A Defence of Moderate Communitarianism: A Place of Rights in African Moral-Political Thought

This article attempts to defend Kwame Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism (MC) from the trenchant criticism that it is as defective as radical communitarianism (RC) since they both fail to take rights seriously. As part of my response, I raise two critical questions. Firstly, I question the supposition in the literature that there is such a thing as radical communitarianism. I point out that talk of radical communitarianism is tantamount to attacking a “straw-man.” Secondly, I question the efficacy of the criticism that MC does not take rights seriously, given that there is no account of what it means to take rights seriously in the African tradition. This criticism, insofar as it does not specify a criterion of what it means to take rights seriously, remains defective. The central contribution of this article is to call our attention to the fact that the intellectual culture of rights will surely be affected by Afro-communitarianism, which emphasises our duties to all

Toward the Community of True Individuals

Paper by David L. Norto

Human rights and the law: the unbreachable gap between the ethics of justice and the efficacy of law

This paper explores the structure of justice as the condition of ethical, inter-subjective responsibility. Taking a Levinasian perspective, this is a responsibility borne by the individual subject in a pre-foundational, proto-social proximity with the other human subject, which takes precedence over the interests of the self. From this specific post-humanist perspective, human rights are not the restrictive rights of individual self-will, as expressed in our contemporary legal human rights discourse. Rights do not amount to the prioritisation of the so-called politico-legal equality of the individual citizen-subject animated by the universality of the dignity of autonomous, reasoned intentionality. Rather, rights enlivened by proximity invert this discourse and signify, first and foremost, rights for the other, with the ethical burden of responsibility towards the other

Knowledge of Persons

What is knowledge of persons, and what is knowing persons like? my answer combines Wittgenstein’s epistemology with levinas’s phenomenology. It says that our knowledge of persons is a hinge proposition for us. And it says that what this knowledge consists in is the experience that levinas calls ”the face to face’: direct and unmediated encounter between persons. As levinas says, for there to be persons at all there has, first, to be a relationship, language, and this same encounter: ”the face to face’ comes first, the existence of individual persons only second. I explore some consequences of this conception for how we think about personhood, and also for how we read Descartes and Augustine

Purpose, human sociality and nature in akiwowo’s sociology of knowledge: a realist interpretation.

# is paper advances the view that there is an ontological commitment in Akiwowo’s sociology of knowledge which o ers an exposition of his thought on purpose, human sociality, nature and society. # e paper defends a realist interpretation of this ontology. It argues that a realist interpretation of Akiwowo’s account of human sociality, nature and society shows two major conclusions. One, social actions in society are human actions. Human actions are not isolated atoms. # erefore social actions are linked by the agency and, subjectivity of the human which is imbued with values and her/his capacity of sociality. Two, a condition for the continuous existence of a society is that such society has goals. # e evidence for this is simple: we see it. # is view of society di ers from the traditional view of purposiveness in society. # e paper suggests that these two conclusions show Akiwowo’s theoretical distance from positivism. # is rejection of positivism moves him closer to a natural law position

John Dewey : a feminist consideration of his concepts of the individual and sociality.

This dissertation considers selected aspects of John Dewey\u27s educational philosophy from a feminist perspective. As inquiry, it is a critical consideration of an established educational tradition. Most importantly, this inquiry suggests that through consideration, we may find relevant wisdom for our feminist educational theories and practices. The focus of this dissertation are John Dewey\u27s concepts of the individual and sociality. Because both John Dewey\u27s and feminist educational treatises are experience-centered, the consideration of the notions of the individual and of sociality is prudent. Through an examination of Dewey\u27s construction of the individual and sociality, we are able to consider whether or not we can we apply Dewey\u27s revisionist philosophy to our personal, political and social worlds. Do Dewey\u27s concepts of the individual and the social have the characteristic connectedness that many feminists require? Do his conceptualizations of the individual and the social have anything of value for feminist agendas? Are feminist goals for the individual and sociality possible through a Deweyan conceptualization? Can Dewey\u27s individual and sociality help fuel the feminist revolution? Concluding observations present the dangers of neglecting to consider past educational thought, feminist educational theorists\u27 responsibilities, and the worth of reappropriating Dewey\u27s concepts of the individual and sociality. By reappropriating John Dewey\u27s concepts of the individual and sociality and using them as feminist pedagogical anchors, we are able to take possession of the cognitive powers of interdependence. From the consideration of feminist models of sociality, we can submit that a feminist model of friendship can serve as the means for attaining broader and more heightened intellectual abilities. The writings of John Dewey serve as primary sources while texts on feminist theory provide the parameters for analysis

Negotiation in strategy making teams : group support systems and the process of cognitive change

This paper reports on the use of a Group Support System (GSS) to explore at a micro level some of the processes manifested when a group is negotiating strategy-processes of social and psychological negotiation. It is based on data from a series of interventions with senior management teams of three operating companies comprising a multi-national organization, and with a joint meeting subsequently involving all of the previous participants. The meetings were concerned with negotiating a new strategy for the global organization. The research involved the analysis of detailed time series data logs that exist as a result of using a GSS that is a reflection of cognitive theory

Being together, worlds apart: a virtual-worldly phenomenology

Previous work in Game Studies has centered on several loci of investigation in seeking to understand virtual gameworlds. First, researchers have scrutinized the concept of the virtual world itself and how it relates to the idea of “the magic circle”. Second, the field has outlined various forms of experienced “presence”. Third, scholarship has noted that the boundaries between the world of everyday life and virtual worlds are porous, and that this fosters a multiplicity of identities as players identify both with themselves-offline and themselves-in-game. Despite widespread agreement that these topics are targets for research, so far those working on these topics do not have mutually agreed-upon framework. Here we draw upon the work of Alfred Schutz to take up this call. We provide a phenomenological framework which can be used to describe the phenomena of interest to Game Studies, as well as open new avenues of inquiry, in a way acceptable and useful to all. This helps to distinguish the core of the field from the supplemental theoretical and critical commitments which characterize diverse approaches within the field

The Pure Moment of Murder: The Symbolic Function of Bodily Interactions in Horror Film

Both the slasher movie and its more recent counterpart the "torture porn" film centralize graphic depictions of violence. This article inspects the nature of these portrayals by examining a motif commonly found in the cinema of homicide, dubbed here the "pure moment of murder": that is, the moment in which two characters’ bodies adjoin onscreen in an instance of graphic violence. By exploring a number of these incidents (and their various modes of representation) in American horror films ranging from Psycho (1960) to Saw VI (2009), the article aims to expound how these images of slaughter demonstrate (albeit in an augmented, hyperbolic manner) a number of long-standing problems surrounding selfhood that continue to fuel philosophical discussion. The article argues that the visual adjoining of victim and killer onscreen echoes the conundrum that in order to attain identity, the individual requires and yet simultaneously repudiates the Other that constitutes unique subjectivity