Epilogue

At the end of the first chapter (1.5), I noted that, since having moved to an African country, I have considered myself to have had a moral obligation to engage with its intellectual traditions when teaching and researching. I would have rightly felt guilt had I taught merely Western ethics to African students and contributed only Euro-American-Australasian perspectives to journals published in the sub-Saharan region. Having been principally trained as an analytic moral and political philosopher, I have been in a good position to articulate normative-theoretic interpretations of African morality, to evaluate these moral theories by appealing to intuitions, and to apply them to a range of practical controversies. Now, it would be welcome if the relational moral theory I have defended in this book could explain why I had a duty to make such a contribution to the field. And indeed it does. I have had an obligation of some weight to teach and research African philosophical ideas as I am particularly able to do so for a reason that is by now familiar to the reader. In the way that a newly trained doctor has an obligation of some weight to give something back to his country before emigrating (...

Affective Interventions and ‘the Hegemonic Other’ in Runestones from Västergötland and Södermanland, Sweden

In the eleventh century AD, the Scandinavian countries were in the final stage of the process of conversion to Christianity. Local and regional processes of negotiations towards a Christian hegemony took various courses in different parts of Scandinavia. There are few substantial indications that social tensions resulted in violence. Rather, archaeological evidence indicates a gradual change. This paper highlights how these processes of negotiations were expressed by counter-hegemonic groups that took advantage of the affective affordances of runestones. By raising specific runestones, these non-Christian groups were part of an agonistic political process, as described by the political philosopher Chantal Mouffe.

Ideological Concepts in ‘Formalism, Decisionism and Conservatism in Russian Law’ (2021) by Mikhail Antonov

The present review analyses key ideas of professor Mikhail Antonov’s 2021 book on formalism, decisionism and conservatism in Russian Law. This review essay is written in the form of an imaginary dialogue between the reviewer (a political philosopher) and the author (legal philosopher). Its main aim is to explore legal dimensions of Russia’s new ideology of conservatism. Divided into five sections, it covers five conceptual foundations of the book – sovereigntism, statism, collectivism, civilizationism and exceptionalism. This review essay also examines the links between the respective ideas of legal philosophy of Mikhail Antonov and an overview of arguments from the contemporary political and critical international theory, aiming to engage in a critical discussion with the author about Russia’s insecure collective identity.

Walter Benjamin

Cultural theorist and political philosopher Walter Benjamin (b. 1892–d. 1940) reflected on the thought processes and imaginative life of the child both in dedicated writings and, tangentially, in his major works. As a young man Benjamin wrote essays critical of high school education, and he was a supporter of the German Youth Movement until he became disillusioned with its nationalist tone. Subsequently Benjamin’s engagement shifted toward early childhood and took many forms: he collected antique children’s books; recorded the sayings and opinions of his infant son; made radio broadcasts for children; composed a memoir of his own childhood years in Berlin; and devoted a number of prose fragments to aspects of drama for young people, play, toys, and the numinous qualities of childhood reading. Influenced by the German Romantic view of the purity of a child’s vision that removes the subject-object barrier, Benjamin suggests in these works that in the course of developing an intense relationship with its immediate locality the child simultaneously absorbs and animates the innate qualities of the natural or manufactured object. Benjamin also regarded language play, witnessed in the utterances of his young son and the magical resonance of his own childhood misunderstandings, as essential to the formation of memory images and the imagination. He does not, however, present an idealized vision of childhood, since children are engaged in a cycle of destruction as well as renewal, and play with the detritus of daily life is essential to the growth of the child’s autonomy—as indeed are acts of mimesis and an immersion in the imaginative world of the book and its illustration. Alongside these observations on the child’s intellectual and imaginative development, Benjamin assumes the role of mentor in broadcasts for children that seek to encourage a historical and political consciousness in the young. He returns to his student interest in education in essays on the nature of colonial and proletarian pedagogy, and in a manifesto on proletarian children’s theater. Initially, little critical attention was paid to Benjamin’s writings on childhood in the English-speaking world, partly because of their gradual appearance in English translation. It is only in recent decades that the significance of Benjamin’s illuminating reflections on childhood, play, and education has become apparent, and that the autobiographical Berlin Childhood around 1900) has gained recognition as an expression in serial “thought-images” of the speculation on memory and materialist historiography that is essential to his philosophy.

