Fragile Identities, Capable Selves

The spotlight that Martha Nussbaum turns on the plight of women in developing nations brings the disproportion between human capabilities and the opportunities to exercise them sharply into focus. Social prejudices, economic discrimination, and deep-seated traditions and attitudes all harbor the seeds of systemic injustices within governing policies and institutions. The refusal on the part of a dominant class to recognize the rights and claims of subaltern individuals and groups has both symbolic and material consequences. The power that one group exercises over another brings the refusal to recognize the rights and claims of others to the fore. Thanks to the moral priority that Paul Ricoeur accords to the victim against such refusals, I tie the fragility of identity to the idea of justice’s federating force. This federating force, I therefore argue, accompanies the struggle for recognition among capable human beings.  La lumière que Martha Nussbaum jette sur le sort des femmes dans les pays en développement met en évidence la disproportion entre les capacités humaines et les possibilités de les exercer pleinement dans le foyer. Les préjugés sociaux, la discrimination économique, les traditions et les attitudes profondes renferment toutes les racines d'injustices systémiques que l'on trouve dans  les politiques gouvernementales et les institutions. Le refus de la part d'une classe dominante de reconnaître les droits et les revendications des individus et des groupes minoritaires a des conséquences à la fois symboliques et  matérielles. La puissance qu'un groupe exerce sur un autre charrie le refus de reconnaître les droits et les revendications des autres. Grâce à la priorité morale que Paul Ricoeur accorde à la victime contre ce refus de reconnaissance, j'attache à l'idée de la force fédératrice de la justice la fragilité de l'identité. Je soutiens donc que cette force fédératrice accompagne la lutte pour la reconnaissance parmi les êtres humains capables

Is Music Mimetic? Ricoeur and the Limits of Narrative

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Exemplarity and the “Law of Superabundance”

Paul Ricoeur’s critique of social emancipatory projects that claim to be absolutely radical sets the stage for my investigation into the exemplary value of esteemed moral and political acts. Like works of art, such acts reform or revolutionize praxis through refashioning the world from within. By placing textual hermeneutics under the theme of the increase in being evinced by the work of art, Ricoeur’s analysis on the way that metaphor as a work in miniature iconically augments reality forges a link between the imagination’s productive power and the “law of superabundance.” This law inheres in the logic of hope. The hope of the “not yet” and the “much more” thus draws support from exemplary acts that bear the mark of the future through testifying to the reign of goodness, generosity, courage and love. However, Ricoeur’s claim that an eschatology of nonviolence constitutes the critique of ideology’s ultimate philosophical horizon raises a question concerning this eschatology’s theological equivalent. Ricoeur maintains that the projection of the task of actualizing freedom is the philosophical equivalent of a theology of hope. This theology draws its meaning from the “hope of things to come” based on the eschatological event. Correlatively, this task’s ethico-political impulse takes root in hope’s practical and existential necessity, which inheres in the structure of action. The hope of as yet unfulfilled expectations and demands ignites the passion for the possible and fuels the will and the desire to intervene in the world’s course. In contrast to the contagion of violence and evil, moral and political acts’ exemplary value stands as a demonstration and proof of hope. The theme of the increase in being that rules over textual hermeneutics consequently has a practical counterpart in the task that an eschatology of nonviolence adopts as its own, namely, the task of actualizing freedom within the historical reality of humankind

Space of Experience, Horizon of Expectation. Spatiotemporal Metaphors, Philosophical Anthropology, and the Flesh

Paul Ricœur’s recourse to the metahistorical categories, space of experience and horizon of expectation, invites an inquiry into geography’s role as the guarantor of history. The ontology of the flesh provides the first indication of how one’s body is implicated in the sense of one’s place in the world. In turn, narrative inscriptions of events on the landscape transform the physical topography of a place into an array of sites where memories of ancestral wisdom and historical traumas endure. By anchoring historians’ representations of the past in the places and locales in which events took place, geography constructs a third space analogous to the third time of history. The aporias engendered by the phenomenology of time, however, have no equivalent in the phenomenology of space. The dissymmetry between the dialectic that informs the discourse of space and the one that informs the discourse of time thus keeps in place the  reciprocal relation between geography and historiography.Le recours de Paul Ricœur aux catégories métahistoriques d’espace d’expérience et d’horizon d’attente invite à s’interroger sur le rôle de la géographie en tant que garante de l’histoire. L’ontologie de la chair fournit la première indication concernant la manière dont le corps de l’individu est impliqué à travers la place qu’il occupe dans le monde. À leur tour, les inscriptions narratives des événements dans le paysage transforment la topographie physique d’un lieu en un ensemble de sites où perdurent les souvenirs de la sagesse ancestrale et les traumatismes historiques. En ancrant les représentations du passé des historiens dans les lieux et localités où les événements prennent place, la géographie construit un troisième espace analogue au troisième temps de l’histoire. Les apories engendrées par la phénoménologie du temps n’ont cependant pas d’équivalent dans la phénoménologie de l’espace. La dissymétrie entre la dialectique que sous-tend le discours de l’espace et celle qui est sous-tendue par le discours du temps maintient ainsi en place la relation réciproque entre géographie et historiographie

