Immaterial Forms Research Articles

Intersubjectivity, Responsibility, and Reason

Levinas scholars frequently seem unable to read Husserl in a charitable manner, regarding his work as merely a foil for Levinas's project, merely an example of Western philosophy's bad habits. So, for example, Husserl is accused of thinking that "the relationship with the object takes place within the subject" and of "presupposing] a merely intellectual attitude ... [neglecting] the rich variety of intentional life-emotional and practical as well as theoretical-through which we relate to things, persons and the world."1 Such readings not only raise the hackles of Husserl scholars, and rightly so, but also flatly contradict Levinas's own interpretation of Husserl inasmuch as, for example, Levinas himself actually defends Husserl against both these accusations.2 The failure among Levinas scholars to take Husserl's work seriously belies not only Levinas's own regard for Husserl's work-work that he found sufficiently inspiring to return to and engage time and again over a span of more than fifty years-but, in explaining Levinas's project by contrast to a straw man, also deprives us of resources for clarifying some important differences between the two thinkers. If we are to adequately comprehend these differences, we must attend more closely to their common ground. In recent years, light has been shed on some of this common ground by the new interpretations of some of Husserl's central concepts and analyses that have been made possible by the ongoing publication of Husserl's research manuscripts and lectures. Because this reinterpretation provides an alternative to the standard ("old") reading of Husserl, it has been referred to as presenting the "new Husserl."3 Of particular interest for the interaction between the philosophies of Husserl and Levinas, this new interpretation has reconceptualized the nature and significance of intersubjectivity in Husserl's phenomenology. This new interpretation reveals a Husserl whose understanding of intersubjectivity was much closer to Levinas's than is usually noticed.4 Husserl's Intersubjective Transformation of Transcendental Phenomenology In his later writings, Husserl seems, in places, to concede Levinas's persistent concern that cognition reduces what is other to the same by neutralizing the transcendence of foreign beings. Husserl acknowledges that the investigation of perceptual objects aims at "cognitive appropriation" in which "their being, their truth becomes my own" or "belongs to me as mine."5 Recognizing the neutralization of transcendence this appropriation effects, Husserl admits that the "transcendence of the perceivable thing ... is, so we may say, itself only a form of immanence."6 If we were to couple this admission with Husserl's claim from Ideas I that "[the] concept of the transcendence of something physical... is the measure of the rationality of any statements about transcendence,"7 Husserl would be guilty of the reduction of the other to the same, about which Levinas is so concerned. Physical objects would be the paradigm case of transcendence and cognition would neutralize this transcendence through appropriation. However, to make the case in this way would be to miss the development the notion of transcendence undergoes in Husserl's work. For, in his later work, it is no longer physical objects that are the paradigm case of transcendence, but other subjects. He writes: "Here we have the only transcendence which is really worth its name, and anything else that is also called transcendent, as the objective world, depends upon the transcendence of foreign subjectivity."18 The transcendence of foreign subjects, that is, others, is indicated by the fact that foreign subjects as such are inaccessible in principle. For were I to have access to the consciousness of another subject in the way in which I have access to my own, then the other's consciousness would be in principle indistinguishable from my own. The irreducible transcendence of others is thus affirmed by Husserl's repeated insistence that others are never given as such. …

HEGEMONY, RADICAL DEMOCRACY, POPULISM

This article demonstrates what it means to construe Ernesto Laclau's work as precisely political theory. By analyzing his work in terms of the relations between ‘hegemony’ as a theory of the political, ‘radical democracy’ as a normative theory, and the ever-present but of ten overlooked element of ‘populism’ as a theory of a form of politics, it captures the full-fledged political character of his work (as opposed to simply moral theory). Though the article offers various criticisms of the ways the three elements are elaborated and interlinked, especially through the imprecise notions of ‘the underdogs’ and ‘the underprivileged’, it also highlights the value of attempting to situate the act of political theorizing in the world at hand by explicitly trying to identify an immanent form of politics thought in terms of a theory of the political and a normative theory, an act that will allow one to go beyond value-neutral political analysis, empty moral theory, or blind political strategizing. Only together do these three elements make up properly political theory.

