University of Arts in Belgrade
Digital Repository of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of BelgradeNot a member yet
4571 research outputs found
Sort by
Social Engagement, Volunteering and Activism: Boundaries and Overlaps
No full textEngagement entails a combination of attention and activity, it is a purposeful investment of energy. There are many types of engagement, such as for example political engagement, when the attention and activity are focused on influencing government actions; associational engagement, referring to all forms of associational life without political object, etc.. We can be engaged as individuals (for example in our intellectual pursuits) or as collectives when we join forces with others for the same cause. Engagement may be turned towards and bring about social change, but it may as well be focused on the preservation of existing rules. Volunteerism or volunteering refers to a voluntary, public, formally organised and unpaid activity. It means contribution of one’s time, talents and strengths for the benefit of others or the collective good. Voluntary activities may vary from preparing meals at the shelter for homeless people, providing free of charge legal advice in a trade union to organisation of events within an environmental NGO. Activism refers to an action on behalf of a special cause, which goes beyond the conventional (Martin 2007). The cause can range from minority’s rights protection, safe working conditions to world peace, while the action may be a boycott, protest marches, canvassing etc.. It is often argued that volunteerism provides short-term, palliative solutions to social problems, based on individuals’ personal feelings and abilities, while activism is seen as giving long-term answers to be built in institutions. However, same combination of attention and activity can be seen as both activism and volunteerism. Though in some respects contested concepts, engagement, volunteering and activism are deeply intertwined. This paper aims at sketching boundaries and overlaps between the three concepts
Representation, Reappropriation: The Body of the Image in the Mystical Text of Teresa of Avila
No full textWhat follows is but the attempt to draw the lessons from the mystical
and visionary text of Teresa of Ávila in order to consider today issues
that concern us, questions that are asked of Aesthetics, and not only as
theoretical discipline that theorises on the arts and considers the beautiful,
but as a reflection on aísthesis, of sensitivity, of the sensitive edge exposed
by a constituent relationship which installs the human in a world.
Consideration, then, of the happening, of entering the world, creative
experience. This essay seeks to consider the relationship between the
image and the body via the visionary discourse of the mystics, because
their writings question and lend shape to a large number of formulae of
thought that can help us better understand the questions facing us today.
Let us imagine that the mystics made of their body a frontier or a support
where what by definition has no place could take place. Place: part of
space occupied by a body (Newton), the boundary of a containing object
(Aristotle). This then is what is addressed here, a question of boundaries
The Interface of the Universal: On Hegel’s Concept of the Police
No full textThe article provides a tentative reading of Hegel’s police as a concept that constitutes a crucial test for the rationality of Hegel’s state and that actually played a very important role in the formation of his model of rationality. It starts by considering some significant changes in Hegel’s approach to the subject in the Jena period, especially in reference to Fichte and Spinoza; then, it presents Hegel’s conception of the police as the interface of the universal in his mature political philosophy, together with his treatment of the disturbing problem of poverty and the rabble; and to conclude, it adds some general remarks on Hegel’s police, then and now.Članak pruža probno čitanje Hegelove policije kao pojma koji predstavlja ključni test za umnost Hegelove države i koji zapravo igra veoma bitnu ulogu u formiranju njegovog modela umnosti. Na početku se razmatraju neke značajne promene u Hegelovom pristupu toj temi u jenskom periodu, posebno u vezi sa Fihteom i Spinozom; članak, zatim, iznosi Hegelovo poimanje policije kao međusklopa onog opšteg u njegovoj poznoj političkoj filozofiji, zajedno sa njegovim obrađivanjem uznemiravajućeg problem siromaštva i ološa; i u zaključku, članak dodaje neke generalne primedbe o Hegelovoj policiji, nekad i sad
Justifying Republican Patriotism
