Battlestar Galactica, Technology, and Life

2018 ◽  
pp. 76-106
Author(s):  
Kieran Tranter
Keyword(s):  
Empty Shell ◽  
The Public ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
Forms Of Life

This chapter explores the forms of life made by technical legality, through the re-imagined series Battlestar Galactica. It is argued that Battlestar Galactica deals directly with the triumph of technology and in so doing charts a way for living within technical legality.This chapter opens with the sovereign and moves to the personal. Battlestar Galactica, however, does not invite a return to the public. Rather the personal is the technical and the distinction between essence and artefact becomes blurred. Here Battlestar Galactica seemingly performs Heidegger’s foundational account of technology that sees technology as consuming humanity leaving a false, destructive and empty shell. Battlestar Galactica does not quite follow this script. It affirms that living remains after the end. Humanity as it has been known has been changed but agency and ‘life’ remains. This location, identified by Haraway, and developed by Braidotti, offers the possibility for living well in technical legality through knowing and feeling the ‘networks of the present.’

The Priority of Public Reasons and Religious Forms of Life in Constitutional Democracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
Mutual Accountability

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply.

Indigenous Movements in Latin America

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Becker ◽  
Richard Stahler-Sholk
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Indigenous Movements ◽  
Buen Vivir ◽  
The Public ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Public Consciousness

Political developments in Latin America have driven academic interest in Indigenous movements. This phenomenon emerged most clearly in the aftermath of massive uprisings that led to a flood of publications framed as “the return of the Indian” to the public consciousness. Much of our understanding of the history and trajectory of social movement organizing is a result of publications in response to these protests. Contemporary political concerns continue to inform much of the cutting-edge research on Indigenous movements. These issues include relations between social movements and elected officials (often framed as debates over horizontalism versus authoritarianism) and whether the extraction of natural resources can lead to economic development, including intense discussions over neoextractivism and the sumak kawsay, the Quechua term for living well (with equivalent phrases in other Indigenous languages, often translated in Spanish as buen vivir).

Attunement and Being-With

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-86
Author(s):  
David Egan
Keyword(s):  
First Person ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Nature ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
First Person Plural ◽  
Transcendental Idealist

Both Wittgenstein and Heidegger emphasize the public nature of the everyday: we not only share our world with others, but the intelligibility of that world finds public articulation. Wittgenstein emphasizes our attunement in sharing forms of life and constantly invokes the first person plural in talking about what ‘we’ do. This chapter offers a deflationary account of this ‘we’, resisting conventionalist and transcendental idealist readings. Heidegger’s account of Dasein as being-with takes on darker tones, as he describes the levelling influence of das Man, whereby we unreflectively align ourselves with what ‘one’ does. Contrary to some interpreters, the author argues that the influence of das Man, while inescapable, is not also suffocating, and that Heidegger’s account of distantiality allows us to see that we constantly maintain a necessary distance from das Man.

scholarly journals “If Some People Looked Like Elephants and Others Like Cats”: Wittgenstein on Understanding Others and Forms of Life

2015 ◽  
pp. 131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantine Sandis
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Mental Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Official View ◽  
Forms Of Life

This essay introduces a tension between the public Wittgenstein’s optimism about knowledge of other minds and the private Wittgenstein’s pessimism about understanding others. There are three related reasons which render the tension unproblematic. First, the barriers he sought to destroy were metaphysical ones, whereas those he struggled to overcome were psychological. Second, Wittgenstein’s official view is chiefly about knowledge while the unofficial one is about understanding. Last, Wittgenstein’s official remarks on understanding themselves fall into two distinct categories that don’t match the focus of his unofficial ones. One is comprised of those remarks in the Investigations that challenge the thought that understanding is an inner mental process. The other consists primarily of those passages in PPF and On Certainty concerned with the difficulty of understanding others without immersing oneself into their form of life. In its unofficial counterpart, Wittgenstein focuses on individuals, rather than collectives. The official and the unofficial sets of remarks are united in assuming a distinction between understanding a person and understanding the meaning of their words. If to understand a language is to understand a form of life, then to understand a person is to understand a whole life.

scholarly journals Life Support: The Problems of Working for a Living

2021 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-200
Author(s):  
Christine L. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Public Safety ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Job Quality ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Safety Nets ◽  
The Public ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
Forms Of Life

For most Americans, paid work is their primary means of support. A small percentage of Americans are wealthy enough that they do not need a job, but most people rely on their paychecks for survival. The coronavirus pandemic starkly reveals the limitations of this dependence. In this address, I draw attention to three “problems of working for a living”: lack of access to jobs, poor job quality, and inequality in the workplace. I will argue that addressing these problems is urgently needed to ensure the well-being of all workers. Going even further, I encourage consideration of alternative forms of life support, including expanding the private and the public safety nets, arguing that our existence should not depend exclusively on working for a living.

scholarly journals “The Writer Is Essentially Indiscrete.” On the Literary Gossip of a Dutch Literary Celebrity

Werkwinkel ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
Sander Bax
Keyword(s):  
Media Culture ◽  
Life Narrative ◽  
The Public ◽  
Literary Celebrity ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
Forms Of Life

Abstract In contemporary media culture, literary writers arouse the fascination of media fans by awakening in them the desire for the authentic by publishing autobiographical novels or other forms of life narrative. In doing so, they run the risk of becoming part of media’s large gossip mechanism that plays such a central role nowadays. The public conversation about the books of writers such as the Dutch author Connie Palmen - whose Logboek van een onbarmhartig jaar will be the main case study of this article - becomes focused on the elements of truth and authenticity and ignores the literary or fictional construction of the work. This article discusses the question whether this leaves any room for contemporary star authors to distinguish themselves from media gossipers.

Replications can cause distorted belief in scientific progress

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Białek
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychological Science

AbstractIf we want psychological science to have a meaningful real-world impact, it has to be trusted by the public. Scientific progress is noisy; accordingly, replications sometimes fail even for true findings. We need to communicate the acceptability of uncertainty to the public and our peers, to prevent psychology from being perceived as having nothing to say about reality.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document