Reconnaissance et meconnaissance: sur la méconnaissance: theorie de la violence symbolique

Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence is an important contribution to the sociological understanding of recognition processes, which has been a central topic from his first ethnographical research in Kabylia to his last writings. The concept of symbolic capital accounts for an immaterial form of competition and accumulation aiming at prestige and recognition. The symbolic violence theory describes the process of accepting to submit to domination through social relations, a process based on recognition of the dominants by the dominated and misrecognition of the constitutive basis of this relation. Despite its contribution to the understanding of recognition processes, the sociology of symbolic violence shows certain limits. Bourdieu reduces the specificity of recognition conflicts to an instrumental frame inspired by classical economic theory instead of pursuing the investigation of their internal logic. Moreover, emphasis on the instituted order of misrecognition and the reproduction of relations of domination tends to minimize the instituting dimension of the conflict and the impact of normative expectations in social struggles. The article invites critical examination of the theory of symbolic violence in view of an approach to recognition processes that is not subjected to categories of economic thought but is able to re-inject into its core the instituting moment of the conflict.

Critique, Contextualism and Consensus

In an epistemology of contextualism, how robust does consensus need to be for critique to be practically effective? In ‘Relativism and the Critical Potential of Philosophy of Education’ Frieda Heyting proposes a form of contextualism, but her argument raises a number of problems. The kinds of criteria that her version of contextualism will furnish provide, at best, the potential only for an immanent form of critique from within a particular practice, and the possibility that practitioners alone will adopt a general stance of critique. By their nature, the criteria that Heyting endorses will be too transient and ephemeral to assist in any larger project that might be aimed at making effective criticism of the status quo. Further problems are exposed to do with the conditions needed to make critique effective when Heyting's normative argument is situated in the Realpolitik of contemporary education. Drawing on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, and in a manner intended to be complementary to Heyting's normative argument, the paper offers some suggestions regarding the role that doubt might play in justifying criticisms of the status quo.

Память: Вечная или “куриная”?: Мемориальная логика в постсоветской России

SUMMARY: Elizabeth Gessat-Antstett focuses on the social cadres of memory in post-Soviet Russia. She addresses memorial practices of the former inhabitants of the city of Mologa in the Yaroslavl’ region of Russia. The city was evacuated and later flooded in 1941 as the Soviet authorities proceeded with the construction of the Rybinsk reservoir. Gessat-Antstett approaches memorial practices of the members of the former Mologa community from the point of view of ethnology, attempting to assess not only the forms of memory but also the logic and the categories that underlie the memorial discourse. Consisting of mostly people beyond 60 years, the Mologa group institutionalized itself in 1998. Most members of the group share traumatic experiences of the Soviet past. The group attempted to move their memories from the private to the public space through the construction of territorial identity and memorial practices, such as the local museum. Annual meetings to mark the day of flooding help create the identity of a “small homeland” for members of the community. Also, community members visit the location of the former city covered by water, as well as request liturgies. According to the author, memorial practices of the Mologa community reveal the predominantly emotional, non-rational foundations of the memorial discourse. Transgressing the boundary between history and myth, this memorial discourse appeals to symbols and affection, not to numbers and facts. Noting the importance of immaterial forms of commemoration in post-Soviet Russia, the author focuses on the connection between memory and food in the context of annual commemorations that are usually concluded with a common meal. For commemorations of Mologa specific historical contexts are largely irrelevant, although the memory of Mologa also stresses the topic of victimization of the local population during the period of Stalinism. Nevertheless, this victimization does not presuppose a search for the guilty. The author sees this silence about the historical responsibility in the context of the lack of Volgolag memory and the general lack of discussion of historical responsibility in the post-Soviet society. Avoiding references to the historical contexts that serve as markers of national identity, local memory, such as the memory of the Mologa community, represents a search for refuge from big national and supranational narratives.

