Seeking the Principles of Power and Danger

“When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.” - Charles Darwin (1). Darwin of course was unjustified in his belief; fear seems to be the most universal of emotions both for human beings and the greater animal kingdom. This emotion though is not simply reserved in human life in the struggle for existence; we feel fear and anxiety when we make choices about the direction of our lives. This is our struggle for meaning. The current piece will focus on discourses of and relevant to that struggle and concepts surrounding it. Linking discourses diverse as logic and the Abrahamic religions to find the structure of this struggle. In ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ Wittgenstein argued that: “Propositions cannot represent the logical form: this mirrors itself in the propositions” (2).T...

In classical antiquity political theory was often organized around typological analysis of constitutions. Representative of this tradition, Aristotle delineated three types of “straight constitutions”: Kingship, Aristocracy and Polity. That is, rule by one, rule by the few and rule by the majority of citizens. These neat classifications of straight constitutions, considered inherently unstable, had their corresponding deviant forms. For some political philosophers, the threat of decay and decline innate in straight constitutions necessitated mitigating elements. In the classic Aristotelian argument, virtue is a mean between two extremes, and therefore when a state approached goodness in its constitution it was a compromise between two diametrical opposites. Expressed in practical terms, Aristotle’s concept of good governance lay in a compromise between rule by the one and the many, resulting not in a strict aristocratic regime but one tempered by a virtuous demos. Historically, the...

In The Rebel , Albert Camus locates Karl Marx within a 19th century tradition which attempted to “substitute, everywhere, the relative for the absolute”. For Camus, Marxism represents a revision and re-articulation of Auguste Comte’s evolutionary theory of society. This assessment of Marx characterized his philosophical disposition as an inverted bourgeois positivism. However, Camus’s general interpretation is not without competitors from both Marxists and Non-Marxists alike. There are a myriad of works, which attempt to explain Marx’s social thought and establish his exact position on countless points of controversy. Historical Materialism or the materialist conception of history has been one such point of controversy, especially with regards to the relationship between human agency and social structures implicit within the theory. Within the Marxian tradition itself, two broad perspectives on the structure-agency debate emerged after the suppression of the Budapest uprising in 19...

Many academic Historians discuss the relative merits of chronological and thematic approaches to the writing of history. This debate is based upon a false dichotomy. Themes and chronology are not mutually exclusive, dates allow the historian to place events in sequential order, and themes are developed to analyze the evolution of historical trends. Each is required for the historian to maintain a clear perspective.

This film is absolutely voyeuristic and atomizing; salacious and sorrowful . It’s painful to watch when Anna Karina looks directly into the camera.

“That was the gift of the French. They gave Americans a language they did not need. It was like the Statue of Liberty. Nobody needs French theory.” — Jean Baudrillard (1) In the post-May 68 intellectual climate postmodernism ascended from an emergent philosophy to a mainstay in university humanities faculties. These stars of the French intellectual scene set out to critique and deconstruct the enlightenment tradition. But as Foucault informed us we should not ‘blackmail’ a thinker into being either for or against the enlightenment. Therefore following this line it is not as simply to say that because a postmodernist critiques the enlightenment that the theorist represents a revolt of unreason against rationality in social life. Jacques-Benigne Bossuet and Thomas Hobbes both advocated political absolutism, but the philosophical system backed by Hobbes shifted the justification of government from divinity of the sovereign to practicality and utility for its constituents. Enlightenme...

During his trial Socrates argued that human wisdom came from the acknowledgment of human ignorance (Plato, 1969, P. 52), a position arrived at via the traditional account of knowledge as justified true belief. Because of such conclusions this account, which leaves us without a useful “knowledge”, is not without its detractors. Therefore the traditional theory of knowledge as justified true belief will be outlined. Its success, strengths and weakness as an account of knowledge will be assessed in relation to competing theories such as “critical rationalism”, where knowledge is not infallible but merely the best available theory (Popper, 1984, p. 26-7). The question of demarcation between belief and knowledge has been a central debate in epistemology. The traditional account of knowledge considered belief to be an essential component of knowledge. For the purpose of argument, the proposition ‘time is a dimension in relation to other dimensions’ is true. But if the individual does ...