scholarly journals Subject and subjectivity: V. Descombes VS S. Laugier

2021 ◽  
Vol - (6) ◽  
pp. 42-57
Author(s):  
Oxana Yosypenko

Despite the general applicability of philosophical concepts of the subject and subjectivity among philosophers, there is no unanimity in their understanding, even if we are talking about representatives of one philosophical trend. The subject of this article is the different understandings of subjectivity by two well-known French authors of analytical inspiration, V. Descombes and S. Laugier, which are united by the critique of the reflexive subject of the philosophy of mind, defending the idea of social mental nature, as well as appeal to the methodological resources of later Wittgenstein’s philosophy to develop the idea of a social subject. Despite their common attitudes, Descombes and Laugier are inspired by different traditions — Descombes, in general, develops the ideas of the French School of Sociology, while Laugier works in line of linguistic phenomenology, defined by the ordinary language philosophy and skeptical interpretations of Wittgenstein’s thought. Descombes builds the conception of the subject as an actor, formed not by his inside world, but by his action, the model of which is the institution of social life. Descombes’s practical subjectivity grows out of his critique of the reflexive paradigm of the philosophy of mind (consciousness) and is the actor’s ability to take the responsibility for his own actions. Instead, Laugier’s concept of «depsychologized subjectivity » focuses on the other side of the actor’s ability to act following some rule within the institutional paradigm of practice, namely the fragility and vulnerability of any human action, its defeats and difficulties, and the subject’s reluctance to be an actor and take the responsibility for his actions. Laugier defends the skeptical understanding of subjectivity as a property of the action of the delocalized subject of language and knowledge, his ability even by his inability to express the social naturalness of the human way of life.

Author(s):  
G. A. Zolotkov

The article examines the change of theoretical framework in analytic philosophy of mind. It is well known fact that nowadays philosophical problems of mind are frequently seen as incredibly difficult. It is noteworthy that the first programs of analytical philosophy of mind (that is, logical positivism and philosophy of ordinary language) were skeptical about difficulty of that realm of problems. One of the most notable features of both those programs was the strong antimetaphysical stance, those programs considered philosophy of mind unproblematic in its nature. However, the consequent evolution of philosophy of mind shows evaporating of that stance and gradual recovery of the more sympathetic view toward the mind problematic. Thus, there were two main frameworks in analytical philosophy of mind: 1) the framework of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy dominated in the 1930s and the 1940s; 2) the framework that dominated since the 1950s and was featured by the critique of the first framework. Thus, the history of analytical philosophy of mind moves between two highly opposite understandings of the mind problematic. The article aims to found the causes of that move in the ideas of C. Hempel and G. Ryle, who were the most notable philosophers of mind in the 1930s and the 1940s.


Author(s):  
Geoffrey Warnock

The label ‘ordinary language philosophy’ was more often used by the enemies than by the alleged practitioners of what it was intended to designate. It was supposed to identify a certain kind of philosophy that flourished, mainly in Britain and therein mainly in Oxford, for twenty years or so, roughly after 1945. Its enemies found it convenient to group the objects of their hostility under a single name, while the practitioners thus aimed at were more conscious of divergences among themselves, and of the actual paucity of shared philosophical doctrine; they might have admitted to being a ‘group’ perhaps, but scarcely a ‘school’. The sharp hostility which this group aroused was of two quite different sorts. On the one hand, among certain (usually older) philosophers and more commonly among the serious-minded public, it was labelled as philistine, subversive, parochial and even deliberately trivial; on the other hand, some philosophers (for instance, Russell, Popper and Ayer), while ready enough to concede the importance in philosophy of language, saw a concern with ordinary language in particular as a silly aberration, or even as a perversion and betrayal of modern work in the subject. How, then, did ‘ordinary language’ come in? It was partly a matter of style. Those taken to belong to the school were consciously hostile to the lofty, loose rhetoric of old-fashioned idealism; also to the ‘deep’ paradoxes and mystery-mongering of their continental contemporaries; but also to any kind of academic jargon and neologism, to technical terms and aspirations to ‘scientific’ professionalism. They preferred to use, not necessarily without wit or elegance, ordinary language. (Here G.E. Moore was an important predecessor.) Besides style, however, there were also relevant doctrines, though less generally shared. Wittgenstein, perhaps the most revered philosopher of the period, went so far as to suggest that philosophical problems in general actually consisted in, or arose from, distortions and misunderstandings of ordinary language, a ‘clear view’ of which would accomplish their dissolution; many agreed that there was some truth in this, though probably not the whole truth. Then it was widely held that ordinary language was inevitably fundamental to all our intellectual endeavours– it must be what one starts from, supplying the familiar background and terms in which technical sophistications have to be introduced and understood; it was therefore not to be neglected or carelessly handled. Again it was urged, notably by J.L. Austin, that our inherited everyday language is, at least in many areas, a long-evolved, complex and subtle instrument, careful scrutiny of which could be expected to be at least a helpful beginning in the pursuit of philosophical clarity. It was probably this modest claim– overstated and even caricatured by its detractors– which was most frequently supposed to be the credo of ordinary language philosophers. It was important that Russell – like, indeed, Wittgenstein when composing his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) – firmly believed, on the contrary, that ordinary language was the mere primitive, confused and confusing surface beneath which theorists were to seek the proper forms of both language and logic.


