Critical Philosophy Research Articles

Accepting or Transgressing the Failure: Derrida and Agamben on Kafka’s Before the Law

This paper explores Derrida and Agamben’s reading of Kafka’s Before the Law. As a highly symbolic text, Kafka’s short story has elicited numerous interpretations, among which Derrida and Agamben proffer, to some extent, opposing readings that exemplify their broader philosophical projects. By elucidating the parallels between Kafka’s parable and the modern legal system, this paper analyses the different angles of Derrida and Agamben’s views in their interpretations. Upon examining various aspects of their analyses, which encompass their philosophical reflections on difference, origin, command, messiah, event, threshold, and outside, the paper concentrates on the concluding moment of the story. This particular juncture proves to be the most challenging, manifesting a profoundly intriguing question in critical philosophy, and the disparate interpretations of the two philosophers underscore this intellectual challenge. The paper argues that Derrida’s reading which accepts the failure of the village man without seeking any victory going beyond the legal system is a position that critical legal thinking needs to consider, while Agamben’s, here exceptionally, transgressive tendency in pursuit of an extra-legal space is something that should not be of concern for critical legal thinking. The paper argues that Derridean acceptance of failure constitutes a radical force for the deconstructive standpoint, immunizing it against reconciliation and identification.

The fuzzy logics of parasitism: catachresis and prognosis in Michel Serres

ABSTRACT The article examines the sense, in the philosophy of Michel Serres, of a kind of parasitism that deviates subtly from existing understandings of the term. Parasitism is instantiated by a subtle deviation in his use of the word, such that it describes a deviant movement whose logic he describes as fuzzy. The role of the parasite in this sense comes between the diagnostic work of critical philosophy and the prognostic aim of inventing future institutions. How can one imagine the social orders and institutions that will come to replace those that are currently in various stages of crisis or dissolution? In his later writing Serres focuses his thought concerning habituation, dwelling, and world transformation on the generations for whom, he claims, no other world but a newly minted one ever existed. However, the utopianism suggested by this idea becomes complicated by the fuzzy logic of the parasite. A catachresis of the notion of the parasite suggests a revision of the concept of force under the influence of a latent vulnerability. Serres implies that speculating on the evolution of the species requires an understanding of its adaptive form.

Mempertanyakan Teodisi: Teodisi Yahudi Sesudah Auschwitz dalam Telaah Zachary Braiterman

The 20th century holocaust against Jews in Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and other concentration camps was the starting point for the change in modern Jewish theology towards contemporary theology. Contemporary Jewish theologians, rabbis, and philosophers have revisited their theodicy by critically reading scriptural texts and traditions (Midrash). The substance debated in theodicy is about God’s goodness which is in conflict with God’s omnipotence so that evil and suffering occur. The problem of Jewish theodicy after Auschwitz was studied by Zachary Braiterman by explaining the split between the hegemony of Jewish theodicy with a religious discourse and anti-theodicy with a pagan discourse. Braiterman uses a postmodern approach to map the criticism of Jewish theologians and philosophers towards the universal truth of theodicy before Auschwitz. This new discourse is useful for transforming the cultural changes of modern Jewish society from its marginal position in the text to becoming the main figure (anthropodicy). It seems that Braiterman is supporting the anti-theodicy movement to move beyond the nightmare of the holocaust in order to free the Jewish people from suffering by critically rereading texts and tradition.

MARXISM AND AMOR INTELLECTUALIS: TOWARD A THEORY OF SOCIALIST CULTURE BY VOLODYMYR YURYNETS

The paper analyzes the methodological framework of the philosophy of culture and new literary criticism of the Ukrainian philosopher and literary critic Volodymyr Yurynets (1891—1937) within his article “To the Problem of Socialist Culture (Introduction to the book ‘Mykola Bazhan’).” His ideas testify to the powerful methodological searches in the field of Marxist criticism of the 1920s aimed at substantiating the nature of post-revolutionary culture. Balancing between Marxism and Western idealist philosophy, Yurynets brings elements of the latter into his philosophical Marxist criticism.
 While elaborating a model of new criticism, Yurynets substantiates perception based on a “fluxion of intellectual sympathy.” In this process, the recipient becomes an organ of “amor intellectualis, indifferent amazement.” Yurynets considers his philosophical criticism of culture to be a Marxist form of cultural philosophy. He asserts that literature is a form of philosophical thinking and argues that literary criticism armed with philosophy is a phenomenon completely different from academic literary criticism. Justifying philosophical criticism as an active and modeling force of the modern time, Yurynets appeals to the ideas of the literary critic Leonid Grossman, the literary theorist Pavel Medvedev, and the linguist Nikolai Marr. Yurynets’s concept comes down to the search for the meaning of art in relation to the “life world” of a man. At the same time, he interprets the discovery of the “living forces of the epoch” in the context of historical materialism. In an effort to purify aesthetic perception from subjectivity, psychology, and emotion, Yurynets actually adapts E. Husserl’s ‘phenomenological reduction’ and applies it to the aesthetic reception. The scholar also refers to reflexology and Freudian psychoanalysis as sources of artistic inspiration and interpretive ideas for contemporary philosophical criticism.

