Radical Position Research Articles

Robinson, Paul Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Supreme Commander of the Russian Army (review)

SEER, 94, 3, july 2016 552 they believed Eurasia represented. This is why, she argues, their approach should be seen as a form of geographical ideology. Finally, Stefan Wiederkehr looks at how Karl Popper’s activist concept of historicism helps us understand the core of Eurasianism’s philosophy. Chapters six to eight explore the beliefs of three leading Eurasianists. Whilst Martin Beissenger investigates the religious and economic underpinnings of Savitskii’s concept of Eurasianism, Igor Torbakov attributes Vernadskii’s historical revisions, beginning with 1917 to his search for national identity, to his Ukrainian roots and state of exile. Harsha Ram poses a possible nexus between Velimir Khlebnikov’s futurist vision of a common linguistic space centred in Russia and Roman Jakobson’s concept of the ‘Eurasian linguistic alliance’ and the extent to which this distanced him from the original intention of the Russian symbolist movement (p. 147). In the last two chapters Hama Yukiko investigates Eurasianism’s influence on Japan’s pan-Asianism, whilst Mark Bassin focuses on the contemporary legacy of the Eurasianists, which is torn between Eurasian revisionists such as Lev Gumilev on one hand and increasingly radical positions taken by Russian nationalists on the other, and has resulted in the polemic and contradictory stance taken by Neo-Eurasianists such as Aleksandr Dugin. As Laruelle concludes in the Postface, the legacy of Eurasianism has been mired by neo-Eurasianists’ Russia-centric and highly opportunistic take on the philosophy of the 100-year-old movement. However, this ‘incredible incubator of ideas’ (p. 190) will likely remain a helpful framework for those trying to build a radically distinct and self-contained identity for the post-Soviet space. It will also likely resurface, however distorted and aleatory, whenever it suits the Russian elite to deploy the type of nationalistic discourse that supports their ambitions abroad, whilst assuaging the harsh economic reality at home. UCL SSEES V. Ceban Robinson, Paul. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Supreme Commander of the Russian Army. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, IL, 2014. ix + 435 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $44.95. The Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich was a — literally — towering figure in the history of late Imperial Russia and of the First World War. As ‘Uncle Nikolasha’ he occupied a central place in the extended imperial family; he had an extremely close relationship with Emperor Nikolai II, although his interaction with all members of the family was not so consistently friendly. He also played an important, but more passive, role in the politics of the Russian REVIEWS 553 emigration, especially in the last years before his death in 1929. Readers owe a debt of gratitude to Paul Robinson for having produced such a thorough and readable biography of the man. While this book is academically rigorous and valuable to the historical specialist, the subject matter (the Russian court) and clarity of style make it attractive to a wider audience. The disparate stages of the Grand Duke’s life are traced here, and in a measured and balanced way; at each stage the author displays a high degree of expertise. There is the Grand Duke’s background and early military career; his involvement in the 1905–06 revolution, and then his service as a military reformer in the short-lived Council of State Defence. Above all there is his role as Supreme C-in-C of the Russian Army in the first months of the World War, before defeat in Poland and his ill-fated replacement by the Emperor himself. The Grand Duke’s time as Viceroy of the Transcaucasus in 1915–17 has echoes in more recent events. Perhaps surprisingly he played virtually no part in the 1917 Revolution, the Civil War or the first years of the emigration. Although generally providing a straightforward account of an unfolding life, Robinson is prepared to take issue with memoirists and other historians at key points in the Grand Duke’s career. For example, he defends his role as a military reformer at the turn of the century. He also clarifies his key decision, in October 1905, not to serve as a military dictator who would have supported by force the Emperor and the counter-revolution; instead he accepted...