A Remarkable Disappearing Act

A Remarkable Disappearing Act

The Energetic Metabolism of Societies Part I: Accounting Concepts

SummaryBased upon the currently emerging international consensus on how to account for the materials flows of industrialized countries, this article proposes methods to account for the energetic metabolism of societies. It argues that, to fully exploit the potential of the metabolism approach in the context of sustainable development, both energetic and material aspects of societal metabolism have to be taken into account. The article proposes concepts to empirically describe energy input, internal energy transformations, and energy utilization of societies by extending commonly used notions of energy statistics in a way that is compatible with current methods of materials flow analysis. Whereas energy statistics include only the energy used in technical devices for providing heat, light, mechanical work, and data processing, an accounting system for the energetic metabolism of societies should also consider flows of nutritional energy for both livestock and humans. Moreover, in assessing the energy input of a society, all inputs of energy‐rich materials (and immaterial forms of energy such as electricity and light) that cross the boundary into the biophysical structures of society should be taken into consideration, regardless of the purpose for which they are eventually used. As a consequence, an energetic metabolism accounting system treats all biomass as energy input, instead of considering only the biomass used for technical energy generation, as energy statistics do. Part II in this set of articles will apply these concepts to different modes of societal organization and explore the significance of energetic metabolism for sustainable development. In particular, it will explore the significance for policies that aim at increasing the contribution of renewable energy, especially biomass.

Virtual Culture, Time and Images

Virtual Culture, Time and Images

Psychological Concepts, Their Producers and Consumers

The process of production and consumption of goods is presented as a metaphor which is applicable to the construction of psychological concepts. Researchers are equated with industrial workers and artisans, and research institutions with the owners of a company. Together they are the 'producers' of both immaterial (e.g. concepts) and material (e.g. books) forms of knowledge. Laypersons and implementing authorities are the 'consumers' of these products. Besides these two groups, decision-makers who fund research make up 'the market'. Thus, concepts are not produced only by researchers, but are socially and culturally constructed. There are several ways in which the producers and consumers of knowledge are shown to be interdependent. In knowledge production, much the same processes are found as in industrial production: competition, advertising, monopolies, and so on. Developmental psychology is used as an example to show that 'demand', that is, public interest, also directs the production of psychological concepts.

‘BILDUNGSBÜRGER’ OR CITIZEN? THE CASE OF WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

The German concept of “Bildung “ has an early Utopian tradition. This article features and discusses arguments and notions of one of its originators, Wilhelm von Humboldt. “Vermenschlichung” of culture and society was the aim of the normative idea which he conceptualized within a feudal situation that, in fact, only admitted “citizenship without a city”. Two models of such immaterial forms of citizenship are inherent to von Humboldt's concept of “Bildung”: 1. the topos of the exclusive “Gelehrtenrepublik” and 2. the universal cosmopolitan idea of mankind. According to Rang, these concepts later became substitutes for real citizenship, but they sometimes paved the way to a liberal, broader‐minded political engagement.

Philosophy and Religion in the Thought of Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard is often regarded as a precursor of existential philosophy whose religious concerns may, for philosophical purposes, be safely ignored or, at best, regarded as an unfortunate, if unavoidable, consequence of his complicity with the very metaphysics he did so much to discredit. Kierkegaard himself, however, foresaw this appropriation of his work by philosophy. ‘The existing individual who forgets that he is an existing individual will become more and more absent-minded’, he wrote, ‘and as people sometimes embody the fruits of their leisure moments in books, so we may venture to expect as the fruits of his absent-mindedness the expected existential system—well, perhaps, not all of us, but only those who are as absent-minded as he is’ (Kierkegaard, 1968, p. 110). However, it may be rejoined here, this expectation merely shows Kierkegaard's historically unavoidable ignorance of the development of existential philosophy with its opposition to the idea of system and its emphasis upon the very existentiality of the human being. How could a form of thought which, in this way, puts at its centre the very Being of the existing individual, its existentiality, be accused of absent-mindedness? Has it not, rather, recollected that which metaphysics had forgotten? Yet the impression remains that Kierkegaard would not have been persuaded himself that such recollection could constitute remembering that one is an existing individual, for he remarks, of his own ignoring of the difference between Socrates and Plato in his Philosophical Fragments, ‘By holding Socrates down to the proposition that all knowledge is recollection, he becomes a speculative philosopher instead of an existential thinker, for whom existence is the essential thing. The recollection principle belongs to speculative philosophy, and recollection is immanence, and speculatively and eternally there is no paradox’ (Kierkegaard, 1968, p. 184n). We must ask, therefore, whether the recollection of existentiality can cure an existential absent-mindedness or remains itself a form of immanence for which there is no paradox.

