Challenging the Legitimacy of Normative Positivism: Institutionalist Alternatives to Dominant Analyses of Economic Action

Author(s): Maxim Kokushkin / Language(s): English Issue: 03/2015

In standard Habermasian terms, legitimacy is the recognized worthiness of a political order that justifies and solidifies that order’s domination. It may thus appear that the concept of legitimation can only be applied to the political sphere, for instance to analyze the emergence of a political system such as Western Democracy. However, the growing political influence of neoliberal economic thought and policies allows the application of the concept of legitimacy to the knowledge underlying neo-liberalization. This article investigates the delegitimation of normative positivism, the epistemological premise of dominant analyses of economic action. The decontextualizing logic of those analyses continues guiding neo-liberal policies despite the evidence that these policies do not produce the promised results. At the same time, the marriage between political capitalism and positivist economic analyses presents both the knowledge and the resulting policies as the only possible solutions to the multiple crises of capitalism. Hence, I advocate for an increased reliance on institutionalist epistemologies that emphasize historical and cultural contextuality. In doing that, I highlight promising examples of institutionalist thought that can help accelerate the delegitimation of normative positivism and thus create openings for studying the alternatives to capitalism.

Preliminary note

Author(s): Sanja Milutinović Bojanić / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

Is Capitalism in Our Genes? Competition, Cooperation and the Idea of Homo Oeconomicus From An Evolutionary Perspective

Author(s): Mariagrazia Portera / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

In the last few years a growing number of academic disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences have turned to the evolutionary approach: Evolutionary Economics, among these disciplines, is a thriving subfield of Economics, which adopts Darwin’s evolutionary ideas and concepts for the understanding of economic system and modes of production. Evolutionary hypotheses such as the „selfish gene“ idea, the ideas of „inclusive fitness“, „struggle for life“ and „survival of the fittest“ may suggest – and have indeed suggested – that humans are rational self-interest individuals, doing what they can to increase their own reproductive chances or at least the chances of their close relatives („inclusive fitness“). To put it differently, evolutionary theory seems to suggest that capitalism (in a broad sense) is a system that has co-evolved with humans and best fits our evolved psychology. Is this the whole story? Is capitalism „in our genes“? In this paper I argue that conclusions such as „we are born to be rational self-interested agents“ or „capitalism is encoded in our genome“ are the result of a misleading application of Darwin’s evolutionary theory to human socio-economic processes, mainly to justify a (Western) society based on selfish principles, but which is not naturally selfish in itself. Evolution seems to be the result of cooperative, not only (or not mainly) competitive processes, and the model of Homo oeconomicus, that is the idea that humans are rational self-interested agents always trying to maximize profit, is, also from an bio-evolutionary perspective, nothing more than a fictional exercise.

Debt Resistance: Beyond or Within Capitalism?

Author(s): Tamara Caraus / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The empirical cases of debt resistance show that the most coherent way of resisting debt consists mainly in debt cancelation or a jubilee. But is debt cancellation, even on a mass scale, a sufficient form of debt resistance or resistance should aim at a deeper restructuring of the economic system that creates indebtedness? The aim of this paper is to examine if it is possible to formulate an argument for debt resistance to a financial economy that creates debt, instead of becoming indebted and then calling for debt forgiveness, jubilee and cancellation. In order to arrive at such an argument, this paper analyzes firstly the arguments on debt resistance formulated by David Graeber in Debt: the First 5,000 Years and by Maurizio Lazzarato in The Making of the Indebted Man: An Essay on the Neoliberal Condition, pointing to some common contradictions and shortcomings of Graeber’s and Lazzarato’s arguments which make debt foundational and inhibit the debt resistance instead of radicalizing it. The paper argues that an emphasis on the contingency and contestability of debt enhances resistance to debt and resistance to the neoliberal system as such.

Two Historians in Front of the Economic Crisis of 2007–2008: Hobsbawm and Judt between Marxism and the Legacies of 20th Century

Author(s): Marco Bresciani / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