2015 ◽  
pp. 63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Laugier

This paper studies the concept of form of life as central to ordinary language philosophy (as understood in Wittgenstein’s, Austin’s and Stanley Cavell’s work): philosophy of our language as spoken; pronounced by a human voice within a form of life. Such an approach to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy shifts the question of the common use of language – central to Wittgenstein’s Investigations – to the definition of the subject as voice, and to the reinvention of subjectivity in language. The voice is both a subjective and common expression: it is what makes it possible for my individual voice, or claim, to become shared and for our forms of life to be intertwined with a lifeform.


Author(s):  
Aji Sulistyo

Television advertisement is an effective medium that aims to market a product or service, because it combines audio and visuals. therefore television advertisement can effectively influence the audience to buy the product or service. Advertisement nowadays does not only convey promotional messages, but can also be a medium for delivering social messages. That is one form of the function of the media, which is to educate the public. The research entitled Representation of Morality in the Teh Botol Sosro Advertisement "Semeja Bersaudara" version analyzed the morality value in a television advertisement from ready-to-drink tea producers, Teh Botol Sosro entitled "Semeja Bersaudara" which began airing in early 2019. In this study researchers used Charles Sanders Peirce's Semiotics theory with triangular meaning analysis tools in the form of Signs, Objects and Interpretations. In addition, researchers also use representation theory from Stuart Hall in interpreting messages in advertisements. The results of this study found that the "Semeja Bersaudara" version of Teh Botol Sosro advertisement represented a message in the form of morality. There are nine values of morality that can be taken in this advertisement including, friendly attitude, sharing, empathy, help, not prejudice, no discrimination, harmony, tolerance between religious communities and cross-cultural tolerance. The message conveyed in this advertisement is how the general public can understand how every human action in social life has moral values, so that the public can understand and apply moral values in order to live a better life.


2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-21
Author(s):  
Amanda Dennis

Lying in ditches, tromping through mud, wedged in urns, trash bins, buried in earth, bodies in Beckett appear anything but capable of acting meaningfully on their environments. Bodies in Beckett seem, rather, synonymous with abjection, brokenness, and passivity—as if the human were overcome by its materiality: odours, pain, foot sores, decreased mobility. To the extent that Beckett's personae act, they act vaguely (wandering) or engage in quasi-obsessive, repetitive tasks: maniacal rocking, rotating sucking stones and biscuits, uttering words evacuated of sense, ceaseless pacing. Perhaps the most vivid dramatization of bodies compelled to meaningless, repetitive movement is Quad (1981), Beckett's ‘ballet’ for television, in which four bodies in hooded robes repeat their series ad infinitum. By 1981, has all possibility for intentional action in Beckett been foreclosed? Are we doomed, as Hamm puts it, to an eternal repetition of the same? (‘Moments for nothing, now as always, time was never and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended.’)This article proposes an alternative reading of bodily abjection, passivity and compulsivity in Beckett, a reading that implies a version of agency more capacious than voluntarism. Focusing on Quad as an illustrative case, I show how, if we shift our focus from the body's diminished possibilities for movement to the imbrication of Beckett's personae in environments (a mound of earth), things, and objects, a different story emerges: rather than dramatizing the impossibility of action, Beckett's work may sketch plans for a more ecological, post-human version of agency, a more collaborative mode of ‘acting’ that eases the divide between the human, the world of inanimate objects, and the earth.Movements such as new materialism and object-oriented ontology challenge hierarchies among subjects, objects and environments, questioning the rigid distinction between animate and inanimate, and the notion of the Anthropocene emphasizes the influence of human activity on social and geological space. A major theoretical challenge that arises from such discourses (including 20th-century challenges to the idea of an autonomous, willing, subject) is to arrive at an account of agency robust enough to survive if not the ‘death of the subject’ then its imbrication in the material and social environment it acts upon. Beckett's treatment of the human body suggests a version of agency that draws strength from a body's interaction with its environment, such that meaning is formed in the nexus between body and world. Using the example of Quad, I show how representations of the body in Beckett disturb the opposition between compulsivity (when a body is driven to move or speak in the absence of intention) and creative invention. In Quad, serial repetition works to create an interface between body and world that is receptive to meanings outside the control of a human will. Paradoxically, compulsive repetition in Beckett, despite its uncomfortable closeness to addiction, harnesses a loss of individual control that proposes a more versatile and ecologically mindful understanding of human action.


