Patrick and Neil will be speaking at the following conference upcoming in Nottingham.
THE 2010 ASMCF ANNUAL CONFERENCE
LA FRANCE ET LA CRISE – BILANS, RUPTURES ET ANTECEDENTS
http://www.asmcf.org/conferences/
Patrick will be giving a paper on Alain Badiou, and Neil will be speaking about Lacan.
Friday, 3 September 2010
Monday, 19 July 2010
Film-philosophy III conference at Warwick University
Having attended the three day film-philosophy conference at Warwick for one day only (and therefore commenting as somewhat of an outsider/observer of the proceedings) I am left pondering the nature of the subject, both in terms of teaching and research. I guess this would be one aim of interdisciplinary conferences such as this in a sub-discpline which still struggles to define its relationship to its composite parts.
Certainly, the papers raised lots of really interesting (and extremely wide-ranging) concerns and issues, and as expected yielded lots of useful material, though much of this will need to be processed and synthesised via my mental processes before appearing in more coherent form! Furthermore, the sheer diversity of delegates and speakers was further food for thought, ranging from philosophers and film theorists to practitioners eg film makers. As might be imagined, this clash of viewpoints sparked some interesting debate...
The feeling that lingers at present, though, is wonder at the huge diversity of topics that appear under the aegis of film-philosophy! The morning's panel, revolving around Stiegler and Time, tended towards applied and pure forms of philosophy, with sparing use of filmic examples.
The afternoon's session concerning identity, meanwhile, strayed onto more traditional film studies territory ie psycho-analytical approaches, via the organising trope of "the troubled mind", this time with explicit use of filmic material. Importantly, much of this seemed to me to have have less to do with standard definitions of "philosophy", and might have been equally well placed in a film studies conference. One might have expected identity to have been approached largely via concepts drawn from philosophy of mind, for example. Certainly this is how "film-philsophy" tends to approach the issue. So again, plenty to think about here.
Plenty to muse on, then, some of which will hopefully inform and enrich future teaching and research. And certainly a productive way to spend a showery Saturday on the outskirts of Coventry!
Ruth
Certainly, the papers raised lots of really interesting (and extremely wide-ranging) concerns and issues, and as expected yielded lots of useful material, though much of this will need to be processed and synthesised via my mental processes before appearing in more coherent form! Furthermore, the sheer diversity of delegates and speakers was further food for thought, ranging from philosophers and film theorists to practitioners eg film makers. As might be imagined, this clash of viewpoints sparked some interesting debate...
The feeling that lingers at present, though, is wonder at the huge diversity of topics that appear under the aegis of film-philosophy! The morning's panel, revolving around Stiegler and Time, tended towards applied and pure forms of philosophy, with sparing use of filmic examples.
The afternoon's session concerning identity, meanwhile, strayed onto more traditional film studies territory ie psycho-analytical approaches, via the organising trope of "the troubled mind", this time with explicit use of filmic material. Importantly, much of this seemed to me to have have less to do with standard definitions of "philosophy", and might have been equally well placed in a film studies conference. One might have expected identity to have been approached largely via concepts drawn from philosophy of mind, for example. Certainly this is how "film-philsophy" tends to approach the issue. So again, plenty to think about here.
Plenty to muse on, then, some of which will hopefully inform and enrich future teaching and research. And certainly a productive way to spend a showery Saturday on the outskirts of Coventry!
Ruth
Monday, 12 July 2010
Thomas Kuhn - The Philosophical Legacy
Steve Fuller 'Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for Our Times' Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2000).
Thomas Kuhn, as we know, was one of the foremost philosophers of science in the 20th century and the father of the so-called 'sociological turn' in contemporary philosophy of science.
But what, exactly, was Kuhn’s legacy to philosophy of science. According to Steve Fuller, Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, it was to have dulled the critical edge of the concept of rationality in this philosophical sub-discipline - making philosophy’s relationship to the natural sciences increasingly problematic (p280).