América latina: entre la modernidad líquida y la sociedad licuada

La frecuencia cada vez mayor con la que el mundo tiende a diagnosticarsedesde espacios globales, no debe actuar como distractor a la necesidadde analizar los entornos propios y locales. En efecto, el debate sobre la linealidad y universalidad de la historia parece quedar superado ante la re-significación creciente de los entornos locales y sus propias narrativas; sin embargo, no sería oportuno desligar un análisis del otro y aun cuando existen posiciones que asumen tal radicalidad, el ejercicio de pensar la sociedad en la mayoría de sus casos no admite tales posiciones extremas.

Effect of radical-position regularity for Chinese orthographic skills of Chinese-as-a-second-language learners

The present study investigated the influence of radical position regularity in Chinese character orthographic tasks among Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) learners. The role that radical position regularity plays in the learning of Chinese characters was also verified by showing the aforementioned regularity. To address this issue, two experiments were conducted using the Chinese Radical Assembly Game (CRAG). The first experiment involved 88 CSL. The participants were grouped into high and low grades according to the results of a character recognition assessment. The participants were then randomly assigned to an REG group (radical regular arrangement matrix) and an RAN group (radical random arrangement matrix). The results showed there was no difference in the orthography performance between the REG and RAN groups. However, the orthography performances of the high-grade individuals were better than those of the low-grade individuals in the REG group. The second experiment involved another 84 CSL learners. The results showed that the orthography performances of the low-grade individuals were not different than those of the high-grade individuals after giving radical position regularity to the REG. It support the effect of radical position regularity and suggest that the aforementioned regularity was helpful to CSL learners in the process of learning Chinese characters.

Scott’s Surprising Contemporaneity

Scott’s Surprising Contemporaneity Molly Anne Rothenberg (bio) What could be a more fitting tribute to Sir Walter Scott around the bicentennial of Waverley’s publication than the appearance of an original, revitalizing approach to his work? Evan Gottlieb’s new book, Walter Scott and Contemporary Theory (Bloomsbury, 2013), sweeps away any lingering assumptions about Scott’s work as fusty entertainment or outmoded literary strategy. Gottlieb acknowledges that Scott and theory “may not immediately sound like a natural fit,” but he demonstrates Scott’s profound engagement with the most urgent questions now addressed by contemporary theory (vi). Rather than simply using theory to explore and interpret Scott, Gottlieb exposes Scott’s own theoretical dimensions and his contributions to investigations of current critical interest. The book provides intriguing introductions to Scott’s novels and to theory as well as sophisticated interpretations of both. At the same time, the range of this volume poses problems for the reviewer because it makes so many different kinds of arguments, so here I will simply try to indicate the value of the book for a variety of academic purposes and populations. The introduction presents “contemporary” theory as more capacious and diverse than the “high” theory derived from Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault of the 1980s and 1990s. Despite their differences, the theorists canvassed in this book have a “common identification with progressive, in many cases radical political positions” (9). Because Scott’s novels engage so directly with the relationship between history and fiction, exploring what we now recognize as modern conceptions of subject, society, political commitment, nationhood, and historicism, they lend themselves to theoretical investigation in these contemporary terms. It is refreshing to see such diverse theories represented at a time when theory textbooks in the U.S. tend to focus on theories of identity. Gottlieb reminds us as well that Scott’s work, especially with respect to its self-referentiality, was also crucial for the development of the realist novel, the [End Page 397] professionalization of authorship in its current form, and even a postmodern approach to style and subject matter, positioning Scott “to represent fictionally the sociopolitical passage to modernity” (6). Each chapter treats two Scott novels (one early, one late) in detail, usually paired with two or three contemporary theorists. Gottlieb discusses literary history and the Continental philosophical tradition in accessible and precise expositions that illuminate both Scott’s texts and the theoretical work under consideration. Accordingly, this book deserves a wide audience among students and their teachers, including Romanticists, scholars of nineteenth-century literature, those interested in the development of the novel, modernists and postmodernists, and anyone interested in contemporary theory. In chapters that explore subjectivity, historicity, hybridity, performativity, governmentality, hospitality and community, and the posthuman, Gottlieb’s crisp readings co-illuminate text and theory. For example, students will find it easier to understand the Lacanian idea of the subject as a function of the Symbolic register when they follow how Waverley’s sense of identity changes as he loses his status as a subject within the big Other of the English army and then joins the Chevalier. Using Slavoj Žižek’s Lacanian model, Gottlieb considers Waverley’s separation from the Jacobite army as an instance of “traversing the fantasy,” identifying with a fantasy so completely that one realizes that the fantasy actually belongs to the Other, in fact that one has attempted to live out a desire that actually originates elsewhere.1 Once he has illustrated the basics of this theory with examples from the text, Gottlieb then puts theory to work providing fresh perspectives on standard interpretive cruxes. So, while many scholars have taken Waverley at his word in order to emphasize his maturation (foregoing “the romance of his life” for “real history”), Gottlieb’s reading discloses that Waverley ends the novel as much under the spell of fantasy as when he wore the white cockade.2 Then Gottlieb shifts to explore Scott’s own theoretical investments. Countering a tradition of reading Waverley’s installment at Tully-Veolan as an expression of Scott’s own nostalgic politics, Gottlieb demonstrates how Scott anticipates Peter Sloterdijk’s “cynical reason” in the “studied urbanity” and “barely suppressed irony” of the narrative...

