49,984 research outputs found
Structuralist Legal Histories
This is a contribution to a symposium titled Theorizing Contemporary Legal Thought. The central theme of the piece is the relation between legal structuralism and legal historiography
The structure of causal sets
More often than not, recently popular structuralist interpretations of
physical theories leave the central concept of a structure insufficiently
precisified. The incipient causal sets approach to quantum gravity offers a
paradigmatic case of a physical theory predestined to be interpreted in
structuralist terms. It is shown how employing structuralism lends itself to a
natural interpretation of the physical meaning of causal sets theory.
Conversely, the conceptually exceptionally clear case of causal sets is used as
a foil to illustrate how a mathematically informed rigorous conceptualization
of structure serves to identify structures in physical theories. Furthermore, a
number of technical issues infesting structuralist interpretations of physical
theories such as difficulties with grounding the identity of the places of
highly symmetrical physical structures in their relational profile and what may
resolve these difficulties can be vividly illustrated with causal sets.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure
Is Subjectivity Possible - the Post-Modern Subject in Legal Theory
This article puts forward a thesis and then attempts to prove (or at least to develop) that thesis in two related areas. The thesis is that legal theory in general, and critical legal theory in particular, has concentrated too much on critiques of objectivity, wrongly assuming that subjectivity was an unproblematic term. Subjectivity, like mortality, has seemed not only attainable but inevitable. It is objectivity which is presumed to be the problematic goal of our theories and our attempts at doctrinal interpretation. This article reverses the focus, concentrating on the construction of subjectivity in law and social theory... Having pointed out that critical theories focus mainly on the impossibility of reaching objectivity, I show that some of the same critiques can be turned on the construction of subjectivity as well. The parallelism is more than mere symmetry. Just as the concept of objectivity can be used to armour decisions or social practices, so theoretical results and ideological slant can be dictated by loading up the abstract subject of a political or economic theory with a particular set of drives, motivations, and ways of reasoning...I then turn to the legal subject around whom the law revolves and try to develop a sketchy history of the changing qualities which that subject has been believed to possess. I conclude that the ideas associated with postmodernism are a useful framework for understanding the subject in legal theory and in legal practice. In fact, bizarre as it may seem, the law already incorporates a more postmodern view of the subject than either economics or mainstream political theory
Minding the Gap: Bias, Soft Structures, and the Double Life of Social Norms
We argue that work on norms provides a way to move beyond debates between proponents of individualist and structuralist approaches to bias, oppression, and injustice. We briefly map out the geography of that debate before presenting Charlotte Witt’s view, showing how her position, and the normative ascriptivism at its heart, seamlessly connects individuals to the social reality they inhabit. We then describe recent empirical work on the psychology of norms and locate the notions of informal institutions and soft structures with respect to it. Finally, we argue that the empirical resources enrich Witt’s ascriptivism, and that the resulting picture shows theorists need not, indeed should not, choose between either the individualist or structuralist camp
Categories without structures
The popular view according to which Category theory provides a support for
Mathematical Structuralism is erroneous. Category-theoretic foundations of
mathematics require a different philosophy of mathematics. While structural
mathematics studies invariant forms (Awodey) categorical mathematics studies
covariant transformations which, generally, don t have any invariants. In this
paper I develop a non-structuralist interpretation of categorical mathematics
and show its consequences for history of mathematics and mathematics education.Comment: 28 page
Is There a Compelling Argument for Ontic Structural Realism?
Structural realism first emerged as an epistemological thesis aimed to avoid the so-called pessimistic meta-induction on the history of science. Some authors, however, suggested that the preservation of structure across theory-change is best explained by endorsing the metaphysical thesis that structure is all there is. While the possibility of this latter, „ontic‟ form of structural realism has been extensively debated, though, not much has been said concerning its justification. In this paper, I distinguish between two arguments in favour of ontic structural realism that can be reconstructed from the literature, and find both of them wanting
Managing Cultural Diversity in the Multinational Corporate Workplace: Solution or Symptom?
The aim of this paper is to show the critical relevance of post-structuralist political theory to cross-cultural management studies. By emphasizing the key role that questions of identity, difference, and struggle play in the multinational corporate context, we argue for a shift in our understandings away from essentialist conceptions of culture to an explicitly critical and political understanding of the way culture and cultural difference is invoked. Of crucial importance in understanding the nature of the shift of perspective we advocate is the affirmation of a negative ontology for which the radical contingency of social relations is axiomatic
Marxist history and schooling: Beyond economism
Marxist history emphasises the linkage between economic production, social institutions and everyday life. Critics of Marxism claim that its analysis of schooling is simplistic, functional and deterministic The first part of this paper examines whether Marxist historical practice was in fact deterministic. It offers a non-reductionist and non-economistic reading of Marx's historical methodology. The second section moves on to consider some of the ways in which post-structuralist theorising can 'loosen-up' and revitalise mechanistic Marxist interpretations of the history of schooling
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