Artificial Intelligence (AI): Hidden Rules of our Society

AI explanatory research community has become vital in AI, because explanatory analysis of AI opens up and explains the operating principles of the hidden rules of AI. Explanatory AI community expounds the construction role between human-machine in AI modelling, and breaks the gap in understanding the hidden layers of AI. Instead of Alan Turning’s (1936) well-known problem of decidability (Entscheidungsproblem) the review approaches the AI hidden rules of our society from them knowledge interest (Erkenntnisinteresse) premises coined by German social theorist Jürgen Habermas (1970; 1978). This review illuminates how our contemporary society is constructed with AI models and hidden rules of artificial intelligence. It shall enlighten the Artificial Intelligence (AI) modelling complexity and illustrate AI hidden rules functionality in our society. AI explanatory research community opens field of wider discursion for socio-technological scholars, where aim is to understand AI's role in our society.

The prescience and paradox of Erich Fromm: A note on the performative contradictions of critical theory

As social theorists seek to understand the contemporary challenges of radical populism, we would do well to reconsider the febrile insights of the psychoanalytic social theorist Erich Fromm. It was Fromm who, at the beginning of the 1930s, conceptualized the emotional and sociological roots of a new ‘authoritarian character’ who was meek in the face of great power above and ruthless to the powerless below. It was Fromm, in the 1950s, who argued that societies, not only individuals, could be sick. This essay traces the intertwining of psychoanalytic and sociological methods that allowed Fromm to create such new ideas. At the same time, it highlights how Fromm’s sociology was hampered by an economistic Marxist approach to the institutions and culture of democratic capitalist societies. Such theoretical restriction prevented Fromm from conceptualizing how institutions like democracy, science, and psychotherapy can provide resources for widespread emotional recuperation and civil repair.

Archaeological Methodology: Foucault and the History of Systems of Thought

Existing accounts of Foucault’s archaeological methodology have not (a) contextualized the concept properly within the intellectual field of its emergence and (b) explained why it is called ‘archaeology’ and not simply ‘history’. Foucault contributed to the field of ‘history of systems of thought’ in France around 1960 by broadening its scope from the study of scientific and philosophical systems into systems of ‘knowledge’ in a wider sense. For Foucault, the term ‘archaeology’ provided a response to new methodological questions arising from this initiative. Archaeological methodology had already been developed into a distinct comparative approach for the study of linguistic and cultural systems, notably by Dumézil. Foucault redevised archaeological methodology for the post-Hegelian tradition of studying ‘problems’ prevalent in the history of systems of thought. The article thus furnishes the groundwork for a ‘sociological archaeology’ or ‘problem analysis’ that is not particularly dependent on Foucault as a social theorist of power.

Recovering the Thought of Edward Shils

This article provides an extended review of The Calling of Social Thought, a collection of essays about the thought of social theorist Edward Shils. The article includes preliminary observations about Shils’ life and work, brief summaries of the essays included in the collection, and several suggestions aimed at encouraging additional study of Shils’ writings.

Sex in the Cut

The talk will attempt to explore the nature of the division or cut implied, also etymologically, in the term “sex”. It will attempt to develop a concept of division that does not imply any pre-existing whole, but rather exists as a self-standing entity, endowed by a reality of its own. What if the division implied in “sex” is not simply that between two sexes (or more), but rather something that marks the unrest of sexuality itself? How could this be related to the contemporary feminist struggle, and what kind of concept of universality would it imply? Author(s): Alenka Zupančič Title (English): Sex in the Cut Journal Reference: Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 17, No. 2-3 (Winter 2020) Publisher: Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities - Skopje Page Range: 20-26 Page Count: 7 Citation (English): Alenka Zupančič, “Sex in the Cut,” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 17, No. 2-3 (Winter 2020): 20-26. Author Biography Alenka Zupančič, Institute of Philosophy, Scientific Research Center of the Slovene Academy of Sciences Alenka Zupančič is a Slovene philosopher and social theorist. She works as research advisor at the Institute of Philosophy, Scientific Research Center of the Slovene Academy of Sciences. She is also professor at the European Graduate School in Switzerland. Notable for her work on the intersection of philosophy and psychoanalysis, she is the author of numerous articles and books, including Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan; The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche’s Philosophy of the Two; Why Psychoanalysis: Three Interventions; The Odd One In: On Comedy; and, most recently, What Is Sex?

Varieties of ‘rationality’ and the question of their continued theoretical relevance

The notion of ‘rationality’ has always been one of the more controversial social-scientific ideas. Today there exist many conceptual varieties of rationality which are often less than clearly distinguished and the precise intellectual import of which likewise tends to be opaque. In this article I draw on classical and contemporary examples from sociology, political science and economics in the effort to clarify the many meanings of the notion and to demonstrate that it is more useful as well as more legitimate for explanatory purposes than some canonical critiques suggest. As the behavioral economics revolution has made clear, many varieties of rationality are both empirically and theoretically limited or outright falsified. However, although it is now certain that rationality cannot be the singular basis of a universal, general theory of social behavior, I argue it can and should form one important part of a larger conceptual toolbox upon which a social theorist can draw when devising tractable theoretical explanations of social phenomena.

Resurrecting Proudhon’s idea of justice

Much of the writing of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) is neglected within sociology. Yet building on the work of Auguste Comte, Proudhon was an influential, if controversial, social theorist throughout the 19th century. Proudhon, “the father of anarchism,” held an understanding of progress antagonistic toward that of Marx, his contemporary within the emerging socialist movement. While Comte and Marx focused on knowledge or class struggle respectively as the source of progress within society, Proudhon argued that only justice generates social progress. Several notable French sociologists have written on the importance of Proudhon’s work, but contemporary sociology continues to neglect his ideas. In what follows, I first outline Proudhon’s place in sociology. Then, I describe his law of progress and the “three revolutions in justice.” Next, I derive several theoretical propositions from Proudhon’s idea of justice. Lastly, I examine what a serious study of Proudhonian justice can contribute to the discipline of sociology as a whole.

“The Very Unrecognizability of the Other”: Edith Stein, Judith Butler, and the Pedagogical Challenge of Empathy

There is no standard definition of empathy, but the concept is assumed to be innately pro-social and teachable regardless of factors such as power dynamics or other manifestations of social injustice within a society. Such assumptions in discursive practices, whether academic, popular, or pedagogical, obscure the emergence of two important questions: What does it mean when we cannot empathize with another? And could it be that we may gain greater insight from the examination of empathy’s limits and failures than the hopes we have for its success? Through an exploration of some of Edith Stein’s and Judith Butler’s work on the subject, I propose that discussions of empathy, particularly in education, must be grounded in social context. Once this is done, assumptions about empathy must be continually troubled if one is to have a cogent conversation—whether as a philosopher, social theorist, educator, or policy maker—about what empathy is (or is not) and what it does (or does not) make possible.