Panggung ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arief Datoem

ABSTRACT This article aims at deepening the possibility of utilizing the art of photography that is rich of sig- nificance of the socio-cultural representation. The visual ethnographic field or photo-ethnography, which is relatively new, can provide assistance and answer for this. Therefore, the author has tried a form of collaboration between the photo-ethnographic approach and the sense approach in doing his research on the subject in order to obtain the deep understanding and the truth significance attached to them. The method of digital photography art creation which is intuitively the basis of the art cre- ation in digital domain, then was tried to be formulated, based on heuristics research in the process of the art of digital photography. This concept was developed from the experience in the field of digital photography and visual anthropology, guided by the basic theories of creativity, quantum theory in art, and theory of artistic creation that has existed before. Through emotional approach as a method, along with the structured systematic approach of photo-ethnography and with the deep awareness of the environment and social life of the subject leads to the creation of the image that tends to be better and more meaningful, more productive in a social sense, and offers a credible empiric documentation. Keywords: photo-ethnography, photography art works  ABSTRAK Artikel ini dibuat dalam upaya melakukan pendalaman mengenai kemungkinan peman- faatan seni fotografi yang kaya makna representasi sosio-kultural. Bidang etnografi visual atau foto-etnografi yang relatif masih baru, dapat memberikan bantuan dan jawaban un- tuk hal ini. Oleh karena itu penulis mencoba suatu bentuk kolaborasi antara pendekatan foto-etnografi dengan pendekatan rasa ketika melakukan penelitian terhadap subjek agar diperoleh pemahaman mendalam serta makna kebenaran yang menyertainya. Metode penciptaan seni fotografi digital yang merupakan dasar dari penciptaan seni secara intu- itif dalam domain digital, kemudian dicoba dirumuskan, berdasarkan penelaahan heu- ristik dalam proses seni fotografi digital. Konsep ini dikembangkan dari pengalaman di bidang fotografi digital dan antropologi visual, dipandu oleh teori-teori dasar kreativitas, teori kuantum dalam seni, dan teori penciptaan seni yang telah ada sebelumnya. Melalui pendekatan emosional sebagai metode, disertai dengan pendekatan sistematis yang ter- struktur dari foto-etnografi dan dengan kesadaran yang mendalam mengenai lingkungan dan kehidupan sosial subjek mengarah pada penciptaan gambaran yang cenderung lebih baik dan lebih bermakna, lebih produktif dalam arti sosial, dan menawarkan dokumentasi empiris yang kredibel. Kata kunci: foto-etnografi, karya seni fotografi


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 171
Author(s):  
Yusnawarni Yusnawarni