No full textMy paper is on the republican version of patriotism and its justification, as developed most systematically by Philip Pettit and Maurizio Viroli. The essence of the justification is as follows: patriotism is to be viewed as valuable insofar as it is an indispensable instrument for the upholding of the central republican ideal, namely freedom understood as non-domination. My primary aim is to evaluate the normative force of this justification. In the first section, I introduce minimal descriptive definitions of the concepts of patriotism and the patria. Second, I reconstruct the republican patria-ideal to which patriotism is linked to. In the third section, I reconstruct the republican justification of patriotism. Finally, I ask what we justify when we justify republican patriotism. Two views are prevalent in this regard. According to the first, republican patriotic motivation, similarly to its justification, ought to be instrumental itself too (Pettit, Viroli). I argue that this view is untenable, since it is in tension with the minimal definition of patriotism. The conclusion is that the other view – according to which the patriotic motivation ought to be of intrinsic character (Miller) – possesses greater normative force.Članak se bavi republikanskom verzijom patriotizma i njenim opravdanjem, sa posebnim osvrtom na sistematizovane teorije Filipa Petita i Mauricija Virolija. Srž opravdanja je slede-će: patriotizam je vredan utoliko što je neophodan instrument za podržavanje centralnog ideala republikanizma, naime, slobode kao ne-dominacije. Moja glavna namera je da preis-pitam normativnu snagu ove argumentacije. U prvom delu članka uvodim minimalne deskrip-tivne definicije patriotizma i domovine. U drugom delu rekonstruišem republikanski ideal domovine, zatim u trećem rekonstruišem republikansko opravdanje patriotizma. U posled-njem delu preispitujem šta tačno opravdamo prilikom opravdanja republikanskog patriotiz-ma. Dve perspektive su preovlađajuće u tom pogledu. Prema prvoj, republikanska patriotska motivacija mora da bude, kao i njeno opravdanje, instrumentalnog karaktera (Petit, Viroli). Smatram da je ova argumentacija nebranjiva jer je u izvesnoj napetosti sa minimalnom defi-nicijom patriotizma. Prema tome, zaključujem da druga pojmovna strategija, prema kojoj pa-triotska motivacija mora da bude intrinsična (Miler), ima veću normativnu snagu
Thomas Fuchs, Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017
No full textOlga Nikolić
(Thomas Fuchs, Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017
Antropocen, kapitalocen, mašinocen: iluzije instrumentalnog razuma
No full textIn their seminal work, Dialectics of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno interpreted capitalism as the irrational monetization of nature. In the present work, I analyze three 21st century concepts, Anthropocene, Capitalocene and Machinocene, in light of Horkheimer and Adorno’s arguments and recent arguments from the philosophy of biology. The analysis reveals a remarkable prescience of the term “instrumental reason”, which is present in each of the three concepts in a profound and cryptic way. In my interpretation, the term describes the propensity of science based on the notion of physicalism to interpret nature as the machine analyzable and programmable by the human reason. As a result, the Anthropocene concept is built around the mechanicist model, which may be presented as the metaphor of the car without brakes. In a similar fashion, the Machinocene concept predicts the emergence of the mechanical mind, which will dominate nature in the near future. Finally, the Capitalocene concept turns a perfectly rational ambition to expand knowledge into an irrational obsession with over-knowledge, by employing the institutionalized science as the engine of capitalism without brakes. The common denominator of all three concepts is the irrational propensity to legitimize self-destruction. Potential avenues for countering the effects of “instrumental reason” are suggested.U svom uticajnom delu Dijalektika prosvetiteljstva, Horkhajmer i Adorno su tumačili kapitali-zam kao iracionalnu monetarizaciju prirode. U ovom radu analiziramo tri dvadesetprvovekov-na koncepta, antropocen, kapitalocen i mašinocen u svetlu Horkhajmerovih i Adornovih ar-gumenata i skorašnjih argumenata iz filozofije biologije. Analiza otkriva izvandredno prisustvo pojma “instrumentalnog razuma” koji je pristuan u sva tri koncepta na duboko zagonetan način. Naša interpretacija je da pojam opisuje sklonost nauke zasnovane, na shvatanjima fi-zikalizma, da tumači prirodu kao mašinu podložnu analiziranju i programiranju od strane ljud-skog uma. Rezultat toga je da je koncept antropocena izgrađen oko mehanicističkog modela, koji može biti predstavljen metaforom automobila bez kočnica. Na sličan način koncept ma-šinocena predviđa nastanak mehaničkog uma koji će dominirati nad prirodom u skoroj bu-dućnosti. Konačno, koncept kapitalocena pretvara savršeno racionalnu ambiciju za širenjem znanja u iracionalnu opsesiju prekomernim znanjem putem institucionalizovane nauke kao motora kapitalizma bez kočnica. Zajednički sadržalac sva tri koncepta je iracionalna sklonost za legitimacijom samouništenja. Potencijalne mogućnosti za suprotstavljanje efektima “in-strumentalnog razuma” su predložene
