How Philosophers Appeal to Priority to Effect Revolution

This article argues that philosophers tend to employ a particular method in constructing their theories and critiquing their opponents. To substantiate this claim, the article examines the work of Nietzsche and Locke, the Empiricists and Rationalists, Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida, and Russell and Wittgenstein, showing how each relies on a method the article labels “revolution‐through‐return.” The method consists in identifying the authority behind your opponent's theory, then appealing to something “prior to” that authority, from which you then proceed to derive your own theory. The article distinguishes between several senses of priority (temporal, ontological, axiological, and so on), argues that modern philosophers tend to rely on temporal priority, and discusses the questions in priority theory that need to be addressed in order evaluate and construct revolution‐through‐return arguments.     

Red catechisms: socialist educational literature and the demarcation of religion and politics in the early 19th century

The catechetical genre not only has a long history in religious but also in political discourse. During the 18th century, catechisms were produced on a vast number of diverse subjects, ranging from secular ethics to sheep breeding. The catechism persisted throughout the 19th century and almost gave shape to the Manifesto of the Communist Party. By this time, however, some socialists were also sceptical of the genre; it was perceived as ambiguous. Catechisms are thus a focal point for changing understandings of politics and religion in 19th-century discourse. This article discusses the production and reception of early 19th-century ‘red’ or socialist catechisms to reveal how the ambiguity of the concept religion was negotiated in the context of the catechetical genre. By locating the debate on catechisms in the discourse on ideology, I show that this genre was a focal point for structural change in the semantic field of religion in modernity.     

Introduction

There are very significant conceptual links between theories of social macroevolution and theories of the World System development. It is shown that the growth of the World System complexity and integrity can be traced through a system of phase transitions of macroevolution. The first set of phase transition is connected with the agrarian, industrial, and information-scientific revolutions (that are interpreted as changes of “production principles”). The second set consists of phase transitions within one production principle. These phase transitions are analyzed on the basis of the World System urbanization dynamics, but they can be traced with respect to the other (cultural, economic, technological, demographic, political, etc.) dimensions of the World System development.     

Home and hiddenness: queer theology,domestication and institutions

ABSTRACT

This essay examines tropes of hiddenness and domestication in queer theology, particularly in light of the increasing mainstreaming of queer theologies in institutional (e.g. university, seminary, church) settings, and the inclusion of queer theologies by straight academics and teachers on their syllabi. Drawing on James C. Scott’s work on revolution as a luxury of the elite (by way of the Arab Spring, the UK riots of 2011, and the US demonstrations in 2014), and Judith Halberstam’s construction of “failure” as a strategy of queer resistance, I ask whether there will continue to be a role for “shadow queernesses” which reject institutional acceptability. However, I also suggest that the increased visibility of queer theology within mainstream institutions does not inevitably imply compromise or “toothlessness,” but may in fact testify to the pre-existing presence of queer diversity in multiple contexts and the inhabitation by queer scholars of various “homes.”     

葛兰西对克罗齐哲学的批判改造

批判改造克罗齐哲学,是葛兰西实践哲学建构的一个重要理论基础。克罗齐虽然想消除黑格尔哲学形而上学的残余,他关于历史与精神同一性的思考、关于伦理政治史的分析,关于历史是自由的故事的论断,虽然有助于批判马克思哲学解释中的机械决定论倾向,但由于他只是从精神同一性的角度出发,就只能在不触动现实基础的情况下,提倡一种“消极革命”,强调对现实进行改良。因此,必须实现对克罗齐哲学的再颠倒,使克罗齐哲学中的有益部分真正成为实践哲学的重要内容。     

毛泽东与现代中国的完备型革命模式

世界文明史上有可能存在着这样一种革命,一种独特的革命方式,即以精神建构的方式来实现突变、做成政治的演替和社会的变革。而这种精神建构的革命模式,同样采用了暴力革命的方式。二十世纪现代中国的革命,实际上就是这样一种革命的模式。它以传统汤武革命为基础,整合了来自西方政治革命的理念,并给予当代中国以十分深刻的影响,几乎左右了中国人和中国社会生活的所有领域,构成了当代中国改革开放的潜在主题。     

A KANTIAN PERSPECTIVE ON POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Rejecting Kant's absolute opposition to revolution, I propose a modified Kantian perspective for reflecting on political violence, drawing from Kant's basic ideas but abandoning some dubious assumptions. Developing suggestions in earlier papers, the essay sketches a model for moral legislation that combines the core ideas of each of Kant's formulas of the Categorical Imperative. Though only a framework for deliberation, not a complete decision procedure, this excludes extremist positions, prohibitive and permissive, about political violence. Despite Kant's hopes, the values implicit in his fundamental principle fail to support easy, inflexible solutions; but they place strong presumptions against lawless coercion and killing, undermining social order, treating persons as dispensable, underestimating options, arrogant faith in one's own judgment, and reckless simplicity in political thinking.     

The role of religious and intellectual elements in overcoming Marxism in Poland

Born in 1948, professor of philosophy of science at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow, bishop of Tarnów; books and articles in Polish and English on the philosophy of science and the interaction of analytic and Christian philosophy.     

第三种生命形式的诞生与科学哲学

美国科学家卡尔·戊斯发现了生命的第三种形式－古生菌域,并将生物分成三大分支,即真核生物域、细菌域和古生菌域。这一理论被称为戊斯革命。但是,他的理论历经艰辛才得到同行的认可,从科学哲学研究的方法论和认识论讨论这一重大发现带给我们有关思维方式和科学评价体系的思考。     

On radical conceptual revolutions in social science

The paper considers arguments for and against correction and elimination of the basic conceptual categories as well as theories of social science. It is argued that some correction of at least some basic social notions is called for. A great part of the paper consists in a conceptual investigation of such notion of correction in terms of different notions of corrective explanation.