False Antithesis Research Articles

On ‘Halt!’ and On ‘on’

In this piece, two critics respond to each other about Kafka's brief tale Up in the Gallery. Vivian Liska explores several possible readings of the story correlated with the word ‘Halt!’—its key moment of interruption. She suggests that Kafka calls a halt to straightforwardly political and existentialist interpretations, based as they are on false antitheses, which, she claims, the story performatively undermines. She wonders if this necessarily ends up in a mere literature of intensities or if this subversive effect on thinking in dichotomies constitutes an intervention in the world. Paul North argues that the title, Auf der Galerie, should be read as a mode of being roughly equivalent to the spectator position. He suggests that the tale belongs to Kafka's critiques of the European onto-theological landscape, where the one continually spectates the suffering of the other.

Judgement for Israel: The Marriage of Wrath and Mercy in Romans 9–11

Reviewing John Barclay's Paul and the Gift, Susan Eastman recognises the need for ‘fuller analysis of judgment’ in Paul to accompany such penetrating work on grace. The dearth of interest in wrath often perpetuates the Marcionite premise that wrath precludes mercy, a false antithesis that especially skews interpretation of Romans. This presumed opposition leads scholars to find dithering dialectic, two covenants, two Israels or contradictory fantasy in Rom 9–11. Replacing the simple binary with a thicker lens of provisional judgement clarifies Paul's argument that God strikes Israel in wrath in order to heal them.

Trapped in False Antitheses

This paper critically scrutinizes Timothy Snyder’s book The Road toUnfreedom. Russia, Europe, America (The Bodley Head, Vintage, London2018). It claims that the main reason for his failure to present a convincingaccount of the current neo-nationalist and authoritarian turn and outline anadequate intellectual and political response to it is his clinging to an anti-totalitarian framework which he had applied to Eastern Europe in some ofhis previous historical works (Snyder 2003, 2010). The framework reducesthree main ideological alternatives that fought with each other in the lastcentury into two: liberalism was supposedly challenged by totalitarianism.Since Snyder reduces the present crisis to the threat of the return oftotalitarianism, he sees an appropriate response in the revival of the humanand civic solidarity associated with the anti-totalitarian movements of thelast century. The essay outlines an alternative view: it links the present crisisof democracy to the ravaging e!ects of neo-liberal globalization and,accordingly, suggests combining anti-authoritarianism with anti-capitalism– or human and civic solidarity with social solidarity.

Work time reduction and economic democracy as climate change mitigation strategies: or why the climate needs a renewed labor movement

Work time reduction (WTR), or reductions in the total amount of time spent in paid work, and economic democracy, or shifting the control of firms from capitalists to workers, are discussed as strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase well-being. Along with numerous social benefits, reduced working hours are associated with reductions in GHG emissions, energy use, and ecological footprints. Economic democracy not only increases individual and group autonomy, but also creates conditions conducive to lower energy and material throughput. A successful implementation of WTR and/or economic democracy presupposes a renewed labor movement. One tactic to help revive the labor movement is highlighting its capacity to help fight climate change. Pairing WTR and economic democracy may help overcome the false antithesis between the interests of workers and the environment. There is a genuine “win-win” scenario for people and the climate via shorter working hours in democratically controlled workplaces.

A reasonable objection? Commentary on ‘Further clarity on cooperation and morality’

Conscientious objectors to the killing of others—whether through war, abortion, infanticide or euthanasia usually pay quite a high price for taking such a stand, if only in having to bear...

Undermining Exoticism: Flaubert's Use of Antithesis in L'Éducation sentimentale

This article analyses the working of metonymy within structures of antithesis in Flaubert's 1869 Éducation sentimentale, and uses this as the basis for a re-examination of Flaubert's deployment of exotic and colonial motifs. These can best be understood not in isolation but as operating within paradigms. One of the devices used in the service of Flaubert's irony is delayed antithesis, in which an idealized orientalist element is undermined by a colonial or commercial appearance of the same motif. Another is false antithesis, in which two apparently opposed elements recur within a repeated paradigm: an exotic motif, such as a 'negro' statue or an Andalusian belle, appears juxtaposed with a motif that evokes Frenchness, generally in the form of references to the Ancien Régime; but this apparent opposition is unpicked so that both objects are revealed to stand metonymically for false pretensions, industrial art, and the idée reçue.

