das Man are inconsistent. Olafson champions an existentialist/ontic account of das Man as a distorted mode of being-with. Carman defends a Wittgensteinian/ontological account of das Man as Heidegger’s name for the social norms that make possible everyday intelligibility. For Olafson, then, das Man is a privative mode of Dasein, while for Carman it makes up an important aspect of Dasein’s positive constitution. Neither interpreter takes seriously the other’s account, though both acknowledge that both readings are possible. How should one choose between these two interpretations? Dreyfus suggests that we choose the interpretation that identifies the phenomenon that the work is examining, gives the most internally consistent account of that phenomenon, and shows the compatibility of this account with the rest of the work.


Author(s):  
Sharon D. Welch

Assaults on truth and divisions about the nature of wise governance are not momentary political challenges, unique to particular moments in history. Rather, they demonstrate fundamental weaknesses in human reasoning and core dangers in ways of construing both individual freedom and cohesive communities. It will remain an ongoing challenge to learn to deal rationally with what is an intrinsic irrationality in human cognition and with what is an intrinsic tendency toward domination and violence in human collectivities. In times of intense social divisions, it is vital to consider the ways in which humanism might function as the social norm by, paradoxically, functioning in a way different from other social norms. Humanism is not the declaration that a certain set of values or norms are universally valid. At its best and most creative, humanism is not limited to a particular set of norms, but is, rather, the commitment to a certain process in which norms are continuously created, critically evaluated, implemented, sustained or revised. Humanism is a process of connection, perception, implementation, and critique, and it applies this process as much to itself as to other traditions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 175797592199863
Author(s):  
Ilhan Abdullahi ◽  
Navneet Kaur Chana ◽  
Marco Zenone ◽  
Paola Ardiles

With the current COVID-19 pandemic impacting communities across the globe, diverse health promotion strategies are required to address the wide-ranging challenges we face. Art is a highly engaging tool that promotes positive well-being and increases community engagement and participation. The ‘Create Hope Mural’ campaign emerged as an arts-based health promotion response to inspire dialogue on why hope is so important for Canadians during these challenging times. This initiative is a partnership between a health promotion network based in Vancouver and an ‘open air’ art museum based in Toronto. Families were invited to submit artwork online that represents the concept of hope. This paper discusses the reflections of organizers of this arts-based health promotion initiative during the early months of the pandemic in Canada. Our findings reveal the importance of decolonizing practices, centring the voices of those impacted by crisis, while being attentive to the social and political context. These learnings can be adopted by prospective health promoters attempting to use arts-based methods to address social and health inequities.


Author(s):  
Christian Sternad

AbstractAging is an integral part of human existence. The problem of aging addresses the most fundamental coordinates of our lives but also the ones of the phenomenological method: time, embodiment, subjectivity and intersubjectivity, and even the social norms that grow into the very notion of aging as such. In my article, I delineate a phenomenological analysis of aging and show how such an analysis connects with the debate concerning personal identity: I claim that aging is not merely a physical process, but is far more significantly also a spiritual one as the process of aging consists in our awareness of and conscious relation to our aging. This spiritual process takes place on an individual and on a social level, whereas the latter is the more primordial layer of this experience. This complicates the question of personal identity since it will raise the question in two ways, namely who I am for myself and who I am for the others, and in a further step how the latter experience shapes the former. However, we can state that aging is neither only physical nor only spiritual. It concerns my bodily processes as it concerns the complex reflexive structure that relates my former self with my present and even future self.


1989 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Kaiser-Lenoir

In order to assess Argentine New Theatre and traditional popular drama as comprising a phenomenon of convergence and continuity, one needs first to examine both forms in their relationship to hegemonic culture. Culture is viewed here not in monolithic terms, but rather as defined by its organic ties to a specific socio-political context. Consequently, the central question to be addressed is the way those ties become explicit in the artistic products themselves and, most importantly, in their functionality within the social sector they are inserted in. That functionality defines the ideological line between popular and mass culture, and determines the dynamic links between the New Theatre and traditional dramatic forms, in spite of obvious differences in discourse.


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