Download or read book Capitalism Citizenship and the Arts of Thinking written by Kathryn Dean and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capitalism, Citizenship and the Arts of Thinking proposes a historical materialist ethic of human flourishing understood in terms of the practice of citizenship. It focuses on the ways in which capitalism’s necessary mode of thinking – analytical thinking – impedes the nurturing of capabilities for citizenship as understood from a Marxian-Aristotelian point of view. It includes a systematic discussion of the Aristotelian resonances in Marx’s critique of capitalism, as well as an elaboration and critique of Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s account of the origins of analytical thinking in his book Intellectual and Manual Labor: A Critique of Epistemology. Dean's critique of this book draws on the language theories of Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria, Jack Goody, Eric Havelock and Walter Ong, so as to identify the origins of analytical thinking in literacy rather than in monetised exchange relations, as claimed by Sohn-Rethel. Having traced the development of analytical thinking so as to bring out the ways in which this thinking was a condition of possibility for the division of head and hand in nineteenth-century England, Dean brings the analysis into the contemporary world by examining the changes effected by digitalised communication in terms citizenship capabilities now, drawing on the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in order to do so. The book's ground-breaking content is in the fusion of Marxian, Aristotelian and linguistic elements to develop a critique of capitalism’s hegemonic mode of thinking (analytical thinking) as manifested in the modern sciences and to show how the draining of intelligibility from the everyday world permitted by this thinking becomes an obstacle to the practice of meaningful citizenship. Its main appeal will be to Marxist thinkers whose main concern is with the alienating, as opposed to exploitative, character of capitalist modes of life. It is written to complement the work of such Marxists, these being, in the main, writers such as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri and is pitched at researchers in the field. It could be used on post-graduate courses in political theory, as well as social and cultural theory.

Download or read book Changing our Environment Changing Ourselves written by James S. Ormrod and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, a celebration of the work of the sociologist Peter Dickens serves as the catalyst for exploring the relationship between human ‘internal nature’ (our health and psychological well-being) and ‘external nature’ (the environment on which we depend and which we collectively transform). Across contributions from Ted Benton, James Ormrod, Kate Soper, John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, Graham Sharp, James Addicott, Kathryn Dean and Peter Dickens himself, the book draws attention to alienation associated with the promotion of different knowledges in late capitalist production. But it also highlights the possibilities for generating less alienated relations with our environment in the future. As well as discussing the philosophical and theoretical issues involved, the book contains contemporary case studies of ultra-processed food, satellite farming, computerised thinking and dark tourism.

Download or read book The Denial of Nature written by Arne Johan Vetlesen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the increasingly precarious relationship between humans and nature, this book seeks to go beyond work already contributed to the environmental movement. It does so by highlighting the importance of experiencing, rather than merely theorizing nature, while realizing that such experience is becoming increasingly rare, thus reinforcing the estrangement from nature that is a source of its ongoing human-caused destruction. In his original approach to environmental philosophy, the author argues for the reinstatement of nature's value outside of its exploitative usefulness for human ends. Such a perspective emphasizes the extent to which the environmental problem is a concrete reality requiring urgent action, based on a multi-sensuous appreciation of humans' dependence on nonhuman lifeforms. Designed as an accompaniment to undergraduate and postgraduate research, The Denial of Nature draws on empirically informed literature from the social sciences to examine what life is really like for humans and nature in the era of global capitalism. The book contends that capitalist society exploits nature - both in the form of human capital and natural capital - more relentlessly than any other and offers an environmental philosophy which actively opposes current developments. Through discussions of the work of Teresa Brennan, Theodor Adorno, Martin Heidegger and Hans Jonas, and through a radical critique of the nature deficit in Jürgen Habermas' theory of capitalist modernity, The Denial of Nature relies on insights from Critical Realism to bring together several, seldom-linked philosophies and suggest a new approach to the heavily-discussed question of environmental ethics. Arne Johan Vetlesen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo, Norway and the author of twenty books among them Perception, Empathy and Judgment: An Inquiry into the Preconditions of Moral Performance (1994), Closenes: An Ethics (with H. Jodalen; 1997), Evil and Human Agency ​(2005) and A Philosophy of Pain (2010). .