A Foucauldian Defense of the State: Blandine Kriegel and the État de Droit

This paper examines the career and thought of French political philosopher Blandine Kriegel (b. 1943) from the standpoint of the most striking paradox they present: though she was a student of Michel Foucault, who was famous for his critique of central role that political thinking has traditionally accorded the state, Kriegel has, since the mid-1970s, been one of the foremost champions of the concept of état de droit—the state as the embodiment of the “rule of law”—in French political debates. At a time when post-1968 critics of Marxism and totalitarianism (notably the so-called nouveaux philosophes) were arguing that states were inherently despotic, Kriegel mounted an original defense of the state, which, she argued, had played a central role in establishing legal rights that freed individuals from the “slavery” of civil society. She was able to do this, in part, by drawing on several suggestive elements found in Foucault's work: his concept of biopolitics, the claim that individuals and subjectivity are constituted through power relations, and the insight that war and sovereignty represent alternative ways of conceptualizing power. In this way, she used aspects of Foucault's political thought to arrive at a decidedly non-Foucauldian appreciation of the modern state.

Gray Mass: a Critical Engagement with John Gray's Political Philosophy and the Role of Christian Eschatology

<p>Contemporary political philosopher John Gray has recently asserted: “modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion.” Gray demonstrates how the roots of modern political violence can be traced back to Christianity. Furthermore, he sees Utopianism, “the Enlightenment project”, anthropocentrism and any notion of human meaning as all originating in the Christian notion of “salvation”. Gray argues that all of these ideas are disproven by values pluralism – the idea that human life consists of an incommensurable range of values. Gray is also critical of human beings technological appropriation of the world and the ecological crisis that this consciousness has precipitated. Gray claims that all forms of universalism are mistaken because they privilege a particular set of values at the expense of others. Gray offers a modus vivendi as a political construct that can appropriate the insights of values pluralism, without privileging any particular set of values. Despite considering Christianity (and its offspring) illusory, Gray asserts that the “myth of human meaning” is a “necessary illusion”; it is one that human beings cannot live without. Gray’s argument, however, is beset with inconsistencies, including an implicit teleology, despite his explicit rejection of all teleology, and the tendency of his thought toward nihilism, undermining his proposal of a modus vivendi. In his own constructive proposal Gray inadvertently privileges values of peaceful coexistence and human flourishing. His own political vision has some similarities with the Christian vision of the ideal human life. Christian eschatology is examined through the work of Jürgen Moltmann, and the values of hope and love are highlighted as the ethical consequence of Christian eschatology, as opposed to the violence that Gray claims has been generated from it. Moltmann’s thought also reveals the resources present in a theological perspective that are able to resolve some of the contradictions between individuality and sociality and between human beings and nature. This has significant implications for the ecological crisis, which is also one of Gray’s central concerns. Finally, Martin Heidegger’s concept of Gelassenheit is examined as a point of common ground between Gray’s thought and a theological approach to the world of politics and nature.</p>

Gray Mass: a Critical Engagement with John Gray's Political Philosophy and the Role of Christian Eschatology

<p>Contemporary political philosopher John Gray has recently asserted: “modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion.” Gray demonstrates how the roots of modern political violence can be traced back to Christianity. Furthermore, he sees Utopianism, “the Enlightenment project”, anthropocentrism and any notion of human meaning as all originating in the Christian notion of “salvation”. Gray argues that all of these ideas are disproven by values pluralism – the idea that human life consists of an incommensurable range of values. Gray is also critical of human beings technological appropriation of the world and the ecological crisis that this consciousness has precipitated. Gray claims that all forms of universalism are mistaken because they privilege a particular set of values at the expense of others. Gray offers a modus vivendi as a political construct that can appropriate the insights of values pluralism, without privileging any particular set of values. Despite considering Christianity (and its offspring) illusory, Gray asserts that the “myth of human meaning” is a “necessary illusion”; it is one that human beings cannot live without. Gray’s argument, however, is beset with inconsistencies, including an implicit teleology, despite his explicit rejection of all teleology, and the tendency of his thought toward nihilism, undermining his proposal of a modus vivendi. In his own constructive proposal Gray inadvertently privileges values of peaceful coexistence and human flourishing. His own political vision has some similarities with the Christian vision of the ideal human life. Christian eschatology is examined through the work of Jürgen Moltmann, and the values of hope and love are highlighted as the ethical consequence of Christian eschatology, as opposed to the violence that Gray claims has been generated from it. Moltmann’s thought also reveals the resources present in a theological perspective that are able to resolve some of the contradictions between individuality and sociality and between human beings and nature. This has significant implications for the ecological crisis, which is also one of Gray’s central concerns. Finally, Martin Heidegger’s concept of Gelassenheit is examined as a point of common ground between Gray’s thought and a theological approach to the world of politics and nature.</p>

All at Sea

Although the concept of pirates as hostes humani generis appears to be axiomatic, it is argued in this chapter that piracy elicited more ambiguous responses from philosophers and lawyers in late seventeenth-century Britain. Pirates were merely one among a pantheon of archetypal enemies of good order. By examining references to piracy in the work of the English political philosopher John Locke in particular, it is argued here that pirates vied with tyrants for the title of “common enemy of all humankind.” Locke’s prevarications were mirrored by continuing doubts and legal debates about who the hostis humani generis really was.