What Is an Intervention? Metaphilosophical Critique and the Reinvention of Contemporary Theory

Author(s):  
Gabriel Rockhill

The introduction distinguishes between two different modalities of theoretical practice: one that plays by the rules of an established discourse (an interpretation) and another that seeks to contest these norms in order to introduce alternative forms of intellectual practice (an intervention). Based on this distinction, it outlines the basic stakes of the book as a whole: to intervene in the discourse of contemporary continental philosophy. It then provides an overview of the methodological orientation of the various essays by detailing three different forms of intervention that are operative—to varying degrees—in all of them. To begin with, the essays contribute to a descriptive intervention that seeks to develop the broad lines of a counter-history of contemporary thought in which the dominant schematizations are called into question. Secondly, the chapters contribute either explicitly or implicitly to a metaphilosophical critique of contemporary theoretical practice by questioning many of the unspoken norms that govern philosophic work in the present. This form of critical or metaphilosophical intervention is closely intertwined with a discursive intervention, which consists in elaborating new discursive strategies for thinking and alternative models for doing philosophy.

2021 ◽  
pp. 175048132110177
Author(s):  
Shushan Azatyan ◽  
Zeinab Mohammad Ebrahimi ◽  
Yadollah Mansouri

The Velvet Revolution of Armenia, which took place in 2018, was an important event in the history of Armenia and changed the government peacefully by means of large demonstrations, rallies and marches. This historic event was covered by Armenian news media. Our goal here was to do a Discourse-Historical Analysis of the Armenian Velvet Revolution as covered by two Armenian websites: armenpress.am-the governmental website and 168.am-the non-governmental website. In our analysis we identified how the lexicon related to the Armenian Velvet Revolution was negotiated and legitimized by these media, and which discursive strategies were applied. We concluded that ‘Armenpress’ paid more attention to the government’s speeches, discussions, meetings and tried to impose the opinion of the government upon the people. In contrast, ‘168’ tried to present itself as an independent website with a neutral attitude toward the Velvet Revolution but, in reality, as we can conclude from the negative opinions about the Velvet Revolution in the coverage of ‘168’, it also represented the government’s interests. There was also a discursive struggle over the exact meaning of ‘revolution’ and the sense of ‘velvet’ in politics and the academic field that was to some extent introduced by these media.


2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-343
Author(s):  
Francis Dupuis-Déri

Résumé.L'étude des discours des «pères fondateurs» du Canada moderne révèle qu'ils étaient ouvertement antidémocrates. Comment expliquer qu'un régime fondé dans un esprit antidémocratique en soit venu à être identifié positivement à la démocratie? S'inspirant d'études similaires sur les États-Unis et la France, l'analyse de l'histoire du mot «démocratie» révèle que le Canada a été associé à la «démocratie» en raison de stratégies discursives des membres de l'élite politique qui cherchaient à accroître leur capacité de mobiliser les masses à l'occasion des guerres mondiales, et non pas à la suite de modifications constitutionnelles ou institutionnelles qui auraient justifié un changement d'appellation du régime.Abstract.An examination of the speeches of modern Canada's “founding fathers” lays bare their openly anti-democratic outlook. How did a regime founded on anti-democratic ideas come to be positively identified with democracy? Drawing on the examples of similar studies carried out in the United States and France, this analysis of the history of the term “democracy” in Canada shows that the country's association with “democracy” was not due to constitutional or institutional changes that might have justified re-labelling the regime. Instead, it was the result of the political elite's discursive strategies, whose purpose was to strengthen the elite's ability to mobilize the masses during the world wars.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-442
Author(s):  
Anatoly KUDRYAVTSEV ◽  

Different geotectonic hypotheses with respect to flood basalt provinces formation interpretation were analysed. Geotectonic models are proposed to unite in two groups: II. Traditional: plume-tectonic interpretation; I. Alternative models: delamination hypothesis and others.The flood basalt provinces properties (geological structure, history of development) study permits finding the best mantle-lithosphere interaction model.Keywords: flood basalt provinces, plume-tectonics, magmatism.