Kuhn, in Fuller’s view, was the latest in a long line of modernist philosophers whose aim was to pave the way from philosophical to (social) scientific modes of thought. These anti-philosophical tendencies can also be found in Wittgenstein’s work, but espeically in followers of Kuhn like David Bloor; who believed that philosophy is an atavism in an epistemic culture dominated by science.
Post-Kuhnian philosophers of science have attempted to understand science as a social phenomenin; that is from the narrow vantage point of the practicing scientist’s current professional interests. For Fuller, this is too parochial a conception of science and in his view post-Kuhnian philosophers - like, for example Rorty - fail to see any intermediate position between a sociological conception grounded professional interests and a philosophical conception derived from the God’s eye view.
Against Kuhn, Fuller wants to defend a quasi-Popperian conception of science, in that he advocates an open ‘republican’ conception of science against a ‘closed’ professional conception of scientific practice (an issue that has recently come to the fore in the ‘climategate’ scandal). For Fuller, Popper’s ‘distinctive pragmatist revision’ of positivism was dismissed too easily by Kuhn and his socilogical acolytes.
This is an interesting book by Fuller, unfortunately, provides a rather rambling account. Although erudite in the extreme, he attempts to critique Kuhn on three fronts at once - sociological, political, philosophical. This is perhaps to broad a critical focus. Fuller does make many subtle points against the viability of ‘the Kuhnian framework’, but there is a certain randomness in his mode of argumentation. Fuller, it strikes me, is trying to shoot the Kuhnian elephant with a weapon that, although powerful, he seems unwilling to bring under sufficient control. This maybe because he is attempting to criticise the sociological turn from 'within' when a more philosophical approach is clearly needed here.
Neil Turnbull
Thomas Kuhn, as we know, was one of the foremost philosophers of science in the 20th century and the father of the so-called 'sociological turn' in contemporary philosophy of science.
But what, exactly, was Kuhn’s legacy to philosophy of science. According to Steve Fuller, Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, it was to have dulled the critical edge of the concept of rationality in this philosophical sub-discipline - making philosophy’s relationship to the natural sciences increasingly problematic (p280).
Kuhn, in Fuller’s view, was the latest in a long line of modernist philosophers whose aim was to pave the way from philosophical to (social) scientific modes of thought. These anti-philosophical tendencies can also be found in Wittgenstein’s work, but espeically in followers of Kuhn like David Bloor; who believed that philosophy is an atavism in an epistemic culture dominated by science.
Post-Kuhnian philosophers of science have attempted to understand science as a social phenomenin; that is from the narrow vantage point of the practicing scientist’s current professional interests. For Fuller, this is too parochial a conception of science and in his view post-Kuhnian philosophers - like, for example Rorty - fail to see any intermediate position between a sociological conception grounded professional interests and a philosophical conception derived from the God’s eye view.
Against Kuhn, Fuller wants to defend a quasi-Popperian conception of science, in that he advocates an open ‘republican’ conception of science against a ‘closed’ professional conception of scientific practice (an issue that has recently come to the fore in the ‘climategate’ scandal). For Fuller, Popper’s ‘distinctive pragmatist revision’ of positivism was dismissed too easily by Kuhn and his socilogical acolytes.
This is an interesting book by Fuller, unfortunately, provides a rather rambling account. Although erudite in the extreme, he attempts to critique Kuhn on three fronts at once - sociological, political, philosophical. This is perhaps to broad a critical focus. Fuller does make many subtle points against the viability of ‘the Kuhnian framework’, but there is a certain randomness in his mode of argumentation. Fuller, it strikes me, is trying to shoot the Kuhnian elephant with a weapon that, although powerful, he seems unwilling to bring under sufficient control. This maybe because he is attempting to criticise the sociological turn from 'within' when a more philosophical approach is clearly needed here.
Neil Turnbull
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Andre Gorz: The End of the Working Class?
