Hegel against Fukuyama: Associations, Markets and Recognition

Fukuyama's influential book The End of History and the Last Man presents an Hegelian picture of history as the story of the struggle for recognition. Modern liberal society is the end of history since it resolves that struggle. However, unlike Hegel, Fukuyama assumes recognition is pursued for its own sake. The assumption lends plausibility to a market model of recognition which sits uneasily with his own defence of associational spheres of existence. Hegel, in contrast, inherits an Aristotelian position according to which recognition is parasitic on other goods. This account of recognition informs Hegel's defence of an associational account of civil society and his rejection of market exchange as satisfactory site for recognition. Hegel's response to market modes of recognition is contrasted with that of Adam Smith.     

Autonomy and Authenticity. On the Aporetic Nature of Time and History: Castoriadis—Heidegger

Abstract

This paper explores the aporetic nature of social and historical being as it emerges from a juxtaposition of the philosophies of Castoriadis and Heidegger with specific emphasis on their meditations on history, individuality and collective being. It is argued that any current attempts to grasp the problems posed by historical time should not overlook the conceptual space opened up by contrasting Castoriadis' theorisation of social-historical praxis as the enactment of autonomy expressed through the emergence of the ‘radically new’ with Heidegger's treatment of authentic historicity as fate and repetition. The attempt of both thinkers to break with the philosophical tradition of the West is examined from the perspective of their conceptions on time and history, while their opposing accounts serve to revaluate the traditional dichotomy between allegedly linear' and ‘cyclical’ conceptions of time. Additionally, it is argued that instead of treating Phenomenological-Hermeneutic and Marxist accounts as adverse and incompatible, our reflections on history and society are enriched by their juxtaposition. Castoriadis and Heidegger present us with the most promising individual cases of thinkers representing these philosophical schools mainly due to their emphasis on the historical dimension of human life and to their overall groundbreaking philosophical elaborations that resist labelling and defy confinement to specific philosophical or epistemic traditions.     

历史主义的命运与马克思的历史性思想

历史主义尽管反对思辨历史哲学的历史研究方法,但其在本体论上依然是形而上学的,即相信历史是一个有意义的过程,此意义是与上帝紧密相联的。而随着世界的祛魅,这种历史意义却成了问题。仔细分析历史主义理论本身的逻辑结构,就能得出其不可避免走向虚无主义的命运。现代许多思想家为了拯救由历史主义导致的虚无主义而主张回到古希腊的"自然"观念。其实,这种回归仍然是一种观念论的。马克思基于人的感性实践活动及其"只有正确理解现在才能理解过去"的历史性思想克服了"回归到过去"的虚妄性。     

Ideology,socialism and the everyday: forgotten lessons from the inter-war years?

Abstract

One of the great contributions of the Journal of Political Ideologies to the study of politics has been the emphasis it has given to recovering lost ideological traditions or subtraditions. With regard to the recent history of the United Kingdom, contributions to the Journal have long argued that there is far greater ideological complexity in British politics than is usually credited and that analysis of this complexity might throw up powerful arguments for contemporary political argument. In this essay, I take inspiration from that notion in order to establish whether a lost tradition of twentieth century British socialist thinking – that associated with a series of inter-war and mid-century thinkers who were sceptical of both modernism and the state – might throw new light on the failings of recent British Labour ideology, especially that associated with Ed Miliband’s failed attempt to secure victory in the 2015 general election. The essay contends that the arguments of these earlier thinkers – and especially their obsession with crafting a ‘socialism of the everyday’ – could have provided a vital warning to Miliband’s Labour, had it chosen to heed it.     

An ‘anti-utopian age?’: Isaiah Berlin’s England,Hannah Arendt’s America,and utopian thinking in dark times

This essay challenges the influential view that Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt played a central role in inaugurating an ‘anti-utopian age’. While the two thinkers certainly did their share to discredit the radical utopian inclination to portray a political blueprint in the abstract, I show that neither was straightforwardly anti-utopian. On the contrary, both thinkers’ writings display a different kind of utopian thinking, consisting in an imaginative and idealized reconstruction of existing polities. Schematically put, Berlin’s utopia was England reconstructed as a quintessential liberal society, whereas Arendt’s utopia was America reconstructed as a quintessential modern free republic. Those two polities differ from each other in important respects, but they share two essential features in common: they are claimed to be exempt from the rise of totalitarianism; and they allegedly give men and women the decent chance to live a fulfilling life. To illustrate Berlin’s and Arendt’s overlapping and yet differing visions, I consider their contrasting responses to the upheaval of 1968 – a possible utopian moment in the late 20th century. While their responses could scarcely be more different, they were informed by their shared desire to imagine an ideal polity in what both regarded as the darkest century in human history.     