The True Infinity of the Living: The Hegelian Infrastructure of Hägglund's This Life

Abstract Although the concept of ‘true infinity’ is undoubtedly central to Hegel's philosophy, the Anglophone rehabilitation of Hegel as a post-Kantian critical philosopher has avoided any sustained interpretive confrontation with the concept. In this paper, I provide a revisionary reconstruction of Hegelian true infinity by engaging with Martin Hägglund's argument in This Life (2019) for the centrality of finitude to Hegel's philosophy. For Hägglund, Hegel's philosophy effects a ‘secular reconciliation’ with finitude by demonstrating that our mortality is not a negative condition to be overcome; rather, mortality is constitutive of rational social agency or ‘spiritual life’. While Hägglund's interpretive emphasis on finitude prima facie occludes a consideration of the concept of true infinity, I show that Hägglund's understanding of spiritual life in terms of the dynamic of self-maintenance implicitly articulates a revisionary understanding of true infinity as instantiated in and through the activity of finite living rational beings. More specifically, I show that Hägglund's understanding of finitude as constitutive of spiritual life is grounded in three closely interrelated Hegelian meta-concepts, all of which Hegel derives in the second chapter of the Logic (‘Existence’): (a) the distinction between abstract and determinate negation; (b) the form of individuality as constituted through determinate negation; and (c) true infinity as the form of individuality understood in explicitly processual terms. I thus ground a deflationary interpretation of true infinity in Hegel's logical account of determinate individuality, and at the same time, contribute to This Life's ongoing critical reception by articulating its Hegelian logical infrastructure.

An Irrealist Theory of Race

ABSTRACT In this article I draw upon an analogy between a debate in the critical philosophy of race over the metaphysics of race and a debate in Buddhist philosophy of mind over the metaphysics of selves. I argue that there is a defensible irrealist theory of race, corresponding to the performativist theory of self found in certain Buddhist thinkers.

The early Polish attempts at translating Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

This article presents the history of the first Polish translation of the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. An active role in its creation was played by: Henryk Struve, Romuald Grzymała-Piątkowski, and Kazimierz Twardowski. The study reveals the problem of the organisers of this initiative to the appointment of a translator and the preparation of the translation's publication. The key role was played by Struve. Twardowski limited himself to criticism, both of the editors of the "Biblioteka Filozoficzna" and of the translator himself. The translation was eventually published in 1901. Despite its flaws and numerous shortcomings, it was the first work by Kant representing a mature critical philosophy to be published in Polish.

Racialized Disgust and the Depiction of Native Americans in the Ranown Cycle Westerns

This article explores mainstream audience reactions concerning race and how they intersect with late 1950s Westerns known as the Ranown cycle. Synthesizing ideas from critical philosophy of race, philosophy of film, cognitive film theory, and philosophy of emotion, I analyze how these films elicit racialized reactions of sociomoral disgust toward Native American characters. Because such responses are not ordinarily processed through higher-level forms of cognition, I argue that these embodied, affective, implicit reactions are key to understanding how films like those in the Ranown cycle convey feelings, perspectives, and ideas concerning race, with important implications for ideology as well as philosophizing about film.

Kant and Freud on the restriction of the subject

Subjectivity is a common problem in both philosophy and psychoanalysis. In this article, through analysis of the respective thoughts of Kant and Freud, it will be discovered that Kant's critical philosophy and Freud's psychoanalysis have a possibility of dialogue in the restriction of subject, and the basis of this possibility is the finite subjectivism. This positive dialogue between critical philosophy and psychoanalysis will have some theoretical significance for both in dealing with scientism.

도덕과 인구·다문화 가치 교육의 방향과 과제

The purpose of this study is to critically discuss the characteristics of multicultural education in Korea related to population and multicultural phenomena, and to clarify the direction and task of multicultural value education in moral education. Multicultural education in Korea is related to the phenomenon of low birth and aging society. These characteristics are the cause of Korean multicultural education revealing 'the absence of humanistic discourse', 'the creation of intentional boundary support', and 'limits to reflecting various discourses'. This is related to the subjective self-view orientation inherent in Korean society. Seyla Benhabib argues that the subjective self-view orientation inherent in critical philosophy has become a limit in that critical philosophy overcomes the limitations of modern philosophy. Like Seyla Benhabib's criticism of the philosophy of subjective self-view, the direction of multicultural value education pursued by population and multicultural education in moral education should be designed based on relational epistemology by overcoming subjective self-relationships. In addition, it is necessary to establish detailed educational contents of multicultural education through the process of constructive thinking that is soundly carried out within the community of needs and solidarity. Through this, we will be able to develop the direction of multicultural value education that contributes to peace in our community through moral educational research.