The French philosopher Andre Gorz is famous for his thesis that contemporary work practices herald the end of the 'working class' as traditionally conceived. In a number of texts - most famously in 'Farewell to the Working Class' - Gorz gives a historical overview of the meaning of 'work' and shows how its meaning has changed from one historical period to another. He shows that with the emergence of capitalism, work came to take on an increasingly 'abstract quality' as it became 'paid activity'.
However, this form of abstract, 'quantifiable', work - the work of the wage-labourer - is no longer a useful characterisiation of post-industrial labour in his view. What the current situation needs rather is a redefintion of 'work'. Gorz, like his contemporary Daniel Bell (Bell, 1976) sees the so-called 'computer revolution' has having very profound implications for the structure of modern societies and for the very meaning of work. In his view, computers will increasingly displace the unskilled and semi-skilled worker because these simple work functions are now easily automated. Gorz argues that the computerisation of production processes is leading us into a post-industrial society where 'work' will increasingly come to mean something other than its traditional defintion as as 'wage-labour'.
Gorz is fully aware of the dark side to all this. Unless we organise society according to different principles new information technologies will lead to mass redundancies and the emergence of an increasingly pauperised section of society. In order to counter these potentially disasterous developments, Gorz argues for what he calls a politics of time. Here, Gorz is arguing that contemporary radical thinkers should celebrate the labour-saving potential of new technologies and see these technologies as liberating individuals from the dull necessity of work. Individuals, so long as they are properly resourced (perhaps through an enhanced benefit system) can then use their time for the purpose of self-development.
This, Gorz believes, will lead to a healthier and happier society. Industrial society gave the worker affluence but no time. Post-industrial society gives the (now-ex) worker time but no affluence. This finally allows the working class to achieve its traditional political goal freedom from work. However, the challenge today is to make sure that indivduals put this freedom to some useful social purpose.
Gorz has been criticised for being a bit of a romantic. His idea that 'work' can now be replaced by 'self-development' seems to assume that we are all capable of becoming accomplished novelists, piano players or chefs in our leisure time. Not all of us may be able to 'self-actualise' in this way. Some may require institutions to help them forge a sense of self and work may be one such institution.
Neil Turnbull
Further reading
Gorz, A. (1982) 'A Farewell to the Working Class' London: Pluto
Gorz, A (1985) 'Paths to Paradise: On the Liberation from Work' London: Pluto
Gorz, A (1989) 'A Critique of Economic Reason' London: Verso
Illich, I (1978) 'The Right to Useful Umemployment and It Professional Enemies' London: Boyars
Lodziak, C (1995) 'Manipulating Needs: Capitalism and Culture' London: Pluto.
However, this form of abstract, 'quantifiable', work - the work of the wage-labourer - is no longer a useful characterisiation of post-industrial labour in his view. What the current situation needs rather is a redefintion of 'work'. Gorz, like his contemporary Daniel Bell (Bell, 1976) sees the so-called 'computer revolution' has having very profound implications for the structure of modern societies and for the very meaning of work. In his view, computers will increasingly displace the unskilled and semi-skilled worker because these simple work functions are now easily automated. Gorz argues that the computerisation of production processes is leading us into a post-industrial society where 'work' will increasingly come to mean something other than its traditional defintion as as 'wage-labour'.
Gorz is fully aware of the dark side to all this. Unless we organise society according to different principles new information technologies will lead to mass redundancies and the emergence of an increasingly pauperised section of society. In order to counter these potentially disasterous developments, Gorz argues for what he calls a politics of time. Here, Gorz is arguing that contemporary radical thinkers should celebrate the labour-saving potential of new technologies and see these technologies as liberating individuals from the dull necessity of work. Individuals, so long as they are properly resourced (perhaps through an enhanced benefit system) can then use their time for the purpose of self-development.
This, Gorz believes, will lead to a healthier and happier society. Industrial society gave the worker affluence but no time. Post-industrial society gives the (now-ex) worker time but no affluence. This finally allows the working class to achieve its traditional political goal freedom from work. However, the challenge today is to make sure that indivduals put this freedom to some useful social purpose.
