If we set aside the questions of Heidegger’s (mis)translation of Aristotle, Vardoulakis’s diagnosis of Heidegger’s mistake still is pressing and far-reaching. The mistake Vardoulakis identifies arises from a preference for ‘ineffectual’ activity over ends-directed activity in Heidegger’s thought. Vardoulakis’s argument is that even phronesis is ends-directed and it is only because of this that phronesis leads not just to doing something well but to doing something well for the sake of the good. The emphasis on the ineffectual turns us away (...) from a form of calculation in which ends, means, and their relation are in question. (shrink)

In this paper I examine how knowledge claims operating through two types of governance techniques can guide product innovations in the agri-food sector. The notion that knowledge claims have strong social and material components informs the analysis undertaken, developed through a discussion of social science approaches to the role of human groups and biophysical properties in social change. I apply this socio-technical perspective to two case studies: defining dietary fiber and reducing saturated fat. The first involves attempts to produce an (...) international definition of dietary fiber standards in the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The second involves efforts by food manufacturers to reduce the saturated fat content of food products in line with UK government guidelines. The case studies draw upon observations, document analysis, and over forty interviews. I suggest that although knowledge claims are active constituents of both governance processes, important differences are evident and arise from the history of scientific and technical controversies, and from the scope for articulating broader questions. In particular, the different criteria for judging “success” guide how knowledge claims are implicated in the governance of product innovation. I suggest that further work is required to understand the wider implications of efforts to change the composition of foods, not only for public heath, but also in relation to food security, quality, safety, and availability in a rapidly changing context. In order to do this successfully, knowledge claims made about the material properties of food should be made objects of social science analysis. (shrink)

A team of leading international scholars examine Middle Ages and Renaissance philosophy from the perspective of themes and lines of thought that cut across authors, disciplines and national boundaries, opening up new ways to conceptualise the history of this period within philosophy, politics, religious studies and literature.

I argue that the uniqueness of comedy lies in its potential for social critique. Reading through Aristotle, Hegel, and Umberto Eco, I show that because comedy is not negative, not a counter-argument, it can expose social structures for what they are.

Much has been made of the centrality of comparison to sociological research. The world-systems perspective, however, posits a single unit of analysis that challenges the possibility of designating the independent cases demanded by the formal logic of comparative analysis. The present work suggests an alternative to comparisons of multiple cases in the form of analogies among instances of processes. The consequences of such a methodological shift are explored through the example of the contemporary “War on Terror”.

This article attempts to compare the theories of life between Søren Kierkegaard and Feng Youlan. It will focus specifically on the identity of the self in Kierkegaard's “stages of life” and Feng's “realms of life” (rensheng jingjie 人生境界). Whereas Kierkegaard subscribes doctrinally to the Christian understanding of the self and claims that the highest stage of life is achievable only for the God-centered self, Feng draws his insights from the Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions, which, by imposing human values onto (...) the universe, runs the danger of rendering the self the very center of the “great whole” (daquan 大全). Moving beyond a descriptive comparison, I will argue that the Kierkegaardian stage theory includes a critique of Feng's realm doctrine, the latter appearing to be overly idealistic, missing the dark side of the human essence so succinctly pointed out by former and, consequently, falls short of offering a more realistic description of the self. (shrink)

"Originally published in 2010 by University of Queensland Press.".

One of the constant themes of Adorno’s work, running from his early essay “The Idea of Natural History” through his unfinished Aesthetic Theory, is the notion of the experience of power within the natural realm and the relation of rational “enlightenment” to this experience. On the one hand, “Enlightenment is mythic fear turned radical” ; on the other hand, “Myth turns into enlightenment, and nature into mere objectivity”. What concerns Adorno is precisely the dialectic that enlightenment itself is. As the (...) attempt to free humanity from fear of the force of nature, enlightenment is an attempt to demythologize nature, to strip nature of its power. Yet, in this very activity, enlightenment becomes that power itself. If reason is the response to the force of nature, then reason itself has to be force as well: “Myth is already enlightenment; and enlightenment reverts to mythology”. (shrink)