Download or read book Democracy May Not Exist But We ll Miss It When It s Gone written by Astra Taylor and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is democracy really? What do we mean when we use the term? And can it ever truly exist?Astra Taylor, hailed as a “New Civil Rights Leader” by the Los Angeles Times, provides surprising answers. There is no shortage of democracy, at least in name, and yet it is in crisis everywhere we look. From a cabal of plutocrats in the White House to gerrymandering and dark-money compaign contributions, it is clear that the principle of government by and for the people is not living up to its promise. The problems lie deeper than any one election cycle. As Astra Taylor demonstrates, real democracy—fully inclusive and completely egalitarian—has in fact never existed. In a tone that is both philosophical and anecdotal, weaving together history, theory, the stories of individuals, and interviews with such leading thinkers as Cornel West and Wendy Brown, Taylor invites us to reexamine the term. Is democracy a means or an end, a process or a set of desired outcomes? What if those outcomes, whatever they may be—peace, prosperity, equality, liberty, an engaged citizenry—can be achieved by non-democratic means? In what areas of life should democratic principles apply? If democracy means rule by the people, what does it mean to rule and who counts as the people? Democracy's inherent paradoxes often go unnamed and unrecognized. Exploring such questions, Democracy May Not Exist offers a better understanding of what is possible, what we want, why democracy is so hard to realize, and why it is worth striving for.

Download or read book Global and local perspectives on language contact written by Katrin Pfadenhauer and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on 2024-01-30 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume pays tribute to traditional and innovative language contact research, bringing together contributors with expertise on different languages examining general phenomena of language contact and specific linguistic features which arise in language contact scenarios. A particular focus lies on contact between languages of unbalanced political and symbolic power, language contact and group identity, and the linguistic and societal implications of language contact settings, especially considering contemporary global migration streams. Drawing on various methodological approaches, among others, corpus and contrastive linguistics, linguistic landscapes, sociolinguistic interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork, the contributions describe phenomena of language contact between and with Romance languages, Semitic languages, and English(es).

Download or read book Metatheory for the Twenty First Century written by Roy Bhaskar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-14 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Metatheory for the 21st Century is one of the many exciting results of over four years of in-depth engagement between two communities of scholar-practitioners: critical realism and integral theory. Building on its origins at a symposium in Luxembourg in 2010, this book examines the points of connection and divergence between critical realism and integral theory, arguably two of the most comprehensive and sophisticated contemporary metatheories. The Luxembourg symposium and the four more that followed explored the possibilities for their cross-pollination, culminating in five positions on their potential for integration, and began the process of fashioning a whole new evolutionary trajectory for both integral theory and critical realism. The contributors to this book bring together critical realism and integral theory in order to explore the potential of this collaboration for the advancement of both. Highlighting the ways in which these metatheories can transform scholarship and address the most pressing global issues of the 21st century, this book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the areas of metatheory, philosophy, social theory, critical realism, integral theory and current affairs more generally.

Download or read book The Post Mobile Society written by Hidenori Tomita and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the spread of mobile augmented reality, it has become very difficult to consider digital space and physical space independently. In this book, the authors identify and discuss the state 'Second Offline' which refers to a real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual information and one in which individuals are constantly referring to the online world. ‘Second Offline’ is observed across a wide range of social contexts and the relationship between superimposed digital online information and physical offline information is increasingly important. This book analyses the cooperative relationship between online and offline and also examines situations where there may be a conflict between these realities. Furthermore, the authors discuss the possibility that in addition to influencing the physical space, the digital world actually causes some of the physical world to be lost. Offering a discussion of the implications of a post-mobile society in which second offline is widespread, this edited collection will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners working in sociology, mobile media and cultural studies more generally.

Download or read book Critical Realism Environmental Learning and Social Ecological Change written by Leigh Price and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-14 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Southern Africa, where most of these book chapters originate, has been identified as one of regions of the world most at risk of the consequences of environmental degradation and climate change. At the same time, it is still seeking ways to overcome the century long ravages of colonial and apartheid impositions of structural and epistemic violence. Research deliberations and applied research case studies in environmental education and activism from this region provide an emerging contextualized engagement that is related to a wider internationally articulated quest to achieve social-ecological justice, resilience and sustainability through educational interventions. This book introduces a decade of mainly southern African critical realist environmental education research and thinking that asks the question: "How can we facilitate learning processes that will lead to the flourishing of the Earth’s people and ecosystems in more socially just ways?" The environmental education research topics represented in this book are wide-ranging. However, they all exhibit the common theme of social justice and wanting to create change towards a better future. All the authors have used critical realist or critical realist-influenced research methodologies. Offering contributions from a small but growing community of researchers working with critical realism in the global South, this book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the areas of environmental education, sustainability, development and the philosophy of critical realism in general.

