The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls presents a method of determining how a just society would allocate its "primary goods"-that is, those things any rational person would desire, such as opportunities, liberties, rights, wealth, and the bases of self-respect. Rawls' method of adopting the "original position" is supposed to yield a "fair" way of distributing such goods. A just society would also have the need (unmet in the above work) to determine how the victims of injustice ought to be compensated, since history suggests that social contracts are likely to be violated. This paper is an attempt to determine the remedial measures that would be selected using Rawls' method. I contend that only two of the three most widely used "affirmative action" policies would be selected from the original position. I also sketch another compensatory policy that would pass Rawls' fairness test.

Desde la obra de Max Horkheimer se asume que la profesionalización de las humanidades ha dado por tierra lo que en su emergencia estas significarán. Por otro lado, ya desde las convicciones del pensamiento griego, es de consenso que lo filosófico está reñido con lo servil. Se toma este término es dos direcciones: la filosofía no depende de las ciencias-ni las sirve-y la filosofía no es un saber de tipo utilizable-como las estrezas estadísticas. En este artículo se indaga la función pedagógica de la crítica tal como puede desprenderse de la obra de Horkheimer y se investigan tanto sus modos de instalación frente a otros saberes como su posición en la constelación de las teorías consagradas por la "autoridad de la tradición." Si la filosofía no tiene una función determinada dentro del "ordenamiento existente" de la vida social, tal como esta se da con una jerarquía de valores vigente, necesariamente debe ser crítica. Si la filosofía no ocupa una posición de sierva de los saberes particulares ni menos aún de las necesidades del saber administrativo, necesariamente debe aislarse e instalar una tensión-irreconciliable-con la realidad existente. Si la teoría crítica de la sociedad y de la ciencia apunta a una consideracida diferente de las condiciones en las que actualmente se dan aquellas, necesariamente se autoconcibe como negativa respecto del órden vigente. La función de la filosofía es pedagógica en la tarea de orientar a los hombres a la percepción-negativa y en tensión con la realidadde las condiciones sociales; tal experiencia los instala en la certeza de que aquellas condiciones no son naturales-ni fijas ni definitivas-y en la persistencia del mejoramiento de la totalidad social.

Recently, several authors have cited traditional liberal principles to argue that religious education must be offered in public schools in the United States of America. These authors claim that exposure to a variety of religious beliefs and traditions is a necessary means to attaining the two goals of providing children with "open futures" and encouraging tolerance of religious diversity. This paper contends that these arguments are seriously flawed, and provides reasons which demonstrate that, in practice, these two goals cannot be accomplished by religion courses in the public schools. Additionally, mandatory religion courses in the public schools appear to be unconstitutional and infringe on parental rights and freedom of religion. Consequently, the goals of a liberal state are best achieved by not offering religious education in the public schools.

The classical contract tradition of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau have enjoyed such fame and acceptance as being basic to the development of liberal democratic theory and practice that it would be heretical for any scholar, especially one from the fringes, to critique. But the contract tradition poses challenges that must be given the flux in the contemporary sociopolitical universe that at once impels extreme nationalism and unavoidable globalism. This becomes all the more important not in order to dislodge the primacy of loyalty and reverence to this tradition but from another perspective which hopes to encourage that the anchorage of disclosure be implemented. The contract tradition makes pronouncements on what is natural and what is nonnatural. It offers what many have contended are rigorous arguments for these pronouncements that are "intuitive," "empirical," "logical," "psychological," "moral," "religio-metaphysical." What I offer in this essay is a challenge from the outside. I ask: 1) on what empirical data are the material presuppositions of contractarianism built? 2) what is the epistemological foundation of contractarianism? 3) is contractarianism not derivable from any other form of sociological presupposition except that of the state of nature? 4) does any human know a "state of nature"? 5) given the answers to the above questions, to what extent are the legal and moral foundations of contractarianism sacrosanct? I attempt to answer these questions in what can only be a sketch, but my answers suggest that it is very presumptuous of contractarianist to suppose that they have captured the only logically valid basis of democratic practice universally.

