Lebowitz, Lukács and Postone: Subjectivity in Capital

The works of Michael Lebowitz and Moishe Postone express the potentials and difficulties of re-actualizing in contemporary conditions the approach towards subjectivity in Capital pioneered by Lukács in History and Class Consciousness. Lebowitz and Postone each develop ideas consonant with the “antinomies” within Lukács’ thought: his wager on the proletariat and his theory of reification respectively. However, both thinkers overlook the intimate relationship between ideological crisis and subjectivity in HCC, indicating that the conceptual productivity of Lukács’ thought has not yet been exhausted. This insight suggests manifold connections with recent efforts by radical philosophers, such as Negri, Badiou and Žižek, to articulate the possibility of an emancipatory project to overcome capitalism. The theoretical strong suits of a Lukácsian framework (locating the historical specificity of capitalist society, providing a philosophy of process, the re-politicization of political economy) remain under-explored resources for mitigating the difficulties confronting these ruptural conceptions of subjectivity

Violence and Civilization: Gramsci, Machiavelli, and Sorel

Antonio Gramsci’s writings represent a rich repository for re-thinking the meanings of violence in relation to the political and the ethical in our present conjuncture. Despite a tendency in some quarters to reduce Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to a theory of consent, his Prison Notebooks exhibit a deep concern with the ‘armour of coercion’. Thus, in his reflections on Niccolò Machiavelli’s Centaur, Gramsci regards this figure as symbolic of a dual perspective, half-animal half-human. For Gramsci, political thought should seek to elaborate the dialectical unity of these two levels: force and consent. This chapter considers the formation of this nexus of violence and civilization in Gramsci’s writings through his encounter with two thinkers, Machiavelli and Georges Sorel. Gramsci takes up Machiavelli’s use of militaristic terminology and the Florentine’s emphasis on the military basis of political struggles, expressed in the semantic field of concepts such as ‘war of manoeuvre’ and ‘war of position’. However, Gramsci balances this tendency with a recognition of the relationship between arms and religion, or, in Benedetto Croce’s ethico-political terms, between the universal (state) and the individual (church). Gramsci also draws vitality for his re-articulation of a historical materialist framework from a second source, Sorel’s Reflections on Violence (1906). Examining Sorel’s distinction between myth (a ‘body of images capable of evoking sentiments’) and Utopia (a ‘deceptive mirage of the future’), I consider Gramsci’s efforts to transform Sorel’s political myth by deploying his own reading of Machiavelli’s Prince. While Gramsci accepts Sorel’s case that only the political myth is able to mobilize the strongest inclinations of a people, to create a violent force that can cleave the social fabric, Gramsci also elaborates a constructive aspect to this process. Finally, I deploy the terms set out by Walter Benjamin in his Critique of Violence to evaluate whether we can describe Gramsci’s destructive/constructive notion of political myth as a form of mythical violence or as a form of divine power

Antonio Gramsci: persons, subjectivity, and the political

Michel Foucault once observed that the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci is an author who is ‘more often cited than actually known’ (cited in Joseph Buttigieg, ‘Introduction’ in Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks. Volume I. edited by Joseph Buttigieg. New York: Columbia, 2016). While Gramsci’s concepts have become diffused across a kaleidoscope of intellectual disciplines, the historical-theoretical laboratory of his Prison Notebooks remains an underexplored resource through which to articulate the complex interrelationship between subjectivity and the political. The central axis of the Notebooks is the nexus between philosophy and the political that retains a power to provoke stimulating encounters with more contemporary thinkers. At the same time, Gramsci cuts an unorthodox figure in recent discussions since his articulation of the political withdraws from more conventional deployments of the category of the subject. Peter Thomas argues that Gramsci operates ‘with the much older and more ambivalent category of the ‘person’, or more precisely, a particular reformulation of this category that is not easily assimilable to the modern (epistemologically founded) discourses of the knowing subject that have often subsumed the older category’ (The Gramscian Moment. Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism, Leiden: Brill, 2009, p.397). Despite Gramsci’s infrequent use of the term ‘subjectivity’ in his prison writings, I argue that he elaborates a distinctive conception of subjectivity in the Notebooks, which entails a discourse of persons rather than subjects. Gramsci’s conception of the political has often been characterised as valorising human agency in a ‘subjectivist’ or voluntarist manner, due to his critique of the prevailing ‘scientism’ and ‘metaphysical materialism’ of his age. I argue that this reading underestimates the significance of Gramsci’s confrontation with the sophisticated early ‘post-Marxism’ of Benedetto Croce. I consider the importance of Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis for the relationship between subjectivity and the political, and his politico-gnoseological conception of the effective reality of human knowledge as social relations, before concluding that Gramsci’s modern conception of the person offers a way of conceiving of subjectivity that neither diminishes the role of consciousness nor succumbs to the criticisms of ‘theoretical anti-humanism’. Gramsci’s ambitious project, through the philosophy of praxis, is to open up ‘a completely new road, renewing from head to toe the whole way of conceiving philosophy itself’ (Antonio Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, Volume II. edited by Valentino Gerratana. (Turin: Einaudi, 1975), Q11§27)