Чому тільки аналітика?

The article deals with the national identification of philosophy. The author critically examines seemingly radical position of Stepan Ivanyk – as the adherent of analytical philosophy – on this and other issues.

The Unsocialist Socialists

The Unsocialist Socialists

Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea

Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea

Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea

Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea

Johannes Nissen, The Gospel of John and the Religious Quest: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Eugene, Ore., Pickwick Publications, 2013, 210 pp.

Johannes Nissen, The Gospel of John and the Religious Quest: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Eugene, Ore., Pickwick Publications, 2013, 210 pp. In his introduction, Johannes Nissen explains that his concern in writing this book to consider how from a Christian perspective, and in particular via the fourth gospel, we may be engaged in a dialogue with the diversity of our (p. 1). He places the emphasis on the religious quest, that is, the personal aspect of faith meeting faith, rather than the encounter between religions as faith systems. In the context of the contemporary landscape, he finds a study of the fourth gospel particularly relevant to address the question of how we can maintain genuine Christian integrity while at the same time being open to people of other faiths (p. 3). His book does not interpret the whole gospel as would a commentary, but addresses contemporary questions and challenges on the basis of selected readings. Nissen explains the rationale for the choice of texts by their special relevance for dealing with the contemporary quest and encounter, and their key role for an interpretation of the theology of the fourth gospel. Why the passion narrative would be excluded may be questioned in view of the second criterion mentioned. However, the commentary never neglects to point to the cross as the cornerstone of John's theology. Part one of the book explains in its first chapter the significance of the language of symbols and metaphors in John, drawn not so much from social and political life as in the Synoptics, but mainly from biological realities, such as birth, life, growth. Nissen then chooses to treat some of the most important symbols in John: the Word, Rebirth, Water, Bread, Light, Truth, Love, Way, Tree. All these chapters have a similar structure. The reader first learns about some of the major historical and exegetical issues in the text of the gospel, then is introduced to contemporary perspectives and texts by seekers in the North and South, with particular references to publications documenting inter-religious dialogue experiences in Denmark. Both in his exegetical remarks and the dialogue with contemporary authors, Nissen refers to important missiological issues in a careful and detailed way. Issues thus addressed are, among others, the relation and distinction between inculturation and syncretism, old or modern gnostic understandings of John's gospel, and the insistence on incarnation, continuity and discontinuity between human longings for salvation and John's understanding of Christ's message. A pivotal point in the encounter of Eastern and Western spirituality is the uniqueness of Jesus' incarnation --it is not one among many. Belief in resurrection as opposed to the idea of reincarnation is likewise presented as a core part of Christianity. In the second part of the book, Nissen addresses issues of dialogue brought about by a study of John's gospel in thematic chapters. He summarizes insights drawn from detailed studies and relates them to missiological challenges. Chapter 12 highlights questions of inculturation and contextualization. Nissen understands John as responding to people influenced by a pre-Gnostic syncretistic feeling, and he shows how John takes up the concerns of his contemporaries and deliberately makes a portrait of Jesus that is attractive to readers in such a context. The consequence has been that some biblical scholars have not hesitated to consider the fourth gospel as gnostic or docetic. However, John's insistence on the historicity and reality of the incarnation, as well as his emphasis on the reality of Jesus' death on the cross, make such a misunderstanding impossible. Chapter 13 provides a good introduction to the debates on models of dialogue with religions. After an accurate description of Christocentric exclusivism, Christocentric inclusivism, and theocentric pluralism, Nissen argues that no comprehensive solution is available from the Bible, except that it seems that the biblical texts in general would not justify a pluralist nor a radical exclusivist position. …

