Instrumental Reason Research Articles

The Planning Daemon: Future Desire and Communal Production

Abstract Within the planning discourse two poles have materialised over the last decades: a participatory ideal guided by substantive rationality, opposed to an algorithmic governmentality subordinated to instrumental reason. This rift within socialist thought is also observable when it comes to the discovery of needs. The paper understands this discovery procedure primarily as a forecasting problem and demonstrates how many authors dedicated to a participatory planning process call for consumers to write down their desires in the form of wish lists. As a response to this epistemically questionable discovery procedure, the state of the art in capitalist demand-forecasting at enterprises like Amazon is presented, where machine-learning algorithms excel at modelling interrelated time series on a global level by extrapolating demand patterns in real-time. The paper closes with a proposal to reconfigure this predictive apparatus for socialist ends and raises questions concerned with the political implications of centralising decision-making in black-box algorithms.

Can Virtue Ethics Derived from Neo-Aristotelianism be Perfectly Self-Explanatory

As a result of the rise of neo-Aristotelianism in recent times, the discussion of 'virtue' has led to the question of whether virtue ethics can exist as a sound system. Prior to this, there was no normative standard for 'virtue', deontology ignored human nature, and utilitarianism focused more on instrumental reason, ignoring the plurality of the 'good'. Anscombe defined 'virtue ethics' in his Modern Moral Philosophy, and Nussbaum built on this by arguing that goodness does not depend only on the rationality of the actor, but also on morality and institutions, and Hesterhaus provided a normative interpretation of virtue ethics from an Aristotelian standpoint. However, as virtue ethics defines and regulates virtue ethics, it is difficult to form a logically coherent system, as either virtue ethics is more or less connected to other ethics, and there are even contradictions between specific claims.

Jurisprudence and animal protection

Jurisprudence is based on normative principles that go beyond instrumental reasoning and practical goals concerning what is convenient. It concerns justice and truth. The empirical evidence justifies the legal protection of various species on legal grounds. Given the risks we face regarding climate degradation, international legal agencies must expand the framework of human rights and environmental law in order to effectively protect animals and their environments.

A timely question: How can we not talk about becoming a professor in the context of a neoliberal and decolonising higher education?

Drawing from my own experiences and critical reflections on my journey to becoming a professor, I show how two types of pressures facing higher education institutions necessitate a revisiting of the role of a professor. These pressures are, firstly, to account for “market-friendliness” and, secondly, to respond to the transformation and decolonisation imperatives as a result of massification. I show the broader socio-economic and political conditions under which universities exist and the impact these have on the knowledge project. I argue that such impact manifests through instrumental reasoning and the commodification of knowledge, as well as “Western hegemony” over others. I then explore the extent to which a professorial role may need to re-adapt in order to respond to these broader socio-economic and political exigencies that continue to spill over into higher education.

The Democratic Sublime: On Aesthetics and Popular Assembly

The Democratic Sublime: On Aesthetics and Popular Assembly

The Roads of the Others: E. Levinas and T. Adorno

In this article, Levinas’ philosophy is interpreted as an ethical and Talmudic consideration of existential paths. After Auschwitz, the concept of otherness and the diversity of other faces presupposes a free and diverse “being on the road,” an ethics of journey, and denies theodicy and an essentialist interpretation of being. The thesis is proven by comparing Levinas’, Baranova’s and Adorno’s approaches to ethics and Exegesis. Levinas’ philosophy is elaborated by referring to the exegetics of the Exodus and the concept of an incomprehensibility of Auschwitz. The author discusses the philosophies of Levinas and Adorno who both consider the Holocaust as an occurrence not open to interpretation. Levinas advocates the end of theodicy as a justification for divine history and argues the primacy of ethics, while Adorno develops anti-theodicy and presents the relevance of critique of instrumental reason.