PMLA ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 116 (2) ◽  
pp. 370-379
Author(s):  
Robert L. Carringer

It was not long ago that one prefecture of french culture was reinventing the idea of authorship while another one was trying to kill it off. The New Wave movement and post-structuralism, fundamental opposites in almost every respect, emerged at the same cultural moment. Roland Barthcs's Writing Degree Zero (1953) and François Truffaut's seminal essay in Cahiers du cinéma that instated auteur criticism (the first phase of the New Wave) appeared less than a year apart; the appearance of Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization (1961) coincided with the triumph of New Wave filmmaking; and in the interval between 1966 and 1970, which saw the publication of The Order of Things, Of Grammatology, and S/Z, Jean-Luc Godard, the most iconoclastic of the New Wave critic-directors, released fourteen feature films, including four masterworks. In its classic phase poststructuralism was fixated on the written word, involved disciplined thought inflected by mainstream Continental philosophy, took on itself the burden of refashioning modern European history along Marxist lines, and could be uncompromisingly rectitudinous. The New Wave spoke the language of images, involved a loose and—except for its radical stylistics—rather tame avant-gardism, valued an aleatory, free-form aesthetic over political commitment, assailed mainstream French culture, and championed alternative forms of cultural production such as American popular movies. Yet the teleologies were similar: to inscribe a unique place in the history of authorship. To supplant the biographical author from the textual site, one of the primary motives of poststructuralism, was to make the collective space available for a higher entity, the philosopher-critic who is the author not of individual texts but of textuality, the social meaning of texts. In the same way, in claiming the textual site for a film author—a radical conception for the time—the auteur critics scripted a role for themselves that they would subsequently occupy as film directors.


2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Dupuis-Déri

An examination of the speeches of modern Canada’s “founding fathers” reveals that they were openly antidemocratic. How did a regime founded on anti-democratic ideas come to be positively identified with democracy? Drawing on similar studies of the United States and France, this analysis of the history of the term democracy in Canada shows that the country’s association with democracy was not due to constitutional or institutional changes that might have justified re-labelling the country’s political regime. Rather, it was the result of discursive strategies employed by the political elite to strengthen its ability to mobilize the masses during the World Wars.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Suzana Ignjatović ◽  
Aleksandar Bošković

The paper deals with methodological individualism in sociocultural anthropology. Key theories and debates within the framework of methodological individualism in anthropology are presented in the paper. The authors discuss criticisms aimed at the use of methodological individualism in anthropology as not suitable for anthropology, due to its specificity. Instead, they argue that methodological individualism has advantages for a better understanding of many anthropological topics, especially compared to methodological holism. The authors’ assumption is that anthropology is not exclusively a holistic science, as the history of anthropological theory points to an important tradition of methodological individualism. The focus is placed on alternative models of scientific explanation, found in the works of contemporary anthropologists (Holy, Stuchlik), as well as methodological individualists from other disciplines (Boudon), whose conclusions are applicable to anthropology. Methodological individualism does have a significant place in anthropology. There are areas of anthropology that can draw heuristic benefit from epistemological approaches based on the principles of methodological individualism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Blustein ◽  
Saba Rasheed Ali ◽  
Lisa Y. Flores

In this contribution, we provide a critical analysis of the current status of vocational psychology and present an expansive vision for the future. We begin with an overview of the importance of vocational psychology in the history of The Counseling Psychologist, followed by a critical review of contemporary theory, research, practice, and training. We aim to expand the traditional purview of career choice and development and broaden the impact of the field to meet the needs of all who work and who want to work. We propose a new mission for vocational psychology characterized by innovative theoretical advancements, renewed interdisciplinary and international collaborations, and the inclusion of macrolevel factors in research, practice, and policy. Lastly, we conclude with a vision of vocational psychology in 20 years, which optimally will be reflected in a broadened scope of mission, integrative theoretical frameworks, and an expanded training and policy agenda.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-249
Author(s):  
Michael J. Horswell

This article explicates the discursive strategies deployed by the curator of the Museo travesti de Perú (2008), philosopher, activist, and artist Giuseppe Campuzano (1969–2013), to explore theoretical intersections of national identity and globalization(s) and to appreciate a testimonial, Neo-Baroque, peripheral aesthetic that challenges and “decolonizes” the cultural history of peripheral genders and sexualities in Latin American countries like Peru. Through an analysis of the museum’s visual codes in its works of art and a discursive interpretation of the narratives framing those pieces, this essay demonstrates how the Museo travesti is an exaltation of difference and a critical agent for a citizenship of inclusion — a testimonial agent that activates and circulates works of art in order to not only promote knowledge of reality, but to transform that reality through effects of decolonization from the national periphery.


Author(s):  
Christian Smith

The task undertaken in this paper is to discover a means by which the practice of literary criticism can derive an imperative for activism that confronts and changes the social conditions it critiques. The case of Karl Marx’s use of world literature in his critique of capitalism and the state, set within the history of the development of continental philosophy, is explored through a close-reading of its interterxtuality. Particular attention is paid to Marx’s use of quotations from and allusions to world literature, including Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe and Heine, to register the harmful inversions caused by an economy based on money and commodities. If literature registers the contradictions of its time in its form and content, then the urge to resolve those contradictions sits restless in literature. When Marx inserts literature into his theoretical texts, he transfers into his text the impulse of the contradiction to resolve itself. Similarly, literary criticism is well-placed to unfold clear, obvious and necessary logic which leads to activism.


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