The Political Task of Philosophical Anthropology in the Age of Converging Technologies

2021 ◽  
pp. 305-328
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Converging Technologies

A New Quarrel

On Universals ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 96-120
Author(s):  
Étienne Balibar
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
To Come ◽  
Question Today ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Universe

This chapter assesses the new “quarrel of universals” that now occupies philosophy and other overlapping disciplines. In this new quarrel, the question today is not only whether one is for or against the universal; the question is also how one defines the universal—a term whose surprising equivocity has become increasingly clear. Still more fundamentally, the question is how one should articulate the relationship between three related but heterogeneous terms whose widespread use has prompted conflicting claims: the universal, universality, and universalisms. The chapter begins by situating the question of the universal and its variations within the field that seems to constitute the strategic site of intersecting domains: philosophical anthropology, understood as the analysis of the historical differences of the human and of the problem that those differences pose to their bearers. It then outlines the difficulties which can be identified in every philosophical and political usage of the universal and its “doubles” according to three aporias. The first is the aporia of the multiplicity of the “world,” or of the universe as multiversum; the second is that of Allgemeinheit or All(en)gemeinheit, in other words, the irreducible gap between the universal and the common (or community); and, finally, that of co-citizenship, the form of belonging to a political unity to come, a unity whose law of belonging (membership) would be the heterogeneity within equality or the political participation of those foreign to the community.

Philosophical Anthropology and Dostoevsky's “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor”

1964 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellis Sandoz
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Fyodor Dostoevsky ◽  
The Brothers Karamazov ◽  
Grand Inquisitor ◽  
Brothers Karamazov

The political thought of Fyodor Dostoevsky grows out of his opposition to nihilism, atheistic humanism, and socialism in much the same way as the philosophy of Plato grew out of his opposition to the sophists. Indeed, the parallel of Dostoevsky's thought with that of Plato is to be seen in some further aspects of this fundamental opposition. Both the Russian master of the novel and the Hellenic founder of political science confronted adversaries for whom “Man is the measure of all things” and each based his opposition on the principle “God is the Measure,” to use Plato's formulation. This declaration, echoing like a thunderclap across more than twenty centuries of history, found consummate expression in the last great work of each writer: the Laws and The Brothers Karamazov.

scholarly journals From techno talk to social reflection

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rinie Van Est
Keyword(s):  
Public Participation ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Political ◽  
Converging Technologies ◽  
Points Of View

In politics many things depend on how an issue is framed from different points of view, including science and technology, society and public engagement. This threefold-framing of converging technologies has shaped the political and public debate on the topic. What are the lessons for the role of public participation in the field of converging technologies?

Kelsen’s Freudian Moment

2021 ◽  
pp. 66-93
Author(s):  
Robert Schuett
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conflicts Of Interests ◽  
The Core ◽  
Zoom In ◽  
The Impact

What makes Kelsen argue that we are no Kantian angels? Why is the Kelsenian state a centralised coercive order understood in terms of law as a system of norms? The chapter continues the exploration of Kelsen’s milieu and expands on it to examine how the impact of Freud’s psychology and philosophical anthropology on Kelsen’s thought relating to the dynamics of human nature, society, and the political as a problem of authority and obedience is shown to be real and profound. To zoom in on the core of Kelsen’s philosophy and political theory is to recapture a breathtakingly rich and realistic account of You and Me that makes clear, in the best of the Realist tradition, that where there is Us, the struggle for power and conflicts of interests are here to stay.

scholarly journals Antropologi Politik Helmuth Plessner

JAP UNWIRA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Yasintus T. Runesi
Keyword(s):  
Political Theology ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Practical Politics ◽  
Helmuth Plessner ◽  
Political Praxis ◽  
Economic Theology

