Introduction

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Coombs
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Complementary Pair ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Science Of History ◽  
French Theory

This chapter argues that the science of history has been misrepresented by postmodernists as a monolithic relic of modernity. If history and event are seen not as binary opposites but as a complementary pair, then both classical Marxism and a strand of French theory after Louis Althusser offer unique sciences of history. Although there is greater stress on historical discontinuity in post-Althusserian theory, this body of contemporary thought has commitments consistent with the Marxist understanding of revolution as a quantity to quality leap. The political stakes of Marxist and post-Althusserian theories are then introduced. The Hegelian influence on Marxism is presented as supporting political gradualism and technological determinism. Althusser is shown to set in motion a self-referential rationalism that shores up the authority of theorists. Chapter abstracts follow.

History and Event

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Coombs
Keyword(s):  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Marxist Philosophy ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Complementary Pair ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
The Status ◽  
French Theory ◽  
Historical Necessity

This book challenges the use of the terms 'history' and 'event' to register the shift from historical necessity in Marxism to contingent events in contemporary philosophy. It argues both classical Marxism and a strand of French theory after Louis Althusser understand history and event not as binary opposites but as a complementary pair. For Marxism, the fusion is accomplished by Hegelian dialectics and the idea of quantity to quality leaps. After Althusser, epistemological breaks in science provide the model for thinking revolutions as discontinuous with the status quo. Through critical readings of Hegel, Marx and Lenin, the first part of the book interrogates the politics of Marxist philosophy. While defending Marx from charges of 'historicism', the inability of Hegel's ‘leaps’ to think epistemological breaks is shown to support political gradualism and technological determinism. The book's second part, on Althusser, Badiou and Meillassoux, argues that although their philosophies think discontinuity more successfully, they tend towards a self-referential rationalism that shores up the authority of theorists. The final part of the book suggests that a way forward can be found in complexity theory and 'weak' notions of emergence.

Reading Politics with Machiavelli

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Family Farm ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
White Nationalism ◽  
The Republic

Reading Politics with Machiavelli is an anachronistic reading of certain key concepts in Machiavelli’s The Prince and The Discourses (as well as some of his correspondence). In 1513, soon after the Medici returned to power in Florence, Machiavelli lost his position as First Secretary to the Republic, and he was exiled. On his family farm, he began a self-consciously anachronistic reading of great political figures of antiquity, and, in combination with his own experience as a diplomat, crafted a unique perspective on the political crises of his time. At our own moment of democratic crisis, as the democratic imagination, as well as democratic habits and institutions face multiple attacks from neoliberalism, white nationalism, and authoritarianism, I argue that a similar method, in which we read Machiavelli’s work as he read Livy’s and Plutarch’s, can help us see the contingency, and the increasingly forgotten radical potential, of our politics. Louis Althusser argued that Machiavelli functions for us as an uncanny authority, one whose apparent familiarity is dispelled as we examine his epistolary yet opaque account of history, politics, and authority. This makes his readings a potentially rich resource for a time of democratic crisis. With that challenge in mind, we will examine the problems of conspiracy, prophecy, torture, and exile and use a close reading of Machiavelli’s work to make out new perspectives on the politics of our time.

scholarly journals Del individuo o de la producción aleatoria. Notas de investigación sobre el pensamiento de Louis Althusser

2013 ◽  
pp. 55-71
Author(s):  
José Francisco Barrón Tovar
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Four effects, I think, should be forced upon us in the re-reading of Althusser: 1) the concept of revolution that is put into operation to determine the exercise of politics, 2) the distinction between subject and individual to specify the practices of the political subjectivation, 3) the importance of language in thought and practice to make possible a different way of thinking, and 4) the insistence on a random-productive nature of the body to allow the production of the new.

The Political Interpretation of History

1937 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Arthur N. Holcombe
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Cause And Effect ◽  
Science Of History ◽  
Political Interpretation ◽  
The Mind

Ever since the inquisitive age in which Voltaire wrote his Philosophic Dictionary, reflection upon the course of human events has caused scholars to persist in the search for a rational interpretation of history. They have not been discouraged by the skepticism of historians who, like Froude, have argued that the address of history must be less to the understanding than to the higher emotions. “A science of history,” according to this historian, “implies that the relation between cause and effect holds in human things as completely as in all others; that the origin of human actions is not to be looked for in mysterious properties of the mind, but in influences which are palpable and ponderable.” Froude believed that “natural causes are liable to be set aside and neutralized by what is called volition,” and that in consequence “the word Science is out of place” in connection with the study of history. If, as Froude intimated, the origin of human actions can be found only in mysterious properties of the mind, the outlook for a rational interpretation of history may well be poor.

scholarly journals The Political Encounter with Louis Althusser:

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Banu Bargu ◽  
Robyn Marasco
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Louis Althusser

Modernism under Review: Fredric Jameson's The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (1981)

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-160
Author(s):  
Enda Duffy
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
American University ◽  
Political Unconscious ◽  
French Theory ◽  
Post War ◽  
Modern Era

Fredric Jameson's seminal text The Political Unconscious is one of the great works of post-war critical theory. It launched a materialist cultural studies in American university humanities departments and beyond. Its mandarin Marxism adapted the ‘Late Marxism’ of Lukács, Bloch, Adorno and others for the academy and for the post-modern era, focussing on Marxism's singular capacity to offer a total reading of an artwork. It also implicitly faces Marxism off against a wave of French theory that was new when the book was written, especially those theories of power being developed by Foucault and Deleuze. This essay makes the case that Jameson's book gives us a Deleuzian Marxism avant la lettre, and that the book should be reread with care now, when eco-critique has embraced a Deleuzianism that needs the heft of a class politics.

2. Overcoming illusions: how ideologies came to stay

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Freeden
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Antonio Gramsci ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Karl Mannheim ◽  
Social Landscape

The emergence of the concept of ideology from under the Marxist wing is a complex story. ‘Overcoming illusions: how ideologies came to stay’ traces this story and in particular the contributions of three 20th-century thinkers: Karl Mannheim, Antonio Gramsci, and Louis Althusser. Each of them, in their own way, operating from Marxist premises, contributed to the transformation of the conception of ideology. Their key insights led to the removal of much of the pejorative connotations of ideology and ensured that it became a permanent feature of the political and social landscape.

scholarly journals APIE ATEINANČIĄ SINTETINĖS BIOLOGIJOS KONDRATJEVO BANGĄ IR BIOKAPITALISTINĘ LIETUVĄ

Problemos ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 79-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zenonas Norkus
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Artificial Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Technological Determinism ◽  
Technological Revolution ◽  
Digital Capitalism ◽  
Natural Life ◽  
Mode Of Production

Straipsnyje nagrinėjamos šiuo metu prasidedančios naujos mokslinės-techninės revoliucijos technologinės prielaidos ir politinės ekonominės pasekmės. Technologines prielaidas sukuria naujas technomokslas – sintetinė biologija, arba radikali genų inžinerija, kuri leidžia pereiti nuo natūralių gyvybės rūšiųgenomo modifikavimo prie dirbtinių rūšių kūrimo. Nors daugiausia masinės informacijos priemonių dėmesio sulaukia sintetinės biologijos perspektyvos medicinoje, didžiausių ekonominių pasekmių jos raida gali turėti energetikoje, tradicinės ir kompiuterių pramonės technologijoje, sukeldama šeštąją Kondratjevo bangą. Jos politinė ekonominė pasekmė – naujo biokapitalistinio gamybos būdo, pakeisiančio dabartinį pofordistinį skaitmeninį kapitalizmą, susiformavimas. Straipsnyje kritikuojamas technologinis determinizmas kaip bendroji socialinės kaitos priežasčių teorija, tačiau pripažįstamas jo adekvatumas technokapitalistinių gamybos būdų atžvilgiu. Kritiškai vertinama Ray’aus Kurzweilio tezė, kad nauja technologinė revoliucija baigsis transhumaniškuoju singuliarumu. Pateikiamas alternatyvus oficialiajam Lietuvos po 2030 metų raidos scenarijus.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: technologinis determinizmas, sintetinė biologija, šeštoji Kondratjevo banga, biokapitalizmas, Lietuva po 2030 metų.On the Coming Synthetic Biology Kondratieff Wave and Biocapitalist LithuaniaZenonas Norkus SummaryThe paper discusses technological conditions and political-economical outcomes of the forthcoming scientific-technological revolution. Its technologicalconditions will be created by the synthetic biology (extreme genetic engineeering) as new technoscience in the making which promises the transition from the tinkering modification of the genome of natural life species to the creation of the artificial life species. Mass media focus on the prospects of synthetic biology in the medical biotechnologies. However, the changes in the energetics, technology of traditional and computer industries brought by the advances in the synthetic biology may have much more important economic outcomes, unleashing the 6th Kondratieff wave. The political economical outcome of the synthetic biology technological revolution will be the formation of the new biocapitalist mode of production which will succeed contemporary digital capitalism. The author rejects technological determinism as general theory of causes of social change. However, technological determinism remains suitable for the explanation of social change in the societies grounded in the technocapitalist modes of production. Prediction by Ray Kurzweil of transhuman singularity imminent after synthetic biological revolution in technology is also rejected. The paper closes with the alternative to the official scenario of development of Lithuania by and after 2030.Key words: technological determinism, synthetic biology, sixth Kondratieff wave, biocapitalism, Lithuania after 2030.  

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