The Making of Cognitive Science: Essays in Honor of George A. Miller

Preface List of contributors Part I. Mathematical Psychology: 1. George A. Miller and the origins of mathematical psychology William J. McGill 2. The contribution of information theory to psychology Wendell R. Garner 3. Writing plans ... Eugene Galanter 4. George Miller's data and the development of methods for representing cognitive structures Roger N. Shepard 5. The magical number seven: information processing then and now George Sperling 6. Cognitive recollections Ulric Neisser Part II. The Center for Cognitive Studies: 7. Founding the Center for Cognitive Studies Jerome Bruner 8. Life at the Center Donald A. Norman and Willem J. M. Levelt Part III. Psycholinguistics: 9. The psychological reality of grammar: a student's-eye view of cognitive science Thomas G. Bever 10. Psychology and linguistics in the sixties Eric Wanner 11. Language use and linguistic diversity Jacques Mehler 12. The immanent form of phonemes Morris Halle Part IV. Studying the Lexicon: 13. On opening the dictionary Philip Johnson-Laird 14. Lexical development - the Rockefeller years Susan Carey 15. Methodological semanticism considered as a history of progress in cognitive science Keith Stenning Part V. Cognitive Neuroscience: 16. Life with George: the birth of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute Michael S. Gazzaniga 17. Cognitive psychologists become interested in neuroscience William Hirst Part VI. Cognitive Science: 18. Cognitive science? Gilbert Harman Biographical information Publications Name index Subject index.

Leibniz: Apperception, Perception, and Thought (review)