Space Science as a Cradle for Philosophers

Not only astronauts, but also many space-related scientists have made remarkable contributions to the development of a more philosophical view of society. These contributions are illustrated by numerous works produced by famous space pioneers at the end of their careers. The link between science and philosophy is well acknowledged, but the two disciplines suffered a schism some 350 years ago. Now one could ask the question of whether the time has not come to merge both disciplines again. This precise theme can be found in many works and papers written by space scientists. In attempting to create a better understanding of the relation between space and philosophy, it is worthwhile to consider some characteristics of the space workforce. Comparisons have been made between this workforce and so-called “corporate Ronins”—independent and unconventional thinkers who are attracted by the challenging environment offered by space activities. These individuals' presence in the space workforce could therefore be a viable explanation for the philosophical dimension associated with space activities.     

Agonism and Hope in William Apess’s Native American Political Thought

This article examines the Native American thinker, William Apess (Pequot), and especially his Eulogy on King Philip (1836), which argues, ironically, that King Philip—the seventeenth century Wampanoag leader who launched the bloodiest rebellion in New England’s history—ought to be embraced as an American pioneer and canonized as a founding father. Apess satirizes conventional founding narratives, even as he upholds the principles of freedom those narratives support. The effect of this irony is to interrupt and invert discourses of progressive history and American patriotism that underlie Manifest Destiny policies, in ways that open spaces for new historical accounts to surface and compete in a force field of agonistic powers. I argue that Apess’s ironic historical revisionism expresses a political theory of hope, one that I contrast with representations of hope by other nineteenth century Native American political thinkers, such as Plenty Coups (Crow).     

试论托尼的平等观

平等思想历来是中外思想家所关注和深入研究的大问题,英国近代思想家托尼是研究平等思想的著名学者,他从天赋、平等对待和平等推进等角度极赋见地地论述和阐发了平等思想,他的所有政治构想、经济研究和对社会、历史的探索都是围绕平等展开的。可以说平等是托尼全部政治思想的基础和核心。     

On Sen on comparative justice

Against scepticism from thinkers including John Rawls and Thomas Nagel about the appropriateness of justice as the concept through which global ethical concerns should be approached, Amartya Sen argues that the problem lies not with the idea of justice, but with a particular approach to thinking of justice, namely a transcendental approach. In its stead Sen is determined to offer an alternative systematic theory of justice, namely a comparative approach, as a more promising foundation for a theory of ‘global justice.’ But in the end Sen offers no such thing. He does not develop a theory of justice and this is all to the good; for if values are plural in the way Sen suggests, then justice is not a master idea but one value among many, and it should be neither the first virtue of social institutions, nor the notion that frames all our reflections on ethical and political life.     

The Tiebout Hypothesis 50 Years Later: Lessons and Lingering Challenges for Metropolitan Governance in the 21st Century

More than five decades have passed since Charles Tiebout wrote his seminal 1956 paper, often cited as the classic apologetic for locally based systems of metropolitan governance. This essay traces the impact of Tiebout's work and subsequent scholarship in public choice, identifying important lessons and lingering issues. Although public choice has demonstrated that polycentric systems are adept and flexible in producing and providing municipal services and a variety of interlocal agreements, the presence of municipal boundaries gives rise to a host of spillover problems, such as urban sprawl and segregation. These spillovers are particularly nefarious because, unlike the natural cooperation that seems to occur in service provision, municipalities tend to assert narrow self-interest in the face of these types of externalities. The essay proposes that, commensurate with the growing salience of equity among the pillars of public administration, interjurisdictional spillovers and their attendant equity impacts will be the central challenge for thinkers studying metropolitan governance in the 21st century.     

政府目的刍论

政府，人们对它再熟悉不过了。历史上的许多思想家都试图揭示政府的确切含义。但众说纷纭、莫衷一是。不管怎么说，我们以为政府是依照一定传统并建立在人民主权的基础之上，实现社会秩序、正义和自由的机构或组织。而政府的目的主要有：（1）实现秩序，维护正常的社会秩序；（2）实现正义，维护社会正义；（3）实现自由，维护公民自由。     

The ‘dialectical’ theory of conservatism

ABSTRACT

Recently, James Alexander has proposed a ‘dialectical definition’ of conservatism which, he believes, goes beyond ‘dispositional’ definitions, such as those proposed by Brennan and Hamlin, and by Martin Beckstein, which are ‘incomplete’.¹ Alexander argues that, by focusing on conservative responses to ‘ruptures’ of continuity, his expanded account exposes the ‘fundamentally contradictory’ nature of conservative thought.² This article offers a critique of Alexander’s ‘dialectical definition’ of conservatism, highlighting its inconsistency with the ideological content long agreed by conservative political thinkers, and with the historical realities of conservative political practice. But it also shows that there is a valuable and rightful place for a political ‘dialectic’ as part of a theory of conservatism that is more consistent with the history of conservative thought and practice. It is a dialectic with many historical precedents in political theory, two of which are examined in detail: (1) the earliest, found in Plato’s Statesman; and (2) an innovative and particularly useful formulation of it to be found in the political philosophy of R. G. Collingwood.     