Cette étude part de l'observation que l'idée de 'champ,' tout comme celle de 'fonction' représente une nouveauté de la pensée moderne. Employée surtout en physique, l'idée de 'champ' est fréquemment utilisée ces derniers temps dans les sciences sociales. El term de 'champ' reste tout de même un terme polymorphe. Cette étude se propose de tirer au clair les cadres conceptuels de ce terme et sa fonctionnalité pour le domaine du social. A cette fin, on considère qu'il faut fructifier la tradition de Tönnies en sociologie, où l'accent tombe sur la conception du social en tant que 'relation,' que 'réseau de significations.' Dans cette direction, il s'impose que la notion de 'champ' soit délimitée de celles de 'système,' de 'contexte' ou bien de 'pattern.' C'est pour cela que cette étude fait appel à la classification de Kant concernant la nature des connexions: 1) la composition (agrégation ou coalition); 2) la connexion (physique ou métaphysique). Il s'avère que les notions de 'pattern' et de 'contexte' sont des espèces de la composition-coalition, la notion de 'système' semble correspondre à la connexion physique de la classification kantienne et la notion de 'champ' a son équivalent dans la connexion de type métaphysique. Tout en considérant comme situations de 'champ' social ou culturel ces cas ou les parties constituantes ne peuvent ni être réduites les uns aux autres, ni rigoureusement séparés, l'analyse continue par révéler deux fonctions essentielles de l'idée de 'champ': la fonction générative et la fonction intégrative.

In The Open Society and Its Enemies and The Poverty of Historicism, Popper argues that there is no essential methodological distinction between human and natural sciences. Each of them, he claims, endeavors to elaborate and test causal explanations of the phenomenal world. However, in later writings he revises his position. The very notion of "situational (or logic) analysis" (previously introduced to characterize a simple heuristic device employed in the elaboration of explanations of human action) is more and more identified with the notion of "objective understanding." Such a notion is thought of as referring to the method which is peculiar to the human sciences. I show that the peculiarity of this method lies in the fact that experience is no longer investigated by means of "the principle of causality." Rather, it is investigated by means of what Popper calls "the principle of rationality" or "the principle of the adequacy of actions."

Building on criticism directed against August Comte by Georges Canguilhem, I analyze Émile Durkheim's usage of the "normality-pathology" typology and show that these concepts do not support the organicist metaphor or the analogy between the social and the individual body. Rather, as suggested by Ian Hacking, these concepts are linked to the use of statistics and the Quetelian media, tools which allow us to understand social phenomena on populational terms. Thus, from the application of biological and statistical categories to sociological analysis, a kind of speech is born which enjoys solidarity with strategies of administration and management of the masses. This Foucault called the "biopolitics of the population."

I assume that the feeling of evil is more widespread than the feeling of good. That is why intolerance as an attitude appears to be even more common than tolerance. This thesis is justified by psychological and sociological theories which, by analyzing the psyches of humans as individuals and of societies, explain why intolerance, destruction and aggressiveness control our actions so frequently. Therefore, in spite of positive intentions inherent in every person who dreams about being the best and living as decently as possible, an honest picture of our time evokes a rather pessimistic disposition. Although a lot has been done to implement a principle of ethical minimalism in society, at the same time there is also a moral approval — though with no one willing to admit it! — for integration mechanisms based on xenophobia.

In this paper, I articulate and evaluate an important argument in support of the claim that citizens of a liberal democracy should not support coercive policies on the basis of a rationale they know other citizens reasonably reject. I conclude that that argument is unsuccessful. In particular, I argue that religious believers who support coercive public policies on the basis of religious convictions do not disrespect citizens who reasonably regard such religious convictions as false.

In contemporary philosophy and social theory, Harbermas's theory of communicative action stands indisputably for a modernity enlightened about itself and its potential. Yet, however much he professes his commitment to universalist ideals of inclusiveness and equality, his influential theory is also marked by disquieting statements on matters of gender. I argue that the problem of gender in Habermas's theory can be traced to his attempt to rework the Marxian tradition of historical materialism. I do so by (a) discussing Habermas's proposal for reconstructing this tradition, and (b) examining the system/lifeworld distinction on which the theory of communicative action is based. Regarding (a), I direct attention to his argument that the Marxian concept of social labor cannot account for the specifically human form of reproducing life; a theory of social evolution and historical progress requires equal recognition of socialization processes and the moral-practical insight transmitted through those processes. I show that Habermas attributes a special value to the "female" labor of socialization and that he conceptualizes such labor as outside "social" labor. Regarding (b), I argue that while Habermas's system/lifeworld distinction in the context of historical materialism makes possible a more complex interpretation of Marx and Engels understanding of the basic components of social labor, his theory of communicative action-like his proposal for reconstructing historical materialism-reproduces the Marxian exclusion of "female" labor from social labor.