Thought and Political Judgment

Hannah Arendt’s claim that thinking is the last defense against the moral outrages of criminal political regimes sets the problematic of good and evil in relief. Human freedom, Paul Ricœur reminds us, is responsible for evil. The avowal of the evil of violence is thus the condition of our consciousness of the freedom to act anew.Aesthetic experience’s lateral transposition onto the planes of ethics and politics highlights our capacity to respond to exigencies in apposite ways.  Exemplary representations of the good, the right, and the justexpress a desire for being. Eros is accordingly the law of every work, word, deed, or act that answers to a difficulty, challenge, or crisis. Bound to living experiences, thought attains its true height through interrogating, demystifying, and vacating frozen norms, standards, and mores. Judgment actualizes thought’s liberating effects in answer to the demands of the situations in which we find ourselves.L’affirmation d’Hannah Arendt selon laquelle la pensée est la dernière défense contre les outrages moraux des régimes politiques criminels met en relief la problématique du bien et du mal. La liberté humaine, nous rappelle Paul Ricœur, est responsable du mal. L’aveu du mal causé par la violence est donc la condition de la prise de conscience de notre liberté d’agir à nouveau.La transposition latérale de l’expérience esthétique sur les plans de l’éthique et de la politique met en évidence notre capacité à répondre aux exigences de manière appropriée. Les représentations exemplaires du bien, du droit et du juste expriment un désir d’être. Eros est donc la loi de toute œuvre, parole, action ou acte qui répond à une difficulté, un défi ou une crise. Liée aux expériences vécues, la pensée atteint sa véritable hauteur en interrogeant, démystifiant et rejetant les normes, les standards et les mœurs figés. Le jugement actualise les effets libérateurs de la pensée en réponse aux exigences des situations dans lesquelles nous nous trouvons

Aesthetic Experience, Mimesis and Testimony

In this article, I relate the demand that Paul Ricoeur suggests mimesis places on the way we think about truth to the idea that the work of art is a model for thinking about testimony. By attributing a work’s epoché of reality to the work of imagination, I resolve the impasse that arises from attributing music, literature, and art’s distance from the real to their social emancipation. Examining the conjunction, in aesthetic experience, of the communicability and the exemplarity of a work reveals how Ricoeur’s definition of mimesis as refiguration relates to the “rule” that the work summons. This “rule” constitutes the solution to a problem or question for which the work is the answer. In conclusion, as a model for thinking about testimony, the claims that works make have a counterpart in the injunctions that issue from exemplary moral and political acts. Dans cet article, j’établis un lien entre l’exigence que, selon Paul Ricœur,la mimèsis place dans notre façon de penser la vérité, et l’idée que l’œuvre d’art est un modèle pour penser le témoignage. Appliquant l’époché de la réalité  à l’oeuvre d’imagination,  j’évite l’impasse qui se dresse lorsqu’on attribue la musique, la littérature et la distance artistique du réel à leur émancipation sociale. L’étude de la conjonction du caractère communicable et exemplaire d’une œuvre – dans l’expérience esthétique - met en lumière la relation que la définition par Ricœur de la mimésis comme refiguration établit avec la “règle” que l’œuvre convoque. Cette règle est la solution au problème auquel l’oeuvre apporte une réponse. Finalement, un  modèle pour penser le témoignage peut être trouvé dans des oeuvres qui trouvent leur contrepartie dans les injonctions  produites par les actions morales et politiques exemplaires.

Judgment, Imagination and the Search for Justice

The multiplicity of demands and claims in ultra-pluralistic societies complicates the search for justice. Furthermore, the normative force of competing ideals gives rise to an aporia at the heart of the idea of justice’s federating force. In this article, I argue that exemplary moral and political acts evince these ideals by reason of their fittingness with respect to the demands of the situations to which they respond. As such, these acts lay claim to their normative value by exemplifying the “rule” that each act summons. Drawing upon aesthetic experience’s lateral transposition onto the planes of ethics and politics, I show how imagination is operative in practical judgments (phronesis). Accordingly, I relate the search for justice to an eschatology of non-violence, which for Paul Ricœur takes the place of the critique of ideology in its opposition to an ontology of lingual understanding

UV-optical from space

The following subject areas are covered: (1) the science program (star formation and origins of planetary systems; structure and evolution of the interstellar medium; stellar population; the galactic and extragalactic distance scale; nature of galaxy nuclei, AGNs, and QSOs; formation and evolution of galaxies at high redshifts; and cosmology); (2) implementation of the science program; (3) the observatory-class missions (HST; LST - the 6m successor to HST; and next-generation 16m telescope); (4) moderate and small missions (Delta-class Explorers; imaging astrometric interferometer; small Explorers; optics development and demonstrations; and supporting ground-based capabilities); (5) prerequisites - the current science program (Lyman-FUSE; HTS optimization; the near-term science program; data analysis, modeling, and theory funding; and archives); (6) technologies for the next century; and (7) lunar-based telescopes and instruments

Jubilee mugs:the monarchy and the Sex Pistols

With rare exceptions sociologists have traditionally had little to say about the British monarchy. In the exceptional cases of the Durkheimian functionalism of Shills and Young (1953), the left humanism of Birnbaum (1955), or the archaic state/backward nation thesis of Nairn (1988), the British nation has been conceived as a homogenous mass. The brief episode of the Sex Pistols' Jubilee year song 'God Save the Queen' exposed some of the divisions within the national 'mass', forcing a re-ordering of the balance between detachment and belonging to the Royal idea. I argue that the song acted as a kind of 'breaching experiment'. Its wilful provocation of Royalist sentiment revealed the level of sanction available to the media-industrial complex to enforce compliance to British self-images of loyal and devoted national communicants