“Whatever is, is matter.” Is this all there is to materialism? Is it really nothing more than the result of a kind of metaphysical census? “We have looked around, and all we find is matter. The reports of souls and angels, God and separated intelligences, ideas and essences have all proven false. Whatever is, is matter.” Yet how would I ever come to know such a thing? The issue is not only that I cannot possibly take such a census. More (...) problematically, these purported non-material entities are “discovered” not by observation but through thought or reason. Therefore, a metaphysical census is not enough to discern the non-existence of such non-material beings. What is required for their denial is the very deployment of reason that conjures up their existence in the first place. Therein lies the danger for materialism: to have access to a tool—rational conceptualization—that is not entirely explicable materially. Materialism relies on abstraction just as much as its other. If materialism is not somehow involved with concepts and reason, then it turns out to be what is normally and more properly called myth or theology. Aristotle saw this clearly. If the investigation of nature does not appeal to thought, then “everything is from Night.” There is, then, a tremendous difference between Hesiod’s assertion, “First came Chaos,” and Thales’ position, “All is from water,” i.e., a difference between a mythical positing of a being that, as such, stands beyond reason, and the investigation into the principles that reason can discover. (shrink)

A provocative survey of interdisciplinary challenges to the concept of dualism.

Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology explores the role that the singular plays in the theories of science of Robert Grosseteste, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Marsilius of Inghen, and Pierre d'Ailly. It pursues the question specifically in relation to the question of whether theology is a science. The work argues that the main issue in debates concerns whether theology is a science and how to provide a 'rational ground' for existing singulars. Science, the Singular, and (...) the Question of Theology exposes how, on the eve of modernity, existing singulars were freed from the constraints of rational ground. (shrink)

The Force of Reason and the Logic of Force investigates the concept of force through various "episodes" in the history of philosophy. The author argues that force arises on the basis of the distinction of reality and mere appearance. The book looks at figures who reduce force to something other than itself as well as figures who develop a "logic of force" that allows them to trace the operation of force without such a reduction.

In Defensor Pacis Marsilius of Padua grounds the legitimacy of the kingdom, or the state, on the peace that rule provides the citizens. Looking at Aristotle’s claim that the civitas strives to be like an animal in which all parts in the right proportion for the sake of health, Marsilius argues that ‘the parts of the kingdom or state will be well disposed for the sake of peace [tranquilitas].’ Marsilius goes on to define peace as the agreeable ‘belonging together’ of (...) all members of the kingdom or the state. In this way, Marsilius moves away from a theological ground of the legitimacy of the state towards one that is entirely secular. However, the ground is an unstable one in that it acknowledges the fact that the ‘members’ of the body politic are characterised by difference. As such, the ground of legitimate authority will be characterised as much by force as by peace or by the relation of force to peace. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article uses the central insights of Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus to analyze the labor movement in Chicago at the end of the nineteenth century, leading up to the Haymarket event and its aftermath. The article concludes by indicating some of the shortcomings of that approach.

Roger Bacon’s On the Multiplication of Species is an attempt to analyze efficient causality in terms of forces that are multiplied from agent to patient. This essay argues that this has significant implications for the traditional distinction between appearance and reality in that Bacon refuses to think efficient cause in terms of some other reality that does not appear and yet is the ground of appearance.

The Thought of Matter advances current debates around materialism, arguing that matter is the ‘other’ of thought and, therefore, requires a method that allows that other to emerge in thought without being appropriated by it.

All that we see, all that we touch, all that we perceive, are naught but ideas. There are trees and rivers, to be sure, but these are simply collections of ideas. Is everything, then, in this world an idea or made up of ideas? No. I, for one, am not an idea. Besides ideas there are spirits. I know that I, an active being, exist. It would seem that to know this and to know God exists, nay even for there (...) to be any meaning in what I say when I use the words “I,” “God,” and “spirit,” I would have to have an idea of myself, an idea of God, and an idea of spirit. But this cannot be. Ideas are essentially passive and inert. Spriits are essentially active. How, then, could an idea represent or be an image of a spirit? And what sense is there to something being an idea if it does not represent its object? How, then, can my discourse about spirits have any meaning at all? I have a notion of spirit. (shrink)