To commemorate the 21st century, a new learning model was designed in 2013 curriculum, in which there is a shift from teachers give knowledge to students become student must actively seek out knowledge from a variety of learning resources. In this case, the teacher acts as facilitators. Thus, language is a very central role, because the language should be in front of all other subjects. Curriculum 2013 imposed a thematic integrated learning which is no longer based subjects. Various subjects for primary schools (such as: Religion, Civics, Indonesian, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and so on) are integrated intoone book. The subject matter is not presented in textbook, but it presented in book thematics lesson, the themes are about nature, social life and culture. In this new curriculum, learning process is implemented by applying a scientific approach (observing, questioning, experimenting, associating, and networking) that includes three aspects such as attitudes, knowledge, and skills. So, how is the role of Indonesian in an integrated thematic learning by applying scientific approaches in primary schools in 2013 curriculum? By appying the method, the object of this paper is to gain preview about the role of Indonesian in 2013 curriculum that uses integrated thematic learning by scientific approach in primary schools.AbstrakUntuk menyongsong abad ke-21, model pembelajaran baru dirancang dalam Kurikulum 2013, yang di dalamnya terdapat pergeseran dari siswa diberi tahu menjadi siswa harus aktif mencari tahu ilmu pengetahuan dari berbagai sumber belajar. Dalam hal ini, guru berperan sebagai fasilitator. Dengan demikian, peran bahasa menjadi sangat sentral, karena bahasa harus berada di depan semua mata pelajaran lain. Kurikulum 2013 memberlakukan pembelajaran tematik terpadu yang tidak lagi berbasis mata pelajaran. Berbagai mata pelajaran untuk sekolah dasar (seperti: Agama, PPKN, Bahasa Indonesia, Matematika, IPA, IPS, dan sebagainya) diintegrasi menjadi satu buku. Materi pelajaran tidak disajikan dalam buku mata pelajaran, tetapi dalam buku tema pelajaran, baik tema alam, sosial, maupun budaya. Proses pembelajaran dalam kurikulum baru ini diimplementasikan melalui pendekatan saintifik (mengamati, menanya, menalar, mencoba, dan mengomunikasikan) yang mencakup tiga aspek, yaitu sikap, pengetahuan, dan keterampilan. Lalu, bagaimana peran bahasa Indonesia dalam pembelajaran tematik terpadu melalui pendekatan saintifik di sekolah dasar pada Kurikulum 2013 ini? Melaluimetode deskriptif, yang menjadi tujuan penulisan ini adalah mendapatkan gambaran mengenai peran bahasa Indonesia dalam Kurikulum 2013 yang menggunakan pembelajaran tematik terpadu melalui pendekatan saintifik di sekolah dasar.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-91
Author(s):  
Ctibor Határ

The present scientific study, mostly of theoretical and methodological nature, is intended to penetrate into the near past (and present) of geragogy as a discipline and analyze briefly the process of creating the constitution and methodology in the area of Europe (with emphasis on the Czech and Slovak and German provenance). Emphasis is also placed on theoretical and methodological basis of the current geragogy, covering the subject of investigation, content, objectives and tasks, science-systemic geragogy anchor being a methodological and methodical basis of senior education in various spheres of their individual and social life.


2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-624
Author(s):  
John D. Cox

AbstractShakespeare's most innovative genre was the history play, because it has no precedent in either classical or medieval tradition. In contrast to the focused teleology of Christian medieval drama, Shakespeare's history plays manifest an implicit idea of history that was secular, political, and open-ended. They emphasize human action in a political arena, where the criterion for success is the ability to act in time, without regard to one's spiritual state. Time determines royal succession, which is the focus of all Shakespeare's history plays, as it was the focus of political concern in England in the 1590s, when the plays were written. His emphasis on time and royal succession distinguishes his implied political theory from the moralism and authoritarianism of official Tudor state doctrine on one hand and from the pragmatism of Machiavelli on the other.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 263-287
Author(s):  
Avner Baz

I start with two basic lines of response to Cartesian skepticism about the ‘external world’: in the first, which is characteristic of Analytic philosophers to this day, the focus is on the meaning of ‘know’—what it ‘refers’ to, its ‘semantics’ and its ‘pragmatics’; in the second, which characterizes Continental responses to Descartes, the focus is on the philosophizing or meditating subject, and its relation to its body and world. I argue that the first approach is hopeless: if the Cartesian worry that I could be dreaming right now so much as makes sense, the proposal that—under some theory of knowledge (or of ‘knowledge’)—my belief that I am sitting in front of the computer right now may still be (or truly count as) a piece of knowledge, would rightfully seem to the skeptic to be playing with words and missing the point. I then argue that the practice of Ordinary Language Philosophy, which has mostly been linked to the first line of response to Cartesian skepticism, may be seen as actually belonging with the second line of response; and I show how a form of what may be called “Existentialist Ordinary Language Philosophy” can be used to reveal the nonsensicality of the Cartesian skeptical worry. My argument takes its cue from Thompson Clarke’s insight—an insight that Clarke himself has not pursued far or accurately enough—that our concept of Dream is not a concept of the “standard type.”


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