How did intellectuals react to the economic crisis of 2007–2008 and its long-term backlash? What did they learn from the main twentieth-century political and social experiences, in order to make a new sense of the traditional cultures of the Left? In order to answer these crucial issues, this proposal will analyze the paths of the well-known historians E. Hobsbawm and T. Judt and their apparently similar, but actually different reactions to the crisis. First, I will focus on their respective books: How to Change the World (2011) and Ill Fares the Land (2010). On the one hand, Hobsbawm’s critical approach to the post-1991 world, shaped by his lifelong fidelity to Marxism and his persistent sympathy for the Russian Revolution, was connected to his catastrophic vision of the end of the both conflicting and collaborative dynamics between capitalism and socialism. On the other hand, Judt’s re-thinking of the social-democratic tradition, compelled by the global transformations of the social question, was inspired by his connections with the East Central European dissidents’ anti-totalitarian liberalism and by his critical approach to the engagement of the French intellectuals. Second, I will investigate their different interpretations of the „Golden Age“ of post-1945 Europe (with special regard to the long-term impact of the crisis of 1929 and to the influence of Soviet communism) and of the causes of its crisis. Third, I will show how, in spite of their common reference to Marx, late Hobsbawm’s and Judt’s historical visions – respectively combined with determinism and moralism – provide opposite ways of coping with the legacies of the 20th century and of criticizing the language of neoliberal economy within the Left.

Od javnog uma do deliberativne demokratije

Author(s): Ivan Mladenović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1/2016

In this paper I shall investigate the relationship between public reason and deliberative democracy, mainly as it is presented in Rawls’s later political theory. Against the critics who claim that Rawls has no deliberative democratic theory, I shall argue that he presented a complex view of public deliberation that contains a set of formal and substantive requirements derived from the idea of public reason. My main aim in this paper is to defend and further elaborate the thesis that Rawls’s later political theory is crucially important for deliberative democracy. Furthermore, in light of the recent literature on deliberative democracy, I examine the relevance of Rawls’s view for addressing some current problems, but also look at some limits of the public reason perspective.

Političke ideologije i moć kod Majkla Fridena

Author(s): Bojan Vranić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 14/2015

This paper analyses Michael Freeden’s thesis that essentially contested concepts become decontested in the field of ideology. Freeden claims that ideologies are the bridge between determinacy and indeterminacy of concepts. He relates decontested concepts to determinacy by introducing the concept of power, arguing that power wielders can make concepts decontested. The first part of this paper analyses the relationship between ideologies and essentially contested concepts. In the second part, the author questions the conditions of the decontested concept of power. The author argues that even if ideologies could serve as decontesting fields, the concept of power cannot make other concepts decontested.

FILOZOFIA POLITYKI

Author(s): Magdalena Żardecka-Nowak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 06/2009

The paper contains a brief presentation of political philosophy as an important branch of contemporary philosophy. In the first part, the subject matter of this discipline is discussed, different approaches to it as well as its interlinkages with other disciplines of science. In the second part, major aims which the discipline is striving to achieve are named as well as most fundamental issues, positions, controversies and divides. The third part includes a historical resume of political philosophy starting from the ancient times until the current period. The paper tries to show the richness and complexity of the problematic covered by this discipline as well as its relevance. Contemporary political philosophy is one of the most vibrantly developing branches of philosophy.

„Leteći filozof“

Author(s): Nenad Daković / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 181/2014

Poszthegemón forgatókönyvek

Author(s): Tamás Farkas / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1-2/2015

Moisés Naím: The end of power. From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States Why Being in Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be Basic Books, New York, 2014. 306 old., $ 16.99

Idealismo attuale

Author(s): Alessandro GERARDI / Language(s): Italian Issue: 12/2016

The object of the essay is the personal and cultural relationship between two Italian philosophers: Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile. It is not entirely correct to say that the dialogue between Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile was interrupted by fascism. In fact the reasons for the crisis between the two philosophers were philosophical before policies.

Social capital - multiple dimensions of one concept

Author(s): Marko B. Tmušić / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

Social Capital, Social Identities – From Ownership to Belonging, Dieter Thoma, Christoph Henning, Hans Bernhard Schmid (eds.), de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2014

JUSTICE IN EDUCATION: EVALUATING THE SATZ-ANDERSON RESPONSE

Author(s): Valentin STOIAN-IORDACHE / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The paper aims to evaluate the reply offered by philosophers of educational justice Elizabeth Anderson and Debra Satz to the challenge posed by Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift. According to the latter two authors, the positional character of education undermines the application of sufficientarian principles to the distribution of educational resources. In the Brighouse-Swift view, a good is positional when its crucial characteristic is how much one possesses of it in relation to others. The two philosophers argue that education has this characteristic. Satz and Anderson reply that sufficientarianism can also survive in education, as the current educational structure should be modified. They maintain that the argument for an adequate minimum can diffuse the positionality objection and that by modifying the social structure to allow for other avenues of social mobility one can put less stress on formal education. The paper rejects the two claims and argues against sufficientarianism in education. Firstly, it puts forward the idea that any minimum is politically debatable and not an adequate reply to the positionality objection. The paper then rejects the second claim by arguing that it requires too much social engineering and that education under conditions of equality fits the purpose of social mobility much better.

