Martin Weiss

In the present paper I discuss Luigi Pareyson’s late work, published in the posthumous Book Ontologia della libertà, as an timely attempt to clarify the experience of freedom through an interpretation of Christian mythology. Concerning this matter Pareyson’s ideas are both timely – as they stress the relation between freedom an evil – and at the same time untimely – because of their vindication not only of an outdated theologia crucis, but also of the concept of an arbitrary God, which Gianni Vattimo has rightly criticized opting for a theology of radical contingency.

Context: Josef Mitterer has become known for criticizing the main exponents of analytic and constructivist philosophy for their blind adoption of a dualistic epistemology based on an alleged ontological difference between world and words. Judith Butler, who has developed an influential model of (de)constructivist feminism and has been labeled a linguistic constructivist, has been criticized for sustaining exactly what, according to Mitterer, most modern philosophy fails to acknowledge: namely that there is no ontological difference between objective facts beyond language and the discourse about these facts. Problem: In the scholarly discussion on non-dualism, two main questions have been raised: Where does Mitterer’s basic consensus, i.e., the starting-point description, come from? and: What does it mean, to say that further descriptions change their object? Method: Comparative analysis of the core concepts of Mitterer’s and Butler’s work in the context of the history of ideas. Results: Butler’s conception of a performative production of objectivity through discursive and non-discursive iterated practices can be interpreted as an illustration of Mitterer’s claim that descriptions change their object. The problem of where Mitterer’s starting-point descriptions come from can be solved by adopting Butler’s concept of culturally inherited practices

Due to the shift from genetic determinism to genetic probabilism the translation of genetic knowledge from the realm of science into the realm of real-life decision-making paradoxically results in the production of radical uncertainty. My thesis is that although genetic knowledge does not produce certainty or propositional truth it perhaps allows to “touch” (Aristotle) the phenomenological truth of the singular, this is, to understand the primordial “pre-predicative” or non-propositional (hermeneutical), meaning of that “which shows itself from itself” (Heidegger) and thus constitutes the condition of possibility of any explicit (apophantical) proposition.

DNA analysis for family reunification is a longstanding and widespread practice, but also a highly problematic one, as it is a battleground of conflicting values and interests, which have to be carefully weighed against each other: on the one hand, the right of the sovereign state to regulate immigration and prevent fraud and child trafficking; on the other hand, the right to privacy and family life. Beyond the problem of how to balance these different interests, DNA analysis for family reunification brings up the broader problem of biologisation/geneticisation of social relations, as this practice appears to reduce family to its mere biological notion. As there is no comprehensive account of the ethical implications of DNA analysis in the context of family reunification, the present paper will try to fill this gap by addressing the three most striking ethical problems posed by this issue: the privacy issues at stake; the problems concerning the conceptual, legal and social definition of family; and the question whether this practice intends to produce the immigrant as discriminated "bare life" or must rather be seen as a symptom of an ongoing general biologisation/geneticisation of sociality, also influencing family reunification procedures.