REFIGURING UNIVERSALISM

The validity and political utility of universalism has undergone a sustained assault from within feminist thought, but it is also the case that a number of feminist theorists have cautioned against...

Another Kind of Justice: Transitional Justice as Recognition

What criteria of justice should guide societies emerging from mass atrocity? This question lies at the heart of the ongoing debate on 'Transitional Justice.' It has become commonplace in mainstream Transitional Justice discourse to speak as though we were presented with an either/or choice: retributive or restorative justice? In arguing that this is a false antithesis, this essay elaborates on the idea of 'justice as recognition' — the kind of justice that is involved in recognizing the victims of massive wrongs, and thereby acknowledging their human and civic worth. This argument is developed through a series of critical engagements with recent works in moral and political theory that are representative of a general shift away from an exclusive concern with a 'politics of distribution,' focused on the just distribution of social goods, toward a 'politics of recognition,' focused on the reduction of humiliation and moral cruelty. Drawing on the ideas of social and political thinkers such as Axel Honneth and Avishai Margalit, this analysis sets out to construe transitional justice as a moral, political and legal project of recognition that puts victims and their negative experiences of injury and humiliation at its center. In formulating this project, it identifies two levels at which recognition may operate. While the first level focuses on an understanding of crime as interpersonal conflict, the second level concerns the inherently political nature of large-scale instances of evil. The strategy pursued here is to argue for an integrative approach that encompasses both aspects of recognition.

Understanding Legal Realism

Legal realism is well known, but generally misunderstood. Through a close examination of the work of the legal realists and their predecessors, this article presents a complete reconstruction of legal realism. The most startling finding of this article is that all the key insights now identified with the realists were set forth by prominent jurists much earlier. The article shows that Pound, Cardozo, and the legal realists, and their entire (respective) legal generations, were exposed to so much realism that they could not help but see judging in realistic terms. It is often said today, We are all realists now. Ample evidence will be presented in this article to show that at least three decades before the arrival of the legal realists, They were all realists then too. What was said about judging at the time - a full century ago - sounds exactly like what is said about judging today. The reconstruction completed in this article will simultaneously confirm the insights of realism about judging while dissolving the historical distinctiveness of the legal realists as a group. This finding is consistent with Llewellyn's own insistence (in the closing words of his essay defining legal realism) that a group philosophy or program, a group credo of social welfare, these realists have not. They are not a group. Llewellyn also wrote that Their differences in point of view, in interest, in emphasis, in field of work, are huge. They differ among themselves well-nigh as much as any of them differs from, say, Langdell. Modern accounts of legal realism, which typically present the legal realists as a distinctive group, have ignored these puzzling assertions, but they hold the key to understanding what legal realism was about. The aim of this exploration is to rescue realistic views about judging from the clutches of the prevailing misunderstanding about legal realism. It is a follow-up to The Bogus Tale About the Legal Formalists (available on SSRN). The combined effect of these two pieces is to show that the formalist-realist divide is entirely false as a historical matter, and should be discarded. Modern debates about judging are structured by and remain trapped within this false antithesis.

An analysis and reflection on effective teaching

Reflecting on nearly half a century’s research on “effective teaching”, this essay attempts to arouse a lot of suspicion, including ambiguous definition of connotation, a false antithesis and the imbalance between teachers and students. Accordingly, this study further reveals hidden thinking obstacles, such as over-reliance on technical rationality, wrong inference and the separation of the dialectical relationship between teaching and learning. As a future research direction, the ideal teaching should focus on virtue rather than efficiency, giving consideration to effectiveness and responsibility.