Download or read book The Politics of Childhoods Real and Imagined written by Priscilla Alderson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-23 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume of Priscilla Alderson’s popular and renowned book Childhoods Real and Imagined relates dialectical critical realism to childhood. By demonstrating their relevance and value to each other, Alderson presents a practical introductory guide for applying critical realism to research about children and young people. Each chapter summarises key themes from several academic disciplines and policy areas, ranging from climate change and social justice between generations, to neoliberalism, social reform and imagining utopias. Children’s and adults’ views and experiences are reviewed, and whereas the first volume deals with more personal and local aspects of childhood, this volume widens the scope into debates about global politics, which so seldom mention children. Each chapter demonstrates how children and young people are an integral part of the whole of society and are often especially affected by policies and events. This book is written for everyone who is researching, studying or teaching about childhood, or who cares for and works with children and young people, as well as those interested in critical realist approaches.

Download or read book Enlightened Common Sense written by Roy Bhaskar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1970s, critical realism has grown to address a range of subjects, including economics, philosophy, science, and religion. It has become a complex and mature philosophy. Enlightened Common Sense: The Philosophy of Critical Realism looks back over this development in one concise and accessible volume. The late Roy Bhaskar was critical realism’s philosophical originator and chief exponent. He draws on a lifetime’s experience to give a definitive, systematic account of this increasingly influential, international and multidisciplinary approach. Critical realism’s key element has always been its vindication and deepening of our understanding of ontology. Arguing that realist ontology is inexorable in knowledge and action, Bhaskar sees this as the key to a new enlightened common sense. From the definition of critical realism and its applicability in the social sciences, to explanation of dialectical critical realism and the philosophy of metaReality, this is the essential introduction for students of critical realism.

Download or read book A Complex Integral Realist Perspective written by Paul Marshall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sketches the contours of a vision that moves beyond the dominant paradigm or worldview that underlies and governs modernity (and postmodernity). It does so by drawing on the remarkable leap in human consciousness that occurred during the Axial Age and on a cross-pollination of what are arguably the three most comprehensive integrative metatheories available today: Complex thought, integral theory and critical realism – i.e. a complex integral realism. By deploying the three integrative metatheories this book recounts how the seeds of a number of biases within the Western tradition – analytical over dialectical, epistemology over ontology, presence over absence and exterior over interior – were first sown in axial Greece, later consolidated in European modernity and then challenged throughout the 20th century. It then discusses the remedies provided by the three integrative philosophies, remedies that have paved the way for a new vision. Outlining a ‘new axial vision’ for the twenty-first century which integrates the best of premodernity, modernity and postmodernity within a complex integral realist framework, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of the Axial Age, critical realism, integral theory and complex thought. It will also appeal to those interested in a possible integration of the insights and knowledge gleaned by science, spirituality and philosophy.

Download or read book A Mouth Is Always Muzzled written by Natalie Hopkinson and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award “A deeply felt and passionately expressed manifesto.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred) A meditation in the spirit of John Berger and bell hooks on art as protest, contemplation, and beauty in politically perilous times As people consider how to respond to a resurgence of racist, xenophobic populism, A Mouth Is Always Muzzled tells an extraordinary story of the ways art brings hope in perilous times. Weaving disparate topics from sugar and British colonialism to attacks on free speech and Facebook activism and traveling a jagged path across the Americas, Africa, India, and Europe, Natalie Hopkinson, former culture writer for the Washington Post and The Root, argues that art is where the future is negotiated. Part post-colonial manifesto, part history of British Caribbean, part exploration of art in the modern world, A Mouth Is Always Muzzled is a dazzling analysis of the insistent role of art in contemporary politics and life. In crafted, well-honed prose, Hopkinson knits narratives of culture warriors: painter Bernadette Persaud, poet Ruel Johnson, historian Walter Rodney, novelist John Berger, and provocative African American artist Kara Walker, whose homage to the sugar trade Sugar Sphinx electrified American audiences. A Mouth Is Always Muzzled is a moving meditation documenting the artistic legacy generated in response to white supremacy, brutality, domination, and oppression. In the tradition of Paul Gilroy, it is a cri de coeur for the significance of politically bold—even dangerous—art to all people and nations.