Recent developments in biology have made it possible to acquire more and more precise information concerning our genetic makeup. There are four groups of people who may want to know about our genes. First, we ourselves can have an interest in being aware of own health status. Second, there are people who are genetically linked with us, and who can have an interest in the knowledge. Third, individuals with whom we have contracts and economic arrangements may have an interest in knowing about our genetic makeup. Fourth, society as a whole can have an interest in the composition of our genes. As regards the question of motivation, the term 'should' can be interpreted in three ways. Prudentially speaking, to say that individuals should act in a certain manner is to say that the actions in question promote the long-term self-interest of these individuals. From the viewpoint of morality, we should do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong. When it comes to legal thinking, it is held in most liberal societies that grave other-regarding harm should be the primary justification for the use of coercion and constraint. In the paper, all these aspects are examined in more detail.

Habermas' social philosophy can now be perceived in its oppositional structures and their symbolic meaning. His repetition of structural opposition finds its expression in the symbolism which pervades The Philosophic Discourse of Modernity in the opposition between the dreaded myth of the Dialectic of Enlightenment and the redemptive fantasy of the path yet to be taken. More significant for the intellectual culture of modernity is the neglect, by erasure on the part of this esteemed philosopher, of the great drama of philosophy in our time. This is the drama occasioned by the dialectical struggle, rushing to climax in the 20th Century, between Enlightenment reason and its Counterenlightenment opponent. The struggle between these philosophical constellations is refracted in the great wars of this century. Thus the drama of the philosophical thought of the century and its historical development is lost. The philosophic discourse of modernity has yet to be written. Its text, once it has been freed from the tenacity of ideological hostilities and their erasures and concealing circumlocutions, will at the same time provide the sought-for foundation for social philosophy and a just society: it is the philosophic framework of Modernity itself which is the foundation of all modern philosophies, in the dialectic of Enlightenment and its Counterenlightenment other.

The apprehension of the culture industry in its totality, as it is presented in Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment, makes it necessary to turn to his Theory of Self-Formation, where the cultural domain of the constellation of society has an explicit formative dimension. The cultural formation, the German Bildung, expresses such a prism. It is not a national peculiarity, but it translates in the experience of delay of the German bourgeois society as the formative dimension of culture, generally hidden in the social constitution, facilitating the basis of immanent criticism. In the State interventionist society that follows the liberal order, with the manipulation of the totalitarian State and the society of mass consumption, the productive process does not tolerate the formative experience of autonomy: there is a social reconstruction of culture as culture industry, which turns out to be a political concept. Here there is not absence, but an eclipse of formation. It is semi-formation: only integration, without autonomy. When universality, instead of residing in ideals formed within culture formation, resides on universalization of given cultural goods, the mercantile ideals only integrate the masses. The culture industry is the chore of what appears as the cultural construction of society, in terms of the integrating semi-formation. The disintegration of the working class and its reconstruction en masse are a result of the formation process of which the culture industry is a part. Formation is concealed because the social construction is confounded with the cultural construction; society is itself ideology. The social organization obstructs the experience of the social formative labor in the integration. Society appears to be an extra-productive socialization.

Rawls' justification of political liberalism has been the subject of recent discussion in socio-political philosophy. In Political Liberalism, he has adjusted his original notion of ideal convergence, found in A Theory of Justice, to one of overlapping consensus. I argue that Catholics would find themselves excluded from being good citizens as Rawls defines proper citizenship. This follows from his statements concerning fairness in participating in the democratic process in that it would lead to, what I term, the Catholic paradox. This perspective from within the Catholic point of view indicates that there are similar problems to be found in other traditionally informed conceptions of what the good life is. In this way, the Catholic paradox draws attention to the empirical implausibility that competing conceptions of what the good life is, as understood from within their traditions, will not endorse Rawls' political theory. I then relate how easily it can be inferred that other traditions will face the same paradox and that they will not accept Rawls' political theory as being justified from their perspectives.

Ours is a time of dramatic and confusing transformations in everyday life, many of them originating in the social enfranchisement of women that has occurred over the past twenty-five years. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild demonstrates a widespread phenomenon of work-family imbalance in our society, experienced by people in terms of a time bind, and a devaluation of familial relationships. As large numbers of women have moved into the workplace, familial relations of all sorts have been colonized by what Virginia Held critically refers to as the contractual paradigm. Even the mother/child relationship, representing for Held an alternative feminist paradigm of selfhood and agency, has been in large part "outsourced." I believe that an Arendtian conception of speech and action might enable us to assert anew the grounds for familial relations. If we require a new site upon which to address our human plurality and natality, the postpatriarchal family may provide that new site upon which individuals can freely act to recreate the fabric of human relationships. It would seem to be our moral and political responsibility as social philosophers today to speculatively contribute to the difficult yet imperative task of reconfiguring the family. In this paper, I attempt to articulate the basic assumptions from which such a reconfiguration must begin.