Comment (debate): primary care organizations and health systems

The International Journal of Health Planning and ManagementVolume 22, Issue 1 p. 21-24 Comment for debate: CommentFree Access Comment (debate): primary care organizations and health systems Calum Paton, Calum Paton Centre for Health Planning and Management, Keele University, UK Calum Paton is Editor of IJHPM, Director of Centre for Health Planning and Management and Professor of Health Policy.Search for more papers by this author Calum Paton, Calum Paton Centre for Health Planning and Management, Keele University, UK Calum Paton is Editor of IJHPM, Director of Centre for Health Planning and Management and Professor of Health Policy.Search for more papers by this author First published: 23 February 2007 https://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.874 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL REFERENCES Black D. 1984. An Anthology of False Antitheses. Nuffield Trust: London. Department of Health. 2001. Shifting the Balance of Power. Department of Health: London. Department of Health. 2005. Commissioning a Patient-Led NHS. Department of Health: London. Paton C. 2006. New Labour's State of Health: Political Economy, Public Policy and the NHS. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK and Burlington, Vt, USA. Volume22, Issue1January/March 2007Pages 21-24 ReferencesRelatedInformation

A REFORMATION ETHICS: PROCLAMATION AND JURISDICTION AS DETERMINANTS OF MORAL AGENCY AND ACTION

The position paper for this symposium provides an instructive account of the false antitheses and destructive fragmentation that have beset morality and ethics in our ‘late modern’ societies. We plenary speakers have been invited to contribute broader philosophical and historical perspectives to the tasks of diagnosing and overcoming these antitheses and this fragmentation. I would like, therefore, to bring to these diagnostic and constructive tasks the theoretical resources of the English Reformation which, although doctrinal and theological rather than philosophical (as independently conceived), are, in my view, germane to any coherent Christian ethical undertaking. While I shall concentrate on the constructive ethical contribution of English Reformation theology, I would like to offer a brief indication of its diagnostic relevance, by pointing to certain resemblances (possibly even continuities) between the present ethos and the ethos to which the 16th century reformers were responding, with its late medieval and renaissance strands.

The ‘Non‐dit’ in the Zenana: representations of Muslim women in Islamic canonical texts, the neo‐colonial imagination and a feminist response from Bangladesh

This essay recognizes that representations of the ‘Muslim woman’ as the Othered ‘object’ of the ‘Western’ gaze and the domesticated ‘object’ which the Islamic apologists strive hard to defend, are both constructions and false antitheses of each other. It seeks not the ‘truth’ regarding the Muslim women in the world of social reality but to examine how various representations of the women are constructed and to what effects and consequences these representations are mobilized. The essay proceeds in three stages. The first stage shows how the patriarchy mobilizes the Qur’an and the Hadith in order to construct the woman as the negative, the inessential and the abnormal of the man so as to exert complete subordination over her. However, the very act of attempting to mute the woman in Islam is the most strident proof that she is engaged in resistance against patriarchal control and the degree of resistance must be judged by the degree of patriarchal control. The second stage demonstrates how patriarchy operates in colonial and neo‐imperial landscape: it legitimizes the appropriation of Muslim woman ‘possessed’ by the Other (as exemplified by the orientalist seduction fantasy in William Dalrymple’s The White Mughals), but, haunted by the fear of rape and anxieties regarding the sexuality of the White woman possessed by the Self, it attempts to maintain strict control over her (as in the cases of Miss Wheeler in the ‘Mutiny’ of 1857 and Private Jessica Lynch in the Iraq War). This struggle over the feminine body is perfectly in line with Islam’s hyper‐anxiousness to hide the female body and rigorously ensure monopolic possession over her. The third stage shows how Taslima Nasreen, a late‐20th century feminist from Bangladesh, speaks the unspoken and thereby attempts to subvert the normative representation of the muted women in her autobiographical novella, entitled Āmār Meyebelā. In thus examining the representations of the Muslim women, this essay seeks an alternative ‘third space of enunciation’ and takes a distinct political stand located outside of the axis of the dichotomy of the ‘Western’ gaze and the construction of the Islamic theologians.