Attack on identity. (Russian culture as an existential threat to Ukraine)

The article deals with the role of Russian culture in the period of the RF war against Ukraine. The history is considered as the basic structure that shapes the discursive foundation of identity. Historical narratives as well as the cultural background of imperial identity and risks of the full scale representation of Russian culture in the Ukrainian social consciousness are analyzed. The two tendencies are also comprehended — junk science foundation of geopolitical projects and devalu- ation of the historically formed senses. So the communicative action is penetrated by the strategic action bazed on the false reality fundament, this significant element of the war of the world. The vivid example of junk science is the neoeurasian ideology, that defines the strategy of Kremlin informational attack on the Ukrainian identity. Standoff between the identities takes place in the course of the imperial mobilization project development. The symbiosis of governmental authorities and artists plays the key role in its realization. The author outlines the main features of the strategic effect of penetration into the core of communicative process and the false reality building. Also the author develops the thought that the heartbreaking and impetuous change of con- tradictory narratives are the one of the fundamental resources of information war. In particular it deals with the great Russian Simulacrum as the vivid example of the instrumental reason that is in the base of the information war against Ukraine. It is also defined the historical origin of the simulacra as the instrument of the Russian special services and the role of their partners — the iconic figures of the Russian literature — in the projects of the public opinion manipulation.

Keeping Faith with Literature

Keeping Faith with Literature

A lineage explanation of human normative guidance: the coadaptive model of instrumental rationality and shared intentionality

This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature on normative cognition by providing a lineage explanation of human social norm psychology. This approach builds upon theories of goal-directed behavioral control in the reinforcement learning and control literature, arguing that this form of control defines an important class of intentional normative mental states that are instrumental in nature. I defend the view that great ape capacities for instrumental reasoning and our capacity (or family of capacities) for shared intentionality coadapted to each other and argue that the evolution of this capacity has allowed the representation of social norms and the emergence of our capacity for normative guidance.

Theodor Adorno and Life Writing in the Anthropocene

ABSTRACT This essay argues for the relevance of Theodor Adorno to life writing in the Anthropocene. His view of instrumental reason predicted the despoliation of the earth. His own memoir, Minima Moralia, radically decentred the individual voice by proclaiming its hopeless entanglement in exchange values. His negative dialectics reconceived Cartesian Dualism and destabilised relational models of life narration. Adorno’s view of memory contested its objectification, and his memoir includes few incidents from his life. Instead, Adorno creates dense ‘thought images’ that ponder the predicaments of living in a disastrous time. He never hid his elitism but carefully explored its limitations and hypocrisies. His pessimism alienates more hopeful sensibilities, but he never demanded allegiance to his philosophy, only a consideration of its accusations.

Theology for the Life of the World

AbstractThe purpose of theology is to discern, articulate, commend, and embody visions of flourishing life in light of the self‐revelation of God in the life, death, resurrection, exaltation, and coming‐in‐glory of Jesus Christ. This purpose of theology is timeless, but its articulation at this time has a particular shape to it. Aspects of this shape are sketched in light of a number of contemporary material and intellectual contexts. Material contexts include growing economic disparities, ecological crisis, displacement of peoples, and the social fact of pluralism. Intellectual contexts include the dominance of instrumental reason, of negation, and of whiteness.

The Impact of Emotional versus Instrumental Reasons for Dual Citizenship on the Perceived Loyalty and Political Tolerance of Immigrant-Origin Minorities

AbstractAn increasing number of states permit dual citizenship, but there are public concerns about divided loyalties of dual citizens which might lead to intolerance of their political rights. We propose and test whether these concerns depend on the emotional versus instrumental reasons immigrants express for acquiring their second, host society citizenship. Using a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of native-born Dutch, we find that emotional (vs. instrumental) reasons for a second citizenship lead to higher perceived host society loyalty, which is related to greater political tolerance of dual citizens. Instrumental reason for dual citizenship leads to higher perceived loyalty to the country of origin; however, this is not related to political tolerance of such dual citizens. Implications for theory and society are considered.

