Punctual selves,punctual death and the health-conscious cogito: Descartes’ dead bodies

Abstract

This paper reflects critically on the late-modern obsession with health by presenting Descartes as an almost ideal type of the health-conscious subject. Descartes’ life, works and death are interpreted from the unlikely combination of the theoretical perspectives of Charles Taylor and Jean Baudrillard. Despite significant differences, both of these theorists rely heavily on Weber's concept of disenchantment, and each develops a ‘punctual’ concept in their analysis of modernity. Specifically, the paper combines Taylor's ‘punctual self’, which can remake itself at will, with Baudrillard's ‘punctual death’, which presents death as a meaningless terminus. Viewing Descartes through these punctual concepts, it becomes clear that the extensive anatomical investigations he conducted throughout his career shaped his uniquely modern stance towards death and health. However, Descartes maintained an ambivalent relationship with traditional conceptions of death and health, which prevented him from fully embracing modern health-consciousness. The paper concludes with a reconsideration of Descartes’ ‘premature’ death, which invites critical reflection on the role that the predictable behaviour of health-conscious subjects plays in the ever-expanding biomedical order.     

Max Weber: Family History, Economic Policy, Exchange Reform

Max Weber descended from Anglo-German merchant families with world-wide connections. This helped make him a cosmopolitan nationalist. Fittingly Weber at first tried to pursue a career in international commercial law. Family connections informed his understanding of South American wheat exports and North American railroad capitalism and of the tariff issues resulting therefrom. This in turn influenced his critique of the Prussian agrarian capitalists, especially of their opposition to trading in grain futures. Weber championed a strong capital market and efficient exchanges. His economic policies remain of exemplary interest insofar as they link the presumptive, if contested, national interest with an unsentimental acceptance of the world economy.     

从《新教伦理与资本主义精神》看韦伯的个体主义方法论意义

本文从社会学方法论角度出发,分析了《新教伦理与资本主义精神》的研究思路。马克斯·韦伯的这部巨著不仅对现代资本主义的兴起做出了文化解释,同时更是其个体主义方法论的完美演绎,在方法论研究上具有重要的意义。     

马克思与韦伯的政党理论比较研究

马克思政党理论与韦伯政党理论在政党本质、政党社会基础、政党政治立场、政党使命任务和政党民主等方面存在着不同,这是基于两人所处的时代背景、开展政党研究的目的及采用的研究方法等多种原因形成的。开展马克思政党理论和韦伯政党理论比较研究对丰富政党理论研究和指导我国政党建设具有重大的学术价值和实践意义。     

法律社会学的定位问题:Max Weber与Hans Kelsen的比较

德国社会学家韦伯(Max Weber,1864-1920)与奥地利法学家凯尔森(Hans Kelsen,1881-1973)对"法律社会学"(Rechtssoziologie,sociology of law)的定位存在异同。他们一个从社会学家的立场,一个从法学家的立场,探讨了"法律社会学"在19世纪末叶跟着社会学(Soziologie)一起诞生的时候,究竟应该如何对这新兴的学问加以定位的问题。他们两位都是法学家出身,同样受到当时哲学思潮新康德主义(Neukantianismus)的影响,主张划分"实然"(Sein)与"应然"(Sollen),也同样对促进德语世界法律社会学的诞生有积极贡献的"自由法学派"(Freirechtle-hre)与奥地利法律社会学家艾利希(Eugen Ehrlich,1862-1922)提出了批评意见,但是他们对于"法律社会学"这门新兴的学科,却还是有不完全相同的定位。     

Breaking down the barriers? New public management in the European commission

On 15 March 1999, the mass resignation of the College of Commissioners amidst accusations of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism was the catalyst for potential transformation of the European bureaucracy in a radical way. The Commission is at the centre of networks of European governance but it only demonstrates a ‘shadow of a cohesive administrative culture’ (Cini 1996: 223). The managerial reforms which have finally been engaged by the Commission twenty years later than its member countries focus primarily on efficiency and accountability in order to bridge the ‘EU's management deficit’ (Metcalfe 2000: 824). This paper seeks to argue that reforms in the European Commission can only be successful if a cultural analysis is carried out, developing a distinctive approach to European public management in order to lay the basis for new forms of European governance. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Die Wiederherstellung des Marktsubjekts

The UK is generally considered a laboratory for styles of governance influenced by New Public Management: outsourcing, internal markets, targets, auditing. The shifts in governance style, and the new instruments that have accompanied them, were once synonymous with “Thatcherism” but have since been adopted and refined by New Labour. Early critical social scientific analyses deployed the Gramscian notion of hegemony to analyse this shift. This was followed by Foucault inspired analyses of “governmentality”. The latter focused more explicitly on the micro-level of conduct. This article follows that lead, but seeks to address the central puzzles thrown up by this experiment through Max Weber’s conception of a “bureaucratic revolution” and Karl Polanyi’s analysis of the constitution of a “market subject” via a “double movement”: a simultaneous loosening and tightening of control. The Weber-Polanyi approach allows us, we argue, to make the link more explicit between micro-level changes in the “conduct of life” (Lebensführung) and the meso-level instruments designed to bring about such a re-orientation of conduct. The article makes the case with reference to empirical material from a number of public services, notably education and health. Overall, the decisive factor is not a weakening of the state, but a change in its capacities and instruments.     

城市与西方现代资本主义的兴起--马克斯·韦伯的城市观论析

城市与西方现代资本主义兴起的关系问题,是马克斯@韦伯的政治社会理论中的重要内容.韦伯在比较世界城市尤其是东西方两种理想类型城市的基础上,揭示了城市与现代资本主义兴起和发展的内在关联.考察韦伯的城市观,对于思考传统中国的近代转型乃至当代中国的相关社会政治问题,无论在理论上,还是在实践上,都有重要的启迪意义.     

中国传统法律文化的重新解读与韦伯旧论的颠覆——《韦伯论中国传统法律:韦伯比较社会学的批判》评介

台湾大学社会学系的林端教授于2003年出版的《韦伯论中国传统法律:韦伯比较社会学的批判》一书全面系统地批判了韦伯关于中国法律传统的论断。该书在社会学方法论上指出了韦伯比较社会学里二元对立的理想型比较的局限;在实质社会学分析上则结合学界对清代法律和司法审判的研究成果,说明了韦伯对中国传统法律与司法审判的看法存在误解与局限。在此基础上,林端教授认为,若要深刻理解中国法律传统,关键在于把握体现于其中的“多值逻辑”。     

Max Weber in the tropics: How global climate politics facilitates the bureaucratization of forestry in Indonesia

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is one of the most advanced global climate governance arrangements and we show that it contributes to the buildup of autonomous capacities and reliable procedures in areas of rather limited statehood. These partially unintended effects can be conceptualized as an increasing rational–legal bureaucratization, which has been initiated through both external and domestic actors as we illuminate in the case of Indonesia's forestry sector in the period from 2007 until 2017. Our finding is that a bureaucratization of a new kind is increasingly strengthened in Indonesia's forest despite enduring patterns of neopatrimonialism, emerging signs of new public management approaches, and the strengthening of functional equivalents such as community-based forest management. We thus claim that Max Weber's perspective on the prospects and problems of rational–legal bureaucratization is still valuable, even when travelling to the tropics.