This paper argues that: a) philosophy generally, and the dialectical tradition in particular, first emerged in Ancient Greece in response to the nihilism and relativism generated by the development of a market economy; b) despite differences between its 'idealist' and 'materialist' wings, it is possible to speak of a basically unified dialectical tradition extending from Socrates, Plato and Aristotle through the great medieval Aristotelians (Ibn Sina, Ibn Rusd, Maimonides, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas), up to Hegel, Marx and their interpreters, a tradition unified around the proposition that we can rise by rational means to a first principle which in turn serves as a principle of value and a criterion for ethical norms, thus becoming a standard by which to criticize the market order and argue for an alternative allocation of resources; c) the historic difficulties and current crisis of the dialectical tradition arise from a failure to demonstrate that the universe is a teleological system ordered to the perfection of form or the development of increasing levels of organization; and d) recent developments in the physical, biological and social sciences suggest that we may soon be in a position to remedy this difficulty. This paper criticizes those who say that it is no longer possible to "do philosophy the old way," and argues for the critical importance of philosophy generally and the dialectical tradition in particular for the future of the human civilizational project.

The subject of this paper is social time-the peculiarities of the Past-Present-Future in social processes, and their unbreakable connection. I also focus on the necessity of taking stock of time in human activities and in the societal development. The Past in progress of society signifies the Already-happened which has become the possession of history. This Past exerts an enormous influence on the Present, determining it both directionally and functionally. The Present includes the Present itself, a part of the Past, and some elements of the Future. It represents the only reality for human beings as life is lived in the Present only. The Present creates the material and spiritual preconditions for the Future. Resolution of contemporary global problems is crucial for our Future which runs sequentially in three stages: immediate Future, visible Future and distant Future. All three exert influence on the Present by providing ideological and informational images. Time disciplines our minds and wills, organizes our actions and promotes our cognitions of the Past, the Present and the Future.

Space and time are considered as attributive features of matter's social form movement that allow to incorporate structure into the world political processes. The notions of wholismatic time and space are established to determine world's entering into planetary interconnected condition. Social space and time are considerate in unity being as coordinates of man and civilization's existence. Methodological approaches to East and West civilization cooperation are defined through varieties of spaces being specified in different types of human activity. Man and civilization interaction is shown in context of future social time as well as choice of development type and modernization of society.

The Battered Woman Syndrome, like the Cycle Theory of Violence, helps to illuminate the situation of the person victimized by domestic violence. However, it may also contribute to the violence of the battering situation. In this paper, I explore some of the implications of the Battered Woman Syndrome for domestic violence cases wherein an abused woman kills her abuser. I begin by delineating some of the circumstances of a domestic violence situation. I then discuss the particular moral issue of subjectivity or moral personhood involved in instances wherein a woman victimized by domestic violence responds by killing her batterer. Finally, I argue that the Battered Woman Syndrome and similar alternatives to or qualifications of self-defense are problematic because they strip a woman of her moral subjectivity. I conclude with a brief articulation of a proposal for reform of the criminal justice system specifically aimed at cases wherein there has been a long history of abuse or violence. This reform is unique because it does not rely on a separate standard of reasonableness particular to battered women, but arises out of consideration of the moral implications of legal proceedings involving domestic violence.

I defend the continued viability of Marx's critique of capitalism against Ronald Aronson's recent claim that because Marxists are 'unable to point to a social class or movement' away from capitalism, Marxism is 'over' 'as a project of historical transformation.' First, Marx's account of the forced extraction of surplus labor remains true. It constitutes an indictment of the process of capital accumulation because defenses of capitalism's right to profit based on productive contribution are weak. If generalized, the current cooperative movement, well advanced in many nations, can displace capitalism and thus counts as the movement Aronson challenges Marxists to point to. It will do this, I argue, by stopping capitalist exploitation, blocking capital accumulation, and narrowing class divisions. But in defending Marx by pointing to the cooperative movement, we have diverged from Marx's essentially political strategy for bringing about socialism onto an economic one of support for tendencies toward workplace democracy worldwide.