Antonio Gramsci’s Dialectic: Past and Present

Gramsci’s reflections on dialectics in his Prison Notebooks emerge from his twin criticisms of Bukharin and Croce. Tracing the sources of Gramsci’s conception of the dialectic, I examine his distinctive articulation of the relationship between structure and superstructures, arguing for its foundation in his “homogeneous circle” of philosophy, politics and economics. This re-articulation of the ‘philosophy of praxis’ illustrates the potential for dialogue between Gramsci and more recent thinkers

Subalternity and the Mummification of Culture in Gramsci’s “Prison Notebooks”

Gramsci’s concept of mummification is rarely remarked upon in the literature and has not received the systematic treatment afforded to other concepts in his lexicon. Locating the term in the semantic field of subalternity, this article explores the connection between mummification and passivity. The origins and development of the concept of mummification are traced in Gramsci’s thought, suggesting an important role in explaining the passive constitution of the subaltern. Mummification describes an embalming process through which certain forms of culture, positive and legitimate when created, become degenerate through a process of repetition in changed circumstances. The dual nature of mummification is examined, imposed from above through strategies of dispersion wrought by the dominant groups, or emerging from below through the ‘intellectual laziness’ characteristic of ‘Lorianism’. The different terrains upon which the term is used in the Prison Notebooks are analysed (parties, social groups, common sense, culture), proposing that these aspects of mummification are ultimately ‘translatable’ aspects of a unitary phenomenon. It is argued that the concept of mummification helps to articulate the intimate relationship between the dialectical poles of hegemony and subalternity in Gramsci’s thought. The concept is able to perform a critical function by making an incision between forms of culture that are historically opportune and those that are anachronistic, the reactionary form of the ‘living dead’. In our crisis-ridden situation, of zombie banks and vampire capital, this study of mummification is a timely consideration of the Sardinian thinker’s contribution to these themes of political monstrosity

Disability discrimination and well-being in the United Kingdom: a prospective cohort study

Objectives: Disability discrimination is linked with poorer well-being cross-sectionally. The aim of this study was to explore prospective associations between disability discrimination and well-being. / Design: Prospective cohort study. / Setting: The United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study. / Participants: Data were from 871 individuals with a self-reported physical, cognitive or sensory disability. / Primary outcome measures: Depression was assessed in 2009/10. Psychological distress, mental functioning, life satisfaction and self-rated health were assessed in 2009/10 and 2013/14. / Results: Data were analysed using linear and logistic regression with adjustment for age, sex, household income, education, ethnicity and impairment category. Perceived disability discrimination was reported by 117 (13.4%) participants. Cross-sectionally, discrimination was associated with depression (OR=5.40, 95% CI 3.25 to 8.97) fair/poor self-rated health (OR=2.05; 95% CI 1.19 to 3.51), greater psychological distress (B=3.28, 95% CI 2.41 to 4.14), poorer mental functioning (B=−7.35; 95% CI −9.70 to −5.02) and life satisfaction (B=−1.27, 95% CI −1.66 to −0.87). Prospectively, discrimination was associated with increased psychological distress (B=2.88, 95% CI 1.39 to 4.36) and poorer mental functioning (B=−5.12; 95% CI −8.91 to −1.34), adjusting for baseline scores. / Conclusions: Perceived disability-related discrimination is linked with poorer well-being. These findings underscore the need for interventions to combat disability discrimination

