A Political Defence of Kant’s Aufklärung: An Essay

The aim of this essay is to analyse the potential for political emancipation that lies within Kant’s conception of Aufklärung, in critical dialogue with enlightenment critics and specialised Kantian literature. My thesis is that Kant’s concept of enlightenment is intrinsically political and so it must be studied from the point of view of his political philosophy, which was fully developed in the decade of the 1790s. From this standpoint, I propose we study the role and place of Aufklärung within Kant’s central political thesis, to wit: that only the united will of the people can be a legitimate authority.     

Antipodean Enlightenment

Abstract

In his monumental collection Culture, Science, Society: The Constitution of Cultural Modernity, György Markus lays down the conceptual framework for the theorisation of modern high culture across the cultural spheres and articulates an account of cultural pragmatics or cultural relations – author, text and public – in the domains of science, arts and the humanities. He explores in great detail the conceptual keystones in the evolution of the cultural self-understanding of modernity from the enlightenment until today. Markus’s work resonates with a deep understanding of the historico-cultural terrain being covered and the conceptual issues at play.     

Natural History: the Life and Afterlife of a Concept in Adorno

Abstract

Theodor Adorno's concept of ‘natural history’ [Naturgeschichte] was central for a number of Adorno's theoretical projects, but remains elusive. In this essay, analyse different dimensions of the concept of natural history, distinguishing amongst (a) a reflection on the normative and methodological bases of philosophical anthropology and critical social science; (b) a conception of critical memory oriented toward the preservation of the memory of historical suffering; and (c) the notion of ‘mindfulness of nature in the subject’ provocatively asserted in Max Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. These strands are united by the notion of transience and goal of developing a critical theory sensitive to the transient in history. The essay concludes by suggesting some implications of an expanded concept of natural history for issues in the discourse theory of Jürgen Habermas.     

From the Agora to the Coffee-House: Heller's Quest for Philosophical Radicalism

Abstract

This paper considers Agnes Heller's attempt to construct a post Marxist radical philosophy. It examines the two main phases of this project: beginning with her late seventies A Radical Philosophy, it charts her development towards the position she now characterises as reflective post-modernism. It shows that despite a constant commitment to rational critique, Heller's concept of philosophical radicalism has shifted from an emphasis on total critique to that of maintaining balance between the rival technological and historical imaginations that exercise a ‘double-bind’ over the modern individual. The paper explains the rationale of this evolution, highlights the features of each phase and critically analyses their weaknesses. Finally it argues that Heller's contemporary position represents a sophisticated attempt to overcome the limitations of former left radicalism and address the continuing need for orientation in contemporary modernity.     

Patterns within prejudice: antisemitism in the United States in the 1940s

ABSTRACT

Ziege compares two field studies on ethnocentrism, racism and antisemitism among American workers during the Second World War: ‘Antisemitism among American Labor’ (1945) by the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research (ISR) in exile and Wartime Shipyard (1947) by Katherine Archibald at the University of California at Berkeley. The former was a large-scale team project headed by Friedrich Pollock, Theodor W. Adorno and Paul Massing, who had at their disposal a large number of fieldworkers as well as the support of the trade unions. Archibald worked in complete isolation. Yet, in spite of this and major differences in design and theory, the European Marxists and the American liberal came to similar conclusions: hostility towards Jews at that time had to be analysed in connection with hostility towards other groups (including women, Blacks, labourers from the American South and other ethnic and social minorities) and within the context of the war and the Holocaust. While aware of the innovations achieved in research by means of public opinion polls, both studies were pioneering in their ambition to improve on quantitative research by means of non-quantitative procedures and qualitative-participatory observation. Ziege links these studies to a third study, The Authoritarian Personality (1950), conducted by the ISR, particularly Adorno, which poses the question of how relevant the ISR's critical theory was for the innovations achieved in studies of prejudice, when Archibald's study, which eschewed social theory, arrived at similar conclusions regarding antisemitism.     

Adorno's Contemplative Ethics

Abstract

This paper argues that there is an ethics of contemplation that is internal to Adorno's critique of modern functionalised and administered societies. It is argued here that ‘contemplation’ is Adorno's name for a praxis by which one is open to the other, and yet can let the other be. Adorno sees a kernel of experience in such contemplative practices, which, although increasingly being stripped bare by the modern world, is the basis for its possible critique.     

Last Thoughts on <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Last Intellectuals</Emphasis>

Over twenty years ago my book The Last Intellectuals put into circulation the phrase “public intellectual.” The term unexpectedly enjoyed great success. It encapsulated a new division between a professional or academic intellectual focused on his or her specialty and an intellectual orientated to a larger public. The former tend to disappear into the university, while they latter write for the educated public. In the twenty years since its publication, my book has been sharply challenged. Moreover the emergence of African-American and women intellectuals, and well as new developments such as Internet, have possibly undermined my thesis. Yet these phenomena amount to revisions, not refutations, of my thesis. Moreover the role of intellectuals in France and Germany suggest that the same process of academization is taking place in other advanced industrial nations. What is called for is not nostalgia or its opposite, a celebration of everything that happens, but a consideration of the real shifts that affect the lives and work of intellectuals.