96 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY fail to see how it supports a spiritualistic reading of substance. There are, in fact, many passages in the Essay that would lead one to suspect that Locke leaned toward materialism. In Book 4, Locke says: "We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no" (4.3.6.). Locke also claims that immateriality is not necessary for the view that the soul is immortal. Given the limitations of human knowledge, it would be just as wrong to conclude that Locke is a materialist as it is to conclude that material objects harbor immaterial forms or essences. KATHYSQUADRITO Indiana University-Purdue University Robert McRae. Leibniz: Apperception, Perception, and Thought. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1976. Pp. x + 148. $15.00. Professor McRae has attempted a difficult task: the reconstruction of Leibniz's epistemology . As McRac points out, Leibniz has "nothing within the large bulk of his writings that can be pointed at as constituting a theory of knowledge," and the reason for this is that he appears not to have been interested in epistemological problems per se. The distinction of appearance from the real in some ways may serve as a paradigm for illustrating Leibniz's tendency to exploit epistemological theory in solving metaphysical problems. Again, the formulation of the distinction of perception and apperception is inextricably linked with metaphysical problems concerning the demarcation of spirits from mere souls. To approach Leibniz's epistemology is to move to the periphery of his thought and, eventually, to be led right back to its metaphysical core. To analyze his epistemological theory for its own sake is almost to do more than Leibniz himself did; it is perhaps, as Russell believed, "to attempt a reconstruction of the system which Leibniz should have written: but did not." McRae's discussion is far-ranging, and he offers interesting interpretations of many of the elements of Leibniz's thought concerning perception, apperception, ideas, concepts, principles, innateness, memory, phenomena, understanding, and more. If there is a central thesis to the book, it is that, with due qualifications, Leibniz's "theory of knowledge" is that "the conjoining of apperception with perception provides the necessary and sufficient conditions of thought and understanding" (p. 5). Perception is the "expression " of external multiplicitiesin a single individualentity. Perception lacks modern connotations , and McRae emphasizes, contra Russell, that perception is not a kind of consciousness, at least in Leibniz's sense of the term. For McRae is convinced that consciousness, apperception , and reflection are equivalent terms and entail consideration of what we call "i," the ego, in a way that perception does not. Consciousness, for Leibniz, is self-consciousness. McRae is willing to pay the cost of this interpretation, which does have support from texts, and the cost is to settle for "an unresolved inconsistency in Leibniz' account of sensation" (p. 34). For Leibniz allows that animals are souls and have feeling and sensation. As McRae sees it, Leibniz commits himselfto the view that sensation requires apperception or consciousness. Thus, it follows that animals must have apperception. However, men are distinguished from animals by their having reason, that knowledge of necessary and eternal truths that comes with (self-) reflexive acts. And so, if apperception is synonymous with reflection, animals both do and do not have reflection-apperception-consciousness.An alternative possibility is that Leibniz simply used apperception and consciousness ambiguously and allowed that, in a broad sense, apperception could be awareness of perceptions, but without awareness of the I. This would leave reflection as awareness of the ego itself. McRae dismisses this possibility on the grounds, first, that Leibniz nowhere says that apperception of perceptions without awareness of the I is possible; second, that he never attributes consciousness, apperception, or reflection to animals ; and third, that "consciousness of the I and its thoughts, is... of 'one fact' for Leibniz." BOOK REVIEWS 97 It may be wondered, however, whether these considerations are not misleading in some respects . For while it is strictly true that Leibniz does not attribute apperception to animals, it may be noted that he indicates that in souls (such as animals...

Whitehead’s Transformation of Pure Act

WHITEHEAD'S TRANSFORMATION OF PURE ACT IN AN EFFORT to avoid any final bifurcation into two realms of being and becoming, as in Plato, Aristotle argued that only concrete particulars were fully actual, with forms only derivatively existent as the forms of these actualities. Yet under pressure from his understanding of the basic contrast between matter and form in terms of potentiality and actuality, Aristotle was driven more and more to identify form and actuality .1 Thus the immaterial reality of God becomes a pure, unchanging actuality not readily distinguishable from Plato's form of the Good, although Aristotle seeks to endow it with an interior life of ceaseless activity of "thinking." As pure actuality God is thus conceived as pure form, without matter. How pure form can engage in ceaseless activity of any sort is not clearly explained. Thomas Aquinas was able to explain the activity of immaterial being primarily by freeing the basic polarity of potentiality and actuality from its exclusive identification with matter and form. It was also possible to apply this contrast to form and esse or the act of being. Purely immaterial forms, such as angelic intelligences, could not create themselves by their own power, but were dependent upon the creative act of God whereby they received their own act of being. Thus pure form was in potency to this act of being. As infinite esse, God was pure actuality without any admixture of potentiality, and by the same token he was pure activity in no wise limited by any element of form.2 1 Here see Ivor Leclerc, " Form and Actuality," pp. 169-89 in the book he edited, The Rdevance of Whitehead (London: George Allen &Unwin, 1961). Pages 169-71 summarize this problem for Aristotle; the rest of the essay shows how Whitehead successfully maintains the distinction between form and actuality. • The nature of the act of being is ably explained by Etienne Gilson in his Being and Some Phuosophm-s (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 381 382 LEWIS S. FORD This solution was not without its difficulties. God's relation to form is not clarified thereby. We have the formula, that his essence is his existence, i.e. his infinite esse, but this seems to have the force of making him sheer existence devoid of any essence whatever, since any element of form would in him represent a potentiality not fully enacted. Then God becomes radically unknowable, except insofar as it is possible to know him without the mediation of form. The most acute difficulty, however, emerges from religious concerns. The perfection of God is expressed as pure act, but pure act appears to be devoid of all receptivity. Receptivity is understood in terms of passive potentiality, which pure act emphatically excludes. Besides, divine perfection must be unchanging, for that which is already perfect can only change for the worse. Yet receptivity to the world and to our sorrows and achievements is undeniably part of divine perfection, as Charles Hartshorne has eloquently shown us years ago.8 He speaks for a widespread contemporary sensitivity, a sensitivity implicitly acknowledged hy ingenious attempts to affirm such personal receptivity while at the same time preserving the classical immutability of God.4 In addition, if none of our achievements are received into the divine life and have an effect upon his, they seem lacking in any ultimate significance . Though in itself pure self-giving activity, the Thomistic God of pure act, because utterly devoid of all receptivity, strikes many of our contemporaries just as static and unyielding as the unity of pure form. Thomas succeeded in transforming pure act from pure form to pure activity. We must now complete the transformation by reconceiving this activity in a way so as to include receptivity. 195~), chapter five, and The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1956), chapter one. •The Divine Relativity (New Haven: Yale Univerity Press, 1948). •See particularly W. Norris Clarke, S. J. "A New Look at the Immutability of God," in God Knowable and Unknowable, ed. Robert J. Roth, S. J. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1978) , and my response, " The Immutable God and Father Clarke " in The New Scholasticism, 49...