Measurement of beam losses at the australian synchrotron

The unprecedented requirements that new machines are setting on their diagnostic systems is leading to the development of new generation of devices with large dynamic range, sensitivity and time resolution. Beam loss detection is particularly challenging due to the large extension of new facilities that need to be covered with localized detector. Candidates to mitigate this problem consist of systems in which the sensitive part of the radiation detectors can be extended over long distance of beam lines. In this document we study the feasibility of a BLM system based on optical f ber as an active detector for an electron storage ring. The Australian Synchrotron (AS) comprises a 216 m ring that stores electrons up to 3 GeV. The Accelerator has recently claimed the world record ultra low transverse emittance (below pm rad) and its surroundings are rich in synchrotron radiation. Therefore, the AS provides beam conditions very similar to those expected in the CLIC/ILC damping rings. A qualitative benchmark of beam losses in a damping ring-like environment is presented here. A wide range of beam loss rates can be achieved by modifying three beam parameters strongly correlated to the beam lifetime: bunch charge (with a variation range between 1 uA and 10 mA), horizontal/vertical coupling and of dynamic aperture. The controlled beam losses are observed by means of the Cherenkov light produced in a 365 μ m core Silica f ber. The output light is coupled to different type of photo sensors namely: Metal Semiconductor Metal (MSM), Multi Pixel Photon Counters (MPPCs), standard PhotoMulTiplier (PMT) tubes, Avalanche Photo- Diodes (APD) and PIN diodes. A detailed comparison of the sensitivities and time resolution obtained with the different read-outs are discussed in this contribution

Sagittal jaw position in relation to body posture in adult humans – a rasterstereographic study

BACKGROUND: The correlations between the sagittal jaw position and the cranio – cervical inclination are described in literature. Only few studies focus on the sagittal jaw position and the body posture using valid and objective orthopaedic examination methods. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that patients with malocclusions reveal significant differences in body posture compared to those without (upper thoracic inclination, kyphotic angle, lordotic angle and lower lumbar inclination). METHODS: Eighty-four healthy adult patients (with a mean age = 25.6 years and ranging from 16.1 to 55.8 years) were examined with informed consent. The orthodontic examination horizontal overjet (distance between upper and lower incisors) was determined by using an orthodontic digital sliding calliper. The subjects were subdivided in respect of the overjet with the following results: 18 revealed a normal overjet (Class I), 38 had an increased overjet (Class II) and 28 had an reversed overjet (Class III). Rasterstereography was used to carry out a three – dimensional back shape analysis. This method is based on photogrammetry. A three-dimensional shape was produced by analysing the distortion of parallel horizontal white light lines projected on the patient's back, followed by mathematical modelling. On the basis of the sagittal profile the upper thoracic inclination, the thoracic angle, the lordotic angle and the pelvic inclination were determined with a reported accuracy of 2.8° and the correlations to the sagittal jaw position were calculated by means of ANOVA, Scheffé and Kruskal-Wallis procedures. RESULTS: Between the different overjet groups, no statistically significant differences or correlations regarding the analysed back shape parameters could be obtained. However, comparing males and females there were statistically significant differences in view of the parameters 'lordotic angle' and 'pelvic inclination'. CONCLUSION: No correlations between overjet and variables of the thoracic, lordotic or the pelvic inclination could be observed

Some Variations on Maxwell's Equations

In the first sections of this article, we discuss two variations on Maxwell's equations that have been introduced in earlier work--a class of nonlinear Maxwell theories with well-defined Galilean limits (and correspondingly generalized Yang-Mills equations), and a linear modification motivated by the coupling of the electromagnetic potential with a certain nonlinear Schroedinger equation. In the final section, revisiting an old idea of Lorentz, we write Maxwell's equations for a theory in which the electrostatic force of repulsion between like charges differs fundamentally in magnitude from the electrostatic force of attraction between unlike charges. We elaborate on Lorentz' description by means of electric and magnetic field strengths, whose governing equations separate into two fully relativistic Maxwell systems--one describing ordinary electromagnetism, and the other describing a universally attractive or repulsive long-range force. If such a force cannot be ruled out {\it a priori} by known physical principles, its magnitude should be determined or bounded experimentally. Were it to exist, interesting possibilities go beyond Lorentz' early conjecture of a relation to (Newtonian) gravity.Comment: 26 pages, submitted to a volume in preparation to honor Gerard Emch v. 2: discussion revised, factors of 4\pi corrected in some equation