召公为政思想的当代启示

召公,西周初年的重要历史人物。在辅佐周天子的过程中,召公通过总结历史,并结合当时实际,提出了"敬德"、"勤政"、"保民"等思想,对周初的政局产生了深远的影响,并为后世所效仿。对于当今各级领导干部来说,召公的敬德思想启示我们要加强细节修养,以德正民,以德待民;召公的勤政思想启示我们要能够居安思危,节制欲望,勤俭节约;召公的保民思想启示我们要密切联系群众,解决群众实际问题,赢得群众拥护。     

第三次启蒙(下)

三、作为一种建构的启蒙工业社会的启蒙是一场解放的启蒙,而新的启蒙将是一场建构的启蒙。我们知道,工业社会的启蒙运动解放了个体,解放了人性,所以,它使人与社会分离,虽然在人性的解放中社会已经转化为人的社会,但人却走向了与社会分离的征程,越来越远离生活世界,进入一种形式化、片面化的存在形态。当然,近代以来,人们已经习惯于把非生活世界的人群集合形态称作社会,在这种意义上认识人与社会的关联性。其实,社会失去了生活的内容也就意味着其有机性的丧失,因而成了各种各样矛盾和冲突的总汇,在一切方面都以对立、对抗、竞争等形式来实现…     

美国防止利益冲突的经验及其对我国的启示

防止利益冲突法是国家为了厘清公益与私利的界限,约束公职人员的行为,防止公职人员公权私用、以权谋私（或以职谋私）,保证其廉洁从政的法律规范。美国是防止利益冲突立法较早并取得良好成效的国家。美国成功的秘诀是：法律可操作性强,监督有效、到位,相关配套制度完备。虽然我国在建立防止利益冲突制度方面也进行了探索,但由于停留在党纪政纪层面,缺乏权威性、强制性和威慑力。我国的防止利益冲突制度设计粗糙,可操作性差,加之监督不力,相关制度不完善,因此,成效甚微。为了有效遏制和预防腐败,我国应当尽早出台《防止利益冲突法》,同时应当完善相关法律,如《公职人员财产申报法》、《政务公开法》、《行政程序法》、《新闻法》等。     

Between Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman: between discourse in the abstract and face-to-face interaction

Michel Foucault's ‘archaeology’ and Erving Goffman's interpersonal sociology are complementary. Both are essential for understanding how classifications of people interact with the people classified, and hence for the author's studies of ‘making up people’. The paper begins by explaining how that project is rooted in an ‘existentialist’ conception of the person. It then uses Goffman's Asylums and Foucault's Folie et déraison - both published in 1961 - to illustrate how these methodologies reinforce each other.     

香港警队建设的启示与思考

香港警队的职业建设在很多方面都值得我们学习借鉴,如潜移默化的价值观教育宣传、精益求精的敬业精神和高效负责的工作态度、警察安全第一的理念和切实关爱的保障措施、系统严密的内部管理机制、执行制度与监督制度执行互为一体的工作模式、警民一体的联防之策等。对此进行思考探讨,将对我们的警队建设工作大有裨益。     

闪烁着唯物辩证法光辉的党建思想--邓小平党建思想的鲜明特色及方法论启示

唯物辩证法是共产党人认识和改造世界的理论武器.在新的历史时期,邓小平把握唯物辩证法的实质,对执政和改革开放条件下党的建设问题作了成功探索,为我们研究解决新世纪党的建设问题提供了重要的方法论启示.     

习仲勋的群众观在广东改革中的实践及其启示

1978年至1980年是党探索中国特色社会主义道路的重要转折时期。在此期间,习仲勋以巨大勇气带领人民投身于广东改革事业。工作中,习仲勋深入群众,调查实际情况,研究改革对策;发扬民主,虚心向群众学习,接受改革建议;发动群众,勇于改革,创造性地开展工作;依靠群众,服务群众,完善改革措施;统筹兼顾,协调发展,综合平衡群众不同的利益诉求。习仲勋的群众观在广东省改革过程中的实践及其经验,对当今中国的改革事业是一笔宝贵的精神财富,很好地加以总结与借鉴,有利于攻坚克难,深化与推进改革进程,早日实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦。     

Towards a Critical Theory of Cultural Pragmatics: The Márkus Road

ABSTRACT

At the time of his death in 2016 György Márkus’s magnum opus on the culture of modernity that he laboured on throughout his post-Budapest period remained unfinished. This paper attempts to reconstruct the theory of Cultural Pragmatics that lay at the core of this immense project. The intention is to retrieve the key ideas of Márkus’s understanding of modern cultural relations by reviewing the terms of his critique of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault on the issue of authorship. A distinctive Márkus road in the study of cultural modernity offers itself as a rich contemporary research programme for the future.     

Living in the world risk society

Abstract

In a world risk society, we must distinguish between ecological and financial dangers, which can be conceptualized as side effects, and the threat from terrorist networks as intentional catastrophes; the principle of deliberately exploiting the vulnerability of modern civil society replaces the principle of chance and accident.     

Policing Academics: The Arkhè of Transformation in Academic Ranking

This article attempts a properly critical and political analysis of the “police power” immanent to the form and logic of academic rankings, and which is reproduced in the extant academic literature generated around them. In contrast to the democratising claims made of rankings, this police power short-circuits the moment of democratic politics and establishes the basis for the oligarchic power of the State and its status quo. Central in this founding political moment is the notion of the Arkhè, a necessarily asymmetric “distribution of the sensible” that establishes the basis of the political order, in this case an oligarchic political order. Drawing on Foucault and Rancière, the article argues for a necessary “dissensus” with both the ranking practice and its attendant academic literature, as the first step towards a politics of ranking that is properly critical, and therefore genuinely political.