Ricoeur, Literature and Imagination by Sophie Vlacos (review)

Reviewed by: Ricoeur, Literature and Imagination by Sophie Vlacos Brian O’Keeffe Sophie Vlacos, Ricoeur, Literature and Imagination New York: Bloomsbury, 2014, 232 pp. i In the preface to her book, Sophie Vlacos wonders why Ricoeur’s place within the order of the great literary theorists seems somehow in doubt. Certainly, few would dispute his renown as a philosopher. But in literary-theoretical contexts, Ricoeur often serves merely as a foil to more radical positions, as a person to whom reference is made when it proves necessary to acknowledge, en passant, something true about literature—to say why it is a precious stimulus to the imagination, and why literature’s own sense of imaginative possibility is valuable to re-envisioning the world itself. But then theory moves on, and affirmations of literature’s value become [End Page 364] harder to find in the midst of austere talk concerning its irresolvable ambiguity, such ambiguity apparently rendering all acts of reading wrong or “aberrant.” Theory brings us up short, confronts us with interpretive impasse, and proclaims that literature will ineluctably bring us to this, whatever are our desires as readers to read for the pleasures of an imaginative immersion in fictional worlds. Theory liked it this way, however. It liked the taxing rigor of interpretive reading doomed to a kind of failure. It preached, often in the teeth of stiff resistance to theory, the virtue of doing hard critical work at the coalface of texts that had become peculiarly forbidding to those who ventured to read them at all. This is a caricature. It caricatures literary studies during the age of High Theory, and it also presents a rather disobliging portrait of the interpretive approach of Paul de Man—my allusion to The Resistance to Theory will not, I trust, have gone unmissed. But that age has been declared over, and so perhaps one quick answer to Vlacos’s question about the place of Ricoeur in literary-theoretical contexts is that he simply had to wait it out. High Theory’s day is done, and we may now return to Ricoeur and affirm the value of reading literature: reading is an act of feeling, an imaginative feeling-into a fictional world; reading literature is good for our general cultivation, our Bildung; reading helps us make sense of the world and our place in it; literature is a creative activity, and it powerfully re-describes the world to us; it teaches readers to imagine themselves otherwise; it hones our sympathies and our empathies—these, the basic components of the specifically ethical imagination. One mentions ethics, and already there is another possible answer to Vlacos’s question, namely that Ricoeur had to wait for the “ethical turn” in literature and philosophy. In this respect, it is notable that Martha Nussbaum features prominently in Vlacos’s book: in the last section, which addresses Ricoeur in terms of the turn to ethics, and Nussbaum also provides the epigraph to Vlacos’s introduction. The quote, from Love’s Knowledge, is well-known: “After reading Derrida, and not Derrida alone, I feel a certain hunger for blood; for, that is, writing about literature that talks of human lives and choices as if they matter to us all” (1). We will get to Derrida, because literary theory’s debt to Derrida provides another explanation as to why Ricoeur’s hermeneutics met with such little enthusiasm during the age of theory. It is not quite that the wax-and-wane of theoretical prestige during that time can be reduced to Derrida versus Ricoeur, as if theory simply chose to put itself under the aegis of “Derrida,” and in so doing, Ricoeur was eclipsed. But their fortunes seem entwined, especially in the contexts of Anglo-American academia, where the importation of French theory, I think it is fair to say, did produce a certain “star-system.” But if, and reverting to Nussbaum’s criticism of theoretical anemia, the problem with theory was that it seemed oddly impersonal, and reduced literature to a similar impersonality, Vlacos evidently considers Ricoeur to be exempt from her charge. For he does speak about literature, [End Page 365] and does acknowledge that what matters is how...