Heritage,semiotics and innovations: architectural space,object-designs,meanings and implications in sustainable development

When matters of sustainable development and innovation are on the table for discussion in Africa, culture is often sidelined. Designs, shapes and sizes of new technological innovations need to integrate African aesthetes as a way to uphold the culture of people represented who often utilize or benefit from the inventions or constructions. Artefactual materials or objects (such as buildings) should appeal to the people of Africa and solve their daily challenges. Using semiotics, this paper cautions innovators, planners, thinkers and producers of “modern” residential homes; that these, as material objects, have other roles they play. Dwellings assume the heritage of a people far removed from the traditionally thought spaces and objects such as drums, museums, songs, literary texts, pieces of cloth and so on. As such, planners have a mandate to deliberately uphold their people’s cultural sensitivity if sustainable development is to mean in Zimbabwe and Africa in general.     

The Subjects of Socialism: Politicizing Honneth’s Idea of Socialism

ABSTRACT

This paper criticizes Axel Honneth’s Idea of Socialism from a post-Marxist but nevertheless Marxian perspective. It focuses on the importance of particular political subjectivities for bringing about emancipatory transformations. Honneth’s decoupling of his revived conception of socialism from any kind of partisan subjectivity is not only overhasty. It also loses sight of the emergence of socialism as an idea in a proper Hegelian sense. Whilst Honneth contradictorily assumes that contemporary ethical life is already infused with a comprehensive normativity of social freedom that points towards its further realization, such a tendency of normative and social universality has been largely eliminated by the regressions of neoliberal hegemony. In this historical situation, the becoming-hegemonic of social freedom depends on the polemical initiative of those kinds of political subjectivities which are theoretically excluded from Honneth’s conception of socialism.     

Progress,fascism and the Last Humans

This paper re-evaluates the notion of progress in light of the trauma represented by interwar European fascism. It critically examines the widespread assumption that interwar European fascism demonstrates the illusory, or even pernicious, nature of progress. Seeing fascists as enraged crusaders against the march of history, whose aim was to impede the further rise of what Nietzsche contemptuously referred to as ‘the Last Humans,’ affords a perspective from which progress, at least in its main current, no longer appears invalidated by fascism. The criterion of democratic mass empowerment, furthermore, can usefully distinguish between two mutually exclusive notions of progress: the first, of largely Hegelian provenance, was committed to mass empowerment; the second, while intractably opposing progress as a democratic enterprise, also appropriated it for radically anti-democratic purposes, transmuting its meaning so that the Last Humans are no longer conceived as its beneficiaries but, at most, as its tools.     

Continuity and Change in British Thinking about Nuclear Weapons

For almost fifty years there has been constant argument between those who have supported the development and possession of nuclear weapons by Britain and those opposed to those policies. This article argues that there has been a continuity in the arguments made by policy-makers and their critics, both operating within an unchanging series of linked assumptions forming a paradigm or mind-set. This article sets out the character of the assumptions of the orthodox and alternative thinkers, as they are termed in the article, examining their coherence and differences, particularly during the cold war. It concludes by attempting to draw out some implications for the British security policy debate in the post-cold war period.     

Looking for Meaning in the Alabama Lectures' Book Series: An Epitaph for an Old Friend of Public Administration after 57 Years

This essay analyzes and reviews the significance of the Alabama Public Administration Lecture Series, one of the most distinguished and long‐lasting platforms in public administration. Based on guest lectures that were delivered annually to University of Alabama graduate students in public administration, the series began in 1944 and concluded in 2000. During those 57 years, most of the lectures were published as books, usually by the University of Alabama Press. The last book of the series will be published in 2009. This article examines the series as a whole and asks, what does the series tell us about public administration? What does it tell us about how our field got to where it is now? These questions are important because the books present a running conversation on the important subjects of public administration. The article shows that the lecture series offers a history of the field, reflecting the topics that were considered important by leading thinkers in their times.     

The Tragic and the Political: A Parallel Reading of Kostas Papaioannou and Cornelius Castoriadis

Abstract

The fundamental difference between Castoriadis' and Papaioannou's accounts of the link between tragedy and the political is that Castoriadis insists on a political form (the democratic regime) whilst Papaioannou insists on a social actor (the masses). The starting point for this essay, then, are two thinkers: one whose main interest was a political and philosophical reflection on the social-historical and one whose main interest was a philosophical reflection on the arts. Surprisingly, however, the end situation is one where Castoriadis gives us a political explanation of the link between tragedy and the political whilst Papaioannou gives us a social explanation of the same phenomenon. How can this difference be accounted for? First, distinguishing their respective conceptualisations of the political allows us to see that where one thinker privileges restlessness and revolution, the other privileges law and regime. Second, looking at their depictions of the essential aspects of tragedy places them on opposing sides of the couple hubris-dike, in a way that leads to two radically different conceptualisations of the relation in question.     

Weber, Wilson, and Hegel: Theories of Modern Bureaucracy

Convergence between Woodrow Wilson's and Max Weber's thought, as well as their differences with regard to the politics–administration dichotomy, can be ascribed to the Hegelian tradition of public administrative theory. On the one hand, Wilson was strongly influenced by Georg W. F. Hegel. On the other hand, there is an empirical connection between Hegel and Weber. Both shared a consciousness of the German bureaucratic tradition based on Hegel's Philosophy of Right . These insights have important methodological and theoretical implications for the contemporary comparative study of public administration.