Modals and conditionals in instrumental practical reasoning: the case of Polish

Abstract This paper investigates the relation between conditionals and modals in Polish. In particular, it looks into whether modalized indirect reports of conditionals – specifically, reports which involve the use of root modality verbs – reflect the number of alternative antecedents foregrounded in the context of the reported conditional utterance. It finds that the root possibility modal mogę is preferred when many alternative antecedents are foregrounded (i.e. when p is interpreted as a sufficient but not necessary condition for q), whereas the root necessity modal muszę is preferred in contexts where there are no alternative antecedents (i.e. when p is interpreted as a necessary condition for q). The results are comparable to those obtained for English (see Sztencel and Duffy 2018), thus providing initial support for their cross-linguistic generalizability. Furthermore, a parallel is drawn between the basic structure of instrumental practical reasoning (e.g. Walton 2007) and modalized indirect reports of conditionals. This parallel offers a rationale for the method of investigating instrumental practical reasoning by the proxy of indirect speech reports.

Comic Socrates?

Abstract In the Clouds, Aristophanes apparently ridicules Socratic philosophy as a useless, essentially passive preoccupation, which, “twisted” in the wrong hands, can seriously harm the City. But such an instrumentalist reading of the Clouds (and of philosophy) misses a crucial point regarding the relation between philosophy and comedy. Insofar as philosophy, love of wisdom, is irreducible to wisdom—insofar as, in other words, philosophy is also a matter of taste (a concept which seeks to combine knowledge and pleasure)—the Clouds can be read as an ironic-comic defense of philosophy. To discuss this, the article reads the Clouds in the perspective of free use. This reading makes it possible to articulate two distinct but related senses of perverting philosophy, which are evidenced with material from within the play: the reduction of reason to instrumental reason and/or to state philosophy. To end with, the article discusses the relationship between comedy and philosophy in more general terms.

Posthuman Mimétisme: Caillois, Adorno and an Aesthetics of Mimesis

My paper focuses on a notion of mimesis which made a lasting impression on French sociologists and surrealists of the 1930s, most notably Roger Caillois. Mimicry or mimétisme denotes an instinctive (and not always beneficial) form of assimilation to (not of) another organism or object. Interestingly enough, Caillois, was fascinated by an active “natural imagination,” diagnoses a propensity among humans to abandon themselves to the “lure” of what he calls “represented spaces”—beyond the intentional grasp of the subject. However, what mimicry “morphologically” brings about in animals may lead in humans to a “depersonalization” or loss of self. Theodor W. Adorno received Caillois’s pre-reflexive with (critical) approval, but he insisted on retaining an, albeit aesthetic, form of reflexivity, without falling back into conceptual subjectivity and categorial appropriation. Aesthetic mimesis, a willing abandonment to works of art, makes possible and actuates the experience of a material, sensuous and indeterminate Other. Indeed, in an open confrontation with art, one cannot help getting immersed, even lost, in its radiating presence. “Aesthetic rationality,” then, comes precisely down to a realization of the limits of human rationality along with a— posthuman—acknowledgment of a more-than-human world beyond instrumental reason.

Advancing a critical social psychological perspective on women's leadership: A case illustration from the Global South

AbstractWhen applied to the Global South, mainstream positivist approaches to work and organisational psychology impose alien theories of personality (the self) and leadership. In the case of women, they fail to capture the richness of their experiences of life and leadership, which are influenced by the nexus between history, power and marginalisation—for many, even oppression. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the value of a critical social psychological approach, despite its grounding in the Global North discourse, to analyse women's leadership from a cross‐cultural context. To illustrate, we provide an empirical example of a Vietnamese woman leader's life‐story drawing on the theoretical resources from critical social psychology to interpret her experiences. When viewed from this perspective, women's leadership is understood within a dialogical space, which is prior to and more fundamental than any instrumental reason and technical rationality. It is argued that this approach resists essentialising assumptions about gender and cultural practices of leadership, providing a more liberating means to understand the life and leadership of Vietnamese women. In the final analysis, we argue that this study contributes to the nascent field of critical work and organisational psychology.