Ideologia Towarzystwa Fabianów i jej źródła jako istotny element kształtowania się myśli socjaldemokratycznej

In the study major attention is given to the intellectual nature of the Fabian Society and its connections with the Labour Party. The Fabian Society was founded in 1884 by a group of middle-class intellectuals. The character of the Society was established under the leadership of such men as Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, and Edward Pease. The initial Marxist influence on the Fabian Society is a reason why the Fabians took up a definitely Socialist standpoint, why they did not content them-selves with a left-wing Radical position. The Fabians desired to educate all classes toward socialism through publications and lectures. The Fabian Society has directed its main efforts to economic, social and political reform. Change was to come about by the “permeation” of existing institutions. The process of permeation meant promoting Fabian ideals through personal influence among members of Parliament and government officials, as well as getting more sympathetic men elected to local government and Parliament. In the early twentieth century, after considerable debate, the Society decided to join the newly formed Labour Party

The Experience of the European Court of Human Rights with the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine

Several papers have been written on the contribution of domestic courts to the interpretation of the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine (Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, also known as the Oviedo Convention) and its Additional Protocols (the ‘Oviedo Convention system’) or to the development of new rules of international bio law. Nevertheless very few papers have thus far focused on the contribution of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’) to the enforcement of the Oviedo Convention’s provisions. This is notwithstanding the very close relationship of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) with the Oviedo Convention and its Additional Protocols, namely the fact that the Oviedo Convention: “elaborates some of the principles enshrined in the ECHR” as elucidated by the Explanatory Report of the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (the ‘Explanatory Report’). The purpose of this paper is to fill this major gap and to focus on the use of the Oviedo Convention when a specifi c biomedical issue is submitted to the ECtHR. The paper will briefly address, through some relevant examples, the ECtHR’s main contributions to implementation of the bio-law rights encompassed in the Oviedo Convention’s system. It also charts the evolution from the ECtHR’s original position, which tended to apply the Oviedo Convention directly, to its later less radical position, adopted in some of its most recent judgments, in which the Oviedo Convention is implemented exclusively: a) when the content of its provisions coincide with rights explicitly protected in the ECHR and b) when it helps to elucidate or understand better the ECHR. A correction article relating to the authorship of this publication can be found here: DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ujiel.dk

At the borders of political theory: Carens and the ethics of immigration

Carens’ book covers a wide range of issues concerning the ethics of immigration, and although he is best known as a theorist of open borders that argument takes up a relatively small part of the book, and is indeed a small part of his writing on immigration. In this essay, I examine the relationship the radical arguments for open borders, and the more contextual arguments about specific issues such as birthright citizenship, naturalisation and temporary workers which fall short of that radical position. This relationship is complex, and reveals that, although this is a highly readable and accessible book, it rests upon a highly complex method of doing political theory. I critically examine that method and look at the problems it raises for the relationship with political theory and activism. I ask what role the radical arguments for open borders are supposed to play in the public sphere, and, in the end, what role political theorists are supposed to play in that sphere.

