Just to prove that Philosophy is not an 'all male affair', here's a list of the Independent's 'Top 10 female philosophers'.
Some are still alive...
You can see the full list at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/ten-great-female-philosophers-the-thinking-womans-women-498733.html
Neil Turnbull
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Friday, 8 October 2010
RIP Claude Lefort 1924-2010
Perhaps one of the lesser known of French poststructuralists, Claude Lefort utilised both phenomenology and Maussian sociology in the service of political theory. He was particularly known for his analysis of totalitarianism. This was effected by the famous Socialism or Barbarism journal, along with JF Lyotard, which analyzed the relationship between corporatism and state. Lefort was also noted for his critique of Soviet beuareaucratic style socialism, particularly in left-wing French thought. Put in the bluntest terms, Lefort's most basic point is that fascism elides the distinction between the state and the company in an organistic unity. Lefort was one of the progenitors of the agonistic conception of democracy, which would be taken up by Laclau and Mouffe in different contexts. Lefort theorised that democracy worked best when it was founded on argument, dissensus and a multiplicity of opinions. He also, following Ernst Kantorowicz analysis of the kings two bodies, theorised the idea that democracy operates through an 'empty sovereignty' after the transition from monarchism to democracy.
Monday, 4 October 2010
Are Baby Boomers Responsible for the Current Economic Crisis?
We have recently seen a spate of publications blaming the current economic crisis on the excessive hedonism and agressive individualism of so-called 'baby boomer culture'.
The baby-boomers were the children born in the 15 years after the second world war(1945-60). They were people whose formative years were the 1960s and it was people from this generation that oversaw the worst financial crisis since the 1930s (and the worst recession since the second world war).
This claim has recently been echoed by Will Hutton in the Observer. Here's the link for those who are interested:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/22/baby-boomers-legacy-60-hutton.
What interests me is whether this generation - sometimes called 'the me generation' - has sold us all a 'very big lemon' and left us with one hell of a mess to clear up.
Should we blame them? If so, how should we learn from their mistakes?
Cheers
Neil
The baby-boomers were the children born in the 15 years after the second world war(1945-60). They were people whose formative years were the 1960s and it was people from this generation that oversaw the worst financial crisis since the 1930s (and the worst recession since the second world war).
This claim has recently been echoed by Will Hutton in the Observer. Here's the link for those who are interested:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/22/baby-boomers-legacy-60-hutton.
What interests me is whether this generation - sometimes called 'the me generation' - has sold us all a 'very big lemon' and left us with one hell of a mess to clear up.
Should we blame them? If so, how should we learn from their mistakes?
Cheers
Neil
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
The Top 10 Unanswerable Questions
The BBC have an interesting article on the type of searches
people do when they are on the internet. This is interesting
since most of the questions, although not all, are of a philosophical
nature. Right at heart of technology and global culture philosophy
still finds its place!
Follow this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11368424
people do when they are on the internet. This is interesting
since most of the questions, although not all, are of a philosophical
nature. Right at heart of technology and global culture philosophy
still finds its place!
Follow this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11368424
Friday, 3 September 2010
Upcoming Conference - France after the Crisis
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.
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.
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
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