Gorz has been criticised for being a bit of a romantic. His idea that 'work' can now be replaced by 'self-development' seems to assume that we are all capable of becoming accomplished novelists, piano players or chefs in our leisure time. Not all of us may be able to 'self-actualise' in this way. Some may require institutions to help them forge a sense of self and work may be one such institution.
Neil Turnbull
Further reading
Gorz, A. (1982) 'A Farewell to the Working Class' London: Pluto
Gorz, A (1985) 'Paths to Paradise: On the Liberation from Work' London: Pluto
Gorz, A (1989) 'A Critique of Economic Reason' London: Verso
Illich, I (1978) 'The Right to Useful Umemployment and It Professional Enemies' London: Boyars
Lodziak, C (1995) 'Manipulating Needs: Capitalism and Culture' London: Pluto.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Slavoj Zizek - The most dangerous philosopher in the West.
It is currently the London Literature Festival and as part of this, the Southbank Centre is staging a series of lectures and readings by eminent, contemporary figures in literature. On the bill last night was a talk by Slavoj Zizek centered around his latest book Living in the End Times, and I was lucky enough to be able to attend.
Slavoj delighted an audience -that seemed to me to consist of more than the aging, socialist academics I had suspected- with the mix of pop-culture references and deep analytical thinking that has become his trade mark. I might even call him a philosopher come stand-up but I couldn’t say how he would respond to the title.
The session consisted of a brief lecture regarding the inevitability of communism, and an interview conducted by an equally well respected philosopher A.C Grayling. During his lecture Slavoj made use first of the song Climb Every Mountain, sung by the Mother Superior from The Sound of Music to encourage Maria to follow he heart and love Baron VonTrapp, and the audience cheered as he showed up the hypocrisy of the songs sentiments. The same audience then sat quietly as he explained our grim fascination with fascism by means of the scene from Cabaret where the Hitler Youth sing inspirationally with a crowd in a beer hall. He said that our applause was mis-directed and that we ought to more strongly agree with sentiments of the second song as it is not intrinsically fascist but simply appropriated by fascism because it is beautiful.
During the interview A.C Grayling asked of Zizek “How can communism succeed? Look at the Soviet Union.” and Zizek’s answer lasted at least 40 minutes and took a variety of forms. In short though, he seemed to be talking not so much about an economic communism but instead a sort of cultural communism that is born of capitalism and the irony of postmodernism and consumerism. He claimed that history is no longer on the side of the academic because it encourages a relativist point of view, and as such socialism as it has existed will not come to fruition, but that there may be space for something new.
I’ve read some Zizek and not understood a lot of it, and to be honest last-night’s lecture didn’t clear many things up. However it is exciting to here someone talk about the future and if I can say anything about the philosophy of Slavoj Zizek it would be that it is in the future that he has made his home.
Rob Humphries
Slavoj delighted an audience -that seemed to me to consist of more than the aging, socialist academics I had suspected- with the mix of pop-culture references and deep analytical thinking that has become his trade mark. I might even call him a philosopher come stand-up but I couldn’t say how he would respond to the title.
The session consisted of a brief lecture regarding the inevitability of communism, and an interview conducted by an equally well respected philosopher A.C Grayling. During his lecture Slavoj made use first of the song Climb Every Mountain, sung by the Mother Superior from The Sound of Music to encourage Maria to follow he heart and love Baron VonTrapp, and the audience cheered as he showed up the hypocrisy of the songs sentiments. The same audience then sat quietly as he explained our grim fascination with fascism by means of the scene from Cabaret where the Hitler Youth sing inspirationally with a crowd in a beer hall. He said that our applause was mis-directed and that we ought to more strongly agree with sentiments of the second song as it is not intrinsically fascist but simply appropriated by fascism because it is beautiful.
During the interview A.C Grayling asked of Zizek “How can communism succeed? Look at the Soviet Union.” and Zizek’s answer lasted at least 40 minutes and took a variety of forms. In short though, he seemed to be talking not so much about an economic communism but instead a sort of cultural communism that is born of capitalism and the irony of postmodernism and consumerism. He claimed that history is no longer on the side of the academic because it encourages a relativist point of view, and as such socialism as it has existed will not come to fruition, but that there may be space for something new.