Eugenics, Rejuvenation, and Bulgakov's Journey into the Heart of Dogness

This new reading of Mikhail Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog challenges the two lines of thought that dominate existing interpretations. Cold Warinspired critics saw in the banned novella an anti-Soviet political allegory and ignored its astute treatment of Soviet debates on biosocial issues. Most other critics have cast Preobrazhenskii as a mad scientist in the Frankenstein tradition, unleashing forces he himself cannot control. Putting aside false antitheses, Bulgakov's novella emerges as a fictional exploration of ideas in eugenics, hormone replacement therapy, and the nature-nurture debate that had real urgency for early Soviet geneticists struggling for ideological support, and for Bolshevik policymakers trying to create a “New Soviet Man.” In this article, Yvonne Howell describes the competing scientific paradigms that provide a backdrop to Bulgakov's work and shows how attitudes from across the “nature-nurture” spectrum appear and interact in Heart of a Dog through the voices of its principal characters.

Rawls' Linguistic Analogy: A Study of the 'Generative Grammar' Model of Moral Theory Described by John Rawls in 'A Theory of Justice.' (Phd Dissertation, Cornell University, 2000)

The aim of the dissertation is to formulate a research program in moral cognition modeled on aspects of Universal Grammar and organized around three classic problems in moral epistemology: (1) What constitutes moral knowledge? (2) How is moral knowledge acquired? (3) How is moral knowledge put to use? Drawing on the work of Rawls and Chomsky, a framework for investigating (1)-(3) is proposed. The framework is defended against a range of philosophical objections and contrasted with the approach of developmental psychologists like Piaget and Kohlberg.One chapter consists of an interpretation of the analogy Rawls draws in A Theory of Justice between moral theory and generative linguistics. A second chapter clarifies the empirical significance of Rawls' linguistic analogy by formulating a solution to the problem of descriptive adequacy with respect to a class of commonsense moral intuitions, including those discussed in the trolley problem literature originating in the work of Foot and Thomson. Three remaining chapters defend Rawls' linguistic analogy against its critics. In response to Hare's objection that Rawls' conception of moral theory is too empirical and insufficiently normative, it is argued that Hare fails to acknowledge both the centrality of the problem of empirical adequacy in the history of moral philosophy and the complexity of Rawls' approach to the problem of normative adequacy. In response to Nagel's claim that the analogy between moral theory and linguistics is false because whatever native speakers agree on is English, but whatever ordinary individuals agree in condemning is not necessarily wrong, it is argued that the criticism ignores both Rawls' use of the competence-performance distinction and the theory-dependence of the corresponding distinction in linguistics. In response to Dworkin's claim that Rawls' conception of moral theory is incompatible with naturalism and presupposes constructivism, it is argued that Dworkin's distinction between naturalism and constructivism represents a false antithesis; neither is an accurate interpretation of the model of moral theory Rawls describes in 'A Theory of Justice.' The thesis concludes by situating Rawls' linguistic analogy within the context of broader debates in moral philosophy, metaethics, natural law theory, the theory of moral development, and the cognitive and brain sciences.

Northrop Frye: Eastern and Western Perspectives (review)