Download or read book After Capitalism written by Kennan Ferguson and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Thomas Piketty to David Harvey, scholars are increasingly questioning whether we are entering into a post-capitalist era. If so, does this new epoch signal the failure of capitalism and emergence of alternative systems? Or does it mark the ultimate triumph of capitalism as it evolves into an unstoppable entity that takes new forms as it engulfs its opposition? After Capitalism brings together leading scholars from across the academy to offer competing perspectives on capitalism’s past incarnations, present conditions, and possible futures. Some contributors reassess classic theorizations of capitalism in light of recent trends, including real estate bubbles, debt relief protests, and the rise of a global creditocracy. Others examine Marx’s writings, unemployment, hoarding, “capitalist realism,” and coyote (trickster) capitalism, among many other topics. Media and design trends locate the key ideologies of the current economic moment, with authors considering everything from the austerity aesthetics of reality TV to the seductive smoothness of liquid crystal. Even as it draws momentous conclusions about global economic phenomena, After Capitalism also pays close attention to locales as varied as Cuba, India, and Latvia, examining the very different ways that economic conditions have affected the relationship between the state and its citizens. Collectively, these essays raise provocative questions about how we should imagine capitalism in the twenty-first century. Will capitalism, like all economic systems, come to an end, or does there exist in history or elsewhere a hidden world that is already post-capitalist, offering alternative possibilities for thought and action?

Download or read book Citizenship and Capitalism RLE Social Theory written by Bryan S. Turner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-21 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study of politics in capitalist society Bryan Turner explores the development of citizenship as a way of demonstrating the effective use of political institutions by the working class and other subordinate groups to promote their interests. Marxist criticisms of reformism are rejected; it is shown that subordinate groups can achieve significant advances in social and economic rights, and that democracy is not a sham but a necessary mechanism for the pursuit of interests.

Download or read book EdTech Inc written by Tanner Mirrlees and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-02 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book advances a critical political economy approach to EdTech and analyses the economic, political and ideological structures and social power relations that shape the EdTech industries and drive EdTech’s development and diffusion. Particular attention is paid to the integration of EdTech with some of the most contentious developments of our time, including platformization and data-veillance, the automation of work and labor, and globalization-imperialism. By using a political economy of communication approach, this book will be of value to anyone interested in the current transformations of capitalism, the State, higher education and online learning in the digital age.

Download or read book Spaces of Capital written by David Harvey and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Harvey is unquestionably the most influential, as well as the most cited, geographer of his generation. His reputation extends well beyond geography to sociology, planning, architecture, anthropology, literary studies and political science. This book brings together for the first time seminal articles published over three decades on the tensions between geographical knowledges and political power and on the capitalist production of space. Classic essays reprinted here include 'On the history and present condition of geography', 'The geography of capitalist accumulation' and 'The spatial fix: Hegel, von Thunen, and Marx'. Two new chapters represent the author's most recent thinking on cartographic identities and social movements. David Harvey's persistent challenge to the claims of ethical neutrality on behalf of science and geography runs like a thread throughout the book. He seeks to explain the geopolitics of capitalism and to ground spatial theory in social justice. In the process he engages with overlooked or misrepresented figures in the history of geography, placing them in the context of intellectual history. The presence here of Kant, Von Thunen, Humboldt, Lattimore, Leopold alongside Marx, Hegel, Heidegger, Darwin, Malthus, Foucault and many others shows the deep roots and significance of geographical thought. At the same time David Harvey's telling observations of current social, environmental, and political trends show just how vital that thought is to the understanding of the world as it is and as it might be.

Download or read book Capitalism and Citizenship written by Kathryn Dean and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can capitalism and citizenship co-exist? In recent years advocates of the Third Way have championed the idea of public-spirited capitalism as the antidote to the many problems confronting the modern world. This book develops a multi-disciplinary theory of citizenship, exploring the human abilities needed for its practice. It then argues that capitalism impedes the nurturing of these abilities. In advancing these arguments, Kathryn Dean draws on the work of a wide range of thinkers including Freud, Marx, Lacan, Habermas and Castells.