Brandom on Norms and Objectivity

The aim of this paper is to investigate Brandom’s conception of the objectivity of norms. In Making It Explicit Brandom supports a weak notion of objectivity based on his understanding of the perspectival structure of linguistic practices. In his following works, he resorts to the Hegelian notion of recognition, adding a historical dimension to his account. I contend that this notion of objectivity can be successfully defended against the objections raised by the commentators. In particular, it does not jeopardise the same possibility of communication, as claimed by Habermas and others, unless a strongly objective notion of communication is assumed. However, the paradigm shift from a strong to a weak understanding of objectivity entails a consequent revision of the conception of social criticism.     

现代性与后现代性视域中的黑格尔与马克思

如何理解马克思与黑格尔之间的关系,是理解马克思哲学及其当代意义的重要问题。黑格尔哲学显然是一种现代性的哲学话语。过度强调两者的连续性,即意味着将马克思哲学也同样理解为一种现代性的哲学话语,这就涂改遮蔽了马克思在颠覆形而上学、批判现代性过程中所呈现出的后现代性意蕴。事实上,正是在黑格尔哲学的断裂处,在传统形而上学的终结处,在现代性哲学的终结地,马克思开启了一种新的哲学范式,它标志着现代性的终结和后现代性的开端。     

试析《精神现象学》中的“主体自返性结构”

《精神现象学》中所揭示的"主体自返性结构"是西方世界的根本性存在方式,当代哲学的有限性视域与这种结构的关系是"扬弃",而不是抛弃,对黑格尔哲学的批判必须是对整个西方哲学的批判。     

Make Hegel great again: on Hegel’s epistemological contribution to critical terrorism studies

ABSTRACT

Despite the contribution of Foucaultian inspired approaches to Critical Terrorism Studies, this article invites us to consider Hegel’s epistemological insights. Foucault’s power-knowledge nexus is an invaluable intellectual tool which reveals how terrorism can be a “social fact”, yet it rests on a genealogical account of history and a passive notion of subjectivity determined by power (regimes). Hegelian philosophy maintains some of the benefits met in Foucault’s approach (sociality and contingency of knowledge) while providing a richer epistemological account. This article introduces Hegel’s epistemological insights to: i) challenge the portrayal of terrorism as a major external threat against the western liberal democratic states in the vein of “New Terrorism” or the “Clash of Civilizations”; and ii) domestically explore how the concept of liberal democratic rights, equality, freedom affect the interpretation of counter-terrorist bills, the threat perception of terrorism and domestic polarisation. Hegel’s insights critically interrogate the notions of “liberal rights”, “equality” and “freedom”, revealing how their ambiguous definition accommodates inherent contradictions which can fuel a controversial interpretation of counter-terrorist bills, leading to domestic polarisation and (reciprocal) radicalisation. Therefore, Hegel’s epistemological insights reveal how the defective definition of human rights, equality and liberty can amplify the effects of Terrorism and radicalisation.     

论中介－－兼论其对于人类活动的不可或缺性

处于主客体之间并且不断体现和延伸主体需要的中介,是一种相对独立的形态。中介形式作为人影响世界的物质手段、精神手段,作为人感知世界的桥梁,在人类活动中占有着十分重要的地位。在意识的产生和发展中,在人类对各种价值的理解、阐释以及创造性的活动和社会信息的传播过程中,各种中介形式的出现,表明着人类能动性的增长,表明着社会明的进步,并且也体现着一种人类活动要遵从于自然法规的必然性。在社会实践中,人类借助中介来探索和把握世界,同时,人类对中介领域的探索更是无止境的。     

Imaginary Turns in Critical Theory: Imagining Subjects in Tension

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine two turns towards the idea of the creative imagination in contemporary critical theory in the works of Axel Honneth and Cornelius Castoriadis. Honneth's work subsumes the idea of the creative imagination under the paradigm of mutual recognition. Castoriadis constructs the idea of the creative imagination from an ontological perspective. However, Castoriadis' idea of the primary autism of the creative imagination can be thrown into relief by Hegel's Jena Lectures. Hegel's and Castoriadis' work opens onto a subjectivity in tension, that is, a subjectivity that is forged out of a combination of subjective interiority, as well as the patterns of interaction that are multidimensional in their scope and create social spaces that force the subject beyond an initial closure.     

Reconciliation Arguments in John Rawls’s Political Philosophy

Abstract

Recently debates about the worth of “ideal theory” have directed attention to the functions that an account of a perfectly just society can serve. One function is that of “reconciliation”: learning that a seemingly undesirable feature of the social world would exist even in the perfectly just society can show us the value that it has in the present as well. John Rawls has emphasized reconciliation as among the roles of political philosophy. For instance, Rawls claims that his theory of justice can reconcile us to the pluralism of liberal democracies. In this essay, I argue that Rawls’s political theory also can reconcile the inhabitants of liberal democratic societies to the fact that such societies may be cognitively confusing on account of their complexity. Then I contend that Rawls’s work offers valuable theoretical resources for analysing a society’s transparency or lack thereof.     

Fanon

Abstract

I argue that Franz Fanon can usefully be situated in the tradition of German Idealism in the sense that he takes from Kant and especially Hegel the conception of agency as something to be achieved through struggle for the ideal of humanity as self-determining. Fanon sees the suffering cased by colonial rule in Africa and elsewhere as deriving from the systematic deprivation of agency by the colonial power. Using the work of Hegel, Fanon seeks to reconstruct the emancipatory project of the black man in close analogy to Hegel’s master-slave dialectic. The violence which Fanon sees as unavoidable in such a struggle is not violence for the sake of violence but, following Hegel, the violence that constitutes the subject in the first place.     

The Common Root of Commitment,Resistance and Power

Abstract

This essay responds to some of the questions raised by Infinitely Demanding from the perspective of tragic conflicts. On this view, the struggle for power cannot be disentangled from the freedom at stake in liberalism and capitalism, nor from the efforts of individuals and groups to resist the powers that be. I suggest, moreover, that this entanglement threatens to divide from within not just the ethical subject, but groups and institutions as well.     

黑格尔的市民社会理论

市民社会理论是黑格尔政治哲学的重要组成部分,黑格尔对市民社会的理解开辟了市民社会学说史上的新视域。同时,黑格尔对市民社会也有深入的批判,他认为市民社会是一个不自足的领域,有着自身无法克服的缺点,必然被国家所克服。