The Dualism of Practical Reason and the Autonomy: Sidgwick’s Pessimism and Kant’s Optimism

Author(s): Aleksandar Dobrijević / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

The question this paper is concerned with is: what if Immanuel Kant found a solution to the problem of the dualism of practical reason before Henry Sidgwick even came to formulate it? A comparison of Sidgwick’s and Kant’s approach to the problem of the dualism of practical reason is presented only in general terms, but the author concludes that this is sufficient for grasping the advantage of Kant’s solution to the problem.

Second-order Impartiality and Public Sphere

Author(s): Michal Sládeček / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

In the first part of the text the distinction between first- and second-order impartiality, along with Brian Barry’s thorough elaboration of their characteristics and the differences between them, is examined. While the former impartiality is related to non-favoring fellow-persons in everyday occasions, the latter is manifested in the institutional structure of society and its political and public morality. In the second part of the article, the concept of public impartiality is introduced through analysis of two examples. In the first example, a Caledonian Club with its exclusive membership is considered as a form of association which is partial, but nevertheless morally acceptable. In the second example, the so-called Heinz dilemma has been reconsidered and the author points to some flaws in Barry’s interpretation, arguing that Heinz’s right of giving advantage to his wife’s life over property rights can be recognized through mitigating circumstances, and this partiality can be appreciated in the public sphere. Thus, public impartiality imposes limits to the restrictiveness and rigidity of political impartiality implied in second-order morality.

Sloboda a jednota

Author(s): Adam Chmielewski / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 2/2013

The problems dealt in this study are problems of political philosophy and practice. In the study is developed some new theoretical proposals as well as some interpretations of political doctrines of the past. The study is analytical in character and are devoted to definition and elaboration of theoretical ideas, most especially the one of two conceptions of unity. The study consists of the concept of two traditions in political thinking, conversational turn, egalitarianism (epistemological, moral and political), and the idea of agonistic democracy. These ideas are supplemented here by distinction between two concept of unity, interpassivity, and the idea of the constitutive role of antagonism for (our understanding of) human nature, society and politics.

Filozofia Novoveku ako zdroj moderného chápania politiky

Author(s): Ľuboš Olejník / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 1/2013

The aim of the presented text is to trace, identify and define the modern background to the Western understanding of implementation of political power and the power management of society and to determine their topicality in the current form of policy. In the text we look at the modern axiological, ethical and ideological sources of modern politics, when the power has been analyzed in the context of individualism, freedom and citizenship

Krátka reflexia k ponímaniu moderny a postmoderny

Author(s): Anna Polačková / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 1/2012

The paper deals with theoretical and conceptual distinction between modernism and postmodernism. Modernism relied on morality defined by a supreme authority whereas the postmodern age refuses indoctrination and intimidation by state mechanism on principle. Postmodern age creates conditions for open society, which promotes unity in cultural, moral, and value difference.

Poznámky k súčasným reflexiám neoliberálnych tendencií vo vzdelávaní v zrkadle teórie komunikatívneho konania Jürgena Habermasa

Author(s): Ondrej Marchevský / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 1/2015

The submitted work has the ambition to get involved in the present discourse of education in the area of neoliberalism. Referring to the works of J. Habermas, the work attempts to present the topical nature of the legacy of this German sociologist and philosopher in the outlines discourse of neoliberal education. The work also focuses on aspects of the discourse in the form of issues related to marketization and public interest in education. The work also attempts to map and confront opinions of current authors concerning applicability of Habermas’s ideas in the given discourse.

Granice Evrope

Author(s): Étienne Balibar / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 03+04/2001

Veliko mi je zadovoljstvo i čast što sam došao govoriti i raspravljati u Solunu, na temu “Granice Europe”. Svjestan sam teškoće ovog zadatka. Ali, od svojih slušalaca i domaćina, kojima se zahvaljujem zbog poziva i srdačnog dočeka, očekujem potrebnu pomoć da bih tu zadaću uspješno priveo kraju. Time ne želim reći da mi je pomoć potrebna da bismo ovdje izložili neprikosnovene i gotove istine, već da bismo glasno postavili pitanja, istovremeno filozofska, historijska i politička koja, po meni, odgovaraju provizoriju kolektivnog razmišljanja. Takvo razmišljanje ne može napredovati bez međusobne blagonaklonosti, bez napora za razumijevanje svačijih pozicija i razloga koji stoje u korjenima eventualnih nesuglasica. Ah, susretljivost i formalna učtivost nisu mu potrebni. Ono treba objelodaniti razlike u interpretacijama povjesnih fenomena, suprotstavljanja među doktrinama i u angažmanu (ili odsustvu angažmana), ako ih ima. Sto se mene tiče, apsolutno sam spreman na to.