I’ve read some Zizek and not understood a lot of it, and to be honest last-night’s lecture didn’t clear many things up. However it is exciting to here someone talk about the future and if I can say anything about the philosophy of Slavoj Zizek it would be that it is in the future that he has made his home.
Rob Humphries
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Schopenhauer 2: an old conundrum
Shortly after the previously discussed passage, Schopenhauer goes on to consider the human condition in comparison to that of the animal, concluding amongst other things, that the ability to reflect and awareness of the self is what distinguishes human from purely animal and gives us our unique capacity for suffering. This capacity stems partly from our awareness of death, but paradoxically, also confers intensities of pleasure and happiness denied to "brute" animals.
Of course, peace of mind is the price that these intensities exact upon us, and is this a price worth paying? Schopenhauer thinks so (taking us back to the old paradox of the happy pig/unhappy Socrates conundrum and its varients) but as he ruefully concludes: 'The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate. But precisely because this is so it appears in one respect truely sagacious compared with us, namely in its peaceful, untroubled enjoyment of the present: its obvious composure often puts to shame our own frequently restless and disorientated condition'.
Does our capacity for reflection deny to us the ability to enjoy the present moment (another age-old, yet curiously perennial philosophical question?) And is it a misdirection to believe that contentment should even be sought there, as the Stoics so vehemently asserted?
Ruth
Of course, peace of mind is the price that these intensities exact upon us, and is this a price worth paying? Schopenhauer thinks so (taking us back to the old paradox of the happy pig/unhappy Socrates conundrum and its varients) but as he ruefully concludes: 'The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate. But precisely because this is so it appears in one respect truely sagacious compared with us, namely in its peaceful, untroubled enjoyment of the present: its obvious composure often puts to shame our own frequently restless and disorientated condition'.
Does our capacity for reflection deny to us the ability to enjoy the present moment (another age-old, yet curiously perennial philosophical question?) And is it a misdirection to believe that contentment should even be sought there, as the Stoics so vehemently asserted?
Ruth
Schopenhauer 1: Boredom is the true threat to happiness?
In On the Suffering of the World , Schopenhauer argues that suffering is intrinsic and, even more than this, crucial to human existence. Without what he terms "Work, worry, toil and trouble", human life would have no purpose since we are designed to constantly struggle. Without this, we would either collapse through boredom or else create new and ever more harmful distractions.
In a particularly memorable passage concerning the nature of Utopia, he writes:
'Imagine this race transported to Utopia where everything grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, where lovers find one another without delay and keep one another without any difficulty; in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some would fight and kill one another, and thus they would create for themselves more suffering than nature inflicts on them as it is. Thus for a race such as this no stage, no form of existence is suitable other than the one it already possesses'.
At first glance, this may appear counter-intuitive, but does Schopenhaur have a point here? Does work, which for him is at the opposite pole of human existence from boredom, save us from self-destruction? Have we evolved to the point where the lives that we lead ideally suit our disposition to suffering, despite the fact that we believe this not to be the case?
Something to think about as we continue to seek distractions from what many have argued to be the disease of our age: boredom...
Ruth
In a particularly memorable passage concerning the nature of Utopia, he writes:
'Imagine this race transported to Utopia where everything grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, where lovers find one another without delay and keep one another without any difficulty; in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some would fight and kill one another, and thus they would create for themselves more suffering than nature inflicts on them as it is. Thus for a race such as this no stage, no form of existence is suitable other than the one it already possesses'.
At first glance, this may appear counter-intuitive, but does Schopenhaur have a point here? Does work, which for him is at the opposite pole of human existence from boredom, save us from self-destruction? Have we evolved to the point where the lives that we lead ideally suit our disposition to suffering, despite the fact that we believe this not to be the case?
Something to think about as we continue to seek distractions from what many have argued to be the disease of our age: boredom...
Ruth
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