In the contexts of contemporary social and political thought, a fundamental anthropological and political problem is thedebate about how deeply the essence of the human related to political praxis. The purpose of this article is to explore the idea ofHelmuth Plessner’s political anthropology as the middle paradigm, between political theology and economic theology. In thefirst and second parts of this article, Plessner’s philosophical anthropology will be presented, which focuses on the concept of theeccentric position of human being. Based on this concept, Plessner attempted to show the mutual interpenetration of philosophyand politics, which will be described in the third part of this article. Plessner insists on the importance of a philosophicalanthropology of the political for practical politics itself. Some conclusion will be drawn concerning the importance of smalldimensions of Plessner’s political anthropology in relation to the current political context.

scholarly journals Die mens as deelname aan ‘n ‘geskonde en besete wêreld’ : C.K. Oberholzer, fenomenologie en Pretoria

2009 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Duvenage
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
University Of Pretoria ◽  
The Future ◽  
The University

Human participation in a scarred and frenzied world: C.K. Oberholzer, phenomenology and PretoriaThis article focuses on the living presence of phenomenology as an intellectual tradition at the University of Pretoria, and more specifically the role of C.K. Oberholzer (1904–1983) in creating a space for such reflection. The article consists of four (interrelated) parts: the founding years of philosophy at the University of Pretoria against the colonial backdrop of the British Empire, and the rise of Oberholzer under different circumstances in the 1930s; a succinct definition and description of phenomenology in four chronological waves of influence over the last century; the specific way in which Oberholzer interpreted and appropriated phenomenology in the Pretoria context; and finally, the political implications of Oberholzer’s phenomenology and philosophical anthropology in the apartheid years, the present as well as the future.

Meaning, Identity and Freedom

2018 ◽  
pp. 33-54
Author(s):  
Craig Browne ◽  
Andrew P. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Human Subject ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
The Right ◽  
Moral Ontology

This chapter argues that four key philosophical themes inform Taylor’s political thought: the problem of meaning, the idea of moral ontology, the concern with identity, and the notion of effective freedom. It shows how Taylor’s conceptions of freedom, meaning and action contribute to his distinctive political perspective and serve to differentiate it from conceptions of political liberalism that prioritise the right over the good. One of Taylor’s major concerns has been developing a philosophical anthropology of the human subject and the chapter explicates this philosophical anthropology’s relationship to Taylor’s moral ontology. Taylor’s links to the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology are particularly highlighted, emphasising his claims that humans are ‘self-interpreting’ animals and that meaning is central to the human condition. The chapter explains how these ideas are developed in terms of distinctive features of Taylor’s writings, such as the narrative construction of the self and the idea of strong evaluations. A major concern of this discussion is the clarification of the political implications of Taylor’s contention that there is a connection between identity and an orientation to the good. A number of the criticisms of Taylor’s formulation of this relationship are explored and some initial evaluation of his holistic liberalism proposed.

Contractual thought and Durkheim’s theory of the social: A reappraisal

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Follert
Keyword(s):  
Limit Point ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Aggregate Formation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Canonical Texts

Emile Durkheim developed his sociology in part by pointing to the insufficiency of contractual explanations of society. This article examines several iterations of ‘the contract’ in light of the rediscovery of Durkheim’s (2011 [1894–1895]) lectures on Hobbes’ De Cive. By viewing these recovered lectures alongside his canonical texts, we find three ways in which Durkheim distinguished his sociology from political and economic understandings of the social, in contrast with the contractarianism of Hobbes, the contractualism of Rousseau and the ‘contractual solidarity’ of Spencer. In his accounts of these thinkers, Durkheim explicates both his philosophical anthropology and his ontology of the social. Whereas contractual explanations of society treat the social as artificial and/or a mere aggregate formation, the social for Durkheim arises spontaneously and exists as a sui generis formation. Through the clarification of these conceptual coordinates, the nature of the social and its relationship with the political for each of these four thinkers come more fully into view. The article concludes with a consideration of the problem of the dissolution of society, pointing to a limit point or horizon for what is thinkable within Durkheimian sociology.

The Social Origins and Provenance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document