Metaverse: The latest sign of human existence

<p>The explosion of the “metaverse” provides an opportunity to reflect on the impact of intelligent digital virtual technology on contemporary humanity. While the metaverse opens new worlds of possibility for humanity, the extreme reality. The world and the people in it have been rewritten as a result of the inversion of reality and the obscuring of so-called “augmented reality”, which has led to the retreat of the original reality. In the metaverse, the world is grasped more by perceptual perceptions, the objects are informational and symbolic ideas, and the subjects of grasp are increasingly becoming twin digital doppelgangers, digital beings. The metaverse will bring about the tribalization of public life and the territorialization of public space. The construction of a metaverse order is essentially a governance of the human imagination, which will require a shift in political philosophy. The metaverse is the inevitable consequence of the so-called “humanization” of technology. The increasing “staying” and “involution” of people in the world of intentionality, their domination by instrumental reason, their anti-intellectualization and their dumbing down, all of which are the paradox of “human, too human”. The interaction between individual intentionality and extensiveness, as well as the risk of serious consequences brought by technological innovation, make the individual’s free choice involve problems, so we must appeal to re-moralization, and the basis of re-moralization is individual cultivation. Philosophic workers should not only keep an open attitude, but also keep a thinking attitude towards the metaverse.</p>

Metaverse: The latest sign of human existence

<p>The explosion of the “metaverse” provides an opportunity to reflect on the impact of intelligent digital virtual technology on contemporary humanity. While the metaverse opens new worlds of possibility for humanity, the extreme reality. The world and the people in it have been rewritten as a result of the inversion of reality and the obscuring of so-called “augmented reality”, which has led to the retreat of the original reality. In the metaverse, the world is grasped more by perceptual perceptions, the objects are informational and symbolic ideas, and the subjects of grasp are increasingly becoming twin digital doppelgangers, digital beings. The metaverse will bring about the tribalization of public life and the territorialization of public space. The construction of a metaverse order is essentially a governance of the human imagination, which will require a shift in political philosophy. The metaverse is the inevitable consequence of the so-called “humanization” of technology. The increasing “staying” and “involution” of people in the world of intentionality, their domination by instrumental reason, their anti-intellectualization and their dumbing down, all of which are the paradox of “human, too human”. The interaction between individual intentionality and extensiveness, as well as the risk of serious consequences brought by technological innovation, make the individual’s free choice involve problems, so we must appeal to re-moralization, and the basis of re-moralization is individual cultivation. Philosophic workers should not only keep an open attitude, but also keep a thinking attitude towards the metaverse.</p>

Instrumental Reason and Science—Max Horkheimer’s View

The paper analyses today partly forgotten Max Horkheimer’s conception of instrumental reason which presents this reason differently from the definition widespread today (claiming that it consists in adopting suitable means to set ends). Horkheimer relates instrumental reason to subjective one, seeing the former as a degenerate form of the latter. His theory is far more philosophical than the dominating today conceptions which do not consider the problem of instrumental reason philosophical any longer and instead move it step by step to the domain of a nonphilosophical decision theory. The paper analyses in particular Horkheimer’s beliefs claiming that 1) it is science which founds instrumental reason, and therefore 2) it is science which is the main source of oppressiveness and degradation of the contemporary civilization. It is shown among other things that Horkheimer misunderstands some properties of science and its operations and this leads to his incorrect presentation of the role of instrumental reason.

Social Control as a Factor of Social Progress

Introduction. Social control is considered in the aspect of social philosophy, in the contexts of ideas of social dynamics, social changes, instrumentalities, manufacturability and criticism of instrumental reason. Methods. Research materials, philosophical, sociological, sociocultural works that form the methodological basis of social control. Methods of social statistics, social changes and transformations, social processes, social representation, social topology, constellation and typology are applied in macro- and microanalysis of social space in the study of quality of life problems, the formation and comparison of social practices in the context of the formation of modern forms of social control, informatization, optimization and humanitarization of the social environment, measurement of human capital in the aspect of social criticism. Results. Social control is a multifaceted and universal phenomenon, it is a mechanism that connects people, marking the application of goals, value orientations and norms. Social control is the most important factor in the state of “maturity” of society, the quality of the communication space, the public and power structures. Conclusion. Social control of important information about production, culture, cultural life of society, historical culture.