Reviewed by: Northrop Frye: Eastern and Western Perspectives Zhang Longxi (bio) Jean O’Grady and Wang Ning, editors. Northrop Frye: Eastern and Western Perspectives University of Toronto Press. xxi, 183. $50.00 I still remember the excitement on first reading Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism as a graduate student at Peking University in China in 1979, after the disastrous Cultural Revolution. A friend sent me the book from Rochester, New York, when even Peking University Library didn't have a copy, which only added to my plaisir du texte. In the winter 1980 issue of Waiguo wenxue yanjiu [Studies in Foreign Literature], I published 'Frye's Critical Theory,' which was the very first essay on Frye published in mainland China. Given my longtime interest since then, I feel especially [End Page 572] happy to find a collection of essays published by the University of Toronto Press on Frye from Chinese and Western perspectives. The collection offers a rare opportunity to have a glimpse into some interesting but little-discussed aspects of Frye's writings related to the East. Though Frye is unquestionably a 'product of Western culture,' Robert Denham shows that he did 'wade more deeply into Eastern waters than his public writings suggest.' It is surprising to find Frye struggling with esoteric but important Buddhist concepts, trying to align them with Western ones in 'an experiment of the translation of ideas'; and it is revealing of the magnanimity of his mind that he believed in cross-cultural translatability and rejected 'false antitheses about Eastern & Western thought.' G.N. Forst discusses the connection of Frye and Kant, and from the East-West perspective, one can see even more in that connection and understand why Frye's ideas should prove so relevant and attractive to intellectuals in post-Mao China. Against the orthodoxy of socialist realism and the utilitarian idea that arts and literature must serve the socialist state, it is not difficult to see the enormous appeal of Frye's notion of the liberating power of 'free play' and his Kantian emphasis on the 'disinterestedness' of the aesthetic. The same can be said about Jean O'Grady's discussion of Frye's humanistic vision of the university and liberal education. The concept of a 'socially disengaged university' is as relevant today in China as it is in the West. Frye's international reputation rests on his encyclopedic conceptualization of myth and archetypal criticism, which leads from literature to philosophy and religion and from an aesthetic to a social and spiritual vision transcending the reality we know. Several essays in this collection, particularly G.R. Gill on Frye's last major work, Words with Power, and Jan Gorak on his first important essay, 'The Argument of Comedy,' elucidate this point with clarity and persuasiveness. The section on Frye and Canada firmly establishes Frye as a major figure in the formulation of the Canadian literary tradition, and shows how his critical theory relates to major works of Canadian literature. Most readers, however, may feel especially interested in the section on Frye and China, as it provides a rare opportunity to learn about the reception and influence of Frye's works in a very different country. Unfortunately, I find that section rather weak. Ye Shuxian's survey of the reception of myth and archetypal criticism in China does provide useful information. He mentions my 1983 essay, but ignores my earlier (1980) and much fuller account of Frye's critical theory, and thereby cuts short the history of Chinese reception by several years. Wu Chizhe considers Frye's 'applicability' to 'Chinese realities,' but he fails to understand Frye or Chinese literature adequately. Statements like the following are simply wrong: 'In China, tragedy as a dramatic form ... emerged with the rise of the bourgeoisie in about the thirteenth and fourteenth [End Page 573] centuries'; Shakespeare wrote 'tragedies of character,' in which 'a mere flaw ... eventually leads to his own destruction,' a point Frye has specifically refuted in Anatomy of Criticism. Finally, Gu Mingdong's effort to find correspondence between Frye's modes of mimesis with the stages of a child's evolving ego only reduces Frye's rich and highly imaginative theoretical argument to...

Machiavelli and the Politics of Grace

The simplicity of Machiavelli's complexity is established in unprincipled expediency. This is bluntly expounded in Il principe concerning antithetical qualities that traditionally evoke praise or blame. These are generosity and miserliness, benefaction and avarice, cruelty and compassion, faithlessness and faithfulness, effeminacy and cowardice versus ferocity and courage, courtesy and pride, lasciviousness and purity, guilelessness and craftiness, stubbornness and flexibility, gravity and frivolity, religiosity and skepticism. 1 The lack of parallelism, the rhetorical disorder that presents now a virtue, now a vice, first in each antithesis signals his intention of upsetting their usual evaluation. Machiavelli scrambles their status perversely to counsel an evaluation that is valueless. An option about piety concludes the list emphatically: religiosity and skepticism. This is a false antithesis. In only a decade the humanist Erasmus will both religiously and skeptically deliberate divine grace and human choice. Indeed, he will propose that in disputed questions skepticism is piety. The conflicting methods of treating that question, whether deliberatively or assertively, will have violent, divisive, irreversible political effects. 2 Although Machiavelli does not venture to explain his false antithesis, he [End Page S224] designates it the most important. His meaning is inferable from his exposition of other pairs. 3