Phaedo 104-105: Is the Soul a Form?

In his Plato's Phaedo, R. Hackforth notes that the confusions of the final argument for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo are deepened by a change in Plato's conception of the 'logical status' of the soul from 'soul as form to soul as possessor of form' in the course of the argument, probably at 105E10.1 D. Keyt, in a recent article in Phronesis, adapts Hackforth's view to his aim of locating the fallacies in the final argument by commenting that even if Plato does not take the soul to be an immanent form in the argument, he does treat it as if it were one.2 Although Keyt does not accuse Plato of equivocating on 'soul' in the course of the argument, one of the two fallacies he attributes to him stems from Plato's treating the soul as if it were a form. I should like to defend Plato from both these criticisms by showing that he never treats the soul as an immanent form in the course of the argument. The most important evidence that both Hackforth and Keyt cite for their view is the parallelism of the statements at 104 D 1-7 and 105 D 3-5. Here are these crucial passages:

Universal Concrete, A Typical Aristotelian Duplication of Reality

The German expression Verdopplung der Wirklichkeit refers to the difficulty of ovu~L'L in Plato's theory of ideas as criticized by Aristotle.1 Aristotle never gave up Plato's ideas entirely, but only transformed them into immanent forms. So the same difficulty of 4twvu,dcx and, in consequence of it, the duplication are still there in his own philosophy.2 But this duplication is originally Platonic, and not Aristotelian. There is, however, a typically Aristotelian duplication, wlhich causes serious difficulties, yet it escapes the notice of Aristotelian scholars generally. The purpose of this paper is to expose and to discuss this typically Aristotelian duplication.

A-Humanism, Primitivism, and the Art of the Future

In The words of Sidney Janis, artists today are engaged “in the process of creating the visual counterpart of the anatomy and structure and inner spirit of the time in which they live … the new realities of the twentieth century.”1 That is a commonplace; a conscious or unconscious assumption that certain things are Real, and certain others are not, provides a framework of reference within which all thought processes are carried out—and one of these thought processes is the creation of Art. Hardly a new idea, then; but to judge from the characteristic productions of our time, the new realities of twentieth-century art involve some propositions vastly different from the older traditions of the West. “In the early days of cubism, Picasso and I were engaged in what we felt was a search for the anonymous personality. We were inclined to efface our own personalities in order to find originality.”2 And of this Picasso, an early and perceptive critic wrote, “How he does hate the human race! How he enjoys pushing its face!”3 No isolated sentiments these, but very typical; and no mere sensationalism, which so negates the value of the individual personality, and of Man in general as superior to other material or immaterial forms—a negation which, for want of a better term, we might call a-humanism, the Abolition of Man.4