Igor Cașu, “Revoluția silențioasă”: revizuirea identității naționale în Moldova Sovetică la apogeul “dezghețului” lui Hrușciov (1956-1957) / ”The Quiet Revolution”: Revisiting the National Identity Issue in Soviet Moldavia at the height of Khrushchev’s Thaw (1956)

The article highlights the impact of Khrushchev’s Thaw on the question of national identity in Soviet Moldavia in the framework of the internal Soviet debates unleashed by the ‘Secret Speech’ and the subsequent Hungarian Revolution. The question of national identity was expressed by two groups, one representing the former GULAG returnees and the other the intellectuals or students socialized in the Soviet milieu. The position of the former was more radical and anti-Soviet, while the latter was milder and respected the status-quo, i.e. the Soviet regime, and only questioned some previously established traditions on what it meant to be Moldavian. Incidentally or not, the former position proved to be more long lasting, in some way prepared and anticipated the national agenda during Perestroika, in the late 1980s. The question of national identity emerged once again with a comparable fervour in 1968 subsequent to the Prague Spring and Ceaușescu’s refusal to support the Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia.

Lo simbólico y lo imaginario a propósito del hombre. Supuestos para una reflexión sobre la mujer

<p>Con el presente artículo, se pretende contribuir al esclarecimiento de la discusión que se desarrolla actualmente en torno a la pregunta por el hombre. En esta discusión, se rechaza la posición radical acerca de la muerte del hombre, fundada<br />en la apreciación foucaultiana de la historia, y de la muerte de la representación<br />en el futuro, para inscribirse, por el contrario, en el horizonte que reclama, como lo hace Sloterdijk, la necesidad de pensar una nueva antropología. Esta posición se firma más en las argumentaciones sostenidas por Lacan y Zizek, articuladas, por supuesto, en una dinámica diferente a la de la Escuela Crítica y a la de un nihilismo escéptico. Por eso la importancia de recuperar, entre otros, el concepto de universal concreto, de conformidad con la indicación de Zizek de leer a Lacan desde Hegel y viceversa. Se profundiza así el sentido de la historia y la construcción de una subjetividad libre.</p>

Filozoficzne elementy poznania kontemplacyjnego

Obecnie można zaobserwować szczególny rodzaj duchowości: jej różnorodność poglądów mających negatywny wpływ na – między innymi – prawdę, dobro i piękno. Ta niebezpieczna sytuacja pociąga za sobą radykalne podejście w ludzkim życiu. W niniejszym artykule przedstawiam kontemplacyjny wzór istnienia zgodnego z rzeczywistością, głęboką refleksją czy modlitwą. Na początku występuje fundamentalny opis istnienia dla wszelkich realistycznych analiz, następnie – intuicja i jej rodzaje, definicja poznania kontemplacyjnego, współistnienie prawdy i dobra jako wartości transcendentalnych, a także aspekty antropologiczny i psychologiczny. W końcu – powiązania pomiędzy kontemplacją a metafizyką oraz teologią naturalną. Te szczegółowe elementy poznania tworzą strukturę kontemplacji.

Developing sustainable societies – a dialogical network perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss how and to what extent creative dialogue processes can have an impact on regional political planning processes in Norway. Politicians at Nordland County invited representatives from six different regions in Nordland to participate in café dialogues. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical material is collected from café-dialogues in Northern Norway in which representatives from civil society, business organizations, local government, and NGOs participated. The data processing is based on triangulation of hermeneutic interpretation, frequencies, and factor analysis. Findings – The findings indicate that most people want a “greener” future; this can be described as sustainable societies based on ecological production, distribution, consumption, and redistribution. People take on a more radical position in their ideas about the future than most politicians. The factor analysis grouped the participants into the following categories; “Ecological economics”, “Small is beautiful”, “Entrepreneurs”, and “Growth and control”. A large number of the participants are categorized either as “Circulation economics” or “Small is beautiful”. Practical implications – To solve the challenges of modern society politicians can instigate more radical solutions than they are in the habit of doing. The participants in the café dialogues describe fundamental changes in order to attain viable local societies per 2030. Originality/value – In this paper the authors demonstrate that cultural creatives in the USA give a relevant context for interpreting attitudes to change in small societies in Northern Norway.