Machiavelli and the Politics of Grace

The simplicity of Machiavelli's complexity is established in unprincipled expediency. This is bluntly expounded in Il principe concerning antithetical qualities that traditionally evoke praise or blame. These are generosity and miserliness, benefaction and avarice, cruelty and compassion, faithlessness and faithfulness, effeminacy and cowardice versus ferocity and courage, courtesy and pride, lasciviousness and purity, guilelessness and craftiness, stubbornness and flexibility, gravity and frivolity, religiosity and skepticism. 1 The lack of parallelism, the rhetorical disorder that presents now a virtue, now a vice, first in each antithesis signals his intention of upsetting their usual evaluation. Machiavelli scrambles their status perversely to counsel an evaluation that is valueless. An option about piety concludes the list emphatically: religiosity and skepticism. This is a false antithesis. In only a decade the humanist Erasmus will both religiously and skeptically deliberate divine grace and human choice. Indeed, he will propose that in disputed questions skepticism is piety. The conflicting methods of treating that question, whether deliberatively or assertively, will have violent, divisive, irreversible political effects. 2 Although Machiavelli does not venture to explain his false antithesis, he [End Page S224] designates it the most important. His meaning is inferable from his exposition of other pairs. 3

Skillnadens doxa

In this article, Rita Felski explores the philosophical inconsistencies as well as the political problems of trying to ground feminism in difference. Feminist scholars may question particular images of difference for objectifying or exoticizing others. However, the force of this critique usually relies on the belief that there are real, genuine differences that are obscured by this false representation. Felski looks at two influential currents in feminist theory: psychoanalytic theories of sexual difference in feminist philosophy and analyses of the cultural and material differences between women in postcolonial studies. These two fields want, though in dissimilar ways, to radicalize and complicate the notion of difference. Looking at these two areas of inquiry thus provides a good starting point from which to explore the ramifications of alterity, heterogeneity, difference, and the like in feminist thought. One of the aims of the article is to rethink alterity as the supreme goal of feminist theory and politics. Felski does not seek to do away with difference but simply to question the belief that it is the ultimate explanation of how things really are. She offers a description of equality and difference that is pragmatic rather than ontological, that asks what work these concepts can do rather than whether they are true. The common opposition in feminist thought between equality and difference is in fact a false antithesis. The concepts are philosophically interdependent. The pursuit of difference thus returns us inexorably to seemingly obsolete issues of equality and commonality.

False Antitheses? Marxism, Nature and Actor‐Networks

This paper stages an encounter between two critical approaches that have been central to the recent “greening” of left geography. The theoretical and normative claims of the first approach, eco‐Marxism, have been subject to sometimes biting criticism from advocates of the second approach, actor‐network theory (ANT). Taking a nonorthodox Marxist perspective, I argue that the ANT critique of political economy approaches to nature is overstated and only partly defensible. By distinguishing between different modalities of eco‐Marxism and ANT, I show the seeming standoff between the two approaches to society‐nature relations to be false. Splitting the difference between a weak version of ANT and a relational version of eco‐Marxism yields a political economy approach to socionature that arguably avoids the excesses of strong modalities of ANT and dualistic forms of eco‐Marxism. By seeking to bridge the apparent gap between Marxism and ANT, the paper avoids reducing either approach to society‐nature relations to one fixed position or theoretical‐normative “essence”. Instead, a particular modality of ANT is used to address the weaknesses of certain extant versions of eco‐Marxism. The resulting synthesis offers conceptual tools with which Marxists can still critique a pervasive mode of human relationality to nature–namely, capitalist–while multiplying the actors and complicating the politics involved in approaching the society‐environment nexus.