Vedere la violenza: immagini e critica
No full textQuesto mio testo deve molto alla lettura di Davanti al dolore degli altri di Susan Sontag. Il trafiletto che si trova nel frontespizio dell’edizione inglese del libro – “un’analisi acuta della nostra
insensibilità di fronte alle immagini dell’orrore” – e ha quasi la funzione di un sottotitolo mi ha spinto a iniziare a pensare a che cosa significhi diventare insensibili di fronte a un’immagine, essere
criticamente inebetiti e inebetite, perderne il senso o farsi paralizzare da essa. Naturalmente, il piccolo libro di Sontag non rappresenta l’unica possibilità di accesso al mondo delle immagini. L’ambito della fotografia è stato ampiamente discusso fin dalla prima introduzione dei fotogrammi nella nostra realtà ottica e discorsiva. La prima domanda è: a partire da quali posizioni reagiamo alle immagini della violenza? La seconda, articolata in maniera leggermente manichea, è: che cosa fanno le immagini? Ci perseguitano o hanno la capacità di farci comprendere qualcosa e forse di produrre una risposta critica? Lo stesso vale per l’altra dimensione cui il testo fa riferimento,
la violenza, altro tema infinitamente dibattuto. Tuttavia, Davanti al
dolore degli altri pone due domande significative per una riflessione
che unisca le immagini con la critica e fornisce risposte precise,
per quanto discutibili.Traduzione dall’inglese di Sergia Adam
Private within the Public: Negotiating Birth in Serbia
No full textThis dissertation is about trust, authority, social personhood, and the importance of everyday negotiations that take place within a shifting health care landscape. Specifically, this was an ethnographic inquiry, grounded on twelve months of fieldwork, of how maternal care is provided in a low-income Eastern European country, Serbia. Maternal care is the case study for understanding how the previously exclusively public health care system is slowly unbundling along the seams of the different levels of care and thus opening new avenues for interventions by the private sector. While previous studies focused on the civil sector and informal economy, private medical sector has been an invisible avenue in the studies of informality. The private sector is not just reserved for elites, nor has it, as some scholars of Eastern European public health predicted, ended informal economies such as those expressed through the concept of “connections” (veze).
The starting point in this dissertation was the concept of “negotiating,” as a signal for looking at the practices and intersections of seemingly fixed dimensions, such as private and public, formal and informal, trust and mistrust; and how through the articulation of these seemingly fixed binaries we gain insight into how a health care system actually works. I looked at the sites of negotiations to understand the importance of sociality and social personhood within health care systems thus demonstrating that while the public health care system is being disarticulated in segments, neoliberal reforms are not replacing them but reconfiguring them. The selective privatization of maternal care has generated new avenues for (re)negotiating trust and authority between patients and providers, and thus contributed to reshaping the health care landscape. My work shows how patients and medical providers, in different but mutually congruent ways, leverage the emerging private medical sector as brokering strategies with and within the public health institutions
Subject In the Work Of Michel Foucault – The Reflexive Subject And Governmentality Theory
No full textИспитујући Фукоово схватање субјекта покушаћемо да одговоримо
на питање да ли је његов рад боље видети као теоријски континуитет или дискон-
тинуитет. Почињемо излагањем њeгових основних теоријских појмова. Потом пре-
лазимо на анализу односа субјекта и управљања у другом периоду његовог рада. У
наставку испитујемо однос субјекта и управљања анализирајући идеју „управљања
истином” коју уводи у трећем периоду. Последњи одељак се бави неким контрадик-
цијама Фукоовог виђења субјекта у трећем периоду. У закључку констатујемо да се
његов рад може видети као део социолошке традиције која тежи да превазиђе поде-
лу на микро и макро ниво друштвеног света.By examining Foucault’s understanding of the subject we will try to answer
whether his work is better viewed as a form of theoretical continuity or discontinuity. We
begin by elaborating his basic theoretical notions. After that we analyze the relationship
between the subject and government in the second period of his work. We continue by
analyzing the relationship between the subject and government through the notion of the
“government by the truth” which he introduces in his third period. The last chapter deals
with some contradictions of Foucault’s understanding of the subject in his third period.
We conclude by stating that Foucault’s work overcomes the traditional sociological divide
between the micro and the macro levels of the social world