An empirical stochastic model of Argentina’s Impossible Game (1955–1966)

Argentine politics from 1955 to 1966 was characterized by the conflict between the Peronists and the anti-Peronists. While each camp could veto the other’s project, neither could advance their own agenda. In his canonical interpretation, O’Donnell ( Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism. Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1973) concluded that party democracy during this era was tantamount to an ‘impossible game.’ While we recognize the significance of O’Donnell’s analysis, we believe that it presents a number of problems. To address its main shortcomings we consider a spatial model that emphasizes the importance of voters’ judgments about the characteristics of party leaders. We recover the positions of Argentine parties using a mixed logit stochastic model and an original dataset of recorded votes in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies during this era. Our results suggest that the electoral logic forced the Peronist party to adopt relatively radical positions away from the center in order to maximize its support. In turn, non-Peronist parties had little incentive to seek the support of moderate, and thus ‘unrepresented,’ Peronist voters by locating themselves at the electoral mean. In particular, valence differences associated with Peronism prevented larger parties from converging toward the center. We thus conjecture that the rules of the impossible game were a constraint imposed by the populace on Argentine political elites rather than a choice made by the latter behind the people’s back.

Capital’s Fastness as Sticking Point

Before had anything to do with speed, it referred to quality of being firmly or securely fixed (OED). Somewhere in Middle English, its meaning shifted to refer to closeness or immediacy with idea of rapid movement only later being reflected in adjectival use. It is this last sense of quickness that is taken up most directly in current references to capitalism. Capitalism gains its momentum by reducing points of fastness, eroding points of security to increase rapid accrual of profit, or so story goes. In critical culture arising around capitalism, its speed is often posed as core of its evil, perhaps most famously by Paul Virilio, but also by Sunday magazine critics lamenting breakneck pace of modern living who advocate instead for slower choices. Slowness has also been taken up in more radical positions, from Bartleby, who prefers not to, to Franco Bifo Berardi, who argues for political potential in expanded notions of both psychic and social depression. What these accounts have in common is a binary sense of fast/slow: if one is slow, one resists capitalism; if one is fast, one cannot be radical. When individuals begin to become immobilized psychically, emotionally, or physically, rapid, exuberant flow of neoliberal capitalism has reached its limit--fast capitalism has fully eroded points of fastness, but, instead of an unrestricted, quick-flowing freedom, many of those who live here find themselves caught in eddies or whirlpools. From these situations--what Lauren Berlant calls impasses--one can neither move forward nor backward; instead, best that can be hoped is merely to keep up. For many affective experience of what Berardi calls the universe running too fast is one of inertia (180). In What is Philosophy?, Deleuze and Guattari describe experience of psychic chaos in terms of infinite speeds that blend into immobility of colourless and silent nothingness they traverse (201); against this threat of blankness, brain grasps at any thread of order, they suggest. This description of brain and thought works as a metaphor for experience of capitalism: there are those who live in chronic vacancy and invisibility spawned by its chaotic speeds. Working on a just-in-time schedule, enduring long commutes, shouldering loads of debt, one can experience churn of capital as a kind of fast-paced slow violence from which there is no clear exit. This is not a fastness of security but a fastness of fixity, of impasse. …

Theoretical Controversies—Terminological Biases: Consciousness Revisited

Abstract Although scientific practice sometimes encounters philosophical difficulties, it cannot shoulder the burden of resolving them. This can lead to controversies. An unavoidable difficulty is rooted in the linguistic attitude, i.e., in the fact that to a considerable extent we express our thoughts in words. I will attempt to illuminate some important characteristics of linguistic expression which lead to paradoxical situations, identifiable thanks to philosophy. In my argument, I will investigate how the notion of consciousness has altered over the course of philosophical investigation and how it relates to recent scientific practice. In conclusion, I will focus on a few recent so-called radical positions in philosophy with regard to a framework within which consciousness and more generally mental phenomena can be regarded in a new light, as well as on the barriers we face when trying to unify scientific results.