評《與機器一起思考》

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 In this paper, I first reiterate the views of Lyreskog et al. and stress the importance of discussing ethical questions in the context of ABT—a topic that has clearly not received enough attention in China. Second, given the current state of Chinese applied ethics, I focus on what Lyreskog et al. refer to as a “seismic shift in how we conceptualize much of what we take to be core values in medicine and healthcare” (Lyreskog et. al 2023, 11–34) to explain how to realize the innovative progress of ABT ethics in contemporary China. I agree in principle that frameworks aiming to offer ethical guidance in ABT situations should use ontologies and taxonomies that allow for conceptual flexibility and redesign. These frameworks should also be subjected to philosophical critique and modified in light of scientific practice.

“The Critique of Pure Reason” in the Writings of P.D. Lodij

First Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Main Pedagogical Institute and then also St. Petersburg University, Carpatho-Rusyn P. D. Lodij spent a quarter of a century teaching philosophy and law in the Russian Empire in the first third of the 19th century. His knowledge of Kant’s philosophy and his attitude to Kant’s criticism are estimated diametrically opposed in the research literature. An analysis of his main philosophical work, “Logical Precepts which Lead to Cognition and the Distinction of the True from the False” (1815), convincingly proves that Lodij was an excellent scholar of Kant’s philosophy. In Russia, he was the first thinker who spoke about the differences between the first and second editions of the “Critique of Pure Reason”. Lodij also was the first who noted both the revolutionary role of Kant’s Copernican turn, and the importance of Humeʼs causality problem for the formation of critical philosophy. In Russia, Lodij was the first who proposed a detailed description of Kant’s transcendental idealism. At the same time, Lodij’s general attitude to Kant was rather skeptical. In his own logic, he does not follow Kant’s division of logic into pure and applied, but he returns to pre-Kant’s split into theoretical and practical logics. Lodij disputes with the basic conclusions about the space derived from the transcendental aesthetic, denies synthetic judgments a priori and the rooting of the cognizing reason in illusions. Despite his unequivocal claims regarding Kant’s philosophy, “Logical Precepts” and its author were persecuted during the so-called “professorsʼ affair” of the 1820s. As a result, Lodij was suspended from teaching philosophy, and his logic textbook was withdrawn from teaching for both “disgrace” and imaginary Kantianism.

The Necessity of the Discipline of Pure Reason for the Systematicity of the Practical Use of Reason in Kant’s Critical Philosophy

The Necessity of the Discipline of Pure Reason for the Systematicity of the Practical Use of Reason in Kant’s Critical Philosophy

Contemporary challenges of consumption: a Kafkaesque and critical marketing perspective

Abstract Purpose Markets are sites of collaboration as well as contestation between their various actors, including firms and consumers. In this respect, a narrative that consumers are more empowered than ever has been in vogue. Drawing from Kafka’s literature and philosophy and the paradigm of critical marketing, this paper argues for a broadened perspective. Design/methodology/approach Using a selective and exploratory-review approach, six dimensions of the state of today’s consumer emerge. These are subsequently assessed and developed as manifestations challenging the empowerment thesis. Findings The depiction of intense subjugation in Kafka’s fiction and the lack of agency his characters portray furnish narrative frames to view the paradoxical state of contemporary consumption. Specifically, consumer choice and sovereignty, service failures and recoveries, privacy concerns, the capitalist nexus, transformation in service provisioning modes, and frontline employees’ lowered stakes comprise six analytical frames of consumers’ lives that depict their paradoxical simultaneity of empowerment and entrapment. Originality/value The work contributes to critical marketing theory in particular and critical philosophy in general. Specifically, the proposed framework of consumption challenges depicted herein can serve as a mid-range theoretical taxonomy. The exemplar states highlighted reveal managerial and policy challenges.

Rousseau in narratives of Kyiv academic philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

This article aims to reveal the semantic dynamics of narratives on Rousseau in Kyiv academic philosophy of the 19th and early 20th centuries. through the separation of the informational layer from the rhetorical one in their content and the identification of hidden (unarticulated) elements that determined both the general nature of the narrative and the evaluative judgments of the narrators. Based on archival primary sources and printed editions (mostly bibliographic rarities), a historical and philosophic study of the narratives on Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his philosophy of education performed, which were created and broadcast by professors of Kyiv Theological Academy and St.Volodymyr University Pamfil Yurkevych, Sylvester Gogotskyi, Markellin Olesnitskyi, Mykola Makkaveiskyi, Oleksandr Selikhanovych, and Vasyl Zenkovskyi. Keeping almost the same informational core, the narratives of Kyiv academicians on Rousseau differ significantly in terms of rhetoric. While the “older generation” goes into philosophical criticism of the pedagogical ideas of the Swiss thinker as the Stranger, the “younger ones”, limiting themselves to remarks about their controversial nature, represent him as the Self. This difference is due to both personal factors and institutional conditions for the development of Kyiv academic philosophy, as well as changes in the general political situation in the period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

History and Power in Hume’s ‘Of Miracles’: A Pragmaticist-Historicist Account

Abstract This reconsideration of Hume’s classic essay “Of Miracles” via the lens of American pragmatist ways of thinking about history and power shifts our attention from Hume’s epistemic concerns about the legitimacy of witnesses and testimony to his distaste for sacred history, his critical stance regarding the social force of revelation, and his disdain for religious authority. To view Hume’s essay both as an articulation of a critical philosophy of history and as an exercise in moral dynamism (social power or, authority, is a result of epistemic transactions), is to intervene in both Hume studies and Contemporary Pragmatism.

Preface to a Philosophy by Which No One Can Live

This essay proposes an ethics for critical philosophies attuned to global white supremacy and its effects of violence, erasure, and precarity. The essay examines Arthur Schopenhauer as a potential forefigure for critical practices that aim to attend to the precarious survival of the global majority engulfed by white supremacy and racial capitalism. Through Denise Ferreira da Silva’s and Sara Ahmed’s philosophies of race, the essay carries out an autotheoretical dissection—tracing Ruffin’s own myopic relation to the white supremacist moralities that continue to thrive in critical interdisciplinary German studies. As a way out of the aporia that white supremacy enacts, the essay proposes an orientation away from what is thought to be life and toward a critical aesthetics that attends to the unsurviving.

From the Archimedean point to circles in the sand—Post-sustainable curriculum and the critical subject

Critical thinking (CT) is frequently mentioned as a key competence in sustainability curricula. In this context our era is often diagnosed as being ‘post-truth’, indicating an epistemic concern. However, emerging ‘post-sustainable’ views in education indicate that environmental crises are posing increasingly existential concerns, which might partly explain why simple consciousness-raising sometimes faces denial or fails to promote sustainable action. To overcome this challenge, we undertake a philosophical critique of modern (individual, rational, autonomous) subjectivity assumed in CT and much of curricular thinking. We follow the ‘ontological turn’ where criticality means self-reflective questioning of one’s own being-in-the-world. One acute question concerns energy, especially fossil fuels, which constitute much of the autonomous experience of modern, critical subjectivity, while simultaneously endangering the future horizon of that same subjectivity. Climate strikes at schools and the yellow vest movements indicate, in their own ways, how ecologically problematic fossil fuels are bending modern rationality into unpredicted directions. Metaphoric Archimedes and his ‘circles in the sand’ demonstrate the vulnerability of critical thought facing post-sustainability. This vulnerability should be addressed in curriculum theory, since it is interdependent persons—rather than independent subjects—who are open to sustainable transformation and action.

Two sorts of philosophical therapy: Ordinary language philosophy, social criticism and the Frankfurt school

In a recent article, Fabian Freyenhagen argues that we should understand first-generation Frankfurt School critical theory (in particular, the work of Adorno and Horkheimer) as being defined by a kind of ‘linguistic turn’ analogous to one present in the later Wittgenstein. Here, I elaborate on this hypothesis – initially by calling it into question, by detailing Herbert Marcuse’s extensive criticisms of Wittgenstein (and other analytic philosophers of language) in One-Dimensional Man. While Marcuse is harshly critical of analytic ordinary language philosophy, he is much more sympathetic to a different sort of ordinary language philosophy, which he unpacks with reference to Karl Kraus. I show how, by getting Marcuse’s criticisms of Wittgenstein and other analytic philosophers, and lauding of Kraus, into view, we can better understand the first generation of the Frankfurt School as having practised a sort of ‘non-quietistic’ philosophical therapy (that may or may not have been the sort of thing that Wittgenstein himself had in mind).

Philosophy of Science in the Scope of Education and Science Management

Between science and philosophy which both use reflective thinking methods in an effort to understand the facts of life, these are critical philosophy and science, open-minded and highly committed to the truth. In this connection the philosophy of science will open up insight into what the substance of science actually is. . This is because the philosophy of science is a further study and reflection on science, thus it is an absolute requirement to oppose the disintegration of science. Apart from that, to maintain balance in the growth of existing sciences, through an understanding of the principles, background and relationships of a scientific activity. The philosophy of science clarifies the existence of science which requires other knowledge as a means of thinking and a means of scientific communication. These tools include language, logic, mathematics, statistics, and other data analysis techniques. Philosophy-based educational management is the management of educational resources based on a realistic study of nature and the meaning of life, which is carried